1-4-2019: CSP Livewriting (Patreon)

Quick note: Saturday afternoon, 1-5-2019, beginning around 4 PM Central, I'll be joining other pony fanfic writers on Hartfire's author chat on Discord:

 https://discord.gg/55BJjxh 

Tonight's work:

“At nine minutes into the flight, Mission R4 is in a stable parking orbit. Mission controllers are currently verifying that all systems on the ship are ready for the outbound leg to Minmus and calculating the best time and duration of the engine burn which will send the ship out there. This is Changeling Space Program Mission Control.”

The VIPs began to shift on their seats, some hopping off completely. “Do you think there’s time for a snack before the next bit?” asked the mayor of Tall Tale.

“It might be best to hold off,” said the reporter for Solid Television, after a quick glance to make certain he wasn’t currently on-air. “Once the ship makes its next burn, that’s all the excitement for the day. It’s a long way out to Minmus.”

“Really?” the mayor’s wife, an earth pony with a live stolestoat draped over her shoulders(A), asked. “You mean we’re not going to see the landing today?”

“No,” said the reporter, who’d read the briefing materials provided by Occupant’s assistants. “Possibly a week from today. Seven days, at any rate.”

“Seven days?” the Tall Tale mare gasped. “We can’t wait around that long!”

“And I never intended that you should,” Chrysalis said, substituting a soothing, friendly tone for the growl she really wanted to throw at the bubblehead. “We don’t want to bore our guests, after all. But anyone who wants to return when we get to Minmus is quite welcome.” Especially that magic rat-scarf of yours. It’d be very welcome in one of Carapace’s cooking pots.

“Actually, I wanted to ask a question.” That would be Leaning Stanchion, the earth pony who owned almost all the train lines west of Smoky Mountain. He also had some interests in the railways linking Appleoosa to the rest of Equestria, which was why he’d been invited. “What was all that business with orbital planes and adjustments? I didn’t catch a word of that.”

Chrysalis had to set her jaw a moment to suppress the urge to grin with larval glee. Ah, good, I know this one, I know this one.(B) “Well, as we all know,” she said, “the sun and the moon move in the same path across our sky each day. That’s because the moon’s orbital path lines up with Equus’s orbital path around the sun. But Minmus, when Luna brought it closer, was above the plane of orbit. So when it began orbiting Equus, its orbit was sort of canted.” She tipped a fetlock to indicate the tilt. 

“Now doubtless Luna could have put Minmus in line with the sun and moon- in what we call a coplanar orbit,” Chrysalis said. “But we think she left it as it is now as a sort of extra challenge.” She revealed a couple of extra teeth in her smile as she concluded, “The sort of challenge we changelings thrive on.”

“Well, all right,” said Stanchion, adjusting his top hat. “But why’s that a problem? Can’t you just go straight there?”

“It’s possible,” Chrysalis admitted. “But going into Equus orbit first gives us time to cope with the unexpected things that crop up in all space flights.” Like, for example, the fact that Dragonfly completely blew the attempt to achieve an orbit coplanar with Minmus, as she was supposed to do. “And right now our scientists are checking to see what our options are for a Minmus encounter without first adjusting M4’s orbit to match the inclination- that means the tilt- of Minmus’s orbit.”

“And how long will that take?” the wife of Tall Tale’s mayor asked. Her neck-rat yipped its own inquiry. “Shmumkins wants more popcorn, bless him.”

Shmumkins. And I thought ponies could not get dumber. “To calculate the burn, not too long. There are only two points on the orbits where it’s possible- the points where they cross. But it might be some time before we can-”

Chrysalis was about to say execute when the controller voice loop cut in to the VIP speakers. “Flight, trajectory.”

“Go, trajectory,” Occupant said.

In the VIP gallery, various rich and/or important ponies scrambled back into their seats.

“We have a burn for a direct shot at Minmus with no orbital inclination adjustment,” George Bull reported. “But it’ll take everything remaining in the second stage plus a healthy share of the two lander fuel tanks.”

“Okay,” Occupant said, shuffling his hooves on his work station. “Um... sorry, but I have to ask, is this burn less or more than what we’d have to do if the orbits were coplanar?”

“Almost exactly the same,” George Bull said. “Maybe twenty-five meters per second difference. As it happens, we’ll be catching Minmus almost precisely as its orbit lines up with the moon’s.” 

“However,” von Brawn cut in quickly, “we need to execute that burn in the next nineteen minutes. We can’t wait for a second pass.”

“Okay. Whoa.” Occupant took a couple of deep breaths. “Okay, begin work on that. We’ll need to speed up the system tests for the outbound trip.” 

“And get some snacks up here to the gallery!” Chrysalis shouted down through the glass. 

“Yes, my queen!” Occupant replied, turning round and saluting. 

Smiling, Chrysalis leaned back in her seat. It was a petty thing, and it violated mission controller voice protocols... but at least she’d been able to give one order this mission...

Footnotes:

(A) She’d been feeding it little tidbits all day, to Chrysalis’s quiet disgust. The thing had two beady black eyes, a tiny black nose, a tiny mouth of jagged teeth (the only attractive part of it, to Chryssy’s mind) and, presumably four legs hidden under its unbelievably shaggy fur. 

(B) Again, Chrysalis’s unwanted downtime had given her both time and incentive to catch up on homework. In addition to pestering the busy scientists and engineers, she’d read every report related to Mission R4 cover to cover in her search for a Command Decision.

“... three... two... one... ignition!”

