AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 380
ARES III SOL 374
The essential function of a switch is to touch two wires together to complete a circuit- but only when you want them to touch.
By that definition, what Mark had rigged using a small rock, two cables salvaged from Amicitas’s discarded engine room, and a long piece of parachute rope too weather-decayed to be put to any more demanding use was a switch… of sorts.
Dragonfly thought it more resembled those box traps that idiot ponies built to capture rabbits (and other things, including changelings). Those things always annoyed her, because (a) they were so blatantly obvious any animal dumb enough to go for the bait deserved to be trapped, and (b) despite being blatantly obvious, they occasionally caught rabbits (and other things, including changelings).
But she had to admit, as dumb as it looked, it worked on paper. One cable, its terminus wire shaped into a hook, had been raised above the other (its wire shaped into a loop) and balanced there on a carefully chosen rock. Any little tug on the rock with the rope would cause the hook cable to slip off and land, hook down, on the loop cable. It didn’t have to be a perfect ringer, though that would be ideal; any wire-to-wire contact would do. The system allowed the two of them, Dragonfly and Mark, to be about fifty meters away from the loop, or seventy meters away from the rock cairn built to hold the test vehicle above the enchanted repulsor crystals.
Seventy meters, or as Mark called it, “ten seconds head start.”
So long as that hook remained above that loop, the nine batteries powering the launch could be safely switched on with no effect, and this Dragonfly had just finished. “Pad power hot,” she reported over the comms. “Repeat, pad is hot. All batteries show full charge. Go for launch.”
Mark, for his part, had removed the nosecone and was connecting one vital wire in the small transmitter cannibalized from the north weather station. “Ow!” he grumbled. “That’s a strong signal, all right! Transmitter is live. Reattaching nosecone now.”
Dragonfly trotted over and burned a little magic to start four of the bolts that kept the nosecone clamped around the reversed neck of the engine bell while Mark started and tightened the fifth. Once that transmitter went live, the clock had started. Pushing enough current through the transmitter to allow it to be tracked by the satellites circling Mars, most of which hadn’t been built to track things other than Earth, would overheat the circuits. The Martian cold would only slow that process down slightly. They needed to get done and get out.
“Message sent to Pony Space Agency,” Starlight said over the comms. She and Fireball were at the cave, she inside and Fireball just outside. Fireball would film the launch with Mark’s hand-held video camera while Starlight, in the cave, would communicate with Equestria.
“Message sent to NASA; about to launch, stand by for data.” Cherry Berry and Spitfire were back at the Hab. Cherry Berry stayed in the Hab to communicate with Mark’s people (even though, by the time they got the stand-by warning, the launch would be complete). Spitfire sat in the old bridge of Amicitas, running the telepresence spell so that the magic-powered suit comms would reach across the eleven kilometers between the Hab and the flat ground well east of Site Epsilon.
Normally using tools in a spacesuit required care, planning, and patience. A year of being stranded on Mars had made both Mark and Dragonfly a bit blasé about such risks; Dragonfly could patch her suit, and Mark’s suit had been built to withstand being used by troll babies with teething problems. The nosecone bolts were snug to a turn in under a minute. “Nosecone secure,” Mark reported. “All go for launch. Pad crew now clearing launch area.” Slipping the ratchet wrench into the small tool pouch on his suit, he turned to Dragonfly and said, “Engage de-assifying procedure.”
Dragonfly liked Mark quite a lot- and not just because he was delicious and generous with his affection to a fault- but he wasn’t as funny as he thought he was. “Excuse me?” she asked.
“I said run!” Mars’s low gravity couldn’t help but cause some muscle atrophy, but enough tone remained in Mark’s legs to send him bounding over two meters in a stride at full gallop. Dragonfly, on the other hand, had learned like the ponies to gallop with minimum vertical motion and maximum horizontal motion, so she arrived at the end of the trigger rope in four seconds, leaving Mark to arrive three seconds later.
“Launch crew at trigger station,” Dragonfly reported as Mark, having lost his balance in the effort to brake his momentum, picked himself off the regolith and grabbed the loose end of the rope. “Standing by for final go no/go for launch.”
“Earth comms are go,” Cherry said. “Suit comms?”
“Suit comms go,” Spitfire reported.
“Water telegraph?”
“Water telegraph is go, Flight,” Starlight reported.
