Ah, the lithobraking landing strategy (colliding with rock).
Every time I draw the exosuits I have to continually remind myself to make them chunkier. Despite this, compared to modern EVA suits, these are positively svelte. There's a neck!
Transcript
The vehicle procession drives deeper into the junkyard, away from the launch loop berm.
Dominic: So the slag field is just... Stuff dropped right off the skyhook? Into the ground?
Talita: Yeah. Only salvageables and expensive junk gets a ride on the launch loop.
Inset panel: Slag is shown being flung directly off the skyhook into the ground. Salvageables are shown being dropped off gently onto the launch loop rails.
Dominic: Is that safe?
Phoebe: Cheapest way to deorbit junk.
Clayton: The cheapest way to deorbit junk is to keep it in orbit. Where DID this piddly operation get the cash for a launch loop?
Talita: Oh, this used to be a Tiiliitian mining operation.
35 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 87”
Truther
Damm, love the fact that Talita has to half-loaf in a vehicle. This chapter really shows how giant she is
Claire
How common are rotating skyhooks? I know the idea of them scares the crap out of me… There must be people in this setting who are too, a la fear of airplane rides.
JoB
Airport 1975: “We have lost the cockpit crew!!”
Skyhook 2335: “What engines would a pilot work with in the first place?”
( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071110/ )
Origamigryphon
I hope Phoebe’s ears aren’t too squished in that helmet, they seem comfortable enough
0xabad1dea
Do passengers go in and out of Dirtball with the launch loop, or is it as violently opposed to biological life as it looks?
(Do passenger ships just ascend and descend vertically in the usual sci-fi manner?)
Jay Eaton
Yeah it’s for passenger boats too. The loop is just a big tall monorail, it’s a much smoother ride than a vertical launch.
Ruby
Riding that must be the thrill of a lifetime for rollercoaster fans
Gar G
“Cheapest way to deorbit junk.”
Well they’re not wrong X’D
un_pogaz
I was looking for the relief we saw on the previous page, and then I noticed that it’s barely visible on the left.
Jesus Christ! It’s huge. Like fucking HUGE. I think it would be closer, and therefore lower, but in fact, it’s a true montain wall.
Sen
Same here. I even went to Page38 to get a different viewing angle and it still took me a while to figure out where everything is in relation. And yes it is huge.
Also props to the comic. All the train lines and vehicle tracks and stacks of material is super consistent! It is so awesome ^^
Howie
You have a real talent for blending worldbuilding into slice-of-life stuff.
Bruce Mickelson
Your detailed description of Dirtball, its facility and major operations are most interesting and highly appreciated! Thank you!
JoB
“Cheapest way to deorbit junk.”
“The cheapest way to deorbit junk is to keep it in orbit.”
The cheapest way to deorbit all-out *junk* is not to haul it into Dirtball’s orbit in the first place. Wormhole it onto a trajectory into some star if you need to get it away from where it is, rather than into Dirtball’s system.
The reason this “junk” is brought down onto the surface, and you are on your way to work on it, is that *this* “junk” obviously is still worthwhile raw materials to get smelted or whatever. Be thankful that nobody’s sending you there while the stuff’s still hot from the impact, to save some fuel for the smelt.
Darth Biomech
> Wormhole it onto a trajectory into some star
Yeah, cuz making wormholes is free. =D
JoB
I haven’t read about any *other* interesting things in Dirtball’s system yet (and it is plausible that there’s nothing but the original mine in the presence of FTL interstellar travel), so I’m assuming that the materials have to get wormholed to get there in the first place …
Comito
Is that another habitat to the right?
Jay Eaton
Nope, powerplant building.
Apollo235
Its HUUUGE!! is it just a single massive fusion reactor or something? or many smaller reactors?
Jay Eaton
Most of the structure is is for cooling. It’s one of three powerplants on the site but I’m not sure more than two are running right now, the recycling operation is much less powerhungry than the mining operation but the launch loop is an active structure requiring continuous power supply and having two active means if one melts the loop doesn’t collapse
hal9000
clayton i love u already you have joined the ranks of completely irrelevant side character blorbobs
Zuorai
Old man babygirl alert
eden
I also like how talita let adam drive just so that he can’t antagonize anyone on the way there
JoB
Is he? We have two team members yet to be accounted for (Yao and Adam), one EVA suit in the driver’s seat, and one only partly shown on the right of the penultimate panel on the passenger bench(?) …
JoB
… and I have to say that on page 86, the one (already) on the bench does *not* look like Yao …
Yay
Adam put in the timeout chair
eden
dominic the first time we saw you you had tried to unlatch your helmet while the airlock was still open what do you mean “is that safe?”
Gar G
I think he only did it because he thought it was safe to do so, ie he didn’t realize he was still in a vacuum
eden
oh? has the company been struggling? or did they run out of stuff to mine?
JoB
The latter.
https://jayeaton.site/RunawayToTheStars/Locations/Dirtball
Sen
So cool. We see more of the surroundings!
Greenjoe
Looking at that diagram, if the loads are dropped off the skyhook going anticlockwise, and the launch loop is going to the left, that looks like it’s going the wrong way? Wouldn’t that be a sudden reversal of momentum for the salvage?
Tentament
I don’t get it either, it seems like the hook would have to release the slag long before it passed over the ramp for it to impact where the picture shows.
Effyis Biblos
The hook rotates anticlockwise but *orbits* right-to-left in the diagram (hence the chunkier arrow within the arrows showing its rotation), so everything is still overall moving in the right-to-left direction. Bringing stuff down from orbit, ‘counterproductive motion’ is ofc the name of the game; you gotta slow down a lot to get from orbital speeds to stationary. Animated diagrams and more about Dirtball can be found over at https://jayeaton.site/RunawayToTheStars/Locations/Dirtball
But, the diagram on this page showing junk being flung to the right off the skyhook does sort of contradict that theory, implying the payload’s overall momentum to be rightwards. Probably artistic license? …or oversight.
JoB
If you look at the animation
https://jayeaton.site/RunawayToTheStars/Locations/SkyhookAnimation.gif
you’ll see that the bucket of the skyhook basically never zips over Dirtball’s surface noticeably slower than the (top) speed of the loop. Hence, in today’s sketch, the slag should still travel to our *left* when the skyhook releases it.
How that relates to the loop is an entirely different question. I’ll spare you my thoughts about skyhook orbit and placement of the loop to get the two aligned for non-slag deliveries, but fact is that the skyhook can aim slag at the Extinction-Level Impacts Test Site™ whether it is currently aligned with the loop or zipping by it at a 90° angle. (Actually, since the potential deviation in letting it bounce uncontrollably towards the target point is *bigger* in the direction of the bomber’s travel, a pass at a 90° angle to the loop, and thus the habitat, would be *preferable*.)
evileeyore
That momentum reversal on pick up looks rough.