Yes, it was clearly visible as Anna on my screen!
Really, the minister played by Elizabeth Mitchell? OK, going to watch the scene again.
Edit: Of course you’re right. I guess I was pretty beat last night when I watched.
I’m reading the books, and was starting to think Anna was just something they made up for the TV show. Apparently she doesn’t get introduced to book 3 and her backstory/relationships are vastly different than the TV show.
Generally I’ve been pleased with their attention to science detail, but shouldn’t that electric shock Anna gave to Mao have gone right on through and hit Naomi too? She was pressing some sort of metal gauntlet on her throat, after all.
I’m trying to figure out how hard it is to move a big guy in 0 g. Ignoring lack of leverage, it seems that any force will keep the thing accelerating (ignoring air resistance). But if this is true, if a person was sandwiched between two spaceships or say, two big sections of space tractor, would they be able to move it??
Short answer: yes. Acceleration = Force / Mass, which of course doesn’t change whether you are in zero g or in a gravity field. Moving something in zero g would be approximately the same as moving something horizontally in a gravity field. That is, perpendicular to the direction of gravity. The difference being friction.
So given that there are people able to pull trains just by raw muscle strength, it would be equally possible - ignoring problems of leverage - to push or pull big things in zero g. It’ll be slightly easier since you don’t have to overcome friction. And it’d be the same regardless of direction.
It’s also notable that neither of them was in a position to really push those giant tractor sections. They were both in bad shape.
Yes, and they also failed to disengage the magnetic locks, if I remember correctly.
Ahh locks. Okay. Thanks guys.
So if I’m floating and I sneeze i’m gonna fly in the direct opposite vector my mouth is facing. hmm. What if I am sneezing into a surface angled at 45 degrees? is the thrust produced as soon as it leaves my mouth? it doesn’t matter what’s on the other end it’s not like those weird-ass photons or something.
Well if you sneeze in space, it will be into a helmet, so your net velocity should be unchanged.
Now if you have no helmet? Three important things will happen.
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you will gain some momentum in the opposite direction of the sneeze. A very small amount, since the particles are minimally light and not moving particularly fast. But some, regardless
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you will begin to rotate around your center of gravity. The sneeze push is leveraged from this pretty heavily, so it is likely to be a much more significant effect than your velocity change
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you will suffocate. This is the most noticeable impact, and really the only one to concern yourself with.
Wait so I’m really gonna spin around my waist, AND be pushed towards a wall in the Rocinante?
Sure. It’s a tiny little thruster on your face, well away from the center of gravity. Since it’s offset from the center most of the force will be rotational. A very small fraction of the force will also cause you to move.
Think of a 2x4 floating in water. If you give a little perpendicular push on one extreme end, it’ll mostly cause it to spin around the center; though it will also generally start moving slowly in the direction of the push.
That’s essentially the same thing happening in our sneeze scenario.
There could be zero g without vacuum though.
It should also be possible, by tilting your head back just so, to have the resulting force go across your center of mass, in which case it will produce translational thrust.
Of course I think the bigger issue here are the globules of snot that are going to be flying around in the air.
That part is well-covered when you google “what happens when you sneeze in space”. What I couldn’t find was what happened to the person who sneezed.
Snot will go 3-6 feet. HEPA filters are too energy-expensive. But here’s the interesting bit:
For reasons scientists have not quite figured out, the immune system can go on the fritz in space: wounds heal more slowly; infection-fighting T-cells send signals less efficiently; bone marrow replenishes itself less effectively; killer cells — another key immune system player — fight less energetically. At the same time, the pathogens grow stronger, developing thicker cell walls, greater resistance to antimicrobial agents and a greater ability to form so-called biofilms that cling to surfaces. Dormant herpesvirus infections are known to become more active in space, and swabs of astronauts taken when they return to Earth show higher populations of staph on the skin, in the upper airway and in the colon. All of that means a single spark of a disease could burn out of control fast.
They don’t mention wounds draining because I assume NASA isn’t expecting little green men to use bullets.
Space is so beautifully, awfully deadly.
curious if anyone agrees, I’ve been readying the books! Good novels, but I like the show better! This is extremely rare for me, and last one I could name is Puppet Masters! Anyone agree, other books not as good as show/movies based on them…
I agree with you on books vs show with Expanse. I’ve gone on about it upthread a bit. I just think the show generally handles the characters better, although this season has had Holden turn into Space Jon Snow a bit more than s1 and s2. Still great television.
And for a brief moment when you mentioned Puppet Masters, I was thinking of the b-movie horror flicks with the little evil puppets and was irrationally excited that there was a book. Then I realized you meant the alien sci fi classic.
True, but lack of air resistance amplifies the effect in space.
LOL, I actually thought the same thing! I was wondering if that was intentional, or just because he looks vaguely like him.
Now that would be awesome! I’d read that to!
In the book, as I recall, it is not that the electric shock knocked her out, it is that she is in a powered assisted Vac suit meant for moving large objects with enhanced mechanical strength. The short knocked out the power to her mechanically enhanced suit, effectively immobilizing her as a prisoner in the suit as the activators have locked up and Mao can no longer move in it.