“Ground tracking?”
“Go, Flight,” Fireball reported.
“Roger. Satellite tracking is go. Launch systems?”
“Launch system is go, Flight,” Dragonfly said.
“Ship systems?”
“We’re Go, commander,” Mark said.
There was a brief pause.
“Oh. Right. Yes.” Cherry Berry continued on, “Command confirms all go for flight. Pad crew may initiate launch at their discretion.”
Dragonfly looked at Mark. “How you wanna do this?” she asked.
Mark cleared his throat. “Counting down from ten,” he said, squeezing the cracking, somewhat brittle changeling rope in his suit glove. “Nine. Eight. Seven.” He carefully got to his feet, leaving enough slack in the rope to avoid a premature launch. “Six. Five. Four.” He turned his back to the launch pad, facing the afternoon Martian sun and the flattened lump that was Site Epsilon half an imperial mile away. “Three. Two. One!”
He yanked the rope hard, pulling it taut, and ran with it for several paces. When he heard a rumble of thunder through Mars’s tenous atmosphere, he dropped the rope and ran faster, trying to adjust his bipedal gait to better imitate the ponies. A second shadow flickered in front of him, despite the sun shining down.
Dragonfly, meanwhile, passed him like he was standing still, making a beeline for the cave farm’s airlock.
Neither one looked back. Safety lay under meters of solid rock, and neither of them was confident enough in what the six of them had built to risk being outside if it came down.
Later on, they watched the video Fireball got, so that they could edit down the first couple of seconds of launch to send to Earth for a precise measurement of how fast the test vehicle left the cairn.
In the end they didn’t send the video, because one frame the test vehicle was on the cairn, the next frame the cairn was hidden behind nine beams of brilliant magical light that triggered the automatic safety systems in the camera, and in the third frame the test vehicle and the top layer of rocks on the cairn were gone. The rocks would be found later, having fallen just a bit short of the repulsor spell projectors, caught up in some sort of wake.
Then Fireball had reflexively tracked up, finding the top of the pillar of light and, presumably, the small former rocket engine on top of it. He never actually caught sight of the test vehicle. He did, however, get a perfect shot of the ring of clear air that opened up around the repulsor spell in the wake of the vehicle, the shockwave driving away the fine dust that turned the Martian air pink and leaving a rapidly growing hole in the sky colored a perfect robin’s egg blue.
The crew looked at that beautiful image, frozen in pause on the computer screen, for several seconds before Mark said, “I think we should make plans to be ready for another storm in about, oh, ten days.”
The ponies, changeling and dragon all nodded silent agreement.
“Tracking lost eight minutes after launch,” Mitch Henderson reported. “Acceleration cut-off came at seventy-three seconds. The last twelve seconds or so showed a slight decay in acceleration- about ninety-six percent of peak performance when it cut off. Course is slightly down-range and velocity slightly slower than projected; those stabilizing fins they cut must have been slightly out of true.”
“It worked perfectly,” Venkat said. “It worked absolutely perfectly.”
“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Mitch muttered.
“Why’s that?”
“Usually the first time you try to launch anything, it blows up on the pad,” Mitch said. “Or there’s some other in-flight glitch. But everything went right in the test. So what’s going to happen next time, when they do it for real?”
Venkat sighed. “Thanks a lot, Mitch,” he said. “I was just running short of nightmare fuel. Thanks very much for topping me off.” He shook his head. “Where’s it going?”
“Slightly better than we anticipated,” Mitch said. “The test vehicle will pass within about three million miles of the Sun’s surface on a tight parabolic loop. Materials says that at that distance pretty much everything, even quartz, will vaporize before it gets anywhere near anything else. And since the launch inclination was about nineteen degrees, it’s not coming anywhere near anything we care about anyway.”
“Well, that’s good,” Venkat said. “So, how are you spending Thanksgiving? Going to see the family?”
“What family?” Mitch asked. “NASA is my life, you know that. I have a brother in Cleveland and a sister in Gainesville, and they’d be happy if they didn’t see me again until my funeral.” He adjusted his tie slightly. “No, I’ll be on my shift in Mission Control as usual. Just another work day for me.”
“Well, I’m going to take the afternoon off,” Venkat said. “I doubt I can leave for a full day. But I have a wife and family, and they’re forgetting what I look like.”
