‘Planetshine,’ Dr. Whooves said. ‘Are we going to burn the transfer to Minmus using the Mainsail stage or are we going to do what the original plan was?’

Planetshine replied, ‘Gene said that we would maybe burn using the Mainsail engine. I mean, it should have enough delta-V to get to Minmus. Even if we don’t have enough delta-V, we could use the planned transfer stage.’

Dr. Whooves had a feeling that it wouldn’t work. Planetshine on the other hoof, thought it would be a great idea, up to the point that she would be able to go down to the surface of Minmus with Dr. Whooves. She reassured Dr. Whooves that they could use the transfer stage just in case. The fine tuning would use that stage.

'Gene, are you done making the manoeuver node for Minmus?' Planetshine asked.

Gene wasn't responding to her. Planetshine got worried. Why wasn't Gene responding to her? She instead contacted mission control instead. 'Mission control, do you hear me?' she said.

Another pony replied, 'I'm sorry that Gene isn't here. He is getting a few snacks for us. He thought that you guys wouldn't be contacting us for a bit of time, so he thought it would be a good idea to get us a few snacks.'

'Mkay, just tell Gene to be at mission control all the time and not get snacks for everypony else.' Planetshine responded.

Planetshine and Dr. Whooves waited for a while, relaxing while all of a sudden, Gene contacted the two ponies about their manoeuver to get to Minmus. 'Planetshine, you must do this manoeuver with one burn with the Mainsail engine, and also don't forget to burn a bit earlier than the node itself. That should make the manoeuver more efficient.' Gene said.

Planetshine responded, 'Ok, but also what about the Mainsail engine and fuel tanks? We can't just put them in orbit around Equestria.'

Gene replied almost immediately, 'Don't worry, the manoeuver node we made will put the rocket on a collision course with Minmus. All you would need to do is burn radial out when you are about halfway to Minmus.'

Dr. Whooves asked Planetshine, 'Uhm... When are we going to start doing the burn?'

Planetshine replied, 'About 10 minutes.'

'Ok, you know, I feel like we need some better science gear. We have a barometer, which would be pretty much useless, but then the Science Jr, gravity scanner and mystery goo are pretty useful. I think we need a thing like seismic scanners and atmosphere analysis tools.'

'I think that I have a seismic scanner somewhere in my junkyard.'

'Why would you not bring it on board?'

'I thought we wouldn't need it.'

Dr. Whooves facehoofed. He wanted to do seismic scans on the surface of Minmus, so the ponies in Equestria would know more about Minmus. He had to accept that Planetshine didn't bring it on their mission. He said to Planetshine, 'I think that could be for another mission instead of this one.'

After waiting for about 10 minutes, Planetshine faced the rocket in the direction of the manoeuver node and fired up the Mainsail engine. After a 30 second burn, they were on a collision course with Minmus. She then decoupled the Mainsail stage, turned the command pod retrograde, and fired up the Terrier engine of the refueller. The rocket now was now going to have a rendezvous with the moon with a periapsis of 20km.

Planetshine double checked the trajectory of the rocket while Dr. Whooves performed some experiments while in his command pod. 'Planetshine,' Dr. Whooves said, 'Do you want to go on an EVA? If you do it would be Equestria's second ever spacewalk, I did the first one.'

'Good idea,' she replied.

Planetshine put on her spacesuit and opened the hatch. She went outside, looking around the rocket. She turned on her jetpack to fly around the rocket for an inspection on the outside. Then, she reported on the conditions of the EVA to Dr. Whooves. Planetshine had never felt what it was like to have zero gravity, other than falling from the sky, so she enjoyed her time outside her little command pod. It felt really nice to have no gravity around her, and it was fun for her to play around with the jetpacks.

'Doctor,' she called out, 'Do you want to EVA as well? You could see Equestria as a blue marble this far away from it.'

'Hmm, if we could see Equestria as a whole, then we should be... Sweet Celestia!'

