it’s not what you think. she was just showing her what… not to do.
Posts tagged rocket science
sugar rocket
yes, you can make a rocket with nothing more than table sugar and fertiliser. makes sense if you think about it. sugar has a lot of energy, and potassium nitrate has oxygen, which are the main two ingredients you need for a big boom.
if you want to try this at home, maybe consider looking up some more detailed instructions online. don’t get your pyrotechnical advice from a comic strip, kids.
the rocket equation
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.
orbit
despite what some hollywood movies where rockets fly up and miraculously start floating around tell you, almost all spaceships and satellites that stay in space are in an orbit. if you’re not orbiting a planet/moon/star you’re probably either flying away from it, or about to crash into it.
another way to think of this is spaceships don’t experience “zero gravity”, but “zero g-force”. right now you are experiencing 1g of g-force, because gravity is pushing you into the ground. if you jumped into the air you would feel 0g of g-force… until you hit the ground.
a spaceship in orbit never hits the ground, so it constantly experiences 0g. essentially it is falling… forever.
rocket fuel
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
rocket science is easy. rocket engineering is hard.
space agency headquarters
(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
teacher’s pet
gotta cover all the important stuff first.
assistant
poor yuri. too loyal for her own good. lucky she has some impressive english vocabulary and upper body strength for a bunny.
funny story: when i drew this comic i looked up reference images for cordless drills, and i’m still getting stupid cordless drill ads months later. seriously google, please leave me alone.
have you seen my rocket?
if only sedna had powered the rocket with whatever anti-gravity magic is in her ponytail, then she wouldn’t have had any problems.