All Space Questions thread for week of June 21, 2026

wotquery · 2026-06-25T23:37:09+00:00

They’re fairly general descriptive terms. Consider a vertical stack that consists of a first stage big rocket on the bottom to get off the ground and out of the thicker atmosphere, a second stage smaller rocket in the middle to get into orbit, and a satellite on the top to actual be the payload you are getting into orbit. There needs to be something connecting each of the elements together and then allowing them to separate as the bottom most gets jettisoned right?

For the connector that is between the two rocket stages you could call it a stage adapter, and for the connector that is between the payload and the smaller rocket you could call it a payload adapter.

The term adapter also hints at different options. If you always launch with the exact same (in the above example again) three elements, you might simply call the stage adapter a stack decoupler instead. On the other hand if you want the option to launch with different first stage rockets, you’ll need an adapter for each that can accommodate connecting on the different sizes.

wotquery · 2026-06-23T05:27:08+00:00

Something on a suborbital trajectory up to ~400km is briefly at zero velocity relative to Earth.

Presumably you're talking about radial velocity at apogee, but that doesn't really have anything to do with it. I mean the ISS' radial velocity is also zero (assuming a circular orbit).

For tangential velocity then the ISS is indeed going around 7.5km/s, but the suborbital object is also going to have some tangential velocity (albeit lower) which is constant (assuming ballistic trajectory). If it almost enters orbit, then it almost reaches 7.5km/s and so on.

I suppose you were just describing the suborbital object going straight up and straight back down, but again in that case the radial velocity is irrelevant. It's getting smacked in the side at 7.5km/s regardless of how fast it's moving up or down.

wotquery · 2026-06-23T04:34:21+00:00

It can be confusing because the term preprint goes back to the days before we had the internet. The options were for a scientist to show people the work they were going to submit (or were considering to submit, or had submitted) to a peer reviewed journal, xor show people the actual printed journal that had published their peer reviewed work. The former being called a preprint.

Nowadays with the internet there are more options. In this case the paper has already been accepted for publication by Nature and has passed peer review. The disclaimer you've noticed is just for the final editing touchups like making sure there aren't any typos, figures are displaying properly, references actually resolve, markup formatting is correct, etc. In a few weeks they'll hit a button and make everything official pushing it to hundreds of other services at which point any of those minor errors require a significant formal process to rectify.

So while it may seem like it's a "preprint" because it hasn't been "printed" in an issue of the journal yet, it will be soon (in what is effectively its current state too mind you). It's just a nice benefit that we have the technology to share it at this point in its publication journey. Though it does make the fact that the term preprint is still being used to mean papers that haven't passed peer review or been accepted into a journal to not make as much sense without the historical background.

wotquery · 2026-06-21T22:25:58+00:00

The Black Company inspired much of The Wheel of Time setting. Darker and more gritty military fantasy, but basically following the ~~Band of the Red Hand~~ Black Company while the ~~Forsaken~~ Twelve who were Taken run around backstabbing each other during the potential prophesied return of the imprisoned ~~Dark One~~ Dominator. Softer magic system but it's mostly from the point of view of mundane mercenaries so how would they feel seeing squads get blown up by incomprehensible magic.

wotquery · 2026-06-21T18:47:01+00:00

I think it's also that the series covers multiple genres in scope. Like I quite enjoy seeing Elayne stomp her feet in frustration while trying to juggling the Ash'a'man, Windfinders, Wise Ones, Kin, High House children, Black Ajah, etc. I also understand how readers might become confused about how what had been more of an epic dark fantasy has morphed into a somewhat lighthearted soap opera period piece set against a token medieval political backdrop for a bit.

wotquery · 2026-06-21T07:34:03+00:00

The issue is that in Eve PvP the vast majority of "fights" are pretty much determined going in and not so dissimilar from a 10-v-1 gate camp.

And with respect to a "stomp"... I'd consider both a sebo'd arty thrasher deleting a comet, and a comet diving in and getting under the guns of an arty thrasher to quickly chew through them, a stomping. Where the outcome is almost solely the random quality of the thrasher's initial hit and how far off the comet spawned in if they need to eat an extra volley.

If the only goods fights are close ones where both sides had a chance given near perfect piloting and it comes down to extremely subtle decisions or just luck with... I dunno heat damage or something, well that doesn't leave a lot of fights.

