Small question-When Kirk/Sulu/Olson
- Thread starter PopBoy
- Start date
It's not the altitude drop that causes things to burn up, unless they hit the atmosphere with enough speed. It's the forward velocity over the ground that does it. When a space shuttle or other craft reenters from orbit, it's doing about 17000 to 18000 miles an hour to maintain that orbit. Imagine you're in the back of a pickup while it's stopped on a highway and you jump out. You drop a couple of feet and you're ok. Now what happens if the pickup is going a 100 mph down the highway and you try the same thing. Can we say red smear on the pavement? You're still only dropping a couple of feet but it's that forward velocity that kills you.
Yeah, I don't think they were falling fast enough to burn up. Maybe.
The real question is: How did they breathe comfortably so high up on that drilling platform?
(answer: 'coz it's a movie
)
The real question is: How did they breathe comfortably so high up on that drilling platform?
(answer: 'coz it's a movie
)
A number of things
a) thank you for explaining and replying
b) like, ew!
c) so, the truck is the shuttle and that is stationary at the time of "dumping" the three officers. this is why they're able to enter the planets atmosphere without burning up. right?
d) you see the way i saw i looked at really does depend on altitude. i read something in new scientist on space diving and indeed like many star trek predicts it might become a reality in the near future. however it depends on the initial orbital "path" of the dumping of the space dive. As you say, it was about speed. So if your falling straight down from a non-moving non-orbital position the atmospheric density increases pretty slowly, your falling speed is self-managed and heat increases are low and manageable. Thus, you wont burn up.
However, if your any higher, the speed increases outside of the atmosphere and will give you too much energy to dump as you hit the atmosphere, and you would need heat shielding. Which i was thinking the officers must have. Or they'd certainly burn up. It is both velocity and positioning.
I did a little wiki-reading after posting. The world record for a parachute jump is over 102,000 feet during an Air Force test program in 1960. That's over 20 miles up.They were researching ultra-high altitude survivability of a pilot ejection. The test pilot jumped from a helium balloon at what's considered the top of the atmosphere for high altitude jets. He was wearing a pressure suit with oxygen, insulated to protect him from the extreme cold. On the way down he reached over 600 mph or Mach .9. He didn't open his main chute until 10,000 feet but used a small stabilizer chute to keep him from spinning.
The Narada appeared to be parked pretty low. Probably below the level of atmospheric ionization (ionosphere) or 30 miles. And the distance to the business end of the drill seems to be 15 or 20 miles below the Narada (just guessing).
As for being able to breathe on the drill platform. You're screwed if you're above 12,000-15,000 feet in altitude on Earth. Pilots are required to wearing oxygen masks above 12,000 feet in an unpresurized aircraft. With the thinner air of Vulcan you pass out at an even lower altitude (perhaps half then?)
As for burning up on reentry. It all depends on the speed you hit the atmosphere and the level of thermal protection you have available. I.e: pressure suit, space capsule (nasty Russian ones), Space Shuttle, escape pod, warp-capable starship with metaphasic shielding.
The Narada appeared to be parked pretty low. Probably below the level of atmospheric ionization (ionosphere) or 30 miles. And the distance to the business end of the drill seems to be 15 or 20 miles below the Narada (just guessing).
As for being able to breathe on the drill platform. You're screwed if you're above 12,000-15,000 feet in altitude on Earth. Pilots are required to wearing oxygen masks above 12,000 feet in an unpresurized aircraft. With the thinner air of Vulcan you pass out at an even lower altitude (perhaps half then?)
As for burning up on reentry. It all depends on the speed you hit the atmosphere and the level of thermal protection you have available. I.e: pressure suit, space capsule (nasty Russian ones), Space Shuttle, escape pod, warp-capable starship with metaphasic shielding.
Their suits could have protected them from the heat of reentry. Although as we saw with Olsen, not from the drill beam.
Their suits could have protected them from the heat of reentry. Although as we saw with Olsen, not from the drill beam.
Stupid red shirt.
^ Pity they didn't use any of the pre-Scotty chief engineers (there have been quite a few) from the novels. I highly doubt that, for example, Moves-With-Burning-Grace would have been that sloppy.
