My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 372

ARES 3 solar day 366

"It's really stupid."

"I have no objection, okay." Mark turned the ratchet wrench in his hand as he watched the Fireball Holder lift the engine nozzle (one of the nozzles disassembled from the MAV downgrade) upside down above the normal nozzle fixing position on the Amicitas engine. At the same time, he replied, "But after all, we don't want to see this thing doing a backflip in mid-air, so this step is inevitable."

Fireball really couldn't refute this. They had planned to launch the 1.4-ton rocket engine directly up as is. After all, the atmosphere on Mars is so thin that wind resistance must not have a significant effect, right? Then Starlight Glimmer conveyed to them the data from the previous launch test in Malaysia, including the flight that sent Cocoon to the newly completed giant orbiting spacecraft. When Mark saw the data, he made some rough calculations. The result was that the current test subject, which weighs only about 8% of the take-off weight of the aircraft launched that time, would have an acceleration of about 70 when it leaves the launch pad. About a G...

...Converted into specific meters per second, if they use the same boost system, they will produce an acceleration of nearly 700 meters per second. Even if it were replaced with the thrust-limited system previously recommended by Twilight Sparkle, the test vehicle would break the sound barrier on Mars about two-thirds of a second after liftoff.

Fireball knew very well that his intelligence was barely average even by dragon standards, but even he could analyze two conclusions. First of all, the effect of air resistance in this case is basically 100% immediate. Mars' atmosphere alone can make the test flight deviate from the orbit. Therefore, if they don't want to be hit hard by several giant debris falling overhead, at least they have to. Modify the engine to look a little more streamlined.

Secondly, even if it is equipped with the streamlined shell they have cobbled together now, anyone with a bright mind will stay away from this thing during launch.

These two points could not be more obvious. However, the engine nozzle is turned around and put on the rocket engine like this, and the opening can barely accommodate the internal components of the engine. It really looks like that guy who is indispensable at every party and always likes to put a lampshade on his head for fun. horse. And I still don’t get tired of playing old tricks.

This is indeed a way to save the amount of scrap metal - although after giving up the plan of tying these three engines to the Ares 4 MAV, their current living conditions are no longer as tight as before, but in such a malicious and evil world After living in an elusive world for so long, even non-dragons have developed the habit of hoarding useful materials.

Don't forget, too, that the material of the engine nozzle has been specially designed to withstand extremely high temperatures, strong wind resistance, and all kinds of critical attacks from ponies, dragons, and crazy changelings in the past.

They are all absolutely true, but the final result still seems so outrageous.

"Okay, that's it." Mark's wrench tightened the last bolt. "We should go in and do the tail fin and fairing."

The location they selected for the test launch was in Area E, somewhere on the east side of Cave Farm. While moving the engine to the east doesn't completely guarantee that it won't hit a residential area in the event of an accident, it at least makes it less likely. If there is any error in the launch system, it will take a lot of effort to offset the rotation speed of Mars.

As for the safety of Cave Farm and Area E... at least the result of a direct hit there would be much better than in the residential area. No matter what, several meters of soil and rock can definitely withstand the impact of the thin canvas dome of the habitation module.

Fireball and Mark hurriedly stripped off their spacesuits as soon as the airlock was pressurized. Now the ambient temperature in the cave has reached the same level as the living cabin. As the newly installed solar crystals around the cave gradually begin to operate, the valves of the water heating system are also closing little by little. And wearing a space suit always feels a little awkward.

"Hey, Starlight!" Fireball shouted, "We need a two-minute (magic) field to get the battery."

"What are you using it for?" Starlight was immersed in studying the design drawing she drew on the whiteboard, making sure that she was fully sure of every adjustment of the crystal enchantment used in the launch test; she didn't even bother to look up when she answered. A glance at the fireball.

When Fireball almost blurted out the pony words in his mouth, he finally remembered the corresponding English words; thanks to the many TV series he had watched with different styles, several episodes mentioned or showed related concepts, "Welding" ." This time I can thank you, stupid human TV.

"Just get an amethyst battery," Starlight replied. "I used them all the day before yesterday, and the energy storage is less than 10%. It can only last you about two minutes at most."

"Good." Since crystals large enough to be used for batteries are usually transparent, most of their batteries are made of clear quartz; but they have found larger amethyst quartz before, including several pieces It is cut out to form a battery, which stands out among the battery stacks. Fireball carried the battery as usual, not caring that even considering the gravitational environment of Mars, the thing felt a little heavier than before, and moved it next to Mark; Mark found five pieces of metal painted pink - these were originally Amicitas' slim body outer skin.