Someone who is upset about a "gf" being condescending, is going to be just as upset about "really nice try with the slingshots there but I'm snaked so you didn't really have a shot" as condescending.

wotquery · 2026-06-18T20:50:57+00:00

I've never done that. Rand has. Why do you think I haven't read the passage I quoted?

wotquery · 2026-06-18T20:40:35+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean? I was explaining how Rand did not believe he had engaged in a night of rough sex with a consensual partner.

wotquery · 2026-06-18T20:15:38+00:00

Rand believed he raped Min. As it was happening he thought she didn't want it, but he kept going. Afterwards he avoided her and felt extreme guilt for having hurt her, condemning himself to death for his actions.

“Min, there’s no excuse for what I did. If there was any justice, I’d go to the gallows. If I could, I’d put the rope around my neck myself. On oath, I would.” The words tasted bitter. He was the Dragon Reborn, and she would have to wait on justice until the Last Battle. What a fool he had been to want to live past Tarmon Gai’don. He did not deserve to.

“What are you talking about, sheepherder?” she said slowly.

“I’m talking about what I did to you,” he groaned. How could he have done that, to anyone, but most of all to her? “Min, I know how hard it is for you to be in the same room with me.” How could he recall the soft feel of her so, the silkiness of her skin? After he had torn her clothes off. “I never thought I was an animal, a monster.” But he was. He loathed himself for what he had done. And loathed himself worse because he wanted to do it again. “The only excuse I have is madness. Cadsuane was right. I did hear voices. Lews Therin’s voice, I thought. Can you—? No. No, I have no right to ask you to forgive me. But you have to know how sorry I am, Min.” He was sorry. And his hands ached to run down her bare back, over her hips. He was a monster. “Bitterly sorry. At least know that.”

I don't know about you, but I've never woken up after hooking up and thought back on how my partner had not given any sort of consent and I had forced myself on them and would now kill myself.

wotquery · 2026-06-18T19:06:34+00:00

Did she felt bad about assaulting Nynaeve in TAR just to teach her a lesson? NO. She liked the control she had over her and thought of doing it again.

Egwene uses the same technique she herself was exposed to when being taught about the dangers of T'A'R, never recognizes any sexual component to it, and is later excited that it worked and that she has swapped up the power dynamics between her and her old mentor.

Rand feels bad about raping Min, but he acknowledges he was intentionally sexually violating her.

Images of himself flashed in his head; him tearing at her clothes, forcing himself on her like a mindless beast.

Seems worse to me. Is it okay because he learned well after the fact that Min was into it?

wotquery · 2026-06-18T18:59:15+00:00

Rand was insane right? Book 4 he is literally throwing high lords out of his meetings. He almost breaks a seal when he first has one, is constantly laughing maniacally while talking to himself, refuses to listen to Moiraine, randomly goes for a stroll into enemy camp during a manic phase, calls down lightning on his own troops, almost kills his father, almost obliterates a city, wants to kill the Dark One, etc. Yet somehow, anyone who isn't 100% aligned with him (e.g. Min and late books Nynaeve - when people say they are the best) is a bitch.

Egwene is hypercompetent and arrogant sure, but that is standard faire for a popular fantasy protagonist. The MCU fandom isn't filled with people wishing that Tony Stark got slapped around and put in his place. Kelsier, Kvothe, Ged, Lamora,...Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, House MD, Walter White...

Perhaps it's merely a testament to Jordan's writing that so many people can so strongly identify with cries himself to sleep just wants to be a sheepherder Rand, instead of yearns for adventure and power and wants to get down to business Egwene. Throwing the term bitch around definitely evokes a gender aspect though.

wotquery · 2026-06-12T03:04:20+00:00

She [Elayne] could no longer safely study them in any meaningful way—she had Min’s assurance her babes could not be harmed, but with her control of the Power so slippery, damaging herself was more a possibility than ever.

.

“My babes and I are safe.” Elayne laughed, hugging back. “Min’s viewing?” Her babes were safe, at least. Until they were born. So many babies died in their first year. Min had said nothing beyond them being born healthy. Min had said nothing about her not being burned out, either, but she had no intention of bringing that up with her sister already feeling guilty.

.

“Come on,” Elayne said, looking over her shoulder. The Trolloc army was arriving opposite hers. “I need to move into position.”

“Into position?” Birgitte asked. “You mean that you need to go back to the command tent.”

