Orbital Maths at NASA with Chris Hadfield

Huge thanks to Chris Hadfield and for joining me for a day of mathematics. Stay tuned for our next video where we derive the rocket equation!

All about Chris and their amazing team.

Our trip to NASA was organised by the fantastic folks over at Cosmic Shambles.

Free resources for teachers!
We have a complete guide to the mathematics in this video as well as some student worksheets and activities.

I should also say we went to Florida to film in February 2020, before the pandemic. Which is why it all looks so normal. It's surreal to think about it now!

CORRECTIONS
- A few people have pointed out that I’m assuming a circular orbit. Yes indeed: I should have made it clearer in the video we were ignoring elliptical orbits as near-Earth is pretty much perfectly circular.
- And people are very upset I said I was in Orlando. Which was my fault: I meant to say “near Orlando” to help non-USA people orient themselves. I figured more people know where Orlando is (roughly) than Cape Canaveral. If it helps: Chris also pointed out my mistake (in the nicest way possible) once that shot was over but we didn’t have time to re-do it.
- Let me know if you spot any other mistakes!

Thanks to my Patreons who mean I can endure the hardship of a trip to Florida to hang out with an astronaut. Only kidding. I paid for that bit. But they covered the extra production costs. Here is a random subset of those fine Patreon People:

George Lawie
Jeremy Buchanan
amcnea
Mark Mann

Filming and editing by Trunkman Productions
Extra help during the shoot thanks to Melinda Burton and Joanna Gostling
Flipchart by Matt Parker
Audio by Peter Doggart
Music by Howard Carter
Design by Simon Wright and Adam Robinson

MATT PARKER: Stand-up Mathematician

[LeeSmith-cfvo]

What a huge honour for Chris to meet the legendary Matt Parker

[paulsmyers]

This Chris Hadfield guy is in the big leagues now - chatting with world renowned leading standup maths expert Matt Parker. Chris's life is going to be different now. He might become somebody.

[billcook]

Shout out to Buzz Aldrin. Not just the second man on the moon, but the guy who literally wrote the book (his PhD thesis) on translating the math of orbital mechanics into practical pilot mechanics for the early astronauts.

[dermathze]

"Thank you for comming along it's..." "I'VE BEEN TO ORBIT 3 TIMES!"

But seriously, he is one of, if not THE coolest astronaut out there.

[theadamabrams]

9:30 I couldn't resist checking the values. Using
G = 6.674×10⁻¹¹ m³kg⁻¹s⁻² and M = 5.972×10²⁴ kg and 
r = 6357 km + 420 km = 6.777×10⁶ m
we get that
v = √( GM/r )
= √( m²s⁻² )
= √( 5.881 × 10⁷ m²/s² )
= 7669 m/s

Yeah, that's 8 km/s, just like Chris Hadfield said 🤩

[VincentGroenewold]

Matt AND Chris Hadfield, jeez that put a smile on my face. Regarding orbital mechanics, it always makes more sense to me to think of velocity as relative velocity (which of course it is).

[gordonwiley]

Hearing Chris Hadfield describe a portion of docking procedures as brute forcing it makes me feel better about how many kerbals I've trapped in orbit in KSP.

[Scum]

6:50
Matt: "Get rid of an m from both sides, so I'm afraid your mass now doesn't matter..."
Chris: **shrug and smirk**
God damn he's cool
Edit: Also, I appreciate his landmark numbers are coffee-centric: 9:18 "The time it takes to drink a cup of coffee" 11:47 "Our target was about the size of a coffee saucer"

[jocax]

I've played enough Kerbal Space Program to know where this is going

[kikivoorburg]

Chris really does come across like a great guy. His son also runs a very high quality YouTube channel so he’s probably a great dad too! (The channel is called Rare Earth for those who don’t know.)

[aikumaDK]

I love that Chris makes simple analogies to make it easier for plebs like me to actually understand this space stuff.

[Anvilshock]

Assume a spherical Chris Hadfield in vacuum …

[DuncanMcBride]

I'm glad Chris is still making content and getting recognized, he's one of the coolest and most interesting people both on or off the planet. Just a nice, sincere, and humble guy too. An absolute pleasure to watch! Hope you can convince him to make more collabs lmao

[ilurveetpie]

You can tell he drinks a lot of coffee from all his analogies! Time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, target the size of a coffee saucer, the man is loaded up on caffeine

[igornoga]

Docking gets kind of intuitive after couple 100s of hours in KSP. Atough my "proximity operations" usually start 2km out

[StanSays]

2:10 Classic Parker SQUARED, almost forgot the exponent

[jonwally]

It's a joy that Matt got to meet the legendary Canadian Chris Hadfield.
I'm also glad the Canadian name on the Canadarm is visible.

[Ensivion]

Awesome that you got the legendary Chris Hadfield to make it onto your youtube channel. Classic physics problem explain by two great explainers. I loved the end about docking because it gave some insight onto what actually happens on the ships.

[yumnuska]

This feels like a symphony of presentation. You two are playing off each other wonderfully well.

Actually, it’s just Chris playing amazingly off you. But it’s an exceptional video. ❤️

[jkid]

Love the physics 1 board, but love even more the introduction to the concept of "prox ops", helps me explain and understand a simple intuitive everyday concept more clearly.