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Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

valhovey.github.io

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Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#171

Post by hgoel »

luke5441 wrote: post #119
the_af wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it also fell apart immediately. Like, they only sent 3 people, 2 whom died on this UBER CRITICAL SAVE THE PLANET idea? (I didn't downvote, you have a right to dislike a popular movie or book) They explain why only 3 people (it's a bit contrived, but there's genetics involved), and why no more ships. It's an emergency, a resource and time-constrained mission on which a few things go wrong even before they depart…

I think OP only watched the movie. The book is a bit better at showing the main character actually being competent at times. In the movie they (for obvious reasons, but they could have done perhaps once) skip him going down science rabbit holes.

I think the movie also did a decent enough job of conveying that preparing enough astrophage for just one ship was only barely possible in Earth's environment. It was the entire reason for making it a one-way trip.

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#172

Post by hgoel »

the_af wrote: post #49
nekusar wrote: post #10

It can be summed up as "Ken Meets Jesus", "Ken Goes to Space", "Ken is a bumbling moron", "Ken's first friend". "Ken's White Savior moment" This appears to be the norm for US based scifi now. Glad I'm watching movies like The Wandering Earth and Alienoid instead. It had a good premise. But it also fell apart immediately. Like, they only sent 3 people, 2 whom died on this UBER CRITICAL SAVE THE PLANET idea? And Ryan G…

> But it also fell apart immediately. Like, they only sent 3 people, 2 whom died on this UBER CRITICAL SAVE THE PLANET idea? (I didn't downvote, you have a right to dislike a popular movie or book) They explain why only 3 people (it's a bit contrived, but there's genetics involved), and why no more ships. It's an emergency, a resource and time-constrained mission on which a few things go wrong even before they depart…

I thought the portrayal of scientists was a lot more true to life than most media. Millennial and older Zoomers are old enough to be in these positions now, they aren't going to talk or dress like boomers.

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#173

Post by protocolture »

api wrote: post #82
loeg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the Expanse authors were going for "hard sci-fi." There's, you know, fiction elements -- gates, aliens, magic. And the TV series is itself an adaptation of the books for a visual medium. Showing almost nothing would make for kind of boring TV combat.

Agreed. It's not "rock-hard sci-fi." It's "medium-hard sci-fi." The background world building was pretty good from a hard SF point of view. Fusion rockets are possible and the high performance ones in the series are at the edge of physical plausibility but possible. Some of the details, like spinning up asteroids, don't work, but the basic physics of humanity's solar system build-out is mostly sound. The rest of it g…

The issue is, and I believe the authors talk about this, is that the fusion torches they use are absolutely plausible, the problem is that theres no way those ships hold enough fuel for those trips, ripping the engines back out of plausibility again.

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#175

Post by EvanAnderson »

estetlinus wrote: post #71
ggreer wrote: post #9

Just FYI the sizes of the planets, stars, and their orbits are not to scale at all. To get an idea of how empty space is, there are 63,360 inches in a mile, and 63,239 astronomical units in a light-year. So if you scaled everything down such that Earth was 1 inch from the Sun, Neptune would be 30 inches away and Alpha Centauri would be 4 miles away. If you were using a 4k display and had the Sun and Alpha Centauri vi…

FYI we have a up to scale model of the solar system in Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System Come visit!

Traverse City, MI has one on their bike trail system: https://traversetrails.org/solar-system/

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#176

Post by wutwutwat »

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #143
speleo wrote: post #56

Hi 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…

Claude?

I had claude shit out a site that tracked the recent moon flyby mission and the visual feel of that site is very much like this one, and my first thought when the page loaded was this was an ai project.

Sadly we live in a world where software engineer "stolen valor" now exists, where someone with no or little actual engineering ability will use ai to shit out something and then claim they made it themselves.

Not 100% certain that's happening here, but it can't be a coincidence that this site looks so much like a site I had AI create tracking other things in space, imo

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#178

Post by ceheaaf »

hgoel wrote: post #166
ceheaaf wrote: post #125

For anyone who enjoys this, exploration in "Elite: Dangerous" (for which you need to be neither elite nor dangerous, exploration is peaceful) might be enjoyable for you as well. From the wiki: Elite Dangerous has a 1:1 scale simulation of the Milky Way galaxy based on real-life scientific principles, scientific data and theories. It includes around 400 billion star systems, modeled on actual galactic charts. Planets…

It's been a long time since I played, but I don't recall the motion of the planets mattering much. Supercruise lets you move fast enough that planets and moons that move enough to be noticeable are very easy to get to regardless.

It watching the starscape change around me as I jumped from system to system, actually seeing formations and nebulae in the distance and being able to move toward, around, into them, which made it feel alive to me. I agree the planets moving doesn't really matter on a gameplay timescale.

I was completely immersed - it was a good way to spend a few days during lockdowns :)

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#179

Post by teekert »

speleo wrote: post #56

Hi 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…

Very cool! With a few additions (and with part 5 a lot perhaps) you can also have one for the Bobbiverse! (I recognize some names)

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#180

Post by ForOldHack »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #22
ggreer wrote: post #9

Just FYI the sizes of the planets, stars, and their orbits are not to scale at all. To get an idea of how empty space is, there are 63,360 inches in a mile, and 63,239 astronomical units in a light-year. So if you scaled everything down such that Earth was 1 inch from the Sun, Neptune would be 30 inches away and Alpha Centauri would be 4 miles away. If you were using a 4k display and had the Sun and Alpha Centauri vi…

Mercury is orbiting partially inside the Sun, and Jupiter is nearly as wide as the Sun when it should be 1/10 as much, so the planet nodes should be scaled down 10x relative to the Sun. Also, I did a top-down pixel measurement, where I could see the distance to Tau Ceti as well as the orbit of Neptune. The radius of Neptune's orbit was 32px, while the distance to Tau Ceti was 1152px, for a ratio of 36, when in realit…

Thanks: All your math checks out.
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