The last thing I want to have to do on a space station is make a saving throw:

You try to close the airlock. Make a saving throw against your agility:

1 Botched Throw: Your bag of chips explodes and, while you float around, munching, you crash into the ant farm. You destroy years of research into ants' ability to sort tiny screws in a weightless environment.

Failed Throw: James Taylor forces you to listen to his easy listening adult contemporary music, including all of his hits from the Seventies

Successful Throw: You close the airlock door, saving the supply of Tang from being sucked into the cold pitiless vacuum of space.

19-20 Critical Hit: You find an inanimate carbon rod and wedge it in the door handle. When you get back to Earth, they throw a parade in honor of a true American hero -

The Inanimate Carbon Rod

OMG! Ponies!

i know but can't tell you. sorry =[

LeadxSled

How exactly do they move around? Doesn't seem like they're big enough to hold allot of fuel.

MagnoliaBoy

Could have sworn those are dice from Dungeons & Dragons.

takashimiike yes really

does gawker just share article ideas now? lol saw this on io9 earlier i believe. been happening more and more.

GreyHammer

Or create 100m plus synthetic aperture telescopes that can see orders of magnitude farther than the best today and other types for large aperture sensors...o wait, you weren't suppose to know that.

LeadxSled

"The goal is to test flight formations that could one day lead to autonomous maintenance satellites capable of building large spacecraft while in orbit."

Or to breed hairless dogs... that can survive in zero atmosphere...and never poop.

shamoononon has a hebetudinous dog

"The idea sounds great, but I can't help but want to see numbers painted all over these things.

8 SPHERE, corner module. That kind of thing? Oh, wait. That was a tabletop reference. Roll 2 SPHERE-20 in re-entry damage.

GarciaConcern

the important question is, can you detect them with a smell-o-scope?

Parapraxis

@shamoononon has a hebetudinous dog: Judging by the guy in the middle's legs, they're 2/3 of the way there already.

m4ximusprim3

@OMG! Ponies!: Why do you hate James Taylor?

Jrsy is the dude, playin' the dude, disguised as another dude

@MagnoliaBoy: Compressed air.

obeisance

@OMG! Ponies!: You shouldn't play Traveler than, it's exactly like that.

[en.wikipedia.org]

MagnoliaBoy

Ahem, there are already a large number of satellites in orbit with a similar goal...

[en.wikipedia.org]

theawddone

@shamoononon has a hebetudinous dog:
Would they, by any chance, be silver in color with a visually fluid texture?

DisposableInterloper

@MagnoliaBoy: True. Hope you have the Vacc Suit-2 or Zero-G level 5 skills when you attempt to close the airlock or else you'll need to roll 9+ on 2d6. Not to forget that you are in a Scout Courier with only a Jump-1 engine but 3 parsec from a planet with a Type A starport. looks like you'll have to spend time skimming from a gas giant if you can find one. And remember that Vargr frigate you picked up on your radar? It's back. Your better be good with your single beam laser turret....

anti-hello-kitty

Just for kicks when I was a pimple faced kid, we used to roll up super high level characters and have ultra battles...roll 1500 d20 in damage...+5 for your 'encase foe in flames' weapon assist...

anti-hello-kitty

@Jrsy is the dude, playin' the dude, disguised as another du...: Yeah. Everyone knows you should hate on John Mayer...

ideaman2020

@MagnoliaBoy: In microgravity it doesn't take much fuel to move pretty far...

ideaman2020

Where's the lightsabers? This is going to be a pretty one-sided training session...

P3nnst8r

@OMG! Ponies!: God, you're brilliant.

P3nnst8r

@obeisance: actually, its compressed CO2 to be exact. Not air. You would think NASA would be smart enough to use compressed AIR, but no haha.

A few weeks ago, the lead flight director for the last crew aboard the ISS talked to us, and mentioned the SPHERES. She also had no idea why they used CO2.

SrsRevo17

@ideaman2020: Who's John Mayer?

shamoononon has a hebetudinous dog

Looks like the Sulibans are here.

defn

Doesn't it ever bug you when they name something first and then find an acronym that'll loosely fit inside it?

scandalmonger

Good against remotes is one thing...

strider_mt2k

they look so small in the 1st picture

diehippiedie

Give them to Apple and you´ll have a pretty nice satellites around the ISS.

ddtx2

@GreyHammer: I see that all the time as well. It's not so bad because I only read Giz and Kotaku.

GTgeek

Just what we need. More space junk we can't see! Just wait till one of these things crashes into a manned space mission at 400,000 MPH. Maybe these Aerospace folks will get the idea.

Blaxpear