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| Rotational Gravity |
 Title text: I don't get it. The peak acceleration for passengers was WAY lower than in the giant-waterslide-loop-the-loop incident the other cruise line fired me for. |
Explanation
Low-gravity environments can cause humans and other animals to lose muscle mass, a serious problem for people staying for extended periods on the International Space Station.
Cueball at first appears to be describing his experience operating a spaceship, creating artificial gravity by rotating the ship so as to preserve the passengers' muscle mass.
However, the caption to the panel indicates that the "ship" Cueball was operating was a cruise ship, not a spaceship. Since cruise ships that travel upon the seas and oceans of the Earth experience the same gravity that they would experience at sea level on land, there is no need for "artificial gravity" aboard a cruise ship.
Furthermore, Cueball's rotation of the ship along its longitudinal axis would involve capsizing the ship (and then righting it again). This would likely result in many people aboard drowning if not the outright sinking of the vessel. Anything on the outside of the ship that wasn't firmly attached would be lost, by the combination of drag from the water and being flung away by the centrifugal force. There's no indication of how the rotation would be created, which would be a significant undertaking given that cruise ships are generally built with some priority given to keeping them right-side-up,[citation needed] via things like concentrations of mass at the bottom of the hull. In contrast, objects in outer space do not need continuous acceleration to continue rotating because they don't have to overcome significant drag from their environment in the way that a cruise ship partially immersed in water does.
The title text references the earlier comic 2935: Ocean Loop, where Cueball made a loop-the-loop water slide like Action Park's Cannonball Loop, but for cruise ships. Such loops for people can subject riders to over 10g of acceleration. Cueball complains about being fired, and says he does not understand why, since "the peak acceleration for passengers was WAY lower than in the giant-waterslide-loop-the-loop incident the other cruise line fired me for." This is thus the second comic where Cueball has been fired by a cruise line for his hazardous actions. In the first comic he similarly complains about the decision of the cruise line in the title text.
Transcript
- [Cueball stands facing Hairbun and White Hat. Hairbun has a "steaming" symbol above her head indicating anger, and her hands are in fists, while White Hat is facepalming.]
- Cueball: I was able to produce artificial gravity by rotating the ship along its longitudinal axis, helping passengers maintain muscle mass on the long-duration voyage!
- [Caption below the panel:]
- Well, the cruise line fired me.
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