after midnight randomness

Anyway with that the jig would be up because the whole thing would be visible from the earth surface. Not super easy because it's moving fast but doable.

So knowing that they would have to inform the people in advance. and they clearly did because we can see some cameras and world flags in the room they ask Grace to go. Regular press conferences or most likely just official statements were probably quite frequent by the end.

but just informing the public about the wild and very pricey shit they are about to pull is a baaaaad idea without explaining why and how it will totally work in detail

luckily they have a professional science educator on site ;)

except sticking Grace in a very official role in front of cameras is baaaaad idea. dude is charming and good at his work but also probably would

a freak out at the official ness of the role

the PR department would not be happy

he is busy with so many other thigs

the PR department would NOT be happy

not sure if he remembers just which level of top secretness what parts of the project actually are

the PR department would be on fire

so the solution was to send documents to proffesional-proffesional science educators that are proffesional at being in front of camera

but also ask Grace to record some quick videos explaining everything, giving some ideas etc because it's easier to digest for proffesional-proffesional science educators than heavily redacted files and it's also easier to redact

so what I'm trying to say here is that there is a series of educational video sketches that Grace recorded late nights within like a week where he definiatey

used handmade sock puppets

declared he wants to be muppet fox

generalny explains everything assuming it will be a puppet show or animation makeig his own props from scraps

used Stratt's "What is Project Hail Mary" PowerPoint while badly acting her no-nonsense approach

at least 1/3 of the unedited videos is him falling asleep in front of his laptop camera

pulled so much mad-scirntist-that-havent-slept-in-48-hours rizz

Most of the videos would be released to public after launch as PR campaign. Because they had whole PR campaign on the astronauts and the backups.

mostly by the power of Grace's own denial xD

ok sorry you summoned the babble now but seriously I've read the book after seeing the movie and while in the movie you can get a bit of the impression Grace is just some guy that got there by poor chance of bad luck of eh will do without training

but the book. oh the book has a space and subtlety of a steel pipe to the face to show in detail that had he ever volunteered he would be 1 choice from the get go. it kinda reads like a horror story in a way with the noose getting slowly tighter around his neck while he is all happy to help all these wonderful smarter people solve the proplems

like one of those characters you want to grab by the shoulders and shake like stop being even more useful and perfect for the role

and the astronaut training I meant there is the pool thing. movie!Grace is adamant he haven't even done it while book! Grace had a sudden paragraph apropos of nothing of not only doing the pool thing

that denial master was stoked he was doing the pool thing in an actual NASA pool with the 1:1 scale ISS behind him where actual real astronauts trained

(you are actually just now learning how to be actual real astronaut you dumbass!)

but that's not all. oh no. in that scene he is testing and perfecting the equipment so later he can teach Dubois and Shapiro how to use it

oh yeah master that shit and be the #1 expert in another thing. sure. +1 to actual invaluableness. sure that won't come back and bite you in the ass

so yeah. I've got feels about this scene

and also this scene goes fluently to Dubois and Shapiro failing at inviting him to threesome

I'm so sorry I just got back to your message because oh my god! you are brilliant!

they can't have regular stickers but the raised puffy ones would work and I just have an idea for continuation of that comic :3

such a wonderful dumb as fuck idea you just gave me >:3

so i planned this comic out

and doooone! chibifox!Grace is about to do unmentionable things to the last skittle ever right in front of the skittles shaped pebbles 😱

delay was caused by me melting in this wonderful weather but to make up for it I made it into little 2 frame animation ;3

Assumptions:

Air at 29 atm and 230C has a density of only 0.02 g/cm2, which is essentially 0

Water is 1 g/cm2

Eridians are 5 g/cm2 (rocks are 2-3 and metals are 5-12 so I'm going with a funky average with nice numbers)

xenonite is the same density as Eridians

xenonite barrier is 2% of the radius of the ball (1cm for a 1m ball)

I can do all my calculations assuming Earth gravity because bouyancy/weight would both be affected equally by the double gravity, thus cancelling out

We can estimate the radius of a pebble by picturing them loafing cutely into their carapace

In order to float, the ball has to be less dense than water; however, water displacement is directly related to density, so

to be comic-accurate, we're looking for the balls (with pebbles inside them) to be roughly 20-50% as dense as water.

Let's start with the xenonite shell:

% of ball that is xenonite = (volume of outer shell - volume of inner shell)/(volume of outer shell)

= [(4/3)πr{outer}^3 - (4/3)πr{inner}^3]/[(4/3)πr{outer}^3]

= 1 - (r{inner}/r{outer})^3

= 1 - (0.98)^3 = 6%

So the density of the ball alone is roughly:

6% x 5g/cm3 + 94% x 0g/cm3 = 0.29 g/cm3

We're already pretty much there without adding a pebble!

Now let's see what radius pebble we'd need to get to 0.5 g/cm3:

[% of volume taken up by pebble] x [density of pebble] + [% xenonite x density xenonite] + [% air x density air] = 0.5g/cm3

% of volume taken up by pebble = (0.5 - 0.29)/5

= 4% of the total ball volume

What a cute little pebble!!

but remember volume scales by radius cubed.

% of ball is pebble = volume of pebble/volume of ball

= [(4/3)πr{pebble}^3]/[(4/3)πr{outer}^3]

= [r{pebble}/r{outer}]^3

0.04^(1/3) = r{pebble}/r{outer}

...so the radius of the pebble is about 35% the radius of the ball!

To find the maximum size of a pebble that can float, let's say the density of the entire ball has to be 0.95 instead of 0.5:

% of volume taken up by pebble = (0.95 - 0.29)/5 = 13%

13%^(1/3) = 50%

However, this would mean they'd be mostly underwater (like an iceberg)

So the pebble has to use a ball that is at least 3 (for safety) times taller than its loaf height in order to float!!

like seriously I thought it was a silly little comic that won't get much attention so I decided to feel a little guilty and force myself to handwave the science for that cartoon cuteness sake. now that it got A LOT of attention I was seriously starting getting worried 😅