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Amy, I have characters in a small spaceship that's leaking air. Minimally, they'll be unconscious by the time they're rescued. They may even be dead. What would be the major medical steps taken to revive them? I'd rather they were actually dead before rescue, but that probably greatly complicates reviving them. I'd like at least one of them up and walking within an hour. I assume this is doable if they're only unconcscious. Being dead would be icing on the cake.

Thanks,
Dirk

Read again, Amy, r.e. the Roche Limit, above. It's sufficiently plausible that I'm keeping my rings.

I googled this. There is a Roche limit around planets that determines whether or not you get rings vs moons. If you have debris within the Roche limit, the tidal forces of the planet keep the debris from coalescing (the tidal forces exceed the force of gravity). Outside the Roche, you get moons. The Earth's Roche limit is 10,000 km, so based solely on that, we could have stable rings between the Earth`s surface (6,400 km) and the limit. However, other factors affect the formation of rings, so those might play a role (e.g., melting of icy debris too close to the sun, the effect of gravity of any nearby moons, the density of a planet, among others). This is googled info, so take it with a grain of salt.

I'm curious to know why rings around smaller planets would only last 2000-3000 years.

Amy mentioned in her review of my Caligula chapter that a small planet (e.g., 10% smaller than Earth) couldn't sustain planetary rings. Does anyone else agree/disagree? And why? Surely Kdot must have equations for this. :-)

Thanks

Never saw it. Did they do that? If so, I'll have to change mine somewhat. Duct tape, anyone?

They blow apart a seat and then cover the crack in the hull with the seatback, but it's only partially effective. Technically, you could put a human arm against the crack. It would swell and close the hole, but that's nasty (and excrutiatingly painful). It would have changed the focus of the chapter, which I didn't want.

I should add that the rescue ship calculates the raider's trajectory and then positions itself appropriately for when the raider flies by. The effect would be included in the calculation of their trajectory.

I need three explicit times: one for when they lose consciousness, one for when they should be dead, and one that shows how long they should have been dead. I need these to set up an apparent miracle.

The first number depends on the size of the hole, so I chose 6 and made the other numbers around the same order of magnitude, leading to approximately 1/6 of an hour to get them aboard. I'm fine with 1/4 or 1/3 of an hour, too. Admittedly, I did a total asspull on 9 and 11. If you know how long it takes for them to pass out, then you can probably calculate how long before they die, but the equations are over my head. Also, it's probably too short, since they have to repressurize the raider before going in.

For your calculation, if they were to reverse thrusters (assuming they were working) and rely on the splat inhibiter, don't your equations become irrelevant? Is there something fundamental in physics that says I can't slow them down more quickly in spite of having the inertial damper?

I love writing! In revising my latest chapter, I came up with a neat idea for Apollo. The longer I played with it, the more important it became. As a result, it gives me half of book two, assuming I live that long. As important to book two as the Roman Empire is to book one.

An insomniac probably shouldn't get this pumped at bedtime, but what the hell.
Nite.

Chapter 35 is back up. Please rip it apart for me. Thanks.

In my story, my characters are flying in a shuttle that's been hit by another ship, causing the leak. They're racing to reach a flagship before their air runs out. I want to knock them out with them realizing they may not be rescued in time and may never wake up. I can't have their blood/tissues boil/explode while they're unconscious.

Charles, thanks for the links. I read through it quickly and it looks useful. I'll read it in detail later today.

Took down Ch. 35. needs a better epigraph.