Magic Inc. Part 3
The Lunar Samples laboratory had a far more industrial feel with its two story, semi-open plan construction. Rectangular fluorescent light fittings hung down on cables from the roof, and areas were partitioned off with dividers, or broken up by machinery. A few people were visible, some in labcoats, masks and bouffant caps, others in business casual wear. The smell of metal, electricity and a faint scent of acid hung in the air, and there was the muted chatter and clatter of science being done. The visible people, on seeing the party enter, stopped what they were doing and stood in the classic pose of people who didn't know if they were supposed to be standing to attention or not.
Doctor Sagan said, "Rather than have some sort of formal presentation of the people here, we thought it best if you saw what we normally do. We have a number of ongoing experiments that need continuing attention."
Nixon took the cue. "By all means, let them get on with it."
Dismissed, the scientists and technicians went on their somewhat relieved way, while one of the business suited people came over.
Gilruth introduced him. "This is Joseph Piland, the manager for the LRL. He keeps everything around here running, and was project manager when it was constructed. When we had to rebuild things to deal with the additional work on Luna, and then thaumics development, he was the one to turn to."
"It's an honour to meet you, Mr President." Piland said, in a deferential tone.
"I'm looking forward to seeing what you have for me." Nixon replied.
"Well first, we have the section where new photothaumic panels and other thaumic components are being manufactured. It was the single biggest problem to find space for, as we are continuing our normal sample analysis work on top of everything else. We had to replace some of the sample vacuum chambers."
They went to a partition where a teltale light shone red over the closed door, a green one dark beside it, and a speaker box sat at head height beside the door. Through windows, they could see a compact workshop with machine tools, benches and large sealed rectangular tanks with overhead winch mechanisms. There were even a couple of crucibles and an area lined with thermal tiling containing a sealed oven. Numerous dire signs and hazard striped safety cupboards completed the scene. Though Nixon did notice some marks on the door, as if something had been attached to it with scotch tape.
Several workers inside were in full hazard gear. One was working at a machine tool, using a jig to inscribe something on a strip of metal, while two others were working at a tank, activating the winch to lift a sheet out of it, still dripping. Another was working on polishing the surface of a panel with a polishing wheel. Two other panels sat on a bench, each about two feet by three. There were also several foot high hexagonal crystals, one banded and capped at both ends with metal.
"We're currently working on expanding the photothaumic array on the roof. One panel has just had it's runesets etched, and will now be moved to a cleaning tank to have the remaining acid washed off and the mask dissolved away. Then it will be ready for inlaying with a film of molten aluminium. Another is having the excess aluminium polished away to leave just the runes. We have a panel ready to be activated in the next room."
They moved along to a second, smaller room, which had a couple of drafting tables along the edges, along with some large office machines and a couple of heavily armoured safes visible through the window. Another table was up against the wall the window was in, with one of the panels on it on a raised stand. It was close enough that you could clearly see the repeating patterns of fine silvery runesets on the surface against the grey of the titanium back panel, which was visible through the eighth inch of lead crystal separating them.
A man was standing there in clean room gear with one of the metal capped hexagonal crystals in one hand, but this crystal glowed with an internal white light, visible even under the fluorescents lighting the room. Piland went over to the door where there was another speaker box. Pressing a button he said, "Proceed when ready."
Dyson spoke. "The glow isn't generated by magic, it's due to a change in the crystal structure caused by the presence of quintessence. The light actually comes from the ambient light being concentrated. So you can see, this thaumic accumulator is fully charged."
The man, moving over to the table, clearly seeing his audience, placed the accumulator on the panel at one end. A rainbow diffraction pattern flowed out from it through the glass, like the shine of a cut glass decanter being turned in a light, runesets glowing in sympathy as it washed over them. It was quickly followed by a black sheen, as if someone was mixing ink into the glass. In just a few seconds the entire surface was matt black, like a rectangular hole in the universe.
"Looks like the runesets laid down correctly. He'll test it to check mana output all the same."
