Orbiter
by Jeff
Image text: Normally, the Shuttle can't quite safely reach the orbital inclination required to pass over both those points from a Canaveral launch, but this is an alternate history in which either it launches from Vandenburg or everyone hates the Outer Banks.
This comic is about disputed territories, orbiting satellites and latitude and longitude.
There is not enough pixels in the world to go over the Palestinan/Israeli conflict over land in the Middle East. Needless to say as in this comic, both groups lay claim to the same area of land and have been fighting over it for years with no end in sight.
The Texas - Oklahoma disputes pale in comparison, but that is where the joke lies in the comic. Texas and Oklahoma have been disputing their border for years as well before it was finally settled around 10 years ago.
Cueball probably should have just settled for latitude and longitude instead of trying to define where the shuttle was over. How about just "Earth"?
Vandenburg is a reference to the Vandenburg Air Force Base which has space launch capabilities and is in Santa Barbara, California.
I'm not sure why everyone would hate the Outer Banks? The only connection I know of is that you can see the shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida in the Outer Banks as the shuttle moves swiftly up the East Coast and into orbit.
Exoplanets
by Jeff
Image text: I'm just worried that we'll all leave and you won't get to come along!
In this comic, our friend Beret run to wake up Cueball with his potentially middle of the night revelation that Humankind is discovering "Exoplanets" or planets that exist outside of our solar system. The indication is that these planets are habitable enough for humans, even if just for a visit.
Then Beret takes it a bit further thinking that one of the countries on Earth could restart Project Orion. As Beret suggests, Project Orion was an early study that pushed for nuclear powered rockets for space travel. However, the one major downside of Project Orion was the fallout zone that the nuclear launch would present on Earth. But a nuclear launch in space on an asteroid or space station would not present those same problems. Then Beret references Stargate:Atlantis when he mentions "City-Ships" as the city-ship Atlantis was the basis for the show. The city-ships on Stargate:Atlantis are about the size of Manhattan.
So, to sum up the comic. Beret is very excited that we can see (with the Hubble telescope and other earth-bound telescopes) and find exoplanets. Then with some advances in space technology we can create nuclear propulsion in space to reach these planets. Have to admit, it is very exciting.
And Cueball would just rather snooze.
Southern Half
by Jeff
Image text: Also, if you read his speech at Rice, all his arguments for going to the moon work equally well as arguments for blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars.
Not much to explain here.
The Flake Equation
by Jeff
Image text: Statistics suggest that there should be tons of alien encounter stories, and in practice there are tons of alien encounter stories. This is known as Fermi's Lack-of-a-Paradox.
This obviously is a made-up equation for the comic which is a spin off or reference to the Drake Equation which was previously referenced in this xkcd comic as well. The Drake Equation is an equation devised to calculate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy.
Here's the variable names:
WP = World Population
CR = Crazy
MI = Misinterpreted
TK = Tell _?
F0 = Immediate friends
F1 = Next level friends
DT = Details
AU = Audience
Fermi's Paradox is the contradiction between the high estimation of extraterrestrial life in the universe outside of earth and the lack of hard evidence of such life. As you can see, the image text represents the lack of a paradox because the assumption and the actual facts are exactly the same.
GeoIP
by Jeff
Image text: 'Meet hot young singles in your mom's basement today'? Man, screw you, GeoIP.
GeoIP does exactly what it sounds like it does, which is get your location based on your IP address, mostly to show trashy advertisments with your location thrown in at random. I'm not sure who those ads are fooling, but I'm sure it is someone.
Anyhow, the characters in the comic are in "low-earth orbit" in the International Space Station. So, the joke is, that is where GeoIP would pinpoint them in low-earth orbit instead of a city or state location.
The joke in the image text is a riff on the famous "blogger's live in their mother's basement" joke. Which, in the image text is apparently true, but because the "writer" of the image text is pissed that GeoIP got his location correct down to the fact that he lived in the basement. And of course, it is entirely untrue that blogger's live in their mother's basement!
But, now I smell some eggs and bacon coming from the kitchen upstairs! Gotta go!
Tensile vs. Shear Strength
by Jeff
Image text: Although really, the damage was done when the party planners took the hole punch to the elevator ribbon to hang up the sign.
The Space Elevator is an idea about how to quickly move ships, people and supplies into orbit without the
The Tower of Babel was an ancient building built so that it would be a testament to man's ability and would go so high, it would have its top among the heavens. This is why the comic is referencing a "modern Babel" because the space elevator would have its top among the stars.
Tensile Strength is the maximum load that a material can support without fracture when being stretched.
Shear strength is the maximum shear stress which a material can withstand without rupture. The comic is making a pun on this because the Black Hat character is using "shears" or scissors to cut the elevator ribbon.
This comic is also referencing how at a Grand Opening, there is a "ribbon cutting ceremony". In the comic, there is a "ribbon cutting ceremony", however, the ribbon that is cut is not the ceremonial ribbon, but the space elevator ribbon.
Spirit
by Jeff
Image text: On January 26th, 2213 days into its mission, NASA declared Spirit a 'stationary research station', expected to operational for several more months until the dust buildup on its solar panels forces a final shutdown.
The title of the comic is a pun on the word "Spirit" because the name of the Rover is Spirit and in the comic, the rover is showing almost unwavering spirit as it goes about its mission for six years.
Gravity Wells
by Jeff
Image text: This doesn't take into account the energy imparted by orbital motion (or gravity assists or the Oberth effect), all of which can make it easier to reach outer planets.
This is awesomely epic. Click the image to see the full image in detail.
Sagan-Man
by Jeff
Image text: They laugh now, but within 10 years the city's entire criminal class will have quit to work on space research.
Carl Sagan is an advocate for science, space and SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). He wrote the book, Contact, which was later made into the movie by the same name.
This comic is parodying Spiderman, in which Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider to become Spiderman. In this comic a radioactive Carl Sagan turns the person into "Sagan-Man".
The Search
by Jeff
Image text: I am so excited about the Kepler mission. This is the second most important thing our species has ever done, right behind inventing the concept of delivery pizza.
The Kepler mission is a NASA-led research mission in which a telescope was launched into orbit around the sun. The focus of the telescope is to find other "Earth-like" planets that could sustain life.
The comic is saying that our search for life is as futile as the ants searching a dozen floor tiles in someone's kitchen. If those ants were in my kitchen, they wouldn't have to go far before finding my sentient life and feeling the wrath of my spray can of RAID.
Additionally, the Kepler Nasa site looks like it is from 1996.