Starship Asterisk*

Not to scare the crap out of everyone but some life forms seem very capable to survival. We're talking about extreme heating from reentry, and turning things into blobs of plasma. "You wouldn't really die of anything, in the traditional sense. You would just stop being biology and start being ...

Did you notice the shaded side of the fence posts on the left side of the scene show the sun at your back and to the left while the fence posts on the right side of the scene show the sun at your back and to the right!! As would be expected. All shadows will appear to converge at an invisible point...

I thought this was a repeat of last year's black hole merger, but it is slightly different.
For comparison:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap151020.html
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=35274

I think it is quite fair to say the *option* to hover is quite desirable, since it allows you to correct for quite a lot of undesirable situations. (Low velocity at any altitude becomes survivable) Needing to use it, however would not be good, but that's how safety margin works and at least it doesn...

If the engine were able to throttle down to get anywhere near "just counteract gravity", then the landing would be MUCH easier, since the rocket could hover until it got things right (or ran out of fuel). Instead what happens is the rocket comes screaming down at a high speed, and the engi...

Since there is some confusion on the first page about tidal forces dragging in vs pushing out: You have a moon in orbit, and a planet below rotating. In a lower orbit the moon will travel around the planet faster, and in a higher orbit the moon will travel around the planet slower. In the middle, yo...

What I found rather interesting were the stages that the smaller black hole went through in it's death spiral. At a couple points it seemed to temporarily split into two separate black holes. Trying to mind experiment this but I am falling short of the manifestation of a third gravity well. :shock:...