Official "Discuss the latest page" thread

[CygnusX1]

This line

"Public spaces in stations tend to be towards the outside, because civilians like windows."

should read:

"Public spaces in stations tend to be towards the outside, because civilians are expendable; core sections are not."

[CorvusCorax]

Regarding the Kessler syndrome, if the debris is moving in random direction and random speeds, won't we get something resembling a debris ring or debris sphere, rather than a concentrated group of objects hitting the origin point every 2 hours or so?

Exactly. At first its acloud, but within only a few orbits that cloud turns into a ring. That ring is "wide" at one side with the debris spaced far apart, but very narrow and focused in one point - where the original explosion/impact happened.

Thos is also the point where the orbit of every single particle intersects the original orbit of the spacestation.

So allthough the debris form a ring, at least initially you get this effect of very high chance of impact exactly once per orbit.

This is more dangerous for collissions between vessels in different orbits, thab for space battles ( stray bullets and shed debris ) since you end up with two different debris rings that intersect in one point, with relative speeds of tens of kilometers per second.

Shed debrIs from explosions and bullets would generally have impact speeds in the order of magnutude of what they had been fired or ejected at, as the orbits are very similar. Thats still fast enough to do damage, but less by an order of magnitude.

After a few months or years these orbits diverge and you get more of a sphere - mostly due to tidal effects. There is no one point of intersection anymore, just a generally increased chance of impact across all orbits. The impact speeds would on average become very high though.

[pls]

>Chapter 21: Page 29

I appreciate artistic license, but you only get billowing clouds and gas trails like then when the gas products of an explosion interace with an atmosphere. Since this is in vacuum, they look very wrong. In vacuum, a gas jet goes in a straight line expanding slightly as it goes, since there is nothing to make it turn. Depris goes in a straight line until it hits something. They would look a lot like your gunshots.

Here are pictures of the attitude thrusters on the space shuttle.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q ... 1277004266

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q ... 1277004266

Every hole venting ship's atmosphere would look like this. The air cools as it expands and the water vapor instantly condenses to ice crystals.

[CygnusX1]

Ow... I think we are really hitting David with too much hard-SF complaints... While I would love to see everything more scientifically correct, I don't think that is David's goal. It would also probably take too much time, checking and double-checking if everything is correct.
Besides, story-wise this comic is and remains at high level. And that is what really matters.

In defense to Ch21p29 however, I presume you are referring to panel 2? That's the moment of an explosion occurring on the surface of the ship. A circular-shaped sphere of heat is expected. Small fluctuations in those could be attributed to uneven nature of the explosion and some debris already present in the vicinity.

For a very rough approximation of how an explosion in space could look like, one can take the photos of nebulas coming from a supernova.

http://annesastronomynews.com/wp-conten ... emnant.jpg

Of course this one is much bigger and took much more time to form. But hey, it is still an explosion in space and there is some debris around

[CorvusCorax]

>Chapter 21: Page 29

I appreciate artistic license, but you only get billowing clouds and gas trails like then when the gas products of an explosion interace with an atmosphere. Since this is in vacuum, they look very wrong. In vacuum, a gas jet goes in a straight line expanding slightly as it goes, since there is nothing to make it turn. Depris goes in a straight line until it hits something. They would look a lot like your gunshots.

Here are pictures of the attitude thrusters on the space shuttle.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q ... 1277004266

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q ... 1277004266

Every hole venting ship's atmosphere would look like this. The air cools as it expands and the water vapor instantly condenses to ice crystals.

https://mobile.twitter.com/mhmtkcn/stat ... 9630120961

This is how the resulting expanding gas cloud ( I'm tempted to say "nebula" ) looks above earths atmosphere when backlit by the setting sun.



check this out, too:
https://youtu.be/xNUHp-Df9t0

https://youtu.be/sEaTe38-I4Y

More images and video from that rocket launch here:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index ... =46471.140

Stuff leaking gasses in space can be so beautiful Explosions, too

Just wanted to share cause its cool and for inspiration, not critizising how it looks in the comic, I think the comic depicts things quite believable.

[CygnusX1]

Just wanted to share cause its cool and for inspiration, not critizising how it looks in the comic, I think the comic depicts things quite believable.

There is one thing that I am nearly sure that the comic does not depict in a believable way is the combat distance. I expect the space combat to be waged over thousands of kilometers, entirely or in 99% controled by the computer. Humans would just remain as the head of the command: what to destroy and what not. But how to achieve the best result - that would be entirely to computers.

But that would overall be very hard to depict in a comic in an interesting way.

[CorvusCorax]

Just wanted to share cause its cool and for inspiration, not critizising how it looks in the comic, I think the comic depicts things quite believable.

There is one thing that I am nearly sure that the comic does not depict in a believable way is the combat distance. I expect the space combat to be waged over thousands of kilometers, entirely or in 99% controled by the computer. Humans would just remain as the head of the command: what to destroy and what not. But how to achieve the best result - that would be entirely to computers.

But that would overall be very hard to depict in a comic in an interesting way.

Yes, both the distances at which ships would fire and the relative velocities would very likely be much more higher. All you might see - under favorable light conditions - is a tiny spec of light or dark - as it comes over the horizon. You might be able to identify it with the help of a telescope and sophiaticated computers which calculate the orbital trajectories of the target as well as the firing vector. Firing would be dominated by orbitsl mechanics, you would have to wait for the best "launch window" then fire a barrage at high deflection, trying to lign up your shots so the projectiles or plasma bolts would be where the target is, once it gets there.
Then you would make evasive burns , changing your own trajectory in an erratic way to not be hit by whatever your opponent might have already fired.
If you fight close combat, you would zoom by so quickly, that any shots intended to hit in the flyby woild have to be released in the seconds before the flyby, so they hit just as you zoom by, like a flash.

But combat like that would mostly consist of waiting and hoping, interrupted by white, hot deadly fire and explosions. It'd be extremely well suited for a book or textual representation, with all the suspense. But in a comic, you want to be able to have both opponents in the same panel, and show what they are doing.

So close combat and equal velocities it has to be.

[CygnusX1]

... and those 23 people don't know what is happening and why they are about to be shot at.
Someone will record it, put it out of context and it will make Kari and her team war criminals. They will become the face of the massacre, the butchers of the Nargun Exchange...

[macnut]

Agreed, Kari and company are about to be plastered all over the InterStellarWebs as mass murderers and war criminals. They'll be on the run for the majority of this story arc at least.

[CygnusX1]

Maybe Admiral Novosi should pull the trigger, instead of Kari?
That could be just a bit safer for Kari's mental sake...