Pinkie's workshop had undergone a transformation. Most of the junk had been cleared away to the sides of the room, and in the center, a large conference table had been set up, with a blackboard off to one side. Pinkie, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash sat at three of the dozen or more chairs at the table, adjacent to the blackboard.
Twilight banged a gavel on the table, announcing, "Hear, hear! The first meeting of the Equestrian Space Exploration Organization has now come to order." Seeing her pink friend's hoof waving enthusiastically in the air, she asked, "Yes, Pinkie, do you have something to add?"
"I move to change the name."
"What!? Pinkie, what's wrong with the name?"
"It's all stuffy and official-sounding and boring. I think we should call it something fun, like..." Pinkie assumed a thoughtful expression, folding her hooves and tapping one on her chin, before springing back into her trademark grin. "The Big Equestrian Space-A-Palooza!"
"Pinkie, that's-"
"I move to rename this club the Big Equestrian Space-A-Palooza! Do I hear a motion to second?" Pinkie asked, grinning and leaning in close to Rainbow Dash, who remained unfazed.
"Pinkie, I'm not gonna second that motion." Rainbow said, crossing her hooves in front of her in annoyance.
"Awww, why not?"
"Cuz it's not a cool enough name. Plus, why are we doing all the motioney-secondey stuff? We're not a government!" Rainbow demanded, throwing her hooves in the air in impatience.
"Rainbow," Twilight chided her friend, "We want to set precedent. This...group...council...board...thing will likely be the governing body responsible for all matters pertaining to space exploration and exploitation."
"Ooh!" Pinkie cried excitedly, "We'll be in charge of all the parties!"
"Heck, we'll be in charge of everything!" Said Rainbow, "I call being Princess!"
"Ooh, and I'm Executive Vice President!"
"Vice president? I'm not a president, though."
"Twilight can be President. We can rule together, and you'll just have all the ceremonial duties."
"Hey! No, I take it back! I'm gonna be Supreme Dictator!"
"Girls!" Twilight shouted, rapping the table with a hoof. "I don't think we need to worry about that just yet. Besides, I will be in charge."
"What?! No way!"
"Aww, why?"
"Because, you two have spent the whole meeting whining and arguing about who should have what title." She shrugged, "And besides, I'm already a princess. Maybe this is what I'm supposed to be in charge of."
"You know what? Maybe we should worry about this when we have some other ponies to boss around." Said Rainbow, gesturing to the rest of the near-empty table.
"You're right." Said Twilight, "Our priority should be getting to a team together to help us. I can use the Royal Treasury to offer up paid positions within the organization."
"Ooh, ooh! I can give them cupcakes! Ponies'll do anything for a Pinkie Cupcake!"
"I'll just use my natural wit and charm to recruit volunteers." Said Rainbow Dash with a smirk and a toss of her mane.
"Very well!" Twilight announced, "That will be our task during the week. We'll meet back here next week, at the same time, and bring along any ponies we can recruit. It'll be just like a homework assignment!" She finished with a squeal of glee.
"Um, yeah. A homework assignment," Said Pinkie with a forced grin, while Rainbow Dash made outrageous wretching sounds and pretended to gag. "That'll be...fun."
"Well," said Twilight, feigning obliviousness to her friends' lack of enthusiasm, "Now that that's decided, we should start thinking of ways to put all these ponies to work. Do we even know how we're going to make our spacecraft fly?"
In the silence that followed, all three ponies found themselves awkwardly looking to the others for an answer. Eventually, Rainbow Dash tentatively raised a hoof.
"Rainbow, you have an idea?" Twilight asked with glee.
"Uh, yeah. Kinda." Clearing her throat, she continued, "What if we put a bunch of cannons on a little airtight pod thingie? That way, we can get a pony up to space without having to fly themself. We can shoot it up with one of the cannons, and down with another. I know it sounds kinda crazy, but If we build it right, I think we can make it work, and cannons were the only thing that worked up in space."
"Hmmm," Said Pinkie Pie, thoughtfully stroking her chin, "It does sound crazy. But a good kind of crazy! I think it could work, if we were reeeeally careful about how much powder we put in the cannons, and put them in juuuust the right places."
"I...guess." Said Twilight. She shrugged, and continued, "Well, it's not like we have any other ideas. We will have to figure out a way to slow the craft down, too, but I'm sure having a few more minds to think about it with will help."
"Good thinking, Dashie."
"Thanks. I guess I'm just that smart."
Twilight rolled her eyes and smiled. "Anyway, we should probably get to work on that as soon as next week. We need to get a space probe into orbit, perhaps with a magical construct on board, so we can use it to collect scientific data. We have to know what we're dealing with before we go back up there ourselves."