The man put down the accumulator and checked a device the size of a cigarette case with a metal cable that disappeared under the panel. Pressing a recessed symbol on the box, he nodded when a screen that took up most of the rest of the surface glowed an even white. He made some notations on a clipboard that rested on the table, checking some numbers and turned his attention to a sheet of labels, writing date, time and a matching number on two of them, and an area beside them. He peeled it off and carefully placed it on one corner of the panel where the black was absent, laying it down carefully.
Off to one side was a roller device which had clear, plastic film peeling off through a dispenser. The dispenser was wide enough to cover the panel across it's width, and he expertly laid down a sheet of the film on the black surface, taking care to avoid ripples or flaws. Trimming it with a craft knife, he checked his work and the still glowing teltale on the device, before removing the cable, which terminated in a plug similar to a doctors stethoscope, if the bowl of the stethoscope was a quarter inch thick and inscribed with runes. The finished panel went into a padded sleeve, and the duplicate label was attached to the outside. The whole thing went into one of the safes.
Piland said, "Each panel is mounted on a steerable, two axis mount that allows it to follow the sun for most of the day. We also have floodlights that cover the roof through the night. Not only are they a part of the 24 hour security monitoring, but they provide enough light to continue to generate quintessence. When this panel and the others you saw being made are all completed and the mounting hardware set up on the roof, they will be added to the array."
"And where do you build the mounts?" Nixon asked.
"We don't sir, we buy them in from outside suppliers, along with the blanks for the panels. A speciality company makes those to order, under a confidential contract. Not that the blanks tell anyone anything about the design. You understand, we only have space to do the critical manufacturing stages, the ones that involve the runesets or enchanting them, sorry, activating them."
"If I understand correctly, the panels are the most critical part of the whole deal, generating this mana, or quintessence. I assume you have more security keeping them safe than just labelling them."
"We do have other measures in place, but I can't talk about them in an open area." Piland said, then added, "Sorry, sir."
Nixon gave a look to him and the others that indicated he wanted an explanation later, but nodded. "And the sign on the workshop door, the one someone took down?"
"Sign?" Piland blanched, looking guilty, then sighed, "It was a joke by one of the draftsmen. It was drawn in the style of an illuminated manuscript, labelled 'Beware, Wizards Workshop. Here be dragons and all manner of hazards'. It did serve a useful purpose, laying out the new rules we instituted after the accident, though in an archaic style, reinforcing the standard signs. Obviously we took it down for your visit."
"No to need on my account." Nixon said, putting him at ease. "I can see that would be more likely to stick in the memory than plain instructions."
"I'll have it put back up. For now I need to check on the other preparations. With your permission sir?" Piland waited until Nixon nodded, then left the group.
Dyson took over. "For now we have a number of demonstrations set up to show you some of the thaumic effects Luna already taught us about in action."
They moved through the laboratory to another partitioned off area, split up into several sections. The first was centred around a large glass case on a table, with humming machinery underneath. Holes with gloves fitted in them and sealed doors allowed access to the interior. Inside it was a beaker resting on a heat resistant mat which had a band of runes on a metal strip around the base, and was hooked via a metal stranded cable to the now familiar capped hexagonal prism of a thaumic accumulator. However this one was no bigger than a can of soda, and had a dimmer glow.
The accumulator itself had some sort of sensor attached to it, feeding to a desktop meter on a shelf outside the glass case. Several other sensors were attached to the surface of the beaker, and one probe was held by a rubber gripper on a lab stand, and poked right down into the bottom of the beaker. Each had their own matching meter outside. Two researchers were monitoring them, recording measurements as they checked a timer.
The contents of the beaker were just some clear liquid, though there wasn't any visible meniscus. There did appear to be some sort of surface layer, and a thin layer of still mist on top, like dry ice. There was also a taped label, 'Do not touch! Freezing Hazard!'
Dyson said, "The fluid in the container is liquid nitogen, cooled by the thaumic cooling effect to well below it's boiling point..." he checked one of the readings, "... currently 70 degrees kelvin or minus 333 degrees farenheit. Hard to believe, but the beaker is removing heat as fast as the surroundings replace it. Normally the beaker would be bubbling and giving off plumes of condensed water and even some CO2 vapour. But here the surface is still enough that a thin solid crust of both ice and dry ice has formed, along with a static boundary layer of sublimated CO2. In fact, gentlemen, please demonstrate the control."
