Hello! My name is ChaosThatPony (I obviously wouldn't give you my real name, haha) and if you're reading this I presume you had read the story. Well then; let's get to business.
Many of you might be asking yourself: 'What the hell is this guy talking about?' and I understand you completely. There's a lot of acronyms and stuff that I crammed in, real life acronyms or made on the spot.
CIRAS (Celestial Intelligence Repair Assistance Structure) would sort of look like a section of radar tower glued to E-KAY's head. Funny thing to say, but I did a tiny bit of research on 'magic' and formed an 'explanation' of sorts, with a group of friends.
Magic is most likely the exploit of ions in the surrounding area (telekinesis), separation/construction of individual atoms (teleportation) and use of different forms of 'elemental' forces (AKA the mythical phlogiston, which COULD be a reality in such an area). CIRAS is little more than the biological construct it attempts to emulate; however, the power input is limited to repair and telekinesis.
EKAP (Equestrian Kingdom Aerospace Platform) is E-KAY's original designation before she became sentient. She is equivalent to many different AI (artificial intelligences), such as GLaDoS of Portal and Cortana of Halo. I decided to make her childish, as it would reflect her love of life and the world. The derivative 'E-KAY' comes from the word 'okay', and I put it there to really just support the idea that 'E-KAY' is such a great name for a friendly AI.
E-KAY's measurements are two thirds of a kilometer by length by thirty feet, an extremely large space station by any day's standards. Her wingspan (solar wings) are based off the wings of the ISS in design, at a good two hundred and forty feet across, much bigger than that of the ISS. She herself is constructed out of aluminium/steel alloy, with carbon fiber backing and layers of Mylar, Kevlar and Nomex for radiation shielding. Key points are manufactured out of carbide, titanium and the much rarer and more expensive tungsten for joints and Kessler Syndrome targeted areas (I'll get to that later)
The first time 'RCS' is mentioned is when Twilight goes on her spacewalk towards EKAY's head. RCS is simple; little more than a fire extinguisher in space, pointed opposite of where you want to go and the handle is squeezed. Newton's Third Law comes into equation here, and you are propelled opposite of where you want to go.
RCS (Reaction Control System) or what I should have called Twilight's maneuvering unit a MMU (Manned Maneuvering Unit) would allow Twilight or any other user to propel themselves through space without the use of telekinesis, which I reasoned would be dangerous to the user or to the spacecraft, due to the ion bombardment that could cause... malfunctions.
The next acronym that has to be attacked is the EVRR (Extra-Vehicular Recreation and Repair) suit. EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity) requires some form of suit to be done in, whether one is having fun or repairing EKAY. I mentally reviewed all next-gen ideas for space suits, and I figured it had to be self sealing. It escalated from there, eventually leading to the Dead Space magnet-boots. If one were to see this suit, think of Tali from Mass Effect, mixed with Isaac Clarke of Dead Space, mixed with the Orlan space suits of Russia. Let's not forget I named it EVRR because of FOREVRR. Heh. Moving on...
ORDCM (Optical Ranging Data Collection Module{s}) or simply eyes, could be thought of twin ground-based telescopes, similar to the ones on the SR-71 Blackbird. It's a big pair of eyes, moving on!
When Twilight and EKAY see the Griffon ship launch, they become concerned because of something called Kesseler Syndrome. It is not a disease, but it is the worry that orbital debris could in fact damage the hull of sensitive spacecraft. If you see the movie 'Gravity' you will see that the incident is caused by orbital debris. (although unrealistic, as the ISS has so much mass it'll take much more than a speeding satellite with limited delta-v to deorbit it.)
To combat KS, Mission control sends defunct or malfunctioning satellites into a 'graveyard' orbit, and discarded stages simply fall back into the atmosphere and burn up. The graveyard orbit is simply waiting until all those satellites deorbit themselves. However, the stage-discarding Griffon capsule turns directly into and alongside EKAY, which could mean bad things if the ship discarded a stage and it got in the way of EKAY's orbit.
"Hypoxia, Ebullism and Decompression"- These are the three things that kill a person if exposed to the vaccum of space. Hypoxia is the removal and subsequent deprival of oxygen. Hydrogen in the body is moved into pyruvic acid turning it into lactic acid. We all get a little hypoxia if we sprint too far and if we 'feel the burn'.
Ebullism is decompression sickness taken to the extremes. On the surface of earth, boiling point is 100C. At 63,000 feet, however, it boils at 37C, the temperature of the body. In space, the blood flash-boils, and the astronaut is instantly dead.
Decompression is simply what it sounds like; The vaccum of space intrudes where oxygen is normally supposed to be, sucks out all oxygen and whatever's left expands, say, in the chest cavity. This doesn't look too pretty.
So, not much to say here except I had a fun time writing it, and I'm happy to write more. I'm a big sci-fi fan, but I don't like anything too unrealistic. Thank you for reading the explanation, and I hope you learned something!
Thanks,
ChaosThatPony