"Hey, good thinking, Twilight."
"Thank you, Pinkie. You know, we should probably decide on a name for our group before we start recruiting ponies to work for us."
"Pinkie's Splendiferously Spacey Party Club?"
"No."
"The Radical Space Flyers' Squadron?"
"Uh, no."
"The Equestrian Space Administration?"
"Ooh, Pinkie, that's not bad!"
"How about The Equestrian Space Council? It's just the three of us right now, anyway, so we're kinda like a secret-council-type thing."
"Yeah! And it's not like we're really administering anything, either."
"That's not exactly what that word means, Pinkie," Said Twilight, "But that is a pretty catchy name. And it...somewhat...describes our role accurately." She nodded, picking up her gavel, "Very well! The first meeting of the Equestrian Space Council has now come to a close!"
Bang!
4675218 That might be the best approach with really strong engines (and initial dampers)
But to reach a stable orbit around earth, you need to go at a speed of several thousand meters per second. The small orbital engines of a spacecraft need a lot of time to reach this. And during all this time you would have to waste thrust to keep your rocket from falling down again before you reach your orbit.
All in all, just going up first and then sideways would be possible, but require a rocket more than twice as big.
Of cause it is best to first clear the thickest parts of atmosphere, but once the rocket gets in to the heights where commercial airplanes fly, it should definitely go sideways at about 45° angle and slowly level out to a horizontal flight. The centrifugal force (uhg, physicians will hate me for even using that word) alone is enough to carry the spaceship further upwards, once it's horizontal speed is fast enough.
But it is a very common misconception to think that a rocket simply has to go up, so no shame on you.
5060556
>centrifugal force
5060591
Oh, are you a Physician?
5060599
I am a medical doctor yes. Hallo!
Oh.
I kinda thought he had just mistyped physicist. Why would a physician hate centrifugal force so much?
5060620 Because the correct term is Centripetal force.
5060556
Try "centrifugal momentum", although even that is pretty bad. Better is to just skip the word entirely and say vertical velocity.
5061372
Heheh, that's a really fun ride. Though the queue line is astonishingly long every day.
5061029
But it's pulling the object outward in it's circular motion. Isn't that centrifugal, and the force that keeps it from flying away is centripetal?
5061480
I don't understand your response to me. What ride?
And centrifugal force is not actually a thing. In the case of an orbiting body, the centripetal force is the gravity pulling the body inwards, while the equal and opposite force (required by Newton's laws) is the gravity pulling the larger body imperceptibly towards the orbiting one.
The apparent centrifugal force is just the sensation of an outward force caused by the constantly changing velocity of orbital motion, but because there is no force acting away from the the centre of mass, there is no centrifugal force.
Centripetal force is a label we give to an inwards force for a body in circular or elliptical motion. Centrifugal force is a label we give to inertial/momentum changes that isn't one of the forces present on any accurate force diagram.
5061918
A roller coaster in a theme park nearby me that, looking back on it, no one would get, if they're on the internet. Just...nevermind.
Ahhh...thanks for clearing that up.
5060620
5060599
Oh, sorry, I'm German and misused those two terms
As for the Centrifugal force, it doesn't actually exist. If you sit in a car that drives through a narrow curve, you feel like you are pressed into the door.
That is not, however, because the curve, car, or whatever creates a force that presses you sideways.
It is rather because your body's momentum wants to carry you forward in a straight line, while the car moves sideways. Since you sit inside the car, it will accelerate you to match it's movement, which results in you feeling a phantom force on you.
So all in all, If the car veers right, it is not, that a centrifugal force presses you left, but that the car presses itself into you from the right with what is called centripetal force.
However, most people regard the car as an inertial (which is wrong, because the car gets accelerated) and therefor fail to see the bigger picture, which then leads to the false assumption of a centrifugal force (uhg, that word, I'm using it again!).
Equestria Space and Engineering Research Group (ESERG) sounds good to me but, I think that Twilight was right. You can spend years debating non-issues like this and it just stops you getting anything done.
I'd like to see some uniquely Equestrian answers to problems like a Pegasi First Stage (lots of Pegasi carry the vehicle up high until the time comes to use its' own propulsion system). I'd also love it if Apple Bloom's more... er... enthusiastically unsuccessful potion experiments leads to the development of Equestrian liquid fuelled rocketry.
5107879 Exactly. Ooh, I've gotta see that still! I've had to be careful lately to avoid stumbling across spoilers.
5068494
Wikipedia - Parkinson's law of triviality
5113680
Heheheh. Yep.