...And the question you have to ask before that is, how high is high?
In the "horizontal" shots of the platform, said horizon was a straight line, with nary a hint of a curve to it. So we're talking kilometers instead of dozens of kilometers here at most. In the "vertical" shots, we saw clouds below, at perhaps 1/10 of the height of the platform, plus some rocky ridges that probably weren't towering mountain ranges because no such things were seen in the surface shots from the Sarek mansion. Our heroes might be fighting at 3-5 kilometers, which would certainly call for extra oxygen - but their suits might be supplying some of that, despite the loss of the helmets.
Timo Saloniemi
Original Kirk didn't burn up either during the orbital jump cut from TFF. His suit didn't look as cool, but it had a more utilitarian look to it. When I saw that, i just assumed the suit was designed for extreme temperatures.
All three were injected with tri-ox compound by McCoy prior to entering the shuttle.
Olson and Sulu took their injections like men. Kirk, on the other hand, screamed like a little girl.
Ideally, yes, but its not like they had a lot of time to plan. that's something that's easy to overlook if you are in a rush.
It wasn't a question of distributing the weight, clearly, as neither Kirk nor Sulu appeared to be carrying any special gear (aside from Sulu's stiletto sword). It might have been a question of the "explosives" actually being a single, integrated device that simply could not have been distributed - but, OTOH, wasn't available in abundance, at least not in a hurry.
Other mild curiosities include the method of dropping: why the strange tilting before the dive? Looks cool, but doesn't seem to serve any purpose either in an orbital or in an atmospheric drop. Yet appcrently this gravity-adjusting thing and floor hatch are standard issue for shuttles.
One might argue that a floor hatch plus an adjustable gravity area just above it are very nice to have for cargo handling purposes, and the paradrop function is just a side benefit. And perhaps using the gravity adjustment is necessary for paradropping in atmospheres or in situations where exact timing is essential: re-reversing of gravity kicks the paratroopers out at a predetermined velocity, fast enough to compensate for possibleairstream and to ensure desired trajectory.
Other weirdness: if the drill isn't protected against paratroop attack or against Spock's strafing run later on, why was it still intact? How was Nero stopping Vulcans from shooting it to pieces? Two basic possibilities: Nero had air superiority and shot down all threats (but how come he didn't spot the paratroopers?), or Nero had a forcefield in place and the paratroopers actually flew inside it (while Spock had 24th century guns that were so much better than Vulcan or Starfleet 23rd century ones).
The scene is full of minor mysteries, but for once, few of them distract from the story. Or from the mindless action in this case... It's actually quite refreshing to see the heroes toil and sweat and bleed and in the end achieve exactly nothing!
Timo Saloniemi
Other mild curiosities include the method of dropping: why the strange tilting before the dive? Looks cool, but doesn't seem to serve any purpose either in an orbital or in an atmospheric drop. Yet appcrently this gravity-adjusting thing and floor hatch are standard issue for shuttles.
One might argue that a floor hatch plus an adjustable gravity area just above it are very nice to have for cargo handling purposes, and the paradrop function is just a side benefit. And perhaps using the gravity adjustment is necessary for paradropping in atmospheres or in situations where exact timing is essential: re-reversing of gravity kicks the paratroopers out at a predetermined velocity, fast enough to compensate for possibleairstream and to ensure desired trajectory.
Other weirdness: if the drill isn't protected against paratroop attack or against Spock's strafing run later on, why was it still intact? How was Nero stopping Vulcans from shooting it to pieces? Two basic possibilities: Nero had air superiority and shot down all threats (but how come he didn't spot the paratroopers?), or Nero had a forcefield in place and the paratroopers actually flew inside it (while Spock had 24th century guns that were so much better than Vulcan or Starfleet 23rd century ones).
The scene is full of minor mysteries, but for once, few of them distract from the story. Or from the mindless action in this case... It's actually quite refreshing to see the heroes toil and sweat and bleed and in the end achieve exactly nothing!
Timo Saloniemi
Was it from STG? I don't recall. It's been a while since I saw the clip on You Tube. But so be it then.
As for it being used on voyager, I really wouldn't know. Voyager is kinda, well, not too memorable for me.
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