Today's writing: Changeling Space Program (Patreon)

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CHANGELING SPACE PROGRAM

By Kris Overstreet

Chapter 16: ESA Flight 13: Die Hard Explorers

The meeting ought to have taken place in one of the offices at Cape Friendship. They'd gathered to discuss the space race, after all, and such a discussion belonged at a space center. And little things like whiteboards, ship models, and computers helped when making decisions about space launches, no doubt about that.

But getting everypony currently actively engaged in running the Equestria Space Agency in one place had been next to impossible for the past month, to the point that this meeting, this vital meeting about the future of ESA and its single most important mission, this meeting was being held over pancake breakfast in Twilight Sparkle's castle in Ponyville. 

Applejack sat in her little crystal throne and sighed. Midsummer had come, and with it the first harvests. Two months from now would be cider season, two weeks during which she'd be absolutely nailed to Sweet Apple Acres(434). And on top of that there was Twilight's new School of Friendship, the foundations of which had just been laid two weeks before. With all the construction required, it'd take a year before the first students entered the doors... and Applejack was helping Twilight oversee the contractors and review blueprints practically every other day.

Nor was Applejack the only one with a full schedule. Rainbow Dash had Wonderbolts training and shows on a thrice-weekly basis.(435) Rarity had three boutiques to oversee and make fashions for on top of her space-suit sideline. Pinkie Pie... was Pinkie Pie. And Twilight Sparkle, in addition to overseeing the entire Equestrian Space Agency, was trying to get a new school off the ground while dealing with princess fan mail, missions given by the Cutie Map, and the occasional monster attack(436).

But now, finally, two days after the latest press conference from the Changeling Space Program, they'd managed to get together- the six of them (counting Fluttershy) plus Twilight's student Starlight Glimmer, Cape Friendship chief technomancer Moondancer, and a group of unicorns acting as advisors(437). Spike, ever the dutiful assistant, worked a slide projector as Twilight began the less syrup-focused part of the breakfast-slash-meeting.

"Changeling Space Program is three launches away from a moon landing," Twilight began, as Spike brought up a projection of a rough design diagram taken from the CSP press conference. "They've developed a three-mare capsule and a new generation of liquid-fuel engines capable of lifting much heavier loads than ever before. The first test launch of that system comes in thirteen days, when they launch a wheeled robot lander to Minmus to complete the science contract Cherry Berry wasn't able to finish on her flight."

"Yeah, we know all that, Twilight," Rainbow Dash interrupted. "It was in yesterday's paper, for crying out loud! The question is, what do we do about it?"

"Dash!" Twilight shouted back, offended. "I'm just getting this meeting started with the proper context for anypony who might have forgotten!"

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie put in. "Besides, what if there were mysterious invisible people watching us who don't know what's going on because they weren't looking at us when we were reading the paper or attending the news conference because those parts weren't interesting? Don't you think the invisible people deserve to know what's going on?"

"Oh my," Fluttershy murmured. "Do you really think there are strange invisible ponies watching us right now?" She sank into her throne until her swish of pink mane barely rose above the armrests.

"Of course there aren't," Rainbow Dash insisted. "It's just Pinkie being Pinkie."

"If I may continue?" Twilight asked. "I've already got the slide show set up anyway. It'll just make things confused if I skip ahead."

Dash blew out a snort. "Fiiiiine," she whined.

Pinkie Pie turned her head towards the door, facing absolutely nopony, and said, "You're welcome!"

"We have one small advantage," Twilight Sparkle said, motioning to Spike for the next slide. A photo of Cherry Berry in a hospital bed filled the screen. "CSP's medical staff is keeping Cherry under observation. Eighteen days of weightlessness and confinement to a one-pony capsule left her in pretty bad shape, and it's going to take her time to recover. And CSP won't send up an untested crewed ship without her at the controls."

"Good for us," Applejack put in, "but not so good for Cherry. I sent her a get-well-soon card. I think everypony else oughta do th' same."

"I personally delivered a lovely floral arrangement," Rarity added. "She said it was delicious."

"Was it as good as my cherry-glaze cupcakes I brought her?" Pinkie Pie added.

"I'm sure," Twilight said sternly, "that we all made sure to wish her a speedy recovery already. Now if I may- what is it, Dash?"

Rainbow Dash cringed in her seat. "Nothing," she said weakly. "Just remind me I gotta stop by the post office after we get done here."

"Anyway- next slide, Spike- after they launch the probe to Minmus," Twilight Sparkle continued, "the next launch will be a shakedown of the three-mare capsule, with Cherry Berry, Dragonfly and Leonid orbiting the moon but not touching down. If that mission succeeds, the next flight will be the landing, with Cherry, Chrysalis and one other crew to be named. Their current projection is for a landing about two weeks before Nightmare Night."

"That's still over two months away," Rainbow Dash said. "We could put together a stock-part lander, just big enough for one pony. Like what Cherry did, except smaller, because we wouldn't need the science stuff. Just a capsule, legs, and a small engine for landing and takeoff. We could do that in a month, easy."

