The Equestrian Air and Space Administration

by Solar_Spark

First published September 4th, 2018 20:20

Solar Spark, a filly living in Ponyville, is introduced to the idea of the rocket. She becomes fascinated, and goes so far as to start building her own rockets. This is the story of how the Equestrian Air and Space Administration came to be.

Chapters

Chapter 1: Old books can lead to new ideas

Chapter 1: Old books can lead to new ideas
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The Equestrian Air and Space Administration

Chapter 1: Old books can lead to new ideas

Our story starts in a school building, down in the quaint little town of ponyville, about ten and a half years before the return of Princess Luna. A pegasus named Solar Spark sat in her desk, listening intently to her teacher go on about physics. She wrote down notes almost as fast as the teacher was talking, only pausing to glance at the diagrams on the blackboard. She had no cutie mark yet on her flank, despite being past the age most earn theirs. She had finished writing down Newton's Third Law when she, and most everyone else in ponyville, heard an explosion from outside. Following her classmates and teacher outside revealed a filly with light blue fur and a silver mane. However contrasting to her normal mane style, her mane was sticking straight up, and had traces of soot and paper debris in it.

"Trixie!" Said the teacher, sounding more than annoyed. "What are you DOING?"

Trixie stood, eyes wide with shock and amazement, staring at the sky. "I made that!" She pointed up, prompting us to follow her gaze. In doing so, Solar and her classmates saw a few red wisps of light fade into thin air. "I made that thing!" She exclaimed, her face suddenly taken over by an enormous smile. "I made that, and it worked"

"What DID you make?" inquired the teacher, eyes narrow.

"It's called a firework! I've been working on it for the past few months to put in my act!"

"what does it do? Explode?"

"Precisely!"

The teacher stared at Trixie with a look combining alcoholism, annoyance, and confusion "Why?"

"Because! The Gr-r-reat and Powerful Tr-r-rixie needs an amazing light show to go with her amazing magic show."

The teacher rolled her eyes and motioned for the class to return inside. "Trixie, are you going to join the rest of your class or fool around with your toys?"

"I will, Just let me test ONE more!" Whined Trixie.
The teacher sighed and glared at Trixie for a moment. "ONE. and ONLY ONE."

Solar watched as Trixie grabbed a paper tube out of her saddlebag and attached it to a stick poking out of the ground, giggling maniacally. She reached down and grabbed a match, holding it to a small cord sticking out the bottom.

"Uh, Trixie? Is this safe?" She asked with worried look.

"Not at all!" Trixie looked at Solar with a look of pure joy and insanity as the cord caught fire. Solar watched, eyes wide, as the cord burned, getting shorter and shorter with each second, before finally disappearing. Both fillys watched, waiting for something to happen.

"Trixie? I don't think-" Solar began, only to be interrupted by a high pitched whine coming from the tube. She watched in amazement as it shot into the air on a thin column of smoke and fire, traveling faster than any pegasus she had ever seen. When the tube exploded, Solar jumped, taking flight for a moment, and was immediately awestruck by the colors that poured down from the sky.

"Wow! That was amazing!" Solar exclaimed. PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEEEEASE show me how to make these!"
After a moment of thinking it over, Trixie said in her typical third person fashion "Trixie will show you how, but only if you are part of Trixie's magic show" with a grin.

Solar groaned. "seriously?" She whined. "but I'll embarrass myself!"

"Well then, no fireworks."

"Fine." Solar grumbled.

"Meet me after school at the front steps." And with that, Trixie trotted into the school, followed closely by Solar.

The next few hours had felt like days for Solar, with all she could think about being the way that firework had taken off so quickly and flown so high. She wondered if she could improve upon it at all once she got the design, maybe make it go higher. She thought of ways to control them while in flight, maybe even stop them from exploding. She pondered if-

"Solar! Are you even listening?"

Solar sat up abruptly and looked around, before settling her eyes on the teacher, who was glaring at her.

"Uh...What?" She said, a little more stupidly than she had intended, causing some giggles from around the classroom.

The teacher sighed and said "Please try and focus." in a monotone voice before turning around continuing the lesson.
Suddenly, the bell rang, Scaring the living Hell out of Solar and sending her in the air for the second time today. Flying out the door, she landed just outside the door, moving out of the way to let others through. She sighed as a total of six foals mentioned something about a blank flank as they passed her. Typical.

Trixie was the third to last to exit the school, she was chatting with an orange . "Applejar or something like that", thought Solar. Either way, she finally turned to Solar and pulled a Firework out of her bag.

Trixie started to explain the internals of the small cylinder when Solar interrupted.

"Um, Trixie?"

Trixie sighed and hung her head, to which Solar gave a dry look. "What is it you require from Trixie that is so important you would interrupt?"

"Can you open it up so I can see?"

Trixie sighed once more. She took out a pair of scissors with her magic and cut open the wrapping paper, with a fake expression on her face as though to say "how dare you make me cut open my perfect creation?" Once the cut down the side was complete, Trixie pulled the paper off, exposing an odd stack of layered material that was comparable to the layers of a cake. The first layer was an odd, reddish brown, sandy looking substance with a cord running into it from the bottom. Next was a red piece of paper, which she knew must separate the two other layers, and at the top of the firework, farthest away from the cord, was a fine black power. As Solar studied it, Trixie pointed at the cord and began to speak.

"This thing right here is a fuse. It burns really slowly so you can light it and run away. It goes into the fuel, so that it ignites it. Then the thing over here is a piece of construction paper so that the pretty stuff and the fuel don't mix together. The grey balls right here are the things that explode and make pretty stuff." She held the firework out to Solar. "Trixie don't really know how all of this stuff works, I got the recipes from an old book I found at the Golden Oak library called "Rockets and their chemistry".

"what's a rocket?" Asked Solar, as she picked the stripped firework up in her hoof.

"Trixie didn't read very far into the book, and She wasn't really paying attention until Trixie noticed the instructions to make these. Trixie turned the book in a while ago, after she copied the instructions, of course. If you want to know more, go read the book instead of bugging me."

"Thanks, Trixie! Solar said, as she put the exposed firework and its shell into her saddlebag and turned to gallop away.

"You are welcome, Solar. But, remember our deal!"
Solar took a step and stopped, thinking for a moment, a look of exasperation sprawling across her face. she looked back at Trixie. "Oh, yeah. Great."

To say the least, Solar did not enjoy the next thirty minutes as she was, essentially, Trixies bunny throughout the show. For example, one of her tricks was making a filly appear out of a hat, which, Solar had to admit, Trixie performed quite well. After the show, Solar said nothing to Trixie, only grunting as she passed her, starting the walk to the library. Trixie barely noticed, of course, she was too busy gloating about how well the show had gone.

"Prick," muttered Solar.

Author's Note

Well here is the first chapter of a story i'm going to start working on! If you liked it, thanks I guess, and if you didn't like it, that's understandable. This is my first story, so bear with me.