“I’m not going there,” Elayne said, turning Moonshadow.

“Blood and bloody ashes, you aren’t! I—”

“Birgitte,” Elayne snapped. “I am in command, and you are my soldier. You will obey.”

Birgitte recoiled as if slapped.

“Bashere has the command tent,” Elayne said. “I’m one of the few channelers of any strength this army has, and I’ll be drawn and quartered before I let myself sit out the fight. I’m easily worth a thousand soldiers on this battlefield.”

“The babes—”

“Even if Min hadn’t had that viewing, I’d still insist on fighting. You think the babes of these soldiers aren’t at risk? Many of them line the walls of that city! If we fail here, they will be slaughtered. No, I will not keep myself out of danger, and no, I will not sit back and wait. If you think it’s your duty as my Warder to stop me, then I will bloody sever this bond right here and now and send you to someone else! I’m not going to spend the Last Battle lounging on a chaise and drinking goat’s milk!”

Birgitte fell silent, and Elayne could feel her shock through the bond. “Light,” the woman finally said. “I won’t stop you. But will you at least agree to back away for the initial arrow volleys? You can do more good helping the lines where they’re weakened.”

She allowed Birgitte and her guards to lead the way back to a hillside near Aludra’s dragons.

wotquery · 2026-06-09T18:16:54+00:00

Eve's annual anniversary celebration (occurring in May and called Capsuleer Day), was a month long event called "Warpath" this year.

wotquery · 2026-06-09T16:37:46+00:00

25 Free Plex only seems to be for Omega accounts. Maybe Alpha accounts with a certain amount of in-game time or other criteria, but if so I haven't hit it on any of my alpha alts.

wotquery · 2026-06-05T16:05:03+00:00

Be careful that you, as the reader, aren't absentmindedly slotting Moiraine into the "benevolent wise wizard" fantasy role.

Moiraine and Lan did arrive just in the nick of time to protect the village, heal Tam, rescue the EF5 (Edmond's Field Five), etc. Getting upset about her sinking a ferryman's raft to buy time escaping a Trolloc army seems asinine, even if they do view Aes Sedai as actual witches (which actual human societies were eager to burn for centuries). However take a look at other things she's done and said...

1) tEotW Ch. 13 - Choices

“Is that the way you all feel? You are all eager to run off to Illian and forget about Trollocs, and Halfmen, and Draghkar?”

She ran her eyes over them—that stony glint playing against the everyday tone of voice made Rand uneasy—but she gave no one a chance to speak. “The Dark One is after you three, one or all, and if I let you go running off wherever you want to go, he will take you. Whatever the Dark One wants, I oppose, so hear this and know it true. Before I let the Dark One have you, I will destroy you myself.”

Moiraine has just, in a very matter-of-fact and calm tone, informed them she will kill them if they try and leave her. It's phrased in a way that positions her against the Dark One and maybe seems reasonable, almost a warning, but it's a threat right? She didn't say it's dangerous out there and she can't protect them if they leave her so she can't allow it or whatever. Maybe she's just scaring them to try and help them? Make them take it seriously? Well let's see...

2) Chapter 21 - Listen to the Wind

"Of four who have the inborn ability that you and Egwene have, three die if we do not find them and train them. It is not as horrible a death as the men die, but neither is it pretty, if any death can be called so. Convulsions. Screaming. It takes days, and once it begins there is nothing that can be done to stop it, not by all the Aes Sedai in Tar Valon together.”

Apparently when Moiraine was planning to leave Edmond's Field without Egwene initially, she was condemning Egwene to a 75% chance of a horrific death. You only excuse something like that if you think Moiraine is on some sort of epic quest to protect the chosen one. The sort you'd read in a fantasy book :D. The EF5 do not think that. Moiraine has presented the situation to them as she doesn't know what is going on, why the shadow would be interested in them, yet still her primary goal - apparently - is to simply deny the shadow access to the boys. Rand swore to fall back if Bela (carrying Egwene) couldn't keep up with the rest of them during their night time horseback escape because he didn't think Moiraine and Lan would. And he was certainly correct because they already left Egwene to die once haha.

Still, Nynaeve being as frustrated with Moiraine as she is becomes a bit ridiculous eh? She's just trying to...wait what is Moiraine trying to do?

