Conservation — Action Reaction And Momentum

She calculated the mass split: thirty tons ejected, twenty tons retained. The action: thirty tons at 500 m/s. The reaction: twenty tons at… she did the math. 750 m/s. Not much, but enough to shift their vector out of the meteor swarm’s path.

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. action reaction and momentum conservation

“On my count,” Mira said, positioning herself by the manual airlock lever. “We throw them out the forward port. Action: battery mass ejected backward at 10 m/s. Reaction: the ship gains forward momentum. But more importantly, if we throw them tangentially to our spin, we can cancel the rotation.” She calculated the mass split: thirty tons ejected,

BAMM-THUMM.

“Yes, there is.”

Mira looked around the engine bay. Her eyes landed on the emergency fuel cells—twelve lead-acid batteries, each a half-ton brick. They were useless without the engine. But they had mass. 750 m/s