Starship Size Argument™ thread
- Thread starter WarpFactorZ
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Yup.
In my experience, this could lead to people saying "What a stupid film, do they know there is no gravity in space? I knew I shouldn't have listened to you to watch this Star Trek bullshit" Well, except that was Prometheus, but I guess Star Trek would have had the same reaction.
The scenes in TUC and STID where the gravity failed, as well as the scenes in Enterprise, STXI and STID where people floated away in space after a hull breach, were a very convincing and influencing reminder that you are not on the ground, that the gravity is only artificial and that it might fail you at any moment. It suddenly makes me think how that the rules I know no longer apply, and makes me enjoy being somewhere else.
Or are you saying that the film is better off without that scene? I am not following.
Spock said that the gravity systems were failing, that could mean they were going haywire, it didn't help that the Enterprise was caught in the gravity field of Earth.
At 300,000km from Earth, the gravitation field from the Earth is effectively 0. So, they should never have been "caught" in the gravity field of Earth. And even if they were, it would have taken quite a long time to fall (in fact, they probably should have crashed into the moon instead). Enough time for any given Federation starship, or a fleet of shuttles, to rescue them. Hence another majorly egregious BAD SCIENCE moment.
Yes, and are you going to bust Trek's nuts over every single one of them over the last ~50 years?
How do we have a Moon then? It would have floated away from Earth by now if the gravitation field was effectively 0. We also don't know the real distance from Earth the scene takes place, and we don't know the meaning behind the phrase. It could as well mean the current velocity has put the ship on a trajectory that will be intercepted by Earth's gravity.
I also just saw the film again, and I must admit that I was wrong. While the implication is clearly there, and in fact the ship is always aligned so that the people are falling towards the Earth, everything is vague enough that it can be interpreted in any way you want, and in no place a connection between Earth's gravity and the people falling has been established. Sorry, I was going on by the memory of my earlier impressions.
Oh, and let's not forget... The moon's gravitational pull obscured our warp signature.
e = Earth
g_e = GM_e/r_e^2 = (6.67e-11)(5.98e24)/(2.4e8)^2 = 0.007 N/kg
Compare this with 9.8 N/kg at the surface. This is "effectively 0". Why do we have a moon? Because (a) it is HUGE compared to a starship (mass = 10^22 kg), and F = mg_e). Second, it's orbital velocity is enough to offset this gravitational pull. If the moon weren't moving, it would fall into us.
Sulu: We're 237,000 km from Earth!
That's very clear as to what the real distance is. Drifting 10,000km here or there doesn't change the physics significantly.
They seem pretty stationary, otherwise, considering the moon is so close (and doesn't drift away). Assuming they were in a direct line-of-sight between the two, they'd have been about 140,000km from the moon. This would decrease the total gravitational field by a marginally small amount, but it would still be directed toward the Earth.
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240000 km from Earth sounds like peanuts compared to the ~1 AU of Soran's rocket in Generations. If children fireworks can take 1 AU in 6 seconds, why couldn't a ship that just dropped out of warp, received massive photon torpedo bombardment and felt the enormous shockwave from the explosion of 72 experimental torpedoes, make it well into Earth's gravity well in a few minutes (or hours, because unless Sulu also mentions the time, it is also unclear)?
If the Enterprise were stationary compared to Earth, there's a good chance it would cease being in freefall and be drawn directly downward.
Given that the Enterprise's thrusters were still functioning (Sulu aligns the Enterprise with the Vengeance), I assume there was some sort of station keeping. Especially considering the incredible damage to the Enterprise there had to have been a lot of residual gas leaks.
Once the ship lost power, any sort of venting atmosphere could be enough to accelerate the ship into a death spiral.
Given that the Enterprise's thrusters were still functioning (Sulu aligns the Enterprise with the Vengeance), I assume there was some sort of station keeping. Especially considering the incredible damage to the Enterprise there had to have been a lot of residual gas leaks.
Once the ship lost power, any sort of venting atmosphere could be enough to accelerate the ship into a death spiral.
Can you imagine what a clusterfuck this board would be if every scientific inaccuracy throughout Trek was treated with as much venom as Into Darkness?
Not enough Excedrin in the world for that.
Put it always amuses me the amount of bullshit science and "speculative fiction" ST fans will buy into, and only to flip out over equally as bad speculative bullshit fiction when they don't like an episode or movie.
Then again, it isn't just ST fans, sci-fi and fantasy fans in general are fickle creatures.
First: there are no shockwaves in space, in the same sense as on Earth (in the atmosphere). Shock waves in space are purely particulate, which means the tiny little pieces of Vengeance that might have hit the Enterprise would have to have been enough to push it. Translation: not likely.
And even if the torpedo onslaught caused the Enterprise to drift in the direction of Earth (totally plausible), it wouldn't have moved it close enough to cause what happened. Additionally, the gravitational field of the Earth doesn't just "turn on" at some distance. It's all gradual, and very weak if you're far away. BAD SCIENCE -> see "The Black Hole".
Second: it all happens in "real time" as we see on the screen. Kirk et al. get beamed back to the ship, the torpedoes explode on the Vengeance (remember, this is a matter of minutes from when they're beamed aboard), and the Enterprise begins to tumble uncontrollably.
gerbil said:
Not in the time shown on screen. Not by a long shot. You do realize these are very easy things to calculate, so if they had bothered to hire a science consultant (as most sci-fi films do), they could have avoided this nonsense.
FckrSGB said:
Again, you don't understand the difference between speculative science fiction and bad science.
Flake said:
No Einstein here. This is freshman Newtonian physics.
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The Enterprise is 267,000km from Earth when she drops out of warp, the moon is 384,405km away. The Enterprise is 117,405km closer to the Earth. The pull is stronger.
Don't claim shit science when you didn't even take 10 seconds to find that out.
And we know from TNG, venting atmosphere will kick a massive ship into moving at a pretty good clip, even if stationary.
And we know from STIII that starships moving at impulse speeds will coast to a stop with comical sound effects when the energy pulls the sparkplugs. Or in STV dropping a photo torpedo onto a massive alien life form will have zero side effects to anyone standing mere meters away; and said alien will survive an antimatter warhead but lower power phasers will smoke that bastard with ease.
Shit Science = Trek Science = Norm.
I took less than 10 seconds. I did the calculations. It's not "shit science".
I already said the net field is directed toward the Earth. But it is so small that it is effectively 0.
Field from Earth:
F_e = GM_e/r_e^2 = (6.67e-11)(6e24)/(272e6)^2 = 0.005 N/kg
Field from the Moon:
F_m = -G M_m /r_m^2 - (6.67e-11)(120e8)^2 = -0.0003 N/kg
Net field: basically 0.005 N/kg toward Earth.
So, 0.005 N/kg is non-zero, but not significant.
Never accuse me of "shit science," Herbert.
Exactly!, the film has the Enterprise randomly decompressing from the damage, moving debris hitting itself all around, Vengeance pummeling her etc, all sorts of imparted momentum.
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