251–260 of 344 posts
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I think they were saying that Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian and The Expanse are all good examples.
...relative to the usual "not even wrong " depictions that Hollywood screenwriters can crank out after barely passing high school physics.
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> A transfer from Mars to Earth is never going to line up with an instant return transfer window back to Mars. The whole point of the Hermes spacecraft as used in The Martian, though, is that it has a high specific impulse, low thrust ion drive, that runs continually during the entire orbit (using power from a reactor to do so). Andy Weir, the author, is a programmer, and he actually wrote a physics simulator to calc…
Thanks for the link. That was well awesome. I withdraw my criticism.
It wasn't until I shared this frustration with a smart friend, and he pointed out that it actually is possible if the space station has a rotational period equal to its orbital period, that I realized I was wrong. The author was indeed being smarter about the science of it than I was, and had done the research. And, forget just the future part of it; the ISS actually currently flies with a specific constant relative orientation through the atmosphere so as to minimize air resistance, using, you guessed it, a rotational period equal to its orbital period, plus occasional corrective actions from gyros and thrusters.
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Thanks for the link. That was well awesome. I withdraw my criticism.
I had a similar issue with Seveneves recently. I had a strong science-based disagreement with the idea of Izzy always keeping its anchored asteroid facing into the oncoming atmosphere of LEO, which I was sure was impossible because it would be facing the rear as often as it would the front, because objects in space/thin atmospheres don't fly and don't maintain a constant relative orientation just because they're orbi…
And plus solar panels, which get realigned to minimize atmospheric drag when the Sun is behind the Earth.
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And I think all of us here love hacker movies. Sneakers, Hackers, Swordfish, etc. :)
I absolutely hated watching Mr. Robot. Gave up after 4 episodes.
KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…
how can you cite gravity as a good example then?
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Well, that (and the shots showing several Jupiter moons simultaneously) was a creative decision - one I strongly disagree with - but otherwise The Expanse is pretty good, and they get lots of minor details right (like engines heating up some metal beams on the exhaust path, or that scene where a PDC round penetrated the Roci and its trail didn't move until they started manoeuvring, etc.).
That and the ships having to flip to slow down burn makes the expanse one of the more realistic portrayals of space flight (minus the epstein drive which is basically magic) in modern tv. Also, they show decompression way more realistically. Its not like a bomb goes off when a hole opens up in the side of the ship, which is nice.
assuming an epstein drive is possible yeah it opens up more or less direct brachistochrone trajectories between here and mars. Just wait until the planets align and burn.
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I had a similar issue with Seveneves recently. I had a strong science-based disagreement with the idea of Izzy always keeping its anchored asteroid facing into the oncoming atmosphere of LEO, which I was sure was impossible because it would be facing the rear as often as it would the front, because objects in space/thin atmospheres don't fly and don't maintain a constant relative orientation just because they're orbi…
> the ISS actually currently flies with a specific constant relative orientation through the atmosphere so as to minimize air resistance, using, you guessed it, a rotational period equal to its orbital period, plus occasional corrective actions from gyros and thrusters. And plus solar panels, which get realigned to minimize atmospheric drag when the Sun is behind the Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Glider_…
KSP was possibly my best entertainment spending ever. It definitely is the best game for me in terms of costs / time played. If you haven't played it yet, do yourself a favour and buy it now. If you have a kid with even tangential interest in space, get a copy for them. Side effects of playing KSP include: - getting an intuitive feel for basic orbital mechanics - finding yourself reading up on actual math to better u…
Wait, did Gravity do something besides getting basic spaceflight wrong in visually compelling ways?
I stopped playing KSP due to the microstutter issue (ostensibly due the to garbage collector) fixing that would make the game playable again.
It's fixed for the most part as of 1.2. There also the MemGraph mod that allows you to give more memory to the game so the GC doesn't fire off as much.
I sometimes get the feeling that this is the only game HN plays. When people talk about not being able to switch away from Windows due to games, it seems like someone always responds, "Well Kerbal Space Program runs on Linux and that's all I care about." I don't think I've ever seen articles similar to this one about other games gain as much traction. Can't think of very many articles about games getting to the top o…
Agreed. I'm surprised Factorio hasn't surfaced more frequently on HN. The game's automation play is just as addictive and creative, and it runs on Mac and Linux.