One of the researchers brought out a second beaker and mat from a cupboard under a workbench, and placed it well away from the experiment. Then he put on thick gloves and brought what looked like an overweight thermos flask out. Handling it with the sort of caution one normally uses for unexploded bombs, he partly unscrewed the lid, and poured some of the contents from a built in spout into the new beaker. The clear liquid started bubbling and frothing as soon as it landed in the beaker, quickly sending up clouds of vapour.
"That is what liquid nitrogen should be doing in these conditions."
"Impressive, I agree, but what is the purpose of this experment beyond demonstrating this cooling effect works?" Nixon asked.
"We are trying to characterise thaumic power consumption for the effect against several variables. Volume of liquid, molar mass, surface area of container, relative temperature, that's why it's in a temperature controlled enclosure, absolute temperature; the idea is to work out relationships and how difficult it is to sustain a particular set of conditions. It will be key to working out how much power is needed it for a particular practical application, as well as possibly giving us further insight into how the process works.
"There are multiple themocouples attached to the outside of the beaker, and one in the liquid. While we still have no way to measure mana flow directly, we can monitor the discharge rate of the accumulator. A photocell detects the light level, giving us a relative rate of power drain. We are still trying to determine unit quantities for both quintessence and mana, analogous to electric charge and current, or energy and power.
"Part of the problem is trying to relate it to conventional energy, as different effects seem to produce variant mundane power outputs for the same mana flow, including some where the maximum possible solar energy used to generate the mana is less than the mundane power equivalent the mana produces. We already knew from our tests that thaumics frequently treats mundane conservation laws as mere guidelines, but it makes fitting it into more conventional physics awkward at best. All we can do at the moment is test and measure, and gather data."
"I would have thought Luna would have been able to help there." Nixon said.
"We have been teaching her thermodynamics, Equestria's version is far less developed than ours, and I suspect it's been retarded in part because thaumic energy interactions do not necessarily follow the principle of conservation of energy. They've also never needed to quantify mana, as they are effectively self-generators, and they are either powerful enough to create effects or not. They measure the effects, such as the wing-power of a pegasus, or the amount an Earth-pony can lift, or whether a unicorn can cast a spell effect or not, but not the actual mana flow required. However, Luna was quite taken with the idea, and is already working on ways to do so."
"Anyway, so far the results are promising." Dyson walked round glanced over the instruments. "The current experiment is maintaining a temperature over 300 degrees below freezing in the beaker vs 68 degrees outside it. The small accumulator charges to full capacity in just over an hour from a single panel, and has been maintaining the effect for two and a half hours, and is about forty percent discharged. Normally it would require a specialised refrigeration system the size of a washing machine or a completely sealed dewar flask, and even then there would be some boil-off."
He led the party into the next partitioned section, which had several experiments running. Dyson indicated the first one, sitting on a work bench.
"Here, we're testing variations on the de-dusting effect. It's another powered effect, partly at least, so it requires a thaumic power source. Power consumption increases with mass moved and area, but doesn't care about how deeply ingrained the particles are, only that they're discrete. Chemically bound particles can't be moved though. However, the total power consumption is very low for the basic effect, which we've completed initial testing on."
Nixon noticed a device on a low shelf, a wheeled box with a vacuum cleaner nozzle on a short tube feeding up and over into it. A handle was mounted on a spar that was currently folded down. It had various attachments built into it that he recognised from the cooling experiment. "What is that? It looks like some sort of vacuum cleaner."
"That's because it was built using parts from one, a testbed I designed for an experiment. Actually, when I said the de-dusting effect was powered, I was simplifying. It actually has two components which work together, the powered component that moves dust out of the protected volume, and a static component that acts as a barrier to new dust entering the volume. With the cast spell, the second part ultimately fades due to leakage, but with runesets it's permanent, or near enough. This only implements the powered component, and adds a couple of enhancements.
