The Hub

For the SF writers who want to get the calculations right, I've been working on a major update to my Orbital Calculator program. This is free software that currently runs on Windows (XP and above, 32- or 64-bit). I'm just running unit testing, but it should be available for download in the next day or so.

After releasing it to (on?) the world, I'm going to look at completely redeveloping it in a new programming language that should enable me to cross compile for OS/X and Linux.

If you have any suggestions for new features, please let me know. Here's a list of the current features (in the new version):

(a) Add any new (real/fictional) gravitational mass or satellite
(b) Calculate characteristics from orbital parameters (velocity and period from apogee and perigee)
(c) Calculate surface gravity of gravitational mass
(d) Calculate distance from host mass based on orbital period
(e) Calculate apparent age from local year
(f) Strong password generator for those pesky internet logins
(g) Ability to export satellites and gravitational masses from the database and share them with other Orbital Calculator users
(h) Ability to import data exported by someone else (duh!)
(i) Calculate start, middle, end and depth of Habitable Zone (Goldilocks Zone) for a star
(j) Calculate each of the five Lagrange points in a two-body system (e.g. Earth-Sun, Earth-Moon etc.)
(k) Calculate time dilation for a spacecraft and the passage of time from an observer's point of view
(l) Calculate gravitational acceleration from a given elevation
(m) Calculate escape velocity
(n) Calculate visual footprint of satellite based on distance from host mass, generating:
         (1) percent of visible surface*
         (2) degrees of visibility (host mass longitude to longitude)*
         (3) distance from one horizon to opposite horizon*
         (4) surface area of footprint*
         (5) time it takes satellite to traverse footprint (from the ground, how long the satellite is above the horizon)
         (6) time for one complete orbit (so you can finesse)
                   *curvature of planet taken into consideration