1243: Snare

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Snare

Title text: It's going in A collection of satellites skewered with pins and mounted in display boxes. Not necessarily MY collection.

Explanation

This comic satirises the art of butterfly catching, which is typically done with a net on a long pole called a butterfly net. In this comic, Black Hat's contraption to catch an International Space Station (ISS) has just been discovered and is all over the news.

The giant ring from the first panel is the Tevatron, a former circular particle accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), east of Batavia, near Chicago, Illinois

Although Black Hat does not specify the exact space station he wants to catch, it is probable that he plans to catch the ISS which has a mean orbital height of 260 miles. The ISS is the only international station in space, but he also can find a station build by China. It is currently operational in space and called Tiangong-1 with a mean orbital height of 223 miles. Even if this comic occurs in the past, Mir is an unlikely target (~230 mi) or the Salyuts (~150 mi) and Skylab was too high up (~273 mi). While he could possibly catch the space stations orbiting at a lower height, the effective aperture that the space station would need to pass through to be captured would be smaller as the net would have to be held at a lower angle, unless there is a mechanism for lowering the shaft into the mantle or shortening it while being operated - or being tilted in the plane of the circle, keeping the aperture constant. The torque in holding the shaft at an angle might prevent that from being feasible though. This would greatly complicate operations. Also, it is unlikely that the ISS could survive such an impact as it would be disintegrated on impact.

The mechanics of retrieving the station is a gigantic winch in St. Louis, which refers to the 630-foot high Gateway Arch Monument. It is the tallest man-made monument in the United States. Even the rough south-north direction of this building does match to this scenario because the Fermilab is approx. 260 miles north of St. Louis.

Transcript

[Cueball is talking to Black Hat. Black Hat is using a laptop.]

Cueball: They said on the news that they found a giant ring lying in a field outside Chicago. Strung with some kind of superstrong mesh.

Black Hat: Mhm?

Cueball: Then they found a 260 mile long shaft connected to the ring, running from Chicago to St. Louis. In St. Louis they found a gigantic winch.

Black Hat: Did they.

Cueball: It sounds kind of like...

Cueball: ...a butterfly net.

Cueball: ...are you planning on catching the International Space Station?

Black Hat: I'm planning to catch an International Space Station. Not sayin' which.

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Discussion

Any HUMAN-BUILD space station must be the ISS, but maybe Black Hat knows about some alien space station he wants to catch? kshksh (talk) 14:45, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Incidentally, St. Louis is about 300 miles from Chicago, so the shaft would be 40 miles short.

It depends on how large the giant ring is. 20 mile radius would put it adjacent. Also, "outside" Chicago is flexible.

More importantly, Black Hat is such a jerk. He builds a freaking space elevator but only uses it for a particularly silly kind of evil. - Frankie (talk) 14:26, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

By the way, what is Black Hat sitting at? It looks like there is open laptop on desk, but he uses separate keyboard in a special shelf... --JakubNarebski (talk) 15:06, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

It's entirely possible that he has exactly that. My mother uses an ergonomic keyboard instead of the crappy, built-in one on the laptop. Her desk has a keyboard shelf, so that's where the ergonomic one goes. 68.231.138.149 18:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe in ergonomic keyboards, but look at what laptops have instead of keyboard. I'm usually using standard keyboard instead of built-in one and I don't believe I'm alone. Also note that as a hacker, Black Hat probably needs lots of special symbols, which may be missing or on nonstandard positions on laptop keyboard (he is hacker, isn't he?). -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not you believe in them, ergonomic keyboards exist. 76.106.251.87 14:43, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Existence of keyboards which are CALLED ergonomic is fact. The bit I don't believe in is that they really are ergonomic, that is, significantly better to write on that standard keyboards. Which is subjective. On the other hand, I don't think that ANYONE would argue that the built-in laptop keyboards are better to write on that standard keyboards. -- Hkmaly (talk) 13:02, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Real giant ring observed over Chicago today.

A smoke ring from an exploded transformer. I honestly think this could have inspired the comic. on reddit on the news 92.204.27.3 11:31, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Funny, I immediately flashed on the world's largest electromagnet, delivered today to the Fermilab facility in Batavia IL, which is just outside Chicago: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/07/26/massive-electromagnet-completes-arduous-trip-to-fermilab/ Gardnertoo (talk) 20:15, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

If he would like to catch one of the other space stations he would probably not say he wants to catch an international station, because they are only national projects. 91.45.17.43 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think that both "AN international space station" and "Not necessarily MY collection" is something he says to avoid blame. It is obvious that he's going to catch the ISS and put her in HIS collection, but he's not confessing to it. -- Hkmaly (talk) 13:02, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Am I the only one who finds the connection to the Gateway Arch Momument and Tevatron dubious? There is no explanation of the type of winch, and the ring is specifically 'lying in a field'. Maybe the could be included as possibilities, but to say that the structures are 'probably' the ones referred to is false in my opinion.--Pudder (talk) 12:15, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I precisely agree. I will make the change now. 173.245.54.20 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think it would be quite a daunting task to put a space station in a display case... 625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8 (talk) 21:03, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

\_ Talk about daunting tasks -- You've gotta admire the sheer logistics Black Hat would have to overcome for catching 'a' space station as described: First, finding a superstrong, pliable material to a) catch, slow down, and hold a space station originally moving at orbital speeds; and b) finding enough of it to create a mesh field large enough to catch something that size. Second, to have a pole of enough strength to hold the large ring (and accompanying mesh) upright when lifted, but not be so heavy as to be too difficult to winch from a fixed point on the ground. Next, to have it all survive high-altitude winds and freezing temperatures when erected, and finally: reentry! Bringing anything back from LEO will undoubtedly encounter friction with the atmosphere. That dude's got mad skills if he can pull even half of those things off. -Electro- 108.162.221.203 08:56, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

We need a new page on butterfly nets. Klyxm (talk) 10:14, 5 March 2018 (UTC) 12

I thought the title-text might mean that Black Hat was going to give the ISS as a gift... Maybe to Danish? Eebop (talk) 19:13, 29 May 2021 (UTC) eebop (talk) 12:11 29 March 2021 (UTC)