"Rather than pushing the dust out of the volume directly below the nozzle in all directions, it directs it in through the nozzle and into the box. It was partly to see if the effect components could be split, how far the effect would lift the dust against gravity, and if increasing the maximum particle size affected was possible, though that was quickly shown to require an exponential amount of power, ineffective for particles above a grain of rice in size. It was surprisingly effective otherwise, no noisy fan or power cable, not clogs or loss of efficiency due to the dust bag filling up, as the suction comes from an open section of tube. If it didn't run on the world's rarest power source, it would be ideal for housework."
"The Dyson vacuum cleaner. Cleans dust like magic." Nixon quipped and got a polite laugh.
The first bench had a curious arrangement, a metal funnel that had a hopper at the top and two spouts splitting from the base of it, all held up by a stand, and connected to a wired-up accumulator. Two beakers at the bottom held powder, one white and one red, and streams from the funnels were adding to them. A technician was adding pink powder into the funnel. He noted the time and readings on the meter attached to the accumulator on a clipboard. Dyson explained.
"This is one variation of a concept we're testing, adding a filter term to the arithmancy. The powder is half red and half white coloured chalk. Normally it would be almost impossible to separate them, but by setting up the effect to push the material different directions depending on the colour... well, you can see for yourself. We've also been testing separating a mixed solution of materials."
Here the equipment was more like a chemistry set, with flasks and a pumping arrangement that was passing a liquid from a tank into a device that looked to be across between a lawn sprinkler and a musical instrument. Fluid circulated through a metal tube that circled round with two angled upward spouts dribbling steams into flasks, fed by the pump. The liquids in the flasks had different colours, one straw yellow, the other a deep blue.
"Describing arithmantic filter terms for chemical compounds is involved, but a logical progression of their terminology of alchemy. Equestrian chemisty describes many elements and understands valency, though they did not yet have a comprehensive periodic table. It may be why their elemental transmutation experiments tended to be hit and miss. Without a proper understanding of isotopes, their spell effects were basically brute forcing the changes, and soaking the excess energy was sometimes problematic.
"Anyway, each section is typed to divert a different chemical compound into it's feeder pipe and block others. The industrial applications are obvious, many processes require separating materials from a feedstock, usually through a series of chemical reactions under various conditions of temperature and pressure, requiring a lot of power. Whereas we've been able to separate chemicals accurately and completely at room temperature. As you can see for yourself."
The technician who was monitoring the experiment, at an indication from Sagan, drew fluid the beakers into several separate test tubes. He then took a pipette of some other chemical from a bottle, and dropped some of the chemical into one of each of the test tubes. The blue one turned milky while the other stayed clear. The test was repeated with a different chemical, and this time the yellow fluid turned red, while the blue was unaffected.
"As you can see, there is no trace of any other chemical in the filtered solutions, otherwise you would have seen a reaction in both. While the process requires more power than the basic effect, it's not a vast amount more. Although some of the specific descriptive elements of the runesets change, conceptually it is all based around a common principle, generating and directing a flow of particles. We believe in theory it could be equally applied to molten materials, or even high temperature plasma. Though we also came up some more humble, but useful applications."
The device he showed them was set back on a bench, a flared square funnel feeding into a clear container the size of a cereal box. A cut out corner section at the base had a downwards feeding tap above a coaster, and above it in the overhanging part, a diagonal runic plate with a gap in the centre. The plate was connected to an accumulator, and separating the tap from the rest of the box. The bottom of the container was filled with water, and had a tray with a crust of off-white gunk streaking it.
Dyson set a glass under the tap, and brought up a jerry can from under the bench to pour into the funnel and top up the box. The water flowing from it was slightly discoloured and cloudy. He turned the tap and water flowed into the glass, but this was clear as the glass itself. The water was swirling at the diagonal plate, partly flowing through, partly flowing down into the sump. When the glass was full, he turned off the tap.
