“The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason”

Hey, author here. As several of you have noted, there are a lot of tweaks to speed this simulation up - making it 2D increases (unphysically) the collision rate, the particles have overly large collision radii, and the fragmentation threshold is quite soft initially but then quite high for small masses. Regardless, I hope the video is fun - the sudden burst of fragmentation makes for quite the sight.

The book is full of large orbital machines. They are explained thoroughly and there are some drawings but I wish the author had pictures and videos of them on his web site to see how they work.

Author here - amazing how this old post comes back around! I know this book is a bit divisive with the big time jump, but you can't argue with the opening line. Shameless plug - I've become a better engineer since then, and if you'd like to work with me check out this role I'm hiring for: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/count/d49bdc38-96ea-4dbd-9ab5-ae4f5...