3294: Asteroid Mission

Asteroid Mission

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Title text: Lander, this is Houston. There's been a request that you turn clipping back on and instead set the mass to 1kg. The theorists believe that will be pretty funny.

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Explanation

This is one of 48 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a bot with a mass of 0.000001 kg. Don't remove this notice too soon. You can help by editing the explanation!

The comic shows the scenario of an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth, and the manned space mission sent to prevent this, as as in the films Armageddon, Deep Impact and various other stories not dating from 1998. Typically, such fictional missions are sent to blow the offending objects up (or else the more realistic and practical option of ensuring that they are nudged away from the Earth-hitting course), but here they are apparently attempting to gain access to the asteroid electronically and implement a "noclip" command.

This refers to noclip mode in video games: "A cheat that allows players to pass through normally impenetrable objects – walls, ceilings, and floors – by disabling clipping." In most multiplayer games this would be considered cheating and result in a ban. In others it may disable achievements, or requires explicitly and visibly enabling cheats. Often it functions from a built-in developer console, such as in Source games such as Half-life or Portal, where it was originally made available to shortcut some aspects of gameplay testing that was left in either as an Easter Egg or just by being forgotten. In other cases, though, it requires a third-party hacked client, such as in Geometry Dash, where the noclip mod in many clients allows the player to pass through obstacles without dying. By enabling noclip on an asteroid headed for Earth, the asteroid will no longer interact with Earth, thus saving it. The only issue, however, is that the astronauts can't get to the ship if they can't push against the asteroid! This error would be trivial if they were tethered to the ship or possess personal propulsion units to use once they are no longer able to stand on the asteroid, but the mission does not seem to have enough foresight to include either of these things.

The title text suggests that rather than enabling noclip, the astronauts instead just reduce the asteroid's mass to 1 kg. If the asteroid is assumed to have a volume of about 1000 km³, this would reduce the density of the asteroid to 10^-15 g/cm³ and the energy of the asteroid to a few kJ. This relatively small amount of energy would be rapidly dissipated by friction with the outer atmosphere, and then the asteroid would float in the upper atmosphere, probably until the solar wind blew it away. During this event, the asteroid would rapidly approach the Earth, looming large in the sky, presumably terrifying much of the world's population. This would be "pretty funny".

Transcript

This is one of 32 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. You can help by, editing the transcript!

[A news reporter is standing in front of an image of a rocket.]

Reporter: The asteroid is headed for Earth, but a mission has been launched to intercept it.

[Cueball and Megan are walking off a lander with some equipment.]

[A laptop is on the ground, and Megan plugs a peripheral from the laptop to the asteroid.]

[Cueball types into the laptop.]

Console: >noclip on

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Discussion

First time I've ever gotten the first comment 128.119.202.28 17:15, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Breaking News: The XKCD Store IS BACK 144.121.25.46 17:18, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

How did I do with the transcript? Majordesmosnerd (talk) 17:35, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the "Roshe limit" part is right. Whatever mass the asteroid has. The Roshe limit depends on distance, and any asteroid will be below the Roshe limit at some point. But so what? It will still hit the Earth. Roshe limit is relevant to orbiting bodies, not impactors. Instead, reducing the mass to 1kg will also reduce the Kinetic energy of the impact. The kinetic energy would be quickly lost in friction with the outer atmosphere, and the asteroid (which would be much less dense than helium) would then float with neutral boyancy: something that would be pretty funny! I've edited - hope it makes sense.92.238.26.192 17:46, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the "Roshe limit" part is right. You're right: Roche limit . 158.173.67.243 18:10, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Wasn't that the plot of a Stargate episode? Angel (talk) 17:55, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Exactly my thinking. (Looked it up, Season 5 "Fail Safe".) Though not sure it can be linked to this comic in the Explanation, might as well mention it here.

If I'm not mistaken, the people on the asteroid would fall through it, along with the rocket, when they activated noclip, and most likely would die. SomebodyElse (talk) 18:00, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

If the asteroid retains it mass, and everything non-asteroid found itself no longer on a solid surface, then they'd fall towards the centre (the same centre, at the same rate of motion, so might be the way that the crew get back to the craft, as they converge?) and then ballistically travel to the same 'surface level' on the other side of the now-intangible mass. They'd oscillate back again, etc. As they're being noclipped (not noclipping themselves, but nothing tangible to clip with except themselves), I don't see why they'd then die just from doing this, although whether or not it'd be 'fun' to do I don't know. Might depend upon the people. - Assuming they took the opportunity to get back with their lander, I suspect they'd have enough ascent-power to get away from the asteroid, whether from when they're at its surface or starting at any other point of their 'straight through orbit', so if the mission isn't entirely designed as a one-way trip then I suspect they get back.

If the noclip also renders its mass moot (not implied, if any possible change in mass is a completely different cheat-code as suggested, but it might be a secondary effect) then they and their lander are now back on the way to Earth in the same impacting trajectory, but that's an even easier way to get back to Earth, assuming they ever had any additional means/intention of getting back to Earth safely. (Perhaps, with enough time, the masses of the lander and the expedition might draw them back together in lieu of any other traditional way of deliberately floating back together. Or they could certainly throw the equipment away from the lander to themselves get pushed back towards it as a reciprocal motion.

