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Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

valhovey.github.io

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Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#181

Post by matt727 »

teekert wrote: post #179
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)

I've had making something like this for the Bobbiverse in the back of my mind for years. Maybe this is what finally will make me start.

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#182

Post by l1am0 »

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!

We have one in Munich as well. Quite nice walk along the river

https://www.deutsches-museum.de/museumsinsel/programm/progra...

It is old, hence Pluto is still part of it

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#184

Post by perilunar »

etoxin wrote: post #129
estetlinus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Here in Australia we have earths largest scale model of our solar system. https://www.nsw.gov.au/visiting-and-exploring-nsw/locations-...

No, the one in Sweden is bigger. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System_model#Permanent_t...

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#185

Post by stevenwoo »

ge96 wrote: post #20
stevenwoo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a question - why do you classify Long Way with PHM - because there are aliens working with humans? I don’t see any other similarities. The technology IIRC (haven’t read in years) in the Becky Chambers book is closer to Star Trek than reality, and there’s not that much of an overarching plot - which is not to say a book cannot be good without one but it’s a big difference.

True less technical and space themed so maybe not fitting just a fun easy read Oh yeah another series would be Nick Webb Constitution (Legacy Fleet), I think I got farther into that series but didn't finish it unlike Bobiverse, maybe I did finish this trilogy, I haven't read books in a while honestly. That was a good series though I remember the depiction of the space battles. Trying to be better at being in the mome…

If you like sci fi in general you might ask on /r/printsf on Reddit for recommendations based on what you like. The Libby and Hoopla app also gives recommendations based on what I have already read. I, too, completed Bobiverse but gave up after one Chambers book, YMMV.

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#186

Post by hnlmorg »

grey-area wrote: post #81
manmal wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Expanse also was (for me) the first to introduce the concept of a braking burn. Star Wars ships just stop without turning around - can’t unsee it. I think the way X-wing fighters “fly” also wouldn’t work at all, I don’t see any reaction mass coming out the sides.

Biggest thing they all still get wrong for reasons of drama is showing humans wrestling with controls and flying like a fighter pilot. Real spaceships do not and will not have humans in the control loop except to specify a destination or target.

That’s actually how the cons work in Star Trek (and many other SciFi shows too).

What officers do at the con once the ship is in motion is monitor ships systems and check for any external changes to the environment (such as other ships coming in for interception).

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#187

Post by shit_game »

taikon wrote: post #156
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…

How many 3D bodies are there? I'm curious because it renders really fast even on a relatively old mobile phone.

If I counted things correctly, 53,836.

I wanted to hook into the THREE object and explore the scene, but I wasn't able to figure out how to bring it back into scope after it's been optimized out of the js context, so instead I searched through the bundle to find where it unpacks the data and did that manually.

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#188

Post by mcmoor »

pmontra wrote: post #106
api wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even sci-fi writers that try to get this right have a hard time wrapping their heads around it. "It's called space for a reason." 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 i…

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.

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#189

Post by shikshake »

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…

I agree with your sentiment but this is not the place to complain about a movie you dislike. OP is showing off a project they made, trying to make them feel bad about liking a movie is tactless and reflects poorly on you.

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#190

Post by kelnos »

protocolture wrote: post #173
api wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, they hand-wave this away with the "Epstein Drive"[0] (a name which I suppose has not aged well), which appears to somehow run on orders of magnitude less propellent than seems realistically possible.

[0] https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Epstein_Drive

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