Page 359
Hey look! An extra update! I spent two months not posting pages because I was stuck on one scene, but I never stopped drawing. I’m about to be swimming in pages now that I’ve caught up, and so why not post twice a week for a while to celebrate?
I love this new palette. And yet already it’s time to put it away and switch to the next one.
I think Ibrahim is mining dry ice in this scene. I’m not sure whether he’s after the dry ice itself (although the carbon it contains is an important resource), or something embedded in the ice. Either way, building an economy without money doesn’t mean no one has to work in the mines. You might have to if you want a spaceship. Notice he doesn’t have a helmet as part of his protective gear. I’m not sure you need one when no fall (or falling object) is going to be coming at you fast enough to hurt.
Based on a comment from a reader last page, I’ve reworded the text somewhat at the end. If solar sails aren’t enough to get you moving towards the sun on their own, they’re going to have to use their engines as well. I’m not going to attempt to figure out the physics of whatever complicated maneuvering they’re planning here. But I am confident they should be able to use their sails for the second half of the trip, when they’re slowing down to match the orbit of Earth. Thirteen months sounds like a long time, but it’s much faster than anything we can do with current technology (small nuclear engines and lots of gravity assist slingshots). It took New Horizons nine years to get to Pluto.
Panel 2: Narrator: "For the Kuipermiut, everything is based on social connections. You don't get given a ship without a lot of connections." Back on Nuna, Ibrahim runs up to talk to a man with a goatee and snow goggles as he goes about his work in a subterranean waterway. In the background there is a mural of polar bears and northern lights.
Panel 3: Narrator: "And those connections go both ways. I ended up owing a lot of people favours. Favours I couldn't back out on." Ibrahim, wearing protective gear, cuts big blocks of ice with a laser to pile up in a mining cart.
Panel 4: He shows the dry ice chunks to the guy with goggles, who inspects them carefully. Narrator: "I had to wait until I didn't have any more obligations."
Panel 5: Narrator: "Then I had to wait until I found enough people who wanted to make the same trip as me. And for all of their obligations to be settled." Ibrahim, who now has his face tattoos, sits with a group of other people roughly his age, as they eat together.
Panel 6: Narrator: "Going that distance on my own would've been suicide. Nobody ever does that. It's a thirteen month journey back to the sun's neighbourhood, tacking against the solar wind and running the engines hot for half the trip." A fleet of five solar sail ships unfurls their golden sails as they rocket away from the dwarf planet.
Interestingly enough, you have a good final result for your solar sail ship travel plan!
You absolutely can use it “against the wind” and brake instead of accelerating in Inner Solar System, but in Outer Solar system the solar pressure is just too low for fast travel, so you have to use engines.
I’ll take it. (And not attempt to get more detailed so as not to break physics).