space girl comic
that girl’s got a good family. :)
well, that’s the end of this little sedna+mum series. hope you guys enjoyed it. it’s a nice break from all the usual science geekery just to have some characters goofing around every now and then (and it’s nice not to have to do any research for once).
but for the (probably) small percentage of you who are actually here for the educational science comics, stay tuned for next week. ;)
it’s not what you think. she was just showing her what… not to do.
(click here for a high resolution version of this illustration)
another day, another illustration i probably should’ve planned ahead better instead of winging it and hoping i’d figure it all out along the way. i think it came out a bit too blue and visually noisy (but hey, it’s not the worst thing i’ve ever drawn).
as some of you may know, this is actually based on a real window on the international space station in the “cupola” module, which has by far the greatest view of any window on earth (or off earth, in this case). the actual window is a tiny bit little smaller than this one though, and probably doesn’t have as much random garbage floating around most of the time.
probably should’ve given her a teddy bear instead.
the hybrid jet/rocket spaceplane concept is being developed the british company ‘reaction engines’, a company who’ve been working on their ‘skylon’ spaceplane project for about the last 30 million years (so naturally i expect them to finish aaany day now).
the reusable two-stage rocket concept was pioneered by the american company ‘spacex’, who currently reuse the 1st stage of their ‘falcon 9’ rocket and are planning on reusing both stages on their upcoming ‘starship’ rocket. pretty much every other private space company is going this route. cuz you know, it actually works.
the ‘catch-the-rocket-in-midair’ concept sounds so insane you’d think i just made it up, but it’s actually the plan of the new zealand-based company ‘rocket lab’, who are eventually going to start catching their ‘electron’ rocket 1st stages with a helicopter. can’t wait to watch it.
of course, i could’ve also mentioned the space shuttle, but calling that “reusable” is about as generous as calling a potato chip a vegetable. “partially-somewhat-refurbishable” would be a more honest description.
the rocket equation is the reason we don’t live in the star trek universe. because a rocket has to carry all its fuel, it grows exponentially the further you want it to go.
rocket that goes up a few hundred metres? size of a water bottle.
rocket that goes into orbit? size of a dinosaur.
rocket that goes to the moon and back? size of skyscraper.
if we lived on a smaller planet with weaker gravity (like mars), space travel would be relatively easy. if we lived on a larger planet with stronger gravity (like saturn), space travel would be impossible. instead we live on earth, where space travel is only just possible, but incredibly difficult.
essentially, most rockets use liquid fuel, while most boosters strapped on the side of the rocket use solid fuel (like on the space shuttle). boosters are a cheap way of adding more “boom” to your rocket, but they’re so inefficient you probably don’t want to carry them all the way to space.
there’s also hybrid fuel (solid fuel + liquid oxygen) which i didn’t mention because not a lot of rockets use it, and 4 panels isn’t a lot of real estate. it’s sort of a compromise between the two, and its what virgin galactic use for the spaceshiptwo.
of course “liquid fuel” can mean any one of a whole bunch of very different chemicals (hydrogen, methane, kerosene, etc) but that’s a comic for another day.
rocket science is easy. rocket engineering is hard.
yay! rocket comics are back!
so for the next bunch of comics i’m going to attempt to explain rocket science in 4-panel-comic form. which should be a piece of cake, i mean it’s hardly brain surgery, right?
(click here for a high resolution version of this illustration)
finally another slice of life illustration! these are way easier than drawing dinosaurs or spaceships.
this one probably doesn’t have as nice colours or composition as some of my other illustrations, but i sure had a blast adding all the little easter eggs around sedna’s room (i wonder if any rocket nerds will notice anything… familiar about some of sedna’s rocket designs). :P
