Editing 2883: Astronaut Guests

{{comic
| number    = 2883
| date      = January 19, 2024
| title     = Astronaut Guests
| image     = astronaut guests 2x.png
| imagesize = 331x391px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = They didn't bring us a gift, but considering the kinetic energy of a bottle of wine at orbital speed, that's probably for the best.
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, [[Cueball]], [[Megan]], [[Ponytail]], and [[Hairbun]] can all be seen eating dinner together. Presumably, Ponytail and Hairbun were invited over for dinner, as, to impress them, [[Cueball]] misleadingly claims that they previously "had six {{w|astronaut}}s over for dinner." Normally, this would be interpreted as the astronauts being friends with the hosts (which confers social prestige), going inside their house, and eating. As it turns out, the astronauts only briefly passed overhead while in {{w|orbit}}, and, by chance, this happened during dinnertime. This is a pun on the word "over", as the personnel of the {{w|International Space Station}} are overhead when it passes above you; yet they did not go "over ''to'' someone's house" in the sense that English speakers would usually assume.

Cueball may also be considering the property lines to extend up indefinitely (just like in "What If?" article "{{what if|161|Star Ownership}}"), causing the astronauts to [[1475: Technically|technically]] be at their house despite being hundreds of miles away, vertically.

The astronauts in question were presumably occupying the International Space Station, which has an orbital period of between 90 and 93 minutes (depending on its altitude) or 5400 to 5580 seconds.[https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Tools/orbitTutorial.htm] If the astronauts were "over" for 7½ milliseconds, that would be somewhere between 1.34x10⁻⁶ and 1.39x10⁻⁶ of an orbit.  Earth's circumference (at the equator) being approximately 40,000 kilometres (24,850 miles), the station was apparently "over" for a ground distance of between 53.9 m and 55.7 m (177 to 183 feet). That would imply quite a large property, but may also consider the astronauts' locations within the ISS, which is 109 m (356 feet) long. (The effect of [[1276: Angular Size|angular size]] is small in this case because the ISS's elevation is small compared to the radius of the Earth. The route traced by the ISS in orbit is only slightly larger than its projection at ground level.)

The caption makes Cueball's statement even less impressive, alleging that statements like it are correct in many places. This would make it uninteresting as a {{w|coincidence}}. It can only happen for latitudes of less than 51.64° north or south, which is as far as the orbital inclination of the ISS takes it, leaving almost 21.6% of the Earth's surface never directly "over"ed. Nonetheless, these areas of the globe will be, overall, significantly more sparsely populated than those that are "over"ed, meaning that the claim could be made in much more than 88.4% of places, assuming that by "places" we mean "properties where people are likely to be having dinner".

The title text suggests that Cueball didn't want a gift (a bottle of wine) from the astronauts. The kinetic energy of a 1.2 kg (full) bottle of wine travelling at the linear velocity of the International Space Station (8000 m/s) is on the order of [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1%2F2*%288km%2Fs%29%5E2*1.2kg 40 megajoules]. The gravitational potential energy of that mass on the Earth's surface (equatorial radius of 6,378 km) is 75.08 MJ, and its gravitational potential energy at an elevation of 408 km is 70.56 MJ, a difference of 4.52 MJ[https://physics.icalculator.com/gravitational-potential-energy-physics-calculator.html], and that would be converted to kinetic energy if it were to fall. For comparison, the kinetic energy of a fully loaded semi-truck (max legal weight 80,000 pounds or ~36 tonnes) at 70mph (110km/h; a typical highway speed limit for passenger cars) is around [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1%2F2*%28110km%2Fh%29%5E2*80000+pounds 17 megajoules]. A bottle with more than 2½ times the kinetic energy of that would be hard to keep on the table, and would likely do damage to people or things that tried to keep it there. {{Citation needed}}

This comic was posted the same day as the American release of a film set on the ISS (conveniently named ''{{w|I.S.S. (film)|I.S.S.}}''), and just a day after the latest flight to the station by a {{w|Axiom Mission 3|Crew Dragon flight}} had temporarily increased the occupants from the normal seven residents to eleven.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, Megan, Ponytail, and Hairbun are eating around a table. Cueball is leaning on the back of his chair and has his palm out.]
:Cueball: We don't have houseguests often, but we once had six astronauts over for dinner.
:Hairbun: Oh, wow!
:Cueball (muttering): <small>''…for 7½ milliseconds in mid-August 2012.''</small>

:[Caption below the panel:]
: If you spend enough time looking at orbital records and property lines, you can make this claim in a lot of places.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category: Space]]