"We're not going to do it that way," Twilight said bluntly. "First, because we're not sending anypony up in an untested lander. Second, because it would be a waste of a wonderful opportunity to collect scientific data from the moon's surface."

"And finally," Moondancer put in, "because none of us can believe what Cherry Berry got away with on Mission 22. Do you really want to fly a stack like that to the moon- a stack which we aren't sure can get you back from a much heavier world than Minmus?"

"Well, duh!" Rainbow Dash smirked. "I wouldn't make half the mistakes Cherry did on her flight. And she'd be the first to admit as much if she were here."

Twilight shrugged. "Anyway, we're not doing that. We are launching a ship to the moon on stock parts, but nopony's going to be inside it."

"Why not?"

"Because it's going to be a ship that can land on the moon, but can't return home to Equus."

Rainbow Dash's eyes tried to cross. "What? What good is a ship like that?"

"A whole lot of good," Twilight Sparkle said. "Next slide, Spike." With a click, the projection shifted to a squat bug-looking ship that looked like a couple of chestnut cans(438) with legs glued on. "Think of it like a sailing ship's boat going out to a beach. Instead of doing all the work to get a big ship in and out of shallow water, you just take only what you need to for the landing. No heat shield or parachutes, because the moon doesn't have any air. That means you need less fuel going down and coming up, which improves the odds of a successful landing and return."

"Big deal! So you get off the moon and end up stranded in space because you don't have a ship to bring you home!" Rainbow Dash insisted.

"But you will have a ship," Twilight said. "Next slide." The next projection showed a standard-looking rocket stack on one side and the launch configuration of Amicitas on the other. "We launch the landing ship empty, on probe controls. The ponies actually landing go up in Amicitas. Next slide." 

The projection switched to what looked like a complex ring of metal, with little tags pointing out various parts. "We're adding a docking ring on each ship so the two can connect in orbit around the moon, allowing ponies to transfer from one to the other without an EVA. Next slide." The next picture showed the bug-can-thing, upside down, sitting on Amicitas's back. "Somepony stays in Amicitas in case things go wrong, while two ponies go down to the surface and then, if all goes well, come back up. They dock again, the lander gets dumped to crash into the moon, and everypony flies home nice and safe on Amicitas."

"Huh." Rainbow Dash tapped her chin. "I was wondering how you planned to get Amicitas down and up, heavy as it is, without air. But Amicitas is barely capable of low orbit." She pointed a hoof at Twilight and continued, "You were there with me! We used up everything except the emergency maneuvering fuel just to get there- and that was after burning through eight SRBs and, like, a jillion tons of fuel in an outboard tank! How are we gonna get that big a ship all the way out to the moon and back?"

"Starlight?"

Starlight Glimmer stepped forward. "We've been running tests on the third generation mana batteries and fifth generation magic thruster systems," she said. "What we've got is a system that puts out about three and a half tons of thrust per engine."

"Three and a half tons?" Rainbow Dash's eyes tried to cross again. "But Amicitas weighs over fifty tons empty! Even with three engines, that won't get her off the ground!"

"No, it won't," Starlight agreed. "But the thing is, we can install an array of the new magic batteries inside Amicitas- bigger than the one we removed for Flight Eleven. With that array gathering ambient mana, each engine can produce three and a half tons of thrust... indefinitely."

"The ship, once in orbit, would have a top acceleration of about one point five meters per second per second," Moondancer added. "Yes, that's slow. Trans-lunar injection will require a very long, slow burn, or possibly two. But that's all right, because we can do it as long as we want. No fuel restrictions. As much delta-V as we want, provided we're patient."

"The moon lander will have conventional rockets," Twilight added. "Even lightened up, it'll be too heavy for the new engine system. We need the specific impulse of chemical thrust."

"Hmmm." Rainbow Dash considered this. "Thing is," she said slowly, "Amicitas is big, heavy, and has a crew maximum of seven, right? But we don't really need more than three ponies, if your lander only holds two. Dibs on being one of those two, by the way."

"Of course," Twilight nodded.

"So what I'm wondering is, why use Amicitas at all?" Rainbow Dash asked. "It'll be a lot easier to send up a smaller, lighter ship, won't it? So we get Appleoosa to sell us one of their three-pony jobs, put your docking port on that, and use it instead!"

Twilight shook her head. "First, I already asked. The changelings aren't selling their second-generation rocket and crew systems yet," she said. "And second... I'm convinced that Amicitas is the future of space flight. Magic engines will one day send ships to Beucephalous and Chiron and all the other planets in our solar system- maybe even to other stars! Chemical rockets are a temporary stop-gap technology- and a dangerous one, too! I don't just want to beat Chrysalis to the moon. I want to prove that our way is the best way to do it!"

"Maybe you oughta think about which is more important," Applejack drawled, "proving your thesis right or keepin' Chrysalis's dirty hooves off the moon." Not that she expected to change Twilight's mind by pointing this out. She'd said as much before, after all, and here they were anyway.