"This water was drawn from the sea shore this morning. The thaumic filter only allows pure H2O through, everything else is diverted into the sump, which has a tray we can remove. It is an example of only using the 'passive barrier' component of the effect in an application. The result, pure, potable water, no salt, not dirt, no germs or micro-organisms, desalination, filtration and purification, all in one go." He held up the glass and took a sip, then filled another glass, offering it to Nixon.
"Desalination is not a new idea, but it is very power hungry, as it either requires boiling the water to distil it, or more recently developed, using high pressure pumps to force it through a porous membrane, called reverse osmosis, which so far only produces marginal yields anyway. You can use solar power to heat the water with big parabolic mirors, or power the pumps with photovoltaics, but the overall efficiency and complexity of the hardware has limited it's use, especially on a large scale, or in poor areas.
"This is far more power efficient, since it only needs the initial thaumic power input to set up the static barrier, and will maintain it afterwards almost indefinitely. It is also very simple in manufacturing terms, simply a metal plate with stamped runes. Unlike reverse osmosis filters, it also operates at normal pressures, like this gravity fed design, it doesn't clog or wear out, and it deals with everything from salt to dirt to germs in one operation. It could be scaled up to any flow rate you wanted very cheaply, and only needs some method of pumping water into the system, tidal pumps even.
"In fact, if it could be deployed on a worldwide scale, it would probably save more lives than even the healing effects. Even in America, right here in Texas, it could be a life saver. After all, there was the drought here at the start of the fifties, and throughout the East Coast only five years ago. I'm not saying there aren't engineering problems, such as dealing with the run-off materials, powering the pumping system, building pipelines on a large scale, but they are problems that can be solved with conventional technology."
Nixon had cautiously taken a sip of the water in the glass, and found it tasteless, but in a good way. He could see the potential of this application for himself, and the main problem. "But it would require allowing wide distribution of a thaumic technology, allowing anyone to copy it."
"Let them." Dyson's answer was surprising. "Like the healing effect, it has only one use, cleaning water, and working back from those specific rune sets to the thaumic and arithmantic principles would require so much knowledge of thaumics, that they would be able to design one from first principles. Once the rune sets are empowered, the quintessence is unavailable for any other uses. We've brainstormed this, and believe it would be about as safe a test case for distribution of thaumic technology as we can imagine."
As Dyson led the party through to the next section, Nixon considered it. People on the East coast and Midwest still remembered the drought during the first half of the sixties. Being able to deliver water security to at least parts of the country would be a massive vote winner, if they could deliver what Dyson claimed. Deploying something like this internationally, especially in Africa and the Middle East, would be a far trickier proposition politically, but an incredible coup for international relations if it could be done without compromising their head start in thaumic technology.
But more than that, the fact that it wasn't just desalination, but complete purification, aligned with a proposal he had his administration working on to propose to Congress, a comprehensive 37 point plan to deal with environmental pollution, one component of which was water polution. While it wouldn't be a magic bullet. a cheap and efficient method of water filtration would synergise nicely with the overall goals of the plan.
"Definitely something to continue developing, I agree. Could it be used to clean up water pollution in the field?"
"With some modification, yes." Dyson stated. "It was one of the possibilities I mooted during my speech to the Appropriations Committee. It might need a powered component to divert pollutants into a catchment area, but in theory it could be set to clean out specific materials from a volume of water and leave fish and even microscopic life alone."
"That is something we can certainly use in the near term. Make sure that's one of the applications you focus on for further development."
They had arrived at the next bay, which had one of the glovebox vacuum chambers, set up with the standard hatch replaced by a larger, more complex one, ringed with runesets. A vacuum pump whirred away underneath. But Dyson first led them over to a bench where a square frame with runesets was mounted, in front of a spray device. A film camera was focussed on it, as well as several other devices, including an anemometer, set up on the opposite side of the frame.
"You'll probably be interested in this then," Dyson said, "since it basically does for gasses what the other plate does for liquids."
The technician at this station turned on the sprayer, which was connected to an air pump, and a spray of smoke jetted out, hitting the empty air in the centre of the frame and bouncing, spreading out. However the anemometer spun, showing that air was going through.
