If you want to know what my bargain bin space program looked like in the early days just watch one of those compilation videos of rockets blowing up on the launchpad or immediately after launch. It was certainly a slow start. While I may have the equivalent of decades of experience in the aerospace field, bootstrapping an entire space program from literal moon dust isn’t easy.
First, for all that my transmutation spells have helped make the moon a tad bit more hospitable they are unfortunately not a cure all for my problems. If I had been able to zap a Saturn Five into existence I certainly would have done so.
As I stated before I refined these spells over quite a few years and at first, I was only capable of creating small amounts of basic elements or compounds. Examples include pure oxygen and a handful of other gases to finally give my lungs a break, H2O to give respite to my eternally parched mouth, and metals such as iron to build a basic shelter with. Even simple alloys such as steel were much too complicated at first. But with quite a bit of practice, along with trial and error, I slowly improved. By the time I had finished my ‘humble’ abode I was able to create complex chemical compounds and alloys. I had even figured out how to create entire objects with my spell instead of the base materials.
The only things I have never been able to replicate are any biologicals. Organisms even as small as microbes are just too complicated. This also means that I can’t replicate food other than basic chemical compounds. And let me tell you a goop of ‘nutritious’ compounds are not appetizing in the slightest. The best I have ever gotten is adding simple compounds that relate to spices such as capsaicin. But all that did is make spicy goop, still better than regular goop.
The terrible things that I would do for a juicy burger right now are numerous and unspeakable. On that note my ‘brief’ time as a human may have altered my pallet. I’ll have to find a dealer for meat when I get back, maybe a Griffon.
But I digress, I seem to have gotten a bit off topic there. Nowadays thinking about food seems to do that to me. Like I said before, I eventually learned to create entire semi-complex objects with my spell instead of just basic materials. However, the description power hungry does not do this spell justice. In other words, if I was not an alicorn with the magical strength to quite literally move moons I would never have been able to use these spells. The equation E = mc^2 is a good starting point for the power input needed.
Additionally, note to self: investigate where the energy for this spell comes from in the future back on Equus. For those wondering I currently theorize that ponies and other magical creatures draw upon energy from another universe. Perhaps we tap into another layer of space like the civilizations in Iain M Banks books do.
But I am again getting off topic, my apologies it seems to happen more often these days. I blame the crushing loneliness and isolation myself.
Overall, the point I have been attempting to get to is that using these spells to create complex objects can be exhausting. Just magicking entire rockets into existence was not an option, so I was forced to do it the hard way. As in I built the machines to make more machines and so on until I got to the point where I had rockets. From what I can tell at this point the moon is the most industrialized place in the solar system. At least it seems that way as from what I can tell Equestria, nor any other country or species has industrialized from the total lack of artificial lights illuminating the dark side of the planet.
As I alluded to before, the early days of my space program involved a lot of explosions and very little success. But I persevered through the crushing failure and my devotion eventually paid off with my first successful launch. Thankfully this launch also proved that objects could in fact leave the moon while the Elements curse was active, something that I had not been certain of before and would have posed quite a large problem.
My first attempt at leaving the moon utilized this first successful rocket design, the R-6. I had been so ready to taste freedom, but it was not to be. As I lifted off the surface of the moon at first all was well, but as I gained altitude the rate of acceleration slowed. It slowed until my forward velocity ceased all together. Which for those wondering is a very bad thing in this case. Soon thereafter I found myself hurtling towards back towards the moon’s surface. And for those who are curious, being blown up still hurts as an alicorn. Unfortunately, that would not be the last time I would be granted the pleasure of that particular experience.
While my design was sound, I know because I tripled checked the math afterwards and tested a payload of equal mass to me, the curse of harmony struck again. From what I have pieced together over numerous experiments is that as I ascended from the surface my own mass somehow increased exponentially thus also increasing the pull of gravity. So, a rocket that should have in theory been more than enough to get me off the surface quickly became inadequate in its lifting power.
Of course, my answer to the question of how to solve this problem was simple, bigger boom. So thusly a crusade of development began with ever increasingly larger rockets being designed, built, and destroyed by yours truly. By the end of my development cycle, I had what amounted to a Saturn 5 and in fact exceeded it in lifting capacity. But even that beast of a rocket was brought low by the curse of the Elements.