"I think we can do both," Twilight said. "Look, we all know Chrysalis is plotting something, right? And whatever it is depends on her getting to the moon first, or else she wouldn't have gone to all this trouble! But what if it doesn't? What if Chrysalis wins by getting to the moon at all? No, we've got to win the space race in such a way that, whatever she does next, she gives up on the moon entirely. And that means-"

"I'm sorry, Twilight," Rarity said cautiously, "but I think you really ought to think about what does come next. I mean, I agree we should get to the moon first, obviously." The purple-maned unicorn sat forward on her throne and tapped a hoof on the map table. "But when that happens we're going to have a lot of unhappy changelings, out in the open, with nothing to do and no prospects for the future."

"Now, that's jus' not true," Applejack put in. "Cherry's done a crackerjack job o' findin' jobs for changelings. Why, we've even used a few out at th' Acres now an' again. They make good hands if ya watch 'em close. An' then there's those new TV shows they're puttin' out. Granny Smith sure does love The Neighbors Upstairs, I tell ya that."

"And we've left space tourism and private satellite launches entirely to them," Twilight Sparkle continued. "If the changelings want to continue space flight, they'll still have plenty of opportunities."

"But wouldn't it be cruel to... well... crush their hopes and dreams?" Fluttershy murmured. "Maybe we have to beat them, but we don't have to... um... beat them... I guess?"

"Maybe we do have to," Rainbow Dash said. "We've gotten to know a few of the changelings over at CSP, right? I know I have. That Occupant, he's kinda stupid, yeah? But Dragonfly isn't nearly as dumb as she makes out to be. And they're both totally loyal to Chrysalis, which would be really cool if Chrysalis weren't completely evil and wicked! And if she says, 'No more Ms. Nice Bug,' the other changelings will fall right in behind her unless we totally shut her down cold!"

"But that's precisely what I'm concerned about, dear!" Rarity replied. "If we do, as you put it, shut her down cold, why wouldn't she return to her old ways? She'd have lost everything-"

Twilight rapped her hoof on the map table and kept pounding it until the discussion stopped. "You've given me a lot to think about, girls," she said once she had every pony's attention again. "But the fact is that, at least for now, the only multi-pony ship we have available is Amicitas. It'd take us months to design and build our own capsule like the one CSP is testing. That's time we don't have, especially since we have to build and test our lander already."

"That's our job," Lemon Hearts chipped in. "And we'll also be training Rainbow Dash and Spitfire how to fly it."

"We have most of the parts already," Moondancer added. "Assembly is already in progress back in Baltimare. We could be ready to launch the first lander in three weeks."

"But first we need to put our own communications relay satellite in orbit around the moon," Twilight Sparkle put in. "Just in case our relay system gets blocked by the moon's shadow. That's going to be Flight Twelve. How soon can that launch?"

"We have a satellite ready to go, and the chemical rocket to do it," Moondancer reported. "We could launch in five days, if we have the mission control crew available."

"I'll be there," Applejack said. She'd been flight controller for every flight so far, and she didn't see a reason to change that now. "Fluttershy, do you think you're up to bein' our SATCOM?"

"I-I-I'll try," Fluttershy said quietly. Then she took a deep breath, sat up in her throne, and said more firmly, "No. I'll do it. I'll be there."

"Okay then," Applejack said. "That's settled. What next? The landing?"

"Not without a test flight," Twilight said. "First, we see if Amicitas can make it to lunar orbit and back. Rainbow Dash and I will be the crew again, with Spitfire and Starlight as backup. That'll be Flight Thirteen."

"Ooooh! Lucky thirteen!" Pinkie Pie grinned. "Because nothing bad ever happens with thirteen!"

"Flight Fourteen will be an unmanned landing and launch of a probe-core lander," Twilight said, ignoring Pinkie. "And if all goes well, Flight Fifteen will be the real thing."

"And we've got two whole months to make it happen?" Rainbow Dash grinned. "Easy-peasy. Chrysalis won't know what hit her."

Footnotes:

(434) So would Rainbow Dash, but for totally different reasons.

(435) As did Wonderbolts Captain Spitfire, who currently sat #2 on the pilot roster despite having not yet ridden a single rocket anyplace.

(436) The gathered Elements of Harmony were carefully not looking over in one alcove of the throne room, where a young sphinx sat in a pile of parchment carefully writing out I will not bother busy ponies with riddles and/or threats to devour them a thousand times. She'd had to start over once already when Twilight, still grumpy at being interrupted, had made her start over and do it in modern Equestrian instead of hieroglyphics. 

(437) After the recent incident in which Starlight Glimmer had been sent by the Cutie Map to Canterlot to mend a breach between Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, she and the group of CSGU graduates had begun referring to themselves as the Legion of Substitute Twilights. Minuette had had to be talked down from commissioning a set of body suits as uniforms.

(438) About the same proportions as what would be cans of tuna in our world. Canned chestnuts were occasionally a light, crisp, crunchy snack for campers, but more usually an ingredient in stir-fry and salad recipes. Sadly, the canning process made them useless for roasting, which was the favorite pony way to enjoy them.