Runaway to the Stars: Pages 109 and 110
Added 2024-02-08 13:19:55 +0000 UTCBack on the horse. Here's a chapter insert featuring Talita explaining the ground-to-orbit technology on Dirtball. Next page is something that wasn't in the roughs I've uploaded.
Comments
i love talitas happy lil trunk curl and blushy feathers as she infodumps abt her worksite :) and the way her trunk is pointed outward in the last picture instead of curled in toward her chin! Im guessing shes so excited abt how the rail works that she forgets to be self conscious :)
AsTheJayFlies
2024-12-18 20:01:47 +0000 UTCSince no one answered you earlier, here's a basic explanation: Often in describing machines, "rotor" just means the moving parts while "stator" means the stationary parts (like the sheathe here). This rotor isn't technically rotating but it is moving in a repeated cycle, back and forth along the launch loop. If you think of the whole launch loop as a giant arch, the rotor belts are cables that run the entire length of that arch in a continuous line that loops back around at each end (in the loopy bit depicted there). Each of those cables is sliding along inside a sheathe at very high speeds but is kept from hitting the walls of that sheathe by being magnetically held in the center. Think of it like pulling a rope through a thin tube except without any friction and without anything pulling the rope (it is just moving very fast and gets turned around whenever it gets to the end of the archway). It's also a tube that loops back in on itself in a closed system, such that the cable just keeps moving back and forth along the arch until it breaks or gets shut down. That magnetic force that the moving rotor exerts on the sheathe provides structural support to the whole arch (it's what makes it possible to build such a massive structure as that arch). At any given point along the launch loop, that force is small but it is applied continuously along the entire length of the arch by each of the 35 cables depicted there (five cables per support strand).
Johannes
2024-12-09 19:12:43 +0000 UTCWhat are the rotor belts? I don't understand them, I don't know much about engineering
Lindsey Moore
2024-10-20 03:34:18 +0000 UTCTalita gleefully remarking that everything in aerospace is scary while “blushing” is just like me talking about deep sea life
marineVerdancy
2024-02-12 05:04:18 +0000 UTCI'm on the train right now imagining BART but very large, very fast, and 80km off the ground. Idrisah is right. Also I'm dying to know what the launch loop sounds like when it's idle (what frequencies the support stands hum at, whether it's audible from the personnel maglev) and when it's in use (does it bounce a little with incoming/outgoing payloads or is that too much of a waste of kinetic energy, what does the RCS sound like, are there any fun alarms or other safety features that make noise with an approaching payload or skyhook, can you tell i'm an astrophysicist who's obsessed with your style of worldbuilding & recommends this book to everyone i know, etc) anyway thanks jay great page i'm going to print it out and eat it
Icarus
2024-02-09 16:37:28 +0000 UTCMy boyfriends a Mechanical Engineer who's doing a PHD right now, and although he doesn't read your comics I always share your engineering stuff with him because he thinks it's really cool!
Speedy_Weedy
2024-02-09 00:04:37 +0000 UTCLol no, but I am friends an acquaintances with a handful and I make puppydog eyes at them when I need explanations and resources :^)
Jay Eaton
2024-02-08 23:34:20 +0000 UTCFor reference, the entire planet Earth mines around 3 billion tons of iron per year https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-metals-we-mined-in-one-visualization/
Guilherme Töws
2024-02-08 22:28:27 +0000 UTCHow big was the actual mining operation if they were collecting TRILLIONS of tons in resources? Did the mining company effectively control the entire planet? Also why don't sophonts other than bug ferrets create their own AI that functions at the level of sophonts? Does that apply to other technologies?
Erika Spooner
2024-02-08 17:30:53 +0000 UTCGotta say as a fellow aerospace engineer, I fucking love these details in this comic. Makes my engineer brain go brrrrrrrr in excitement
Addie
2024-02-08 13:52:32 +0000 UTCShe is a little too happy, but very correct about aerospace.
C.G. William
2024-02-08 13:35:49 +0000 UTC...Are you an actual aerospace engineer?
Copoc
2024-02-08 13:23:38 +0000 UTC