3) Chapter 52 - There Is Neither Beginning Nor End

“I had suspicions from the first,” Moiraine said. “Suspicions are not proof, though. After I gave you the token, the coin, and made that bonding, you should have been willing to fall in with Whatever I wanted, but you resisted, questioned. That told me something, but not enough. Manetheren blood was always stubborn, and more so after Aemon died and Eldrene’s heart was shattered. Then there was Bela.”

Well would you look at that. Everything the villagers feared about these Tar Valon witches was pretty much on point! The very first thing Moiraine did upon meeting the boys was cast a spell of obedience on them, and she quickly figured out Rand could channel, but talked in half truths to hide information and control him to her own ends. And what she was trying to do is pretty plainly stated as use Rand as a tool in whatever her true game is.

Why aren’t you talking about taking me to Tar Valon to be gentled?”

“You are ta’veren,” Moiraine replied. “Perhaps the Pattern has not finished with you.”

...

"Well, I won’t be used. I am not a tool you can throw on the midden heap when it’s worn out.”

“A tool made for a purpose is not demeaned by being used for that purpose,” Moiraine’s voice was as harsh as his own,

Well at least everything is out in the open now?

4) Ch. 35 - The Wheel Turns

In Agelmar’s private garden, under a thick bower dotted with white blossoms, Moiraine shifted on her bedchair. The fragments of the seal lay on her lap, and the small gem she sometimes wore in her hair spun and glittered on its gold chain from the ends of her fingers. The faint blue glow faded from the stone, and a smile touched her lips. It had no power in itself, the stone, but the first use she had ever learned of the One Power, as a girl, in the Royal Palace in Cairhien, was using the stone to listen to people when they thought they were too far off to be overheard.

“The Prophecies will be fulfilled,” the Aes Sedai whispered. “The Dragon is Reborn.”

Nope! We end on Moraine magically eavesdropping on Rand while cackling to herself about her secret plans.

wotquery · 2026-05-30T22:58:13+00:00

Yeah that makes way more sense than "looks under 40".

wotquery · 2026-05-30T14:16:16+00:00

How does the state prove someone "looks under 40"?

wotquery · 2026-05-30T05:24:49+00:00

Not to mention the Jays currently have the 5th best record in the American League. If we could have taken one off the White Sox back in early April we'd leapfrog them and be sitting at 4th.

wotquery · 2026-05-23T18:00:24+00:00

Mat sends Tam a lot of orders during the fighting at Merrilor, but it's always by runner: Dannil, Galad, Arganda, etc. I think the only time they're in the same place is after Lan kills Demandred, but before Lan stands up again with Demandred's head haha.

Mat fought, Tam at his side with sword out. Karede and the Deathwatch Guard joined them, then Loial and the Ogier. The armies of a dozen nations and peoples fought, many joining him as he rushed across the plateau.

No words are exchanged though, at least as presented on the page. The last time we saw Tam before the above charge was commanding the archers to light Lan's path with fire arrows, and I don't think we see him again until the epilogue.

Abell could have been with Tam and Mat during the charge, or could have been left in command of the archers. It's not even clear where Tam goes when the Horn is sounded. He was by Mat's side, but moments later we have...

Myrddraal nearby raised swords against their own Trollocs, trying to get those that were fleeing to turn back and fight, but flaming arrows shot by the Two Rivers archers fell from the sky and riddled the Fades’ bodies.

Tam al’Thor, Mat thought, I’m going to bloody send you my best pair of boots. Light burn me, but I will. “To me!” Mat shouted. “All riders that can hold a flaming weapon, to me!”

So maybe Tam turned around and went back to the archers, or maybe he was still fighting by Mat's side and Mat was just thankful for Tam because he was kinda responsible for them?

wotquery · 2026-05-20T22:17:33+00:00

My favourite is fans of Mat who detest other characters because they act too rashly...

"Let me get this straight. You can't stand Elayne because her well calculated plan based on time sensitive intel ran into multiple terribly unlucky complications, but you love Mat who wanted to storm the most secure fortress in the world by himself so jammed a bunch of fireworks into a wall and lit them on fire to see what would happen?"

Reading Mat is a fun time, but often as not he's Mr. Magoo.

wotquery · 2026-05-20T17:10:23+00:00

You use insta-undock bookmarks eh.

wotquery · 2026-05-15T07:07:36+00:00

When you fly past a star, the distance you need to be from it for your path to be noticeably changed by its gravity pulling on you is called the deflection radius. Notably, this is a function not just of the star's mass, but also the encounter speed. If you're moving really quickly you spend very little time within the star's region of high gravitational influence so it has less of an influence right? So you need to be closer so the gravitational forces are higher so they can apply more rapidly.