"It only passes oxygen and nitrogen molecules. Ideal for containing toxic fumes or filtering exhausts from power plants. And best of all..."
He moved up and pushed his hand through the frame. "It doesn't block solid objects, only gasses and vapours. We're also testing versions that are designed to reject gasses above or below a certain temperature. Protection against the heat of a fire is one potential application, environmental shielding another."
He moved over to the vacuum chamber and opened the hatch, which had a visible label with Grumman Aerospace Corporation on it. "And this hatch, which is identical to the model used on the Lunar Module, has been modified with a permanent barrier effect that stops all gasses passing through it. This chamber is depressurised down to a high vacuum, but the pressure containment field extends enough that the hatch can be opened safely. We've been testing it extensively to see how robust and stable it is. The answer is very, we've had more leakage from the seams of test chamber. The test sequence is finished, however, we've kept it in operation for demonstration purposes."
He put on a heavy looking glove from a work bench, and picked up the glass of water he'd carried from the desalination device and a thermometer which he placed in it. "Water at room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure is too cold to boil as the vapour pressure of water, that is the pressure water vapour exerts at that temperature, is around 3 percent of the ambient air pressure."
He moved across to the vacuum chamber and placed the glass inside. Froth started to form on the surface, followed by bubbling and boiling, but the clearly visible thermometer remained around 70 degrees farenheit, even dropping several degrees in a few seconds.
"But in vacuum, the external pressure is lower than the vapour pressure, so water can vapourise. Of course, that takes energy, and as we're not heating it, it draws the energy from the remaining water, lowering the temperature."
"Or more simply." He took an empty plastic bottle with a screw lid from the bench and placed it beside the boiling glass. Even as it went through the hatch it started to swell up, and seconds after he released it, it ruptured soundlessly, leaving a split and distorted shell.
"I can see why you wore the glove." Nixon commented, "You could lose a hand!"
"Actually, the human body is tougher than that, it can resist that level of pressure with only some swelling, but yes, low pressure exposure is not fun. It's why we're looking to add these... atmospheric containment barriers to Apollo 13 and all the future Apollo missions, not to replace the conventional hatches but to supplement them. We've tested them with electronics, magnetic fields, even radiation, and confirmed there is no effect either way, as well as having volunteers sit in close to them for extended periods of time with before and after medical screenings. No detectable issues were found."
Dyson sealed removed the test articles and sealed the hatch. "This sort of barrier may also be a stepping stone to the blast shield and particle screen components of an atomic bomb shield, just as the photothaumic panels are a starting point for the radiation screen. But that development will have to wait for Luna to be here to lead the research."
They moved through a short corridor formed by partitions to a more open area. Over to one side was a gantry structure reaching up to the second story, with a platform at the top and a thick mat underneath. A man in a harness wearing a jumpsuit and a helmet stood at the top, and two film cameras covered the area. There was a cable attached to the harness which ran out to an overhead spar beyond the platform, but it hung in a loose curve below his waist. A technical crew was preparing some sort of test.
"We've been developing our own smaller versions of the 'Featherfall amulet' Luna created, with her help, one scaled for a human. We've also tested the full sized one Luna provided by dropping a mass simulator from the back of a C130 Hercules cargo transport into the water, several times. As with everything Luna makes, it worked to specification, the loads fell as if they were under an invisible parachute, exactly as designed.
"We're still in the early stages of testing a personal version, a Personal Thaumic Arrestor Device, or PTAD, making sure the device is reliable and reduces terminal velocity suffciently. We also intend to duplicate the original device as a cargo version, or CTAD, scaled for larger loads, initially 10,000 lb, a standard air cargo pallet. Our current test sequence is trialling different levels of gravity compensation against terminal velocity, and ground impact."
He walked over to the crew and spoke to them for a moment, then came back. "They're ready to do the next test. The jumper is Major Michael Dermott, a parajumper and instructor supplied to us from the 38th Rescue Squadron, an expert skydiver and parachutist. He will activate his PTAD as he steps off the platform. Cameras are recording the drop so we can analyse the descent profile."