“Just tell them Daddy’s getting the nice cute ponies down off of Mars so they can come and visit,” Mitch said.
“My daughter told me I’m gone so much she thinks Daddy’s on Mars with the rest of them,” Venkat said. “She wants to know if I’m bringing one back with me next time I go.”
“Huh.” Mitch thought about this, then said, “Which one’s her favorite?”
“Starlight Glimmer,” Venkat said. “Because unicorns are the bestest, she says.”
“Well,” Mitch said, a little cautiously, “I know we’re not supposed to be promoting non-licensed manufacture, since Hasbro won the bid to make the NASA-approved toys, but I know someone in Friendswood who makes better alien plushies than what’s on sale in the visitor center gift shop.”
Venkat couldn’t help goggling at Mitch. “You know someone outside of JSC?” he asked.
“Hey!” Mitch’s tone went fully defensive. “I have friends, you know.”
“I never doubted you had a friend, Mitch. I’m just shocked at the existence of the plural.”
9067233 He's proposing a single-launch space elevator construction system.
9067288
Appreciate it. It was the description of the rings and how the connect that I couldn't quite envision.
See? You're learning!
I agree with Mitch. Dang it, Venkat, why'd you have to jinx it?
Well at least they realized all that magic could make a storm.
It's not going to be (just) a storm is it.
Heh. Hasbro’s making pony toys, and fan-made plushies are better than commercial grade, eh?
Talk about departutes from reality...
transmitter
9067315
Because Mars knows. That was what Glimmer's dark magic scream was. A promise. Ponies broke their own world, tamed it, made it dance to their tune. That is what they are. Humans reshape the landscape, Ponies domesticate worlds. Translated Glimmer's shout was "We are Ponies. We will add your biological and geological distinctiveness to our own. Your existence will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
Oh, and on Venkat's daughter and unicorns ("They're so fluffy I'm gonna die!"). "Begun, the Best Pony Wars have."
9067362
Totally meta happening here, HAH!
I love my own custom made pony plush ^_^
9067315
yeah, I'd be starting the trip early. That sounds like more magic than we've seen them dump in the atmosphere since... Well, possibly ever
I love this bit.
What the heck did they use as bait for changelings, anyway? (I guess in Dragonfly's case, Mark's tools might've worked...)
CSP is best SP!
Also, if they make it to Earth before rescue comes, I suspect Dragonfly will become Eggplant Changeling MkII from the number of adoring fans she'll run into.
9067362
Departure? That's exactly how it is. Unless I'm misunderstanding you?
9067415
Small fluffy kittens for the love :p
Or just put something shiny...
I noticed I may be a bit manic about DragonflyXMark when I got giddy at reading
Elliptic? Although, everything differentiable at least two times is kinda locally parabolic
Given the Magic to electricity math formula thing that Rich came up with, I wonder if anyone has thought about reversing the formula, making an earth construction friendly array, and dropping various batteries on the electricity side until they get to the point that are thing about seeing what happens if they bring an old power plant online just to stress test it...
Im picturing some rainbow colored dust covered Scientist looking about a crater while various "Mystical" sites around the world (stonehedge, Ayers rock) Lighting up in ways that are only told in mostly forgotten legends..
9067310
What we have here is a Spaceship Cannon
Now I am curious what plush versions of our favorite mars crew would look like decked out in their equipment and such. XD
I think that part is reported by Dragonfly?
So did they earn any milestones?
9067429
It's untagged sarcasm.
As someone with autism, I had to learn about this sort of thing "the long way around," if you will. And this example is... I won't put a number on how subtle it is, just that it's easy enough to miss.
The only thing I might call a clue is that Quirk is calling two things departures from reality (rather than "a departure"), and the first is blatantly not a departure. But people do regularly have bigger misconceptions, so I had your confusion before reading some other comments.
"“Pad power hot,” he reported over the comms."
"“Pad power hot,” she reported over the comms."?
"one vital wire in the small transmitted cannibalized from"
"one vital wire in the small transmitter cannibalized from"?
9067445
In patched conics (the physics KSP uses) parabolic orbits are allowed, but by their nature they are an escape trajectory; a bit of an oxymoron to call it a loop.
9067505
I would so love a set of spacesuit equipped plushies.
It was a pop heard around the world, the start of a storm occlusion! 🎶
All they gotta do now is to do it again, but bigger!
