The cat is moving in a circle, so it has a centripetal acceleration and a centripetal force. At the apex of the loop, that force is the sum of gravity, and resistance from the track. The track force is greater than or equal to zero, so acceleration due to gravity is less than or equal to the total centripetal acceleration.
g ≤ v²/r
So,
r ≤ v²/g
Taking top speed of a cat as 8.278m/s (from Wolfram Alpha), and g on earth as 9.81m/s², this gives us r ≤ 6.99m. So long as the cat can maintain its top speed all around the loop, it can successfully do a loop of up to 14 meters diameter. This is a lot bigger than I expected, to the extent that I suspect some flaw in my reasoning.
In case you mean pictures like this; http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Milky_Way_Galaxy.jpg - they are not actually images of the Milky Way. As you've guessed, we can't directly see it in its full spirally goodness from the inside. Instead, these pictures are either artist's impressions based on scientific understanding, or pictures of different galaxies that are reckoned to be pretty similar to the Milky Way.
With the way all the Maya stuff was presented as mysteries of an ancient civilization, it was a real surprise for me to find out the Maya are just, like, there. If you want to know the deal with the Maya calendar you can just ask them. They're the ones stood outside the archeological sites selling t-shirts.
Looks like the right link for me. I did see an error reported before, where instances could federate posts under different IDs to the original host instance. Has anyone else on your instance tried this link?
Did anyone else learn that eggs are dairy products? (Meaning, the word 'dairy' encompasses both eggs and milk. Not that eggs are somehow produced by cows)
Makes most sense that blockade runner is a description of the role it's being used for, same way you can describe any car as a taxi if that's how you're using it.
Good point. It has zero contact force at the apex, so 14m is an upper bound on possible cat-loops.