Where is the Petrova line?!
Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
231–240 of 255 posts
Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
#232Hi there! This is Val, I made the star chart. There's a little "about" blurb you can open in a modal on the site, but I wanted to mention that this demo uses the amazing GAIA DR3 dataset from ESA. I have a Python script that renders all 1.8+ billion stars into custom images, which is what I used for the skybox. The star positions and colors all use the GAIA data (save for a few bright stars not in the set). The data…
I wonder if it's possible to import this data into blender, for excessively accurate space backgrounds.
Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering we're not discussing a game, it seems like a perfectly valid comparison.
"if you're into Unreal Engine key bindings." :shrug:
That phrase was in the parenthetical and as such doesn't seem to directly apply to the claim of "WASD is the OG OP way to navigate." Additionally, I was referring to the PRH Stellar Navigation Chart when I said we're not discussing a game.
Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for posting this. I wonder if anyone has made a physical galactic orrery. It seems that the concept is used in the video game Warhammer. Something implicit in the diagrams of the galactic plane but not explicitly stated is that the solar system travels clockwise (retrograde) around the galaxy [0]. I find this unexpected as I thought the same "right hand rules" of planetary motion [1] were somehow connected…
I wonder if anyone has made a physical galactic orrery. Maybe it's harder than it seems. Does a definite galactic plane even exist? The ecliptic is defined by Earth's orbit, not a mean of all the planets. IIRC Sun's rotation plane is not aligned, not should it matter. If there's a way to measure galactic plane, independently of Sun's orbit around the galaxy center (that also seems difficult to determine) it would inv…
I believe such data exists--examine the movement of all galactic objects you can. That will give you a center of mass, the galactic plane is the plane such as to minimize the total distance from objects to the plane.
Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of those authors usually have to resort to the idea of "shipping lanes" so if the heroes are stranded between two planets eventually someone else will pass close to them on the way from one of those planets to the other one. This is wrong in a number of ways (first of all, they keep going anyway) but without that and without magically powerful fuels plots would be "they launched from Mars to Neptune, forget about…
I thought orbital mechanics would still create those "shipping lanes" as the most efficient way to go from A to B. Of course with enough fuel you can go anywhere, but shipping specifically will love those reduced costs.
The problem is that the planets aren't standing still.
You want to do an optimum burn for Earth -> Mars? Compute an ellipse such that one end touches Earth's orbit, one end touches Mars' orbit. Oops, Mars isn't going to be there, you wait. Once every 26 months you will find that half an orbit later Mars will be there, then you burn. We call this a launch window.
26 months later they will line up again, but neither Earth nor Mars are where they were before. A spacecraft in this second window will never pass anywhere near a crippled spacecraft that flew in the first window. Nor could they do anything but send a report if it did happen--if you're doing efficient burns you don't have the fuel to go to somebody's aid.
Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When I saw the series adaptation of The Expanse, it was really obvious they played a lot of artistic license to make it exciting. A real space battle would be dots firing invisible dots at each other. "Close quarter battle" would be within something like 2000 kilometers, maybe more. That is close. This is noteworthy because The Expanse tried to get this better than other scifi, say Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica,…
> Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, or Star Wars (ok, space opera), where engagements take place at absurdly short ranges. I think that is we could maneuver spaceships like cars and get from place to place in seconds then we would engage at close distance. The only reason for keeping far away would be to have time to react to missile launches and attempt to intercept them. But that's not different than what ships do a…
Assuming identical weapons.
But if your weapons outrange your enemy you will want to keep the range long. And if your weapons suffer less range penalty than theirs do you will want to keep the range long. The flip side being that if you're on the other side of either of these scenarios you want to keep the range short. And that's before you consider the effects of shielding--most universes with shields make them more effective against weaker attacks. This would mean that if you're facing lighter weapons than your own you keep the range open, if you're facing heavier ones you close.
Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
#237Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is awesome!! I made a map of the events in the Martian many years ago ( https://www.cannonade.net/mars.php ) and when I read Hail Mary I wondered if something could be created for the new book. You completely nailed it!! :)
That's an awesome website! I had never heard of Patrick O'Brian before looking at your maps, I'll give The Mauritius Command a read.
Recommend the whole series of books!
Starting with Master and Commander.
The books are also available in audiobook, read by Simon Vance. An awesome series of books. Beware, when you start... There are over 20 volumes in the series, and it's hard to stop.
Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you built it, I am curious about the scientific accuracy of the movie, book and while taking the information GAIA DR3. I wanted to assume at least the stars part is science, but I think, there is a lot of fiction in that setting. Is this map the reality of what we know as science, since it came from GAIA DR3 dataset? And, thank you very much. This is super cool and exciting. I wish such a one exists for Asimov'…
The book does a significantly better job explaining the science behind the mission than the movie (which I found insulting, but I'm clearly in the minority of holding that opinion).
The book was certainly better than the movie, but I'll take every damned example of 'humans working collectively to solve an existential crisis' I can get.
As 'on the nose' as 'Don't look up' was, we clearly need more content that inspires action than pits us to despair.
Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart
#240This is wonderful, I appreciate the share! This is an incredible simulation based on real-world data. I haven't seen the movie, but I might get it from P2P, are there any scenes that would be enhanced if I pull this up on my phone?