💾 Archived View for thrig.me › blog › 2023 › 05 › 30 › toy-orbit-simulator.gmi captured on 2023-06-16 at 16:26:22. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-06-14)
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toy Common LISP orbit simulator
Probably it's not a very good N-Body simulation, but at least the planets are no longer typically going off to infinity like they were in earlier instances of the code. Many Bothans, etc.
There's a surprising amount of, uh, estimation going on. I mean you calculate the expected orbit velocity for a circle and the transfer ellipse, dutifully apply the necessary thrust, and... the satellite never gets there. Almost. So then you fudge the numbers a bit, maybe put in a "let me know if it gets out this far?" check and then fudge some more. And that's just a 2-body system!
Meanwhile, the pros:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-math-shows-when-solar-systems-become-unstable-20230516/
New math!