It was not all for naught, however. While these rockets may have failed, each one did get me further from the surface than the last. But unfortunately, I was nearing the end of what I would consider the ‘tech tree’ for chemically fueled rockets. While I was getting further on each new designs launch the force of gravity amplified by the Elements continued to win.
At this point the situation called for drastic action. Bigger boom had failed, chemical combustion was just insufficient. What I needed was biggest boom. So, in my mind, I dusted off what I knew of an idea that the US Government called project Orion.
The premise was simple use nuclear bombs as your rocket fuel. Crazy sounding at first, and still crazy if executed but the idea was sound. It also had the possibility of solving my little gravity problem by brute forcing my way past it with the huge initial impulse that a nuclear device could provide. The potential downside was that this idea was operating on the assumption that there must be a maximum range of this mass increasing effect that plagued me. If there isn’t I’m basically boned, and I doubt that project Pegasus will work. But one must hope I suppose, I know I certainly do.
While before I perhaps made just building a nuclear weapon sound trivial, let me say from firsthand experience, now twice in fact, that it is not. Working out the entire process from scratch, even from what I knew, was not easy. It was just like the rockets in that aspect. But again, with hard work, sweat, and perhaps a bit of unintentional radiation exposure I was once again successful.
Side note, once again. On the topic of radiation, I have determined that ponies, or at least alicorns are extremely resistant to radiation, even very energetic ionizing radiation. I suppose I should have realized that before panicking the first time I doused myself in gamma rays since I have been living on the moon. Which just like on the earth’s moon has a much higher background radiation due to lack of a magnetosphere. If I was not radiation proof or at least very resistant I would have succumbed to it long ago. In the future I will have to investigate if this applies to all ponies or just alicorns.
Now for the first test detonation of my admittedly simple fission bomb all everyone needs to remember is at this point I was going a bit crazy again from being alone for so long. Not quite pre-Earth levels of crazy but getting close. And when I pressed the button for the detonation of that first bomb, well, I’m not entirely proud of it but I may have begun cackling like a certain Sith lord. The words ‘ultimate power’ may have been uttered, but I did refrain from shooting lightning everywhere so that’s something.
Since the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere the detonation itself was much less visually impressive than one done in atmosphere. There was no fireball or impressive mushroom cloud. There was, however, something even better than that. Something that I had been missing for hundreds of years at this point, sunlight.
Now to help make myself sound slightly less crazy and unhinged you really need to understand where I was coming from before you judge me. Because of the weird orbit of Equus moon I have not seen or felt sunlight since my stint on Earth. It’s been a long time since then, so when I felt the illusion of the sun’s warmth in the form of hard radiation from the detonation, I went a bit funny in the head.
For the next few years, I may have gotten a bit out of hand. A sun-deprived alicorn who was a bit funny in the head mixed in with atom bombs a good combination does not make. Conceivably I may have performed a few more tests than strictly necessary and I may have stood just a bit closer to ground zero than advisable during those tests. A cult of one, worshiping the sun bringing atom was formed for a few years as I built increasingly large bombs just to feel the tingle of sunlight for a bit longer. Quite a few acres on the dark side of the moon have been melted to glass from these efforts. I even got a bit artistic during this phase. There is quite a nice portrait of myself in moon glass now.
But even in that tad bit deranged state of lust for an ever-increasing yield measured in tens of megatons I still worked towards my goal. I finally came to my senses a sort time ago when I realized that I had what I needed, a shaped charge H-bomb.
The rest of my design was trivial with my established manufacturing capability at that point. It was basically just a big ass cannon. If you have ever seen that old silent movie ‘A Trip to the Moon’, it’s just that, but powered with a nuke. As they say keep it simple, stupid.
I suppose that I should wrap up this recording. I believe that I may just be procrastinating at this point, perhaps I am just worried that Pegasus will just be another failure. And if I am being honest, I am not sure I can cope with yet another defeat. That little loss of sanity I had with the nukes was not entirely unexpected and those mental breaks have been becoming more common and more difficult to recover from. If this fails and I lose myself again, I am unsure if there will be any Luna left to arrive back in Equestria.
But hopefully that is just quitters talk and the next time I ‘speak’ to you will be from the surface with real food in hand. This is Commander Luna of moonraker base signing off.