Rabea Rogge, the first German woman in space, recently posted a video demonstrating how to roll a twenty-sided die in zero gravity. It’s easy to throw dice when you’re in polar orbit, as Rogge was, but how do you land one? Magnetized dice trays, maybe?
“We experimented a little,” Rogge says, before demonstrating that actually the best solution is the least complicated one. She flicks the D20 upward, putting a little English on it so it spins, catches it in her fist, and peers through the gap in the top of her hand to check the result. It’s a seven, so unfortunately she’s failed her Wisdom saving throw and contracted space madness.
“So rejoice,” Rogge concludes. “Roleplaying in space is absolutely possible.” Which is true, so long as you’re not playing Shadowrun or casting a leveled-up fireball or anything that demands you roll a big wodge of dice all at once—unless you don’t mind slowly rolling them one at a time.
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Rogge was part of SpaceX’s Fram2 mission, a polar orbit flight funded by cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang. Dr. Christopher Combs, associate dean of research, mechanical engineering, at the University of Texas at San Antonio told CNN that a private space flight around the poles was “a notch above gimmick, but not exactly a groundbreaking milestone.” Still, she’s been to space more than I have.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Artemis 2 flight around the moon has helped boost Kerbal Space Program’s concurrent player count to a record high, despite the issue they had with Microsoft Outlook running two instances at the same time, neither of which worked.