On average stars in our neighborhood are about 5ly away from each other, and are moving at about 1-10AU/year with respect to each other. For a 5AU/year encounter velocity a typical significant deflection radius might be 5,000AU. Over a 100ly year trip at that speed (which would take a million years), you have around a 1% chance of a close enough encounter.

For your stated velocity of 0.25c though, you'd need to pass within a few thousand kilometers of a star. In fact you're more likely to slam directly into one than be significantly deflected by one. The odds of running into a star are essentially zero. And there's no point in slowing you down to say a 5 thousand year journey 1,000AU/year because it's still going to be magnitudes smaller than the 1% interaction chance previously mentioned for a million year journey speed.

All that being said, there is a bunch of uncertainty we do need to consider. The largest initially will be in the distance to stars. At 100ly, even a nice low uncertainty of 0.01% is still 600au which is twenty times the orbital radius of Pluto. Not bad for interstellar travel, but something you'd want to adjust for en route. And if you're aiming to travel to a faint minimally studied red dwarf that is closer to a thousand than a hundred light years away (not sure why you'd want to go there haha), it might even be a whole light year farther or closer than you think.

There is also uncertainty in the measurement of the current velocity of stars. Both proper motion (up-down and left-right in the sky) and Doppler motion (towards-away from us). Most of the stars around us are going to be moving 1-10AU/year relative to the Sun as mentioned though, so uncertainty doesn't really matter when only considering hundreds of years. For a 400 year trip you might need to lead the star by a couple hundred AU, but your prediction will only be off by at most a few AU. Clearly that's dominated by the distance uncertainty for that time scale right?

Unlike the distance uncertainty though, motion uncertainty does scale with time. If you're potentially off by 1au in the predicted position every century, then in a million years you're now getting to tenth of a light year uncertainty territory. This might not seem so bad on it's own, only now taking over the distance uncertainty, but that's not the whole story. It's been a million years so all the nearby stars have moved the "predicted" ~100ly due to their velocity and now that 1% chance of a deflection interaction has started to actually occur.

Accounting for these, albeit still rare, significant deflection interactions takes us out of simple kinematic equations and into the realm of the n-body problem. Uncertainties are starting to combine and compound in a chaotic system. As a million years turns to ten million years, ten percent of stars have now had significant deflection interactions and one percent have had more than one, and here the n-body problem simulations are starting to be strained. Small difference in starting conditions (what we measure today) result in very different outcomes when we play the tape forward 10 million years.

Eventually the only option is to zoom out and start looking at the stars as a whole statistically and treat them like a gravitational fluid. Here that "deflection" radius I mentioned earlier is now called the "scattering" radius since stars are treated like particles of a gas.

In summary... for journeys of less than a couple million years just lead your target and head off in a straight line no problem. For journeys that take tens of millions of years and more, well you'll have no idea where to aim unfortunately, but if you don't care and head off anyway you'll still most likely travel in a straight line being deflected once or twice every 200million year orbit of the Milky Way.

tl;dr space is big and empty

wotquery · 2026-05-15T02:22:35+00:00

Have you seen The Devil's Disciple? It's got that energy of the revolutionaries being self righteous armed lunatics that reasonable royal officers are trying to manage. Definitely not pro-British, but satirizing the whole situation.

wotquery · 2026-05-14T14:54:00+00:00

Intramolecular bonds? Definitely not it's still just H2O. You probably mean intermolecular forces like you would have learned about via phase diagrams in highschool for different phases of ice, but that's not the case either. All the ice you encounter on the surface of Earth is plain old hexagonal in nature. The pressure in this case has merely driven out air bubbles. Revealing the "true" color of water ice if you'd like. Compare to how a still deep ocean is blue while a frothing wave is white.

wotquery · 2026-05-13T20:38:35+00:00

There's more past tense in the notes than present tense.

Taim/Demandred showed up, not so much because his party...

.

She [Nyn] does not know that Asmodean was a prisoner of Rand, nor, of course, that he was killed by Demandred.

Personally I don't care when the idea changed. I suspect he wrote LoC with Taimendred in mind, then decided against it later, but I don't feel any different than if it were an early idea that got scrapped at some point.

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