The group turned to watch, and a moment later, Major Dermott stepped off the platform, tapping a metal badge on his harness as he did so. He started falling, but no faster than a party balloon, taking several seconds to reach the ground. The cable let out after him, but it was clear from way it hung that it was doing nothing to support him. He landed, knees slightly bent with no more effort than someone jumping off a tall step.
"It's another powered effect, but one that uses very little actual power. A small storage gem no bigger than a dime built into it can give more than 30 minutes of support for something the size of a human. In practice it would probably be returned to some charging point after each use."
"And I assume there are reasons for using it instead of a normal parachute?" Nixon asked.
"Several. Firstly, even the smallest parachute is far more bulky than a PTAD. Unlike a parachute, someone could wear it anywhere there was a risk of falling. Not just because of the size, but because there would be no risk of fouling, and it can deploy almost instantly, in just the first few feet of descent, rather than needing the hundred plus feet a conventional parachute does. It could even be set to trigger automatically if it detected it was falling for more than a couple of seconds. But the biggest advantage is for larger loads. As Director Gilruth can tell you, parachutes do not scale well. It's not just that they need to be bigger, the deployment of the rigging is more complex, and the risk of failure is greater."
"That's true, the parachute system for the Apollo command module was one of the more complicated components to get right. The scaling problem is why we have three smaller parachutes rather than a single larger one." Gilruth agreed. "Even then, we use a water landing for a reason, the terminal velocity is still fast enough that impacting the ground risks injuring the crew. From what Luna has said, and Dr Dyson's experiments confirm, with the CTAD all you need is enough power to sustain the effect for the mass of the payload and desired degree of gravity cancellation.
"Potentially it could be used to support payloads in the hundreds of tons, such as a used rocket stage, allowing a soft landing and possible re-use. On a wider scale, it could be added fairly easily to the airframe of an airplane or helicopter, to mitigate the impact of a crash landing, and raise the survival chances of the passengers and crew. We are going to be testing it with one of the Apollo Command Module boilerplates with an eye to integrating it into the Apollo 13 CM and all subsequent ones, as a backup to the existing parachutes."
"It certainly sounds promising," Nixon said, "But I'd like to get an opinion from the person who used the system."
He walked over to where Major Dermott was removing his harness, and talking to one of the technicians.
"Major Dermott?"
Dermott turned, and immediately sprung to attention, giving the President an Air Force salute. "Sir!"
"At ease son," Nixon said. "I wanted to find out what someone who's used this PTAD gadget thinks of it."
The parajumper relaxed into a parade rest, and stated, "The short answer is, it works just as advertised sir. I was sceptical at first, but I've done dozens of simulated jumps with it, and it performs exactly the way it's supposed to. It even supports you more evenly, as if you're floating in water rather than hanging from the harness. I can't wait until I can go up in a plane and test it for real.
"I know we could have used them during my tour in 'Nam sir. A parachute can be giant 'shoot-me' sign, especially as you have to deploy it well clear of any obstructions, but with one of these babies," he tapped the amulet which was mounted on a wrist strap, flush to the skin, "I reckon we could have dropped to just above tree height, popped it and still landed safely, without giving a large, easily spotted signpost for Ch... the enemy."
"So you're not worried about the fact that it uses such an untested power source? Or that you can't see it's ready for use?"
"Testing is why I'm here, sir, and I trust these guys, and Luna. They know their stuff. As for knowing it's ready, for now I see them top up the amulet before every test, and they're talking about adding a widget you tap, and the colour it glows tells you how much charge it has left. Not to mention you can test it by jumping off a step, which you can't do with a parachute."
"I see, carry on then, and good work." Nixon nodded, and came back to the group.
Dyson led the party away from the gantry area.
"We aren't doing any further testing of the adhesion effect at the moment," he explained, "but that's because we don't have the needed heavy-duty test equipment, a tensile testing machine with several tons loading. The effect bonds surfaces at least as effectively as the most powerful conventional adhesives, and it works on anything solid, even the most rough or dissimilar surfaces. In previous tests one of the two materials broke before the binding layer did, where we could even apply enough force to cause a break.