"Okay," Mark took out a marker and drew a less-than-standard triangle on one of the pieces, with a small square extension at the end that could be fixed to the engine after being bent. Then he handed the last piece of metal to Fireball, "Are you sure you have no problem doing this? I still remember what happened during the first rover test."

"Even if it doesn't work, it won't have any bad consequences."

"Okay. Then I'll take these to Starlight for cutting, and I'll be back soon."

Fireball watched him turn away. Indeed, strictly speaking, if we only consider cutting operations, Starlight's magic is indeed more efficient, and it is definitely sufficient for making tail fins. However, it is still necessary to do some special processing on the head cone.

Fireball connected the battery plates to the antenna, turned on the battery, and felt pure magic energy radiating from the battery, accompanied by crackling rainbow sparks. He first coughed a few times to rekindle the source of fire in his body, then pursed his lips tightly, inhaled through his nose, and sprayed out a concentrated blazing flame towards the scrap metal plate in front of him.

This is of course not nearly as hot as the flames breathed out by the dragons mentioned in the Discworld books. There is no dragon that can breathe such hot fire. If it were possible, a large group of dragons would dare to challenge Celestia's throne, and then there would undoubtedly be a bunch of dragons thrown to the moon, or turned into exquisite and beautiful "sculpture" dragons placed in Central City. In the royal garden.

And having said that, even in the horse country, he wouldn't be able to maintain this level of cutting flame for long. There wasn't much time left for him and he had to act as soon as possible. He started by cutting a circle out of a sheet of metal with a quick knife—not perfect, but pretty accurate. Then he sliced ​​a wedge out of the circle—like a large slice of pizza. It takes about a minute in total.

Hmmm... malachite-studded anchovy pizza. As soon as he steps back to the land of Malaysia, he will order five portions immediately. Put the blame on Twilight Sparkle, Cocoon, or Yuyan, whatever is convenient, and then immediately submit your resignation to the three of them.

no. Come on and concentrate. The cutting is done, but the seams still need to be welded.

The metal skin outside the cabin is so thin that a dragon can easily bend it with his hands. So Fireball started working directly, overlapping and closing the flat wedges on both sides. Dang dang dang - a simple cone took shape so quickly. He used his claws to pinch out wrinkles in several places on the seams so that the seams could mesh with themselves, and then used his welding gun skills. Although the flames were not as hot as before, they were quite close. He carefully moved the flame position up and down along the weld, fixing the edge of the metal sheet as tightly as he could, and blew the metal covering one side of the weld so that it was tightly fused with the overlapping wedge-shaped edge below.

That's it. In a little over two minutes, he had made a metal hat. Of course, the shape of the mouth of the cone is indeed irregular, and it is slightly wider than the upper opening of the engine nozzle after it is flipped. But the space left here is intentional. The overlapping part can be bent at a position corresponding to the edge of the nozzle opening and then fixed to the engine nozzle. As long as the weight distribution is close to balance and the overall shape is sharp enough to pass through the thin atmosphere of Mars with a basically straight trajectory, it is completely sufficient.

If he really planned to let him sit on this thing and fly to the sky, he would definitely be much more meticulous in making it. MD, if that's the case, he might as well just leave the whole thing to Starlight or Lingying or Mark, and he can find a small corner and sit in peace and wait for them to call him to do physical work such as moving things. But this is just throwing a useless thing into the sky. There is nothing complicated about this kind of thing.

"Ha. Yes, that's enough." Mark came back with four freshly cut tail wings. Starlight had now turned on her own magic field projection and began to enchant the nine small booster crystal blocks used in the launch test as well as the three target crystals.

The fireball shut down his battery—the energy storage was depleted, and he could only spit out weak sparks intermittently.

"How on earth did you create such a high-temperature flame?" The human being was quite interested in the results of the fireball. He also put down the pile of metal he was holding, leaned over and began to carefully observe the fairing.

"Think hard. Then create more breathing pressure," Fireball replied. "More pressure means hotter fire. A big fire, like showing off, like a car crash on a TV show, is not very hot. A small fire Light a fire and give it a lot of fast air, so it's very hot."

"Hmm." There was another mysterious expression on Mark's face that made Fireball unable to fathom it. He just hoped that this expression didn't mean that if you died, I would be the first to cut you open and take a look. "Then let's take this pile and weigh it. After all, we still have to figure out how much the load will increase."

Fireball shook his head after hearing this. Human beings always have this kind of virtue. What was supposed to be an exciting thing like throwing a brick into the sun from 200 million miles away, they were able to find a way to add a bunch of boring stuff like math and science. It was really boring.

Then he thought about the methods of ponies and changelings, and then thought about the dragon's behavior and habits, and how the combination of the above methods brought him here, and finally decided that he would be a little more bored. acceptable.

"I'll get the scale." Fireball decided it was better to work obediently.