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Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

valhovey.github.io

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Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#201

Post by simgt »

redbluething wrote: post #151
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…

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.

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#202

Post by wiredfool »

zem wrote: post #124
joemi wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I'd say it's the OG way. Both HJKL and numpad predate WASD, I think.

I remember lots of old bbc games using zx;/ by default. in retrospect it was interesting how they defaulted to one hand for left/right and the other for up/down

Apple 2 was often az/,. .

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#204

Post by rob74 »

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…

Cool! One question: what do the planes represent? I thought it was the galactic plane and planes parallel to it, but then I saw that the "band" of the galaxy is (almost?) perpendicular to it, which doesn't fit somehow?

EDIT: TIL that the ecliptic plane of the Solar System is at an 60.2° angle to the galactic plane (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_plane#/media/File:Mot...) - until now I somehow assumed that they were more or less parallel and never questioned that assumption. So it looks like the "main" plane is the ecliptic plane (which is of course very anthropocentric, after all the ecliptic plane doesn't really matter anymore once you leave the Solar System? But I guess that was they way it was shown in the movie?). Would be interesting to be able to switch to showing the galactic plane instead...

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#205

Post by titanomachy »

rdtsc wrote: post #6

I can also recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FT-oz9aZU4 Time Dilation Visualized (by The Overview Effekt). It talks about the distances and times involved and how time compression and astrophage infection rates work out. As a fan of the book and the movie it was nice to see the actual 3D star chart of everything. (warning: there may be spoilers there)

The time dilation aspect of it is cool, but doesn’t discuss how far we are from a propulsion system that could credibly pull this off. Even if we solved fusion it wouldn’t get us remotely close. Maybe if you could somehow produce 50 tonnes of antimatter you could do it. But we have no idea how to produce antimatter efficiently or at scale, and even if we could do it with 100% efficiency, it would take many years of humanity’s current energy budget just to make the antimatter fuel for a single manned trip.

To me it seems like we’d need new physics (not just new technology) to have any chance of pulling this stuff off.

The book dodges these inconvenient numbers with a bit of a deus ex machina plot device that I won’t spoil here :)

Re: Project Hail Mary – Stellar Navigation Chart

#206

Post by ahonhn »

zem wrote: post #124
joemi wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I'd say it's the OG way. Both HJKL and numpad predate WASD, I think.

I remember lots of old bbc games using zx;/ by default. in retrospect it was interesting how they defaulted to one hand for left/right and the other for up/down

Decades later I still have better muscle memory for the Beeb's typical ZX*? ( and ELITE's SX ) than I do for WASD or arrow keys.
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