Keep going! ;)
9067527
I'm still confused, but I'm losing my ability to care.
9067501
Errrr, as far as I'm aware:
a) Rich Purnell came up with a proof of possible conversion of non-magical energy to magic, not the other way around. And the path from there to electrically powered magical emitter is as long as path from Einstein's energy-matter equivalence formula to nuclear weapons.
b) Amicitas does have a magic-to-electricity converter that it used to power it's electrical systems with.
c) Most devices that interact with magical fields require a magic user or a specialized magical device to be constructed(enchanted). This creates a circular problem when you have neither.
9067414
Definitely not. That dust storm would leave them stranded without solar power when it hits. With limited magic and limited electricity you don't want to be in that situation.
Everyone knows that out of the crew, Cuddlebug is the best.
Aaaaand jinxed.
... I can just imagine Chryssie facehoofing while listening to the report. "You got caught by WHAT?!"
They have a long way to go before they get anywhere near teh worse case scenarios possible for that rig.
The start of the catastrophic list, being instead of a laser launch system, it becomes a Warp Core Breach Cannon.
9067657
Between the RTG and the equestrian suits they'd be set for heat, water and air. They only need the solar to move and let's be honest, being away from where the magic was cast is probably safer than having the rovers in the open.
They also have more food than they need.
I just don't trust the cave or Hab to hold up to the storm.
9067665
Depends on the storm. If it's anything like the storm raging in Mars now, they'd be in that vehicle for a few months. I'd want to be in the cave/hab instead.
Regardless, the Rover is not ready. And if they spend the time getting it ready, it's not spent de-assifying the area.
9067501
In case you didn't know, Ayers Rock is called Uluru now.
i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/016/301/icon.jpg
9067657
Worse some dust storms can become planetary engulfing monsters on Mars.
You made me remember how much I miss it
9067829
Like the one up there now?
9067620 In reality, Hasbro make plushies to be sold for $30 or something, and people on deviantart hand-make them to be sold for $300. Of course the latter are better, but some of the Hasbro ones are particularly shoddy. In any other fandom, one strives to insist on genuine, official merchandise (band T-shirts, for example), rather than knock-off imitations. Such was my stance with MLP until someone got me an official Fluttershy plushie, and she only had a cutie mark on one side (all the fuss the show makes about not being a blank flank, and yet that’s what Fluttershy now is if viewed from the wrong side). And synthetic hair that looks like a wig does after several hours of dancing. Whereas some of the Chinese-made ones you can find for a similar price to the official ones...
The original post was being sarcastic about what a break from reality this pony story is, in how it shows a reality exactly like our own where the fan-made plushies are far nicer than the official ones. Although, I should add, for the price difference you’d really expect them to be.
Yeah, the fallout of this launch is going to be something to remember. At least they know it's coming. And the repulsor system works suspiciously well. Hooray?
Seaponies on Mars.
9067350
It's just an oversized tent really. Wouldn't take much to kill it, again, although I doubt it'll be a seal breach this time. Maybe some storm-tossed debris? It's kinda funny how they're going backwards technologically speaking; started with a space-age ship/HAB, then a cobbled together junker of a ship and HAB like some space-hobo, and things are looking like they'll be living in a cave next.
Also, I'm really surprised it took this long for plushie makers to come up with custom alien-pony plushies. I'd get a lifesize one if I could afford it.
...would ponies make human plushies?
9067841
Yeah, exactly like that one. These things can rage for weeks and can block I think over ninety percent of sunlight that would ordinary reach the surface.
9067846
you must be talking about the Funrise plushies; i dub them "Carwash Manes" because they look like the brushes in an automatic car wash.
Hasbor winning the bet haha, nice
My litlte Space Pony
This made me think of the fact that aside from the fact that the aliens haven't actually visited this Earth yet, there is now credible, and difficult to contradict evidence of sapient life. A major event in the Star Trek universe, they even have a name for such a glorious event: First Contact. I'd love to see some more Earth pieces touching on public perception.
9068347
... what?!
so he can learn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9068543
To which does your "what" refer, a portion or the whole?
Basically, the crowd from Equus are aliens. They've only been to Mars so far, but that's too much evidence to ignore unless you're a denier. Was just thinking it would be nice to see how earthlings are handling the news that "we are not alone."
9067445
Or hyperbolic, if faster than escape speed.