Strip 480 -- First Seen: 2010-07-09
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

On Their Way....

This is a message for the IGG QV9 backers! For those of you who ordered physical perks, they are on their way via USPS. For those of you who selected one or more of the PDF perks, you should have received an email from DriveThruComics.com. That email contains links to the vouchers you need to download your copy of the PDF you requested.

If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to check your spam folder. If you still can't find the email from DriveThruComics, let us know and we'll get the links you need.

Signing and Shipping

Scott has finished autographing all the books, and we've started shipping them out. Your physical perks should show up in the next week or so (might be a bit longer for international shipments). We expect to send out vouchers (via email) to those who wanted the PDF e-books.

Once again, many thanks to our backers. Stand by for further updates.

The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
Long-range shot of 243 Ida, with its tiny moon, Dactyl, off to one side (see the Wikipedia page on 243 Ida). The two bodies are labeled '243 Ida' and 'Dactyl.'

Caption: The planetoid 243 Ida has its own moon, named Dactyl, first discovered in 1993 by the Galileo spacecraft.

Caption: Dactyl is rotationally locked to its orbital period around Ida, so one side of Dactyl always faces Ida.

Panel 2
The brothers flying across space in their shuttle-craft. The shuttle-craft is very light-weight, open to space. It should look something like a WW2-era Jeep with a truncated front-end, a larger back-end, no wheels, and a small fusion engine on the back. Four landing struts surround the fusion engine There is cargo space immediately behind the pair of acceleration seats (think barcaloungers).
Caption: After their first day spent setting up their gear at the mining site on Ida, Bert and Ernie flew back to their ship parked on Dactyl for a comfortable night's rest.

Panel 3
Medium shot of the surface of Dactyl. We see a cave-like opening, and inside, Little Toot sits parked.
Caption: The Guzmán brothers found the cave-like structure on Dactyl's Ida-facing surface the perfect place to park their ship, Little Toot.
Caption: It provided shelter from radiation and meteors, and the dramatic and ever-changing view of Ida was a welcome aesthetic bonus.

Panel 4
Now we see the brothers in their shuttle rocketing away from Dactyl, towards Ida again.

Caption: In the Belt, 'day' and 'daytime' are arbitrary concepts. Like most Belters, the brothers synched to Martian VMT (Valles Marineris Time).

Caption: So 33 centimes (a bit more than eight Terran hours) later, the brothers returned to the mine site.