(And now I'm having deja vu of some 'what if'-like thing, that may not actually be xkcd at all, about how well drifting astronauts might need to do this under a similar time-constraint. And the vague recollection that that scenario was explained as unlikely to work in time. But cannot right now recall the circumstances or context of the scenario very much at all.)

Anyway, long story short, they're not going to die from the noclipping. Which is not to say that they also have a way to survive the post-mission situation and return home. 81.179.200.82 19:26, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I meant that they would be unable to return to their ship, and suffocate due to a limited supply of oxygen, or being shot into space unable to return, etc. SomebodyElse (talk) 20:25, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Also, recall gravity is the one fundamental force we don't understand SomebodyElse (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Would the noclip setting affect the ship and astronauts too? If yes, how would they get home? (Wait until asteroid flew through Earth, then turn noclip back off before leaving?) If no, they'd have quite a time getting back to the ship, not being able to push against the asteroid! 162.10.127.42 18:07, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

In contrast to the above lengthy response, if noclipping 'groups' everything and sends everything asteroid connected, then, yes, they can effectively do as with the Stargate example (except in reverse... in which they extended the ship's 'noclip' to the asteroid).

The other possibility is that every subsystem that is sufficiently mechanically attached is grouped in separate noclipping entities, in which case (with mass still applying) loose boulders on the surface may fall through the 'asteroid mass' (and lander/expedition members), but not interact with anything else falling through, like a lot of point-masses that never actually accumulate together. Could be some weird activity as N-body issues eject some of these entities entirely with extra gravitational energy gained from others that 'orbit' much lower than they started to 'orbit'. Might be a tricky situation that cannot be ever 'de-noclipped' to leave the astronauts neither deep within the asteroid or floating way out in space (nowhere near the lander that they also need to have 'reclipped', at least w.r.t. them). And this is probably the most chaotic and least helpful way to have implemented this 'cheat', and yet still wish to survive the mission.

The comic doesn't really show which scenario it is, though. Apart from getting the updated suggestion in the title text, we don't see the aftermath. But we don't see anyone disappearing into the now intangible asteroid, so feasibly they are at least 'mutually tangible' with it. 81.179.200.82 19:38, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

My first thought on reading this one was IDSPISPOPD :D 2a02:a468:b8cb:0:d4b3:6f10:eed6:5307 (talk) 18:16, 4 September 2026 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

First comment I've seen with an IPv8 address!SomebodyElse (talk) 21:03, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Please don't tell my ISP, I'm not supposed to use it outside Local Area Networks ;) 2A02:A468:B8CB:0:D4B3:6F10:EED6:5307 01:24, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

'sv_cheats 1' ahh solution Black Hat's Hat (talk) 20:06, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I like this comic! Got a feel like the 1300 era of XKCD. Yippee Radish ^{[citation needed]} 20:19, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Do we know if a particular launch vehicle is depicted in panel 1? It looks a bit like SLS, Ariane 6 or LVM3 (formerly GSLV Mk III), (though something is a bit off with each option). Does anyone have any other candidate for which rocket it could be? --Anmhuirmhaorga (talk) 20:45, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Randall rather likes the "two-booster" rocket-stack design, but I've never been able to tie it down to any particular IRL example, maybe the best bet would be to closely peruse the chine/external-runner and matching it to something in actual use.

The top looks like an Apollo/Orion style of capsule, presumably the lander we later (which has a Blue Moon-like 'lower crew compartment' base, though a more novel upper structure) was contained in the fairing behind the capsule (which has no obvious escape-tower) just like the LEM was in the respective Saturn V stacks. Though whether that means that there's a Command And Service Module (or Orion+'cargo trunk') floating out there in near-asteroid-orbit is another question.

Anyway, this maybe leaves the rest as a 2-stage(+boosters) design to reach orbit, if we can trust the lines/lack of lines in the drawing as depicting the component elements of the whole stack, unless it's only the way to get to the crew to the orbital site of the construction/accumulation of hardware then destined to do the full Deep Impact/Armageddon trip onward.

So very much a bit of a mish-mash, I think. And probably intentionally so. 81.179.200.82 21:36, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I think that no-clipping yourself is a bad idea. It would create a perfect vacuum where you were. what if? 2 shows that that will collapse, and possibly turn briefly to plasma in the center. If you can see while no-clipping, then energy still interacts with you, and plasma has a lot of energy. All that energy is being dumped into your abdomen. Xkdvd (talk) 21:24, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I think we’re missing something here. If energy is held constant, then wouldn’t velocity increase as mass reduces? Given the speed of astronomical objects, would we be approaching relativistic territory here if that were the case? 76.216.164.118

I think I just got the same comic in a row twice with the Random Comic button. What are the chances of that happening? Xkdvd (talk) 02:35, 5 September 2026 (UTC)
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