On the telepresence projector, standing out under the shadow of the planet behind it, Mission R4’s last remaining second stage engine lit up in a brilliant glow of plasma. The ship, partly lit up by the light of the rocket plume, began moving out of its parking orbit, hopefully outbound for its rendezvous with Minmus.

The hope came from the beings gathered in Mission Control, whose eyes were generally locked on the readouts showing the fuel remaining in the second stage, as it dwindled away. 

“Ten percent remaining,” von Brawn called out from his station.

“Burn forty percent completed,” Dragonfly reported a little while later. 

“Five percent remaining.”

“Standing by to decouple and to ignite landing engines.”

Each phrase of the exchange came some twenty seconds apart, but not a whisper, not a sound of any kind came between them. Up in the VIP gallery, even Shmumkins had stopped begging for crunchy little things to eat. The controllers and the witnesses all waited, watched, and listened. 

And then, with a final sputter, the engine burned out.

“Staging!” Dragonfly said. “Landing engines ignition!”

“Confirm ignition,” von Brawn reported. 

On the projection, shorn of the long fuel tanks and engine of the second stage, the lander and satellite continued the burn, two of the lander’s three Terrier engines firing at full throttle. 

“Burn seventy-five percent complete,” Dragonfly said, her hooves frozen on her console, holding the remote-controlled robot ship steady. 

“Landing tanks twenty percent depleted,” von Brawn said. “Eighty percent remaining.”

The velocity readout on the projection ticked upwards, far too slowly for any of the people watching.

“Burn ninety percent complete,” Dragonfly said. 

“Stand by for engine cutoff,” George Bull warned.

“Fuel at sixty percent,” von Brawn said.

“Three... two... one, shutdown!” George Bull said, the last two words run together as a single word.

One of Dragonfly’s hooves blurred. “LECO!” 

The glow of the Terrier engines on the projection faded. 

“Hold heading,” George Bull said. “Trajectory shows a bit wide. Dragonfly, give me a tiny minimum-power burst.”

“Cycling engines on minimum power, aye,” Dragonfly said, wiggling the throttle. On the projection, the tiniest glow came and went in the landing engines.

“Again.”

Dragonfly repeated the exercise.

“All right, that’s good,” George Bull said. “The computer now shows a Minmus encounter with a periapsis of one hundred thirty kilometers- right where we need to put the satellite.”

“All right, good job, everybody!” Occupant said, actually slapping his podium with a forehoof. 

And in the back of the room, the changeling known as Tymbal accepted a piece of paper from one of Occupant’s runners, gave it a quick read-through, and then turned on his microphone. “At thirty-three minutes into flight, Mission R4 is now on course for a fly-by of Minmus seven days from now. This concludes scheduled launch activities for today at Horseton Space Center, and we thank you for joining us for today’s launch. This is the voice of CSP Mission Control speaking.”

After turning off his microphone, he added, “Golly. I’m the voice for the whole space program now?”

“If you’re smart you won’t let it go to your head,” Dragonfly replied. “Trust me on this.”

With the microphones off Chrysalis couldn’t hear this last exchange, especially not while she was chiding the guests out to the commissary, the gift shop, or (preferably) the boat on the docks waiting to take them back to Baltimare. But if she had heard it, she would have told Tymbal to listen to Dragonfly. He might be the new voice of the Changeling Space Program(C), but the brains still belonged to her and her alone.

Footnote:

(C) And the voice of a great many other things, as well. The television reporters passed on word to their bosses of the announcer with his deep voice. Their bosses had also begun experimenting with playing music and other things on personal devices that received radio transmissions and turned them into sound. Tymbal didn’t know it yet, but a modestly profitable future awaited him in the voice-over business.

(NOTE: THE BELOW GETS REWRITTEN FOR WHEN THE SHIP GETS CLOSER TO MINMUS.)

“Flight, booster,” said von Brawn. “Now that we have a Minmus encounter guaranteed, I recommend decoupling the satellite. Its own maneuvering fuel should be sufficient for it to brake for Minmus orbit independently of the lander. That should get us back some delta-V.”

“Okay. Any reason why we shouldn’t?” Occupant asked the room.

“None whatever,” George Bull replied. “And once we get to Minmus, we can use the lander’s braking fire to determine whether or not the fuel remaining is sufficient for a soft landing. That data would be less exact with the satellite still attached.”

“All right. Capcom, go for satellite separation.”

“Right. Stand by.” The satellite’s decoupler hadn’t been staged as part of the regular sequence, specifically to prevent any accidental decoupling and loss of the satellite during launch. Instead a separate series of switches had been set up next to the controls, specifically to wake up and launch the satellite. “Activating satellite probe core,” she said. 

The satellite was Marked Knee’s responsibility. From his station in the far corner of the bullpen, he called out, “Satellite is awake and responding!!”

“Throttles all zero,” Dragonfly confirmed. “Testing satellite fuel pumps.” Another switch went click under her hooves.

“Fuel pumps show green!!” Marked Knee replied. 

“All right,” Dragonfly said. “Decoupling in three, two, one...”

On the projection, there was a little puff of smoke. On top of the lander, the collar of the decoupler remained on its mountings, while slowly, gradually, the satellite on the lander’s nose drifted away into space. 

Don't know when the next session will be, but it'll be here:

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q8CL4JfXQT9PI2yeI0TlbV0jt3qRnBk4oV8j0FIxSwU/edit?usp=sharing 

Discord chat: https://discord.gg/QjREED