Running With Argentine Read Free Page B

marble will keep
moving, this will simulate the thrust of the ship.
     
    Bear in mind that many of the dimples are as large around as
manhole covers and start out very shallow before curving dramatically into a
deep hole.
     
    Now, if the marble intersects the edge of one of these
dimples at the exact right speed – and maintains it - it will circle the hole
without ever falling in.
     
    The hole and the dimple represent, of course, a star and its
gravity well. When a ship is in stellar orbit, circling the dimple, it can increase
its speed to go careening off into space or it can decrease its speed to drop
lower into the gravity well. The calculations of knowing exactly how deep the
well is and exactly what speed is needed to maintain orbit is only a small part
of an astrogator’s duties - and is usually handled by the far more common class
of astrogator wannabes, called pilots.
     
    What takes even more calculation is to use the edge of the
dimple to alter the ship’s trajectory. The goal is not to be captured in orbit
but rather to be slung around to a new course without reducing speed or
expending energy.
     
    To really understand what an astrogator does, a person would
need to calculate and launch the marble from the edge of the surface so that it
maneuvers its way around all the dimples. Its launch would have to be such that
it would avoid some of those dimples and get close enough to others to have its
course curved and changed, and have the trajectory so perfect that it arrives
at that small pinpoint at the other edge.
     
    There is no such thing as a straight line in space.
     
    This is the task of an astrogator.
     
    It’s an impossible task unless that same person is allowed
to stop and make mid-course corrections.
     
    Even so, there’s still not one person out of one-thousand
that has the mental capacity to make the marble arrive within even a few yards
of the pinpoint destination - especially if they have to plot past more than a
few gravity wells per jump.
     
    What made Sami Parker so special, however, is that somehow
she could consistently make that marble arrive within a few inches of that
destination – and do it with fewer course corrections than almost anyone else.
     
    Of course, this is talking about a flat surface and space is
three-dimensional. In addition, the stars and their gravity wells are also
constantly moving and changing their position in relation to each other. All of
this adds a thousand levels of complexity to the equation.
     
    This is a big reason why space travel is so incomprehensible
to most people. It also helps demonstrate why Sami’s skill was so valuable.
     
    It wasn’t just the accuracy of her trajectories; it was the
amount of time that was saved by not having to constantly drop out of Dreamspace
to recalculate.
     
    How much time does it typically take to travel from one
point in space to another? It depends upon what path the ship takes and how
many stops it needs to make to readjust its course. Therefore, two ships with
equal engines might take significantly different travel times to reach the same
destination – depending upon the skill of the astrogator.
     
    Most people think that when a ship breaks planetary orbit it
simply flies off in the direction it wants to go. That, however, is never the
case.
     
    Spaceships don’t travel from planet to planet; they travel
from the orbit of one star to the orbit of another star.
     
    Once a ship breaks planetary orbit it is still orbiting the
star. Instead of trying to power itself up the steep side of the star’s gravity
well it is much more efficient to simply increase its orbital speed until the
centrifugal force pushes it up and out from the dimple.
     
    So when traveling in space a ship breaks the orbit of one
star and travels its circuitous route to the orbit of another star.
     
    If someone was watching the marble on the flat surface
again, that person would see it moving just fast enough at the edge of