Star Trek: Into Darkness

[Moses03]

They should call it "Space Awesomeness" and let it stand on it's own.

Hehe.

But if it were sitting on the ground how the heck would you get it in orbit? The engine is at the back of the saucer section pointing aft, start it and you slide across the ground, there is no lift. It's just dumb.

Good question Terry, let's investigate...

Quite simple, you would start up the impulse engines at .75 power and using both the shields and tractor beam, create a low pressure damping field around the lower hull. This would in effect, neutralize the Earth's gravity and allow the ship to gain altitude. Once sufficient height had been attained, the ship could have escaped the atmosphere under normal impulse power.

Here it is on paper. Show work!

Now there could be complications if the terrain was real rugged or if a tribble was lodged in the matter/anti-matter pulse chamber or if Spock was all worked up and needed to go mate somewheres or if a Gorn was loose in the cafeteria...

 

[Terry]

Love it!

You must have been a techy talk writer on the Next Generation series. :salute:

 

[LonelyplanetXO]

LOL Moses03! I saw it on the opening day and with due respect to previous Treks, loved it. Less cahunas? Nah, I think the characters in Into Darkness are closer to the original crew than previous series'. That said, the stories are a reflection of society. In the sixties Kirks attitude echoed JFK and there were big bad baddies everywhere. The eighties required a more diplomatic, conciliatory Captain. Later, I guess they thought it was ok to put a woman in charge. Funny how Voyager got lost...

LPXO

 

[PRB]

That would never work, Kevin. The impulse engine field modulators would interfere with the anti-gravity compensators if the atmospheric density is greater than 0.357 (Earth normalized), so the acceleration vector de-couplers wouldn't work, and anyone knows what would happen then!

Hey, I heard Khan was involved in this movie. Is that true? That would be cool.

 

[Motormouse]

That would never work, Kevin. The impulse engine field modulators would interfere with the anti-gravity compensators if the atmospheric density is greater than 0.357 (Earth normalized), so the acceleration vector de-couplers wouldn't work, and anyone knows what would happen then!

Don't forget the Bussard collectors dont' work well in normal atmosphere either, and anyway all those acceleration vectors would frighten the tribbles!

ttfn

Pete

 

[Eoraptor1]

I remember that episode and your right it was low. I suppose they did this so they could allow a fighter to reach it. But if it were sitting on the ground how the heck would you get it in orbit? The engine is at the back of the saucer section pointing aft, start it and you slide across the ground, there is no lift. It's just dumb.

Want another example look near the beginning of Star Trek 5. Kirk falls off the side of a mountain, Spock wearing rocket powered boots dives down to catch him. When he grabs Kirk he is horizontal and stationary. The thrust from the boots is clearly shown pointing horizontal. The people that made this scene were idiots. Sorry, it just torques my jaw when they have a total disregard for physics when it is not necessary.

There's a book called The Physics of Star Trek which goes in depth as to what may or may not be scientifically feasible in the show, but I don't even qualify the physics. I read all the "Making Of" and "World Of" books when I was a yoot, and as many cast memoirs as I could get my hands on - the makers of TOS made the technology up on the fly for dramatic purposes, and then fell back (frequently) on the sci-fi trope that "A sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic". TOS was a shoestring budget operation, so some things were invented for economic reasons. The shuttlecraft weren't ready in time for the initial pilot, and they were pricey to shoot; enter The Transporter. It was a cheap and easy way to get the characters into and out of the action quickly. Of course, the issue of the device becoming an easy out for dangerous situations required it frequently be made inoperable, jammed, or simply break down during the course of many episodes. It's "unreliability" became a running gag with Dr. McCoy.

Here's a Scientific American article that may be of interest: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=star-trek-movie-science

A similar NASA article: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/star_trek.html

One more: http://space.about.com/od/Space-and-Astronomy-Star-Trek/a/The-Science-Of-Star-Trek.htm

An "Atomic Rockets" article dealing with interstellar travel in Sci-Fi passed along to me by another SOH member: http://space.about.com/od/Space-and-Astronomy-Star-Trek/a/The-Science-Of-Star-Trek.htm

JAMES

 

[PRB]

Did you say yoot? What's a yoot?

I read someplace that the "technical talk" on Star Trek was a result of the director instructing the actors to just "say stuff that sounds technical". They had no idea what they were even saying, which is pretty funny.

Rgr Bussard Ramjet collectors. Now those would work. But you have to be going pretty darned fast, as you know...

 

[Terry]

Here is some honesty by a sci-fi writer-producer. Joe Straczynski[FONT=arial, sans-serif]who produced and wrote many episodes for Babylon 5 was asked how fast the fighters which they called star furys could go. Joe was ready for that one, he said "they move at the speed of plot".[/FONT]