Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 1

I was with Rainbowshine, flying over to the space center for another mission. I saw the space center approaching when I saw something else, the rocket. The rocket was huge, about 50% bigger than the one to Duna. Silverstream, Sandbar and Starry Night were all there, in their flight suits.

Their flight suits were the exact same as the types 2 years ago. Mine was the only one that was different. We climbed up the stairs at the launchpad after I said goodbye to Rainbowshine. The stairs took a very long time to climb up, but then, I flew up to the enterance, carrying Sandbar at the same time.

We boarded the rocket, the command pod the same as the one used for the Duna mission, with a hitchhiker storage container under it. When I was flying, Starry Night asked me something, 'When did you have parts for your wings in your flight suit?'

There was only one way to answer it, 'I modded it.'

When we were in the command pod, all seated, we were told about Eve again. Eve was a planet that was covered with purple. The atmosphere is extremely thick, about 5 times thicker than Equestria's, and seeing into it was near impossible, but surveys say that there are oceans and land.

The lander for this mission was kept as light as possible, with a service bay that contained seats. The ascent stage would use Vector engines and asparagus staging for maximum efficiency, as the rocket would have to carry it into orbit around Equestria.

The rocket was going to be launched in 5 minutes at 10 am exactly. The engines lit up at 10 seconds before launch and the launch clamps unclamped at T-0 seconds. The TWR of the rocket was very high, so it shot up. We had to literally endure 2G acceleration, which wasn't that hard to endure.

I started the gravity turn early, as the rocket looked very aerodynamic. I then realised that there was an autopilot option, which I have never seen before. The autopilot option was a little hard to use, but I quickly learned how to use it. I used it to point the rocket prograde, which was what I had to myself the last times I piloted the rocket.

It was very convenient for me, as the autopilot module could get me to Eve without any manual control. It was, for me, one of the most useful things ever, though sometimes manual piloting would be better. The autopilot module detached the side boosters and got the rocket to orbit.

I was curious about the autopilot module, so I asked mission control, 'Was this autopilot thingy supposed to do all the work?'

This time, Gus was in mission control, and said, 'Yes it is, it's very sophisticated you know,'

'Mhmm.'

The transfer burn would take place using a hyperefficient nuclear stage as the ascent stages were all used up. The nuclear engines now had much more thrust, having 180kN of thrust instead of the absurd 60kN. It even having a higher specific impulse at 1200 instead of 800.

The transfer burn was done very quickly, instead of the very long burns of the Duna transfer, and that was not because Eve was closer to Equestria. After all that was done, it was smooth sailing to Eve or coasting in space to Eve. Now we just had to wait, which would be going into stasis chambers for the time in space.