Dr. Whooves glanced at his altimeter. It said that the rocket, which was more like a ship now, was at about 1 million meters away from Equestria. It baffled him how quickly they were able to even get to 1 million meters above Equestria in such a short time.

'I'll EVA right away, I want to see the blue marble with you,' he said.

Dr. Whooves put on his spacesuit and opened the hatch on his command pod. Instead of jetpacking like Planetshine, he instead grabbed onto the command pod hatch. He positioned himself so he could have a good view of Equestria as a whole.

'Planetshine, do you want a photo of you facing Equestria? I think it would make a great photo for this mission.' Dr. Whooves asked.

Planetshine replied, 'Good idea, do you have a camera with you?'

'Actually, we both have cameras, they are mounted in between the flashlights on our helmets.'

'Never knew that, how did you know?'

'I just know... Now can you position yourself a bit on the left, I feel like getting the rocket in as well.'

'Ok, so here?'

'Yep, perfect. Do you want to see the photo I just took?'

'Certainly!'

Dr. Whooves showed the photo of Planetshine floating in space with part of the rocket showing and a beautiful blue marble in the background. She really liked the photo and then, she transmitted a digital copy of it to the space center for everypony else to see.

The two ponies then went inside their respective command pods, ready for lunch. At the space center, it was noon, so pretty much every pony was eating except the ponies at mission control who were doing lunch duty. Planetshine took out the food she had. Planetshine's command pod had everything she needed, such as food, snacks, more snacks while Dr. Whooves' command pod had all the science equipment and some monopropellant tanks for jetpack refueling.

Planetshine looked at the food, realising that she had Lyra's homemade food. She offered Dr. Whooves some dandelion sandwiches. Dr. Whooves was surprised that the food Lyra made wasn't dried food, like what the space center would provide astronauts with.

The two ate the sandwiches slowly and drank some packaged water with it. The water was in little bags that had a nozzle that would dispense drops of water. It also wouldn't dispense water unless squeezed, which prevented spills. Planetshine ate the sandwiches quickly and drank the water later while Dr. Whooves ate the sandwiches very slowly, savouring it so he wouldn't need to eat the dried food that was provided.

After eating, Planetshine took a quick nap while Dr. Whooves watched over the rocket. Dr. Whooves also conducted a few experiments. He then had to go on an EVA, so he could reset the mystery goo units and the Science Jr. When he went on his EVA, the blue marble known as Equestria was getting smaller. He pondered how something so large would become so small in such a short time.

'Planetshine!' he called out, 'Look out your window, Equestria is getting smaller and smaller.'

Planetshine peeked outside the window. Equestria looked like the size of a big marble and not something huge. She also started pondering about how it was possible that something so huge could be so small. Dr. Whooves went back in his command pod and then started to talk to the other two astronauts that haven't been on any missions.

'Lyra, Derpy, look at this picture I took when I was on an EVA, can you guess what that blue thing was, and also dont forget that grey thing that's on its left?' he said.

Lyra replied to him after a few seconds of waiting, 'I guess the blue thing is Equestria, but that grey thing, I don't have any idea on what that is, it doesn't look like anything I know about.'

Dr. Whooves then responded, 'The blue thing is indeed Equestria, and the grey thing is the moon. I think you wouldn't have guessed that one because the moon is white when seen on the surface of Equestria, but up here, it looks greyish.'

Then, Derpy responded curiously while looking at the picture, 'Hmm, what is that?'

'It's the moon and Equestria, It looks very different from where Dr. Whooves and Planetshine are at,' Lyra told Derpy.

Planetshine and Dr. Whooves then went sleeping as the rocket wouldn't arrive at Minmus until the next day. Just before sleeping, Dr. Whooves set up an alarm about 15 minutes before the encounter as a safeguard, just in case the two ponies overslept.

Author's Note

I think I messed up the gravioli detector with the seismic thing...