"We are still working on examining some of the broken surfaces to try and determine how the bond is formed, but our results so far are inconclusive, other than it's not promoting conventional electro-chemical bonds. Being able to turn it on and off rather confirms that. However, we're confident enough that we know how to reproduce the effect that we are using it in the plugs for thaumic cabling, and a number of other places."
"Though we do have one more demonstration for you," Dyson stated, as they moved towards the rear part of the samples lab.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Luna continues to change the blue/green planet her lunar prison orbits.
In more ways than one!
I love the nod to Dyson
11722252
Ikr?
HUZZAH CLEAN WATER!
You're missing a minus sign, Fahrenheit should be capitalized, and there are no degrees kelvin. It's "70 kelvins". Also "its".
Minor missing typo ...
that first water filter is making distilled and degassed water, you should not drink that or use if for agriculture. that said the difficulty of adding the trace minerals you need is really really easy, especially compared to getting the junk you don't want out.
Holy Moon Princess! Having that would have us currently probably use things like Hovercars and stuff!
To bad it's only fiction.
Magnificent chapter ♡
Yeah, had Luna been discovered and contacted in the 50s or even the early 60s. That tech would help a whole lot in Vietnam, especially for search and destroy and infiltration operations.
Does this not imply that the filter spell could be tuned specifically for an isotope, hence massively simplifying the uranium enrichment process and making weapons grade nuclear processing cheaper?
Very well-written. Quite technical, but I was able to follow it overall.
Love it as always. I assume that after the science is done, we will get preparations for and the actual landing trip for Luna herself, plus the international reaction to all of these events on the side, mainly the communist world. Not necessarily in that order but necessarily in those levels of importance.
I cannot wait for the politics.
And now to use a magical catalyst to flip the spin and charge of protons and electrons... I'll call it the Antimatter Magic Mirror!
Another excellent chapter!
11722252
It's an interesting joke / nod to be made at all, given that Dyson vacuums didn't exist at this time and wouldn't for decades yet to come: I suppose anybody can make an accidental prescient gag from time to time, even without being Pinkie Pie. :V
11727694 That is the way I intended it. The joke is for the readers.
11727943
It definitely worked and got a laugh out of me: as an Ohioan I had to spend a minute figuring out if Nixon (as represented in this story) would have had the chutzpah to make a follow-up joke about J Edgar Hoover.
11728117 Ohhhh! I didn't even think of that one! Though the question would have been how to fit it in.
This was most definitely worth the wait!
Excellent chapter!
This is a great chapter and a realistic approach to how government officials would react to a magical being suddenly who showed up and started sharing its magical knowledge.
I'm dreading the Apollo 13 mission. I wonder if Luna will drag the portion of the craft that has to be abandoned down to the moon's surface to better build her a place to live? Will she help NASA further design ways to better disperse static discharge and detect micro-fractures in the hulls and fuel tanks of future missions. I'm wondering if it will be Apollo 14, 15, 16, 17 or 18 where she finally gets a lift down to the Earth?
Ultra cheap distilled water is great. This is going to be so big in the electronics industry. Some blowback from lithography will also be great here.
As interesting as some of these applications of magitech/thaumic engineering may be, I can't help but think that these segments are less a critical component of the actual story here and more just an excuse to exposit about a magic ruleset.
I may be the only one to think that.
11814263 While they don't advance the A plot, i.e. Getting Luna back to Earth, part of the reason I wanted to write this story was to explore the actual effects of having a magic using pony who can teach her understanding, would have on a 'real world'. Call it the B plot. I will admit I am heavily leaning on the technical side of things rather than the social, but I'm an engineer by vocation (and a massive nerd), not a sociologist.
11819363
everyone was racist back then.
There’s a looooooot of exposition in these chapters…
Seeing the feather fall test my mind went to MBT paratroopers and that could be so fucking cool
This hits me way too hard lmao 91b bro repping in
BTW I still fear for what the main image of this story means, those tears can't mean anything good