Navigating the Void
Like Duolingo, but for Navigating the Void. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
A short one: 9 levels across 2 sections, about 18 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through The Physics of Flight and Living in the Deep. It assumes you already know the basics.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Navigating the Void
- The balance between gravity and horizontal speed in orbit
- The priority of velocity over altitude for orbital stability
- A prograde burn (accelerating forward) raises the opposite side of the orbital path
- LEO satellites must travel at roughly 7.8 km/s to overcome stronger gravity
- Orbital paths are elliptical; changing speed at one point affects the height of the other
- The thin upper atmosphere creates friction that slows down low-orbiting craft
- The tradeoffs and requirements of Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
- GEO satellites orbit at the same rate the Earth rotates on its axis
- This synchronization only works at a specific altitude of approximately 35,786 km
- The counter-intuitive nature of orbital maneuvers
- The specific mechanics of Geostationary orbit
- Delta-V is a cumulative budget of all velocity changes a ship can make
- The first burn raises the apoapsis to reach the target altitude
- Every maneuver like landing or taking off consumes a portion of the total budget
- The spacecraft coasts halfway around the sun on an elliptical path
- Running out of Delta-V leaves a craft stranded in its current trajectory
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Navigating the Void the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
Imagine you've reached the vacuum of space, but your engines suddenly cut out and your speed drops to zero. What is your primary problem?
Get it right to open this lesson and 8 more in the app.
Where Navigating the Void takes you
Move beyond naming planets and start understanding the physics of the frontier. Learn how we use gravity as a slingshot and survive the most hostile environment known to man.
- 1
The Physics of Flight
- The Logic of Orbit
- Interplanetary Trajectories
- 2
Living in the Deep
- Surviving the Extremes
2 sections · 3 units · 9 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Navigating the Void is taught in the The Storyteller style: every lesson is a story. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Move beyond the names of planets and learn the invisible forces that govern how we navigate the void and how stars live and die.
The Physics of the Void
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Time Travel in the Real World
Discover how time travel isn't just for movies. Explore the real physics of time dilation, the logic of paradoxes, and why your GPS depends on time travel to work.
Start Navigating the Void today.
Download Tomo, search Navigating the Void, and play your first lesson in under a minute.