“Larry, what happened?”
“Dan, before you-”
“Nothing here moves until I have an answer. What. Happened?”
“We saw it coming in all his log entries Dan. Catastrophic failure in SCRAM number two through turbo pump seven. It was a faulty fuel valve. He couldn't have known.”
“Elaborate.”
“Dan...”
“The details first, Larry... In. Detail.”
“Okay... Dan. He was right to replace the turbo pump rotor components when he discovered they had been eaten up. But all he did was fix the symptoms, not the cause. The cause of the first incident was the fuel valve leading into turbo pump seven. On his first ascent, the valve was stuck in full open position and wouldn't close.”
“Full open is a hundred and thirty percent power. The avionics computer on an XR-2 doesn't even register that rate.”
“Right. The max safe performance rate is a hundred and five percent, and the max the sensors pick up before they read out of range is a hundred and ten percent. The turbo pump was overdriven, but that was merely the symptom to the problem. He fixed it, but never bothered to check upstream. He's Avionics, Dan, not mechanical. He couldn't have known.”
“Well-”
“Two things went wrong, Dan. The valve had been stuck open, but was able to close long before he docked with his... guests at the Arrow. But I suspect the valve was still sticking, and probably stayed closed.”
“Closed until his second ascent.”
“Yeah... Telemetry shows the valve stuck at thirty-six percent open right about the time he was pushing through the second throttle-up. Right around mach ten... That alone wasn't catastrophic. Procedure is to run the throttles for the scrams down and up through their ranges to see if the fuel flow would free up.”
“And it did?”
“Unfortunately, the valve popped open from fuel pressure... A side effect of the vacuum pressure generated by the turbo pump itself. It dumped a hundred and thirty percent fuel flow into SCRAM two while the flow rate was running at only seventy percent for the set. SCRAM two flared, offsetting the vehicle yaw enough to flame-out SCRAM one.”
“Auto-correction from the RCS thrusters should have stopped that.”
“They would have if the emergency cutoff could close that fuel valve. But apparently once it slammed open, it stayed open. SCRAM 2 pushed the vehicle further out of its envelope and choked. The lean mixture underwent uncontrolled detonation and blew the whole SCRAM assembly off.”
“It compromised the avionics, didn't it?”
“Dan, the Raven tumbled out of control for over a minute and disintegrated at an altitude of thirty-seven kilometers traveling at a speed of mach 18... But-”
“Larry, I want you to ground every XR-2 in the fleet. I want every single one of those fuel valves pulled and examined. And I want custom valves ordered to replace them. We're not going to use any more equipment meant for the XR-5s.”
“Dan-”
“And I want anything else we might have been sharing between the small and large STOs double checked to see if such faults can occur. I don't care if it takes a year. I don't want a repeat of this incident. Ever.”
“Dan...”
“He didn't deserve it. After what he got to experience, that's just not-”
“DAN!”
“What?!”
“Before you fly off the handle... Check your inbox.”
“...”
“Well?”
“Larry... Is this. Is this real?”
“Authentic to the last pixel.”
“Larry?”
“Yeah?”
“Bring our man home.”
Trying to make us think our hero was dead. Shame on you!
...Unless "our man" isn't actually our hero at all! Shame on you!
Well, you can't leave us hanging like this....
It's alive! Only to finish.
I'm going to guess Luna snatched him from the Raven? Luna was watching him since he first entered low orbit, and I'd imagine she'd be paying attention to him as he left.
EDIT: HAH! I didn't even realise there was another chapter to go. Did I call it or did I call it?
Feeling smart that as a student pilot, understand and can picture everything that happened to the Raven in it's dying moments
Now was this a physical letter or an email? Because neither makes much sense but some clarification would be awesome.
Fantastic story. One of the best HiE's ever, glad to see it finally completed.
Now if only Quantum Castaways finishes, I can die happy and satisfied.
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I'm imagining Spike sending a letter all the way across the cosmos, the scroll popping into existence in front of the Earth space organization.
6142657 omg yes if that one ever got done best day ever
Nice to actually get a bit of explanation.
Dan's rant sounds like something from "Dan Vs." Was that intentional?
6142627 Given that pixels are mentioned, I'm assuming e-mail.
6142627 The previous chapter randy mentions the arrow was set for an auto return flight on the 30th, that he wanted the data to get back home no matter what. Hints in the story thus far suggest that the arrow made it home for the GSA to review everything.
Pixel? I imagine it was an image.
6144753
Electronic images such as jpegs have pixels. That's what it was, only a future jpeg.
I'm not sure how I feel about this sequel bait given how long this story took. That said, I'm really looking forward to it.
6142627 Probably a video. See next chapter.
Having just read (okay, audio-booked) The Martian a couple weeks ago, this chapter is about what I would expect.
DAmn it, that was messed up you jerk! I love this story! I only with there was a sequel.
So I got bored and made something to represent an MFCD screen during this crash, and I'm a desperate YouTube whore.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD0DystHB10]
Please watch it.
The suspense! Oh dear Faust THE SUSPENSE!
Ohh, teasing us like that. Damn authors.
They saved him, didn't they? They have the power to move stars around, and they were undoubtedly watching.
Reading this chapter generated flashback chills from The Day I Was Glued To The TV when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded.
This was a bittersweet moment as the credits roll on the very first story I ever read on FiMFiction. All stories should end with music, I think.
o-o
Imagine what a nightmare it would be to write this story only from the perspective of one of the ponies or something...
“Bring our man home.”
I'll admit, that line brought a tear to my eye, wonderful!
Dude I was about to go nuclear if he died.....lucky for everyone he lives!!!! :)
HE LIVES!!!
Yay, he survived!
"How'd you do it?"
"Learning ability…and raw power."
YOU LITTLE- GAH!
YOU NEARLY GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK
DONT SCARE ME LIKE THAT
Last few lines remind me of The Martian. The movie, I haven't read the book. Yet. Great story sofa.
...... You sir are a god when it comes to writing!
Whew. That was quite the emotional gut punch there.
I was convinced he was dead too right up until this part:
60 seconds for a rescue operation is more than enough in Equestria. 😁
I sense parallels to Apollo 13...
You, I don’t know if I love or hate you right now...
Either way, SEQUEL, SEQUEL!
Dude...
A very nice cherry on top of this masterpiece.
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Hopefully you've read The Maretian by now. If you haven't, you really should.
He survived! Yesss!!!