Brewster Rockit by Tim Rickard for August 17, 2014

First one to use a “gravity sucks” joke loses 100 points.

What goes around…..

“I’m sernding out an SOS…. sending out an SOS…. "(♫)

That tiny planetoid must be extremely dense. The same could be said for …. well, you know.

Isn’t it technically impossible to launch something off a planet (without more propulsion) and have it end up in an orbit?

Tim Rickard found a way to use the deserted island trope.

So is this a circular argument, or just a vicious circle?

Planetoid Brewster?

I’m not falling for this.

The Gods Must Be Crazy . . . ☻

Shouldn’t he have used a bottle rocket?

maybe he should look around for the Little Prince.

How much air is in those tanks? Enough to last him until tomorrow’s strip?

Poor Brewster doesn’t have any luck at all.

Lemme clear up the orbit business. If he threw the bottle somewhat parallel to the surface of the planet, and well above the surface, it could orbit it. However, unless it is made of ultradense material, that little rock would have very weak gravity. Surprisingly, the orbital time near the surface of a body depends only on its density, not its size. If that rock is the same average density as the Earth, it would orbit at the surface in about the same time a satellite orbits just above Earth’s atmosphere — about ninety minutes. In reality, on a body that small, the gravity well would be so shallow that any throw at all would exceed escape velocity, and the bottle would go into space … and never be found.

Maybe, if he’d thrown it overhand, rather than underhand, it might have achieved escape velocity. This isn’t softball, Brewster.

Gravity is indeed a harsh mistress