“Go!”
She did the conservation of angular momentum calculation in her head. Each battery: 500 kg. Throw velocity: 10 m/s. Lever arm from the ship’s center: 15 meters. They needed six batteries to stop the spin. action reaction and momentum conservation
“The rotor is stuck. But if we blow the hatch, the rotor’s outer casing will shear. One half will eject out the port side. The other half will stay with us.” Lever arm from the ship’s center: 15 meters
Mira knew the numbers. They had no engine. But they had the rotor. And Newton’s laws don’t take a day off. But if we blow the hatch, the rotor’s
Two hours later, the meteors flashed past—a glittering river of stone and ice, missing the hull by barely three kilometers. The crew watched in silence.
“Reaction confirmed,” Mira coughed, smoke filling the bay. “We have lateral delta-v. Twenty meters per second and climbing.”
Mira placed six shaped charges at the rotor’s stress points. Her hands were steady. She pressed the detonator.