Whee!

[gridlore]

For all of us who really find pool too easy..

The satellite simulator.

Comments

[johno.livejournal.com]

After creating a few asteroid strikes or comets, I got 2 stable inner ones going. Could consistently get 10-20 orbits of the moon going.

Everything was stable until one of comets came back screwed up the balance of the inner sattellites.

[kath8562.livejournal.com]

Woo-hoo! I like that!!! Although I wiped out civilization more than once....

[flaim.livejournal.com]

Oh great.. like I don't have enough time wasters. :-)

I have 2 that have been going for the last half-hour or so, but they're very erratic.. and I've had a couple that have had their orbits reversed by the moon.

This is waay cool.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

I've gotten stable orbits a couple of times now, ones that hold for an hour or more. The trick seems to be making it retrograde, with an apogee around half that of the moon's orbit and a period that's some resonant multiple/fraction. When the top of the loop lines up with the passing moon, it circularizes the orbit a bit; otherwise, I imagine the satellite would auger in on the next orbit or the next.