How? What would have caused the impulse on the Enterprise?
The fall... I don't get it...
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How? What would have caused the impulse on the Enterprise?
The idea that any sort of weapons hit would impart enough momentum to the Enterprise to get it from near the moon to the Earth in just minutes indicates a staggering lack of understanding of the distances involved and the acceleration necessary. Besides, that's not even an accurate description of the screen action. Enterprise remains near the Vengeance after the attack until the torpedo explosions on the latter. Enterprise doesn't start "falling to Earth" until the EPS grid (or whatever they called it) failed.
It's a mistake. It doesn't really matter, because most folks are capable of suspending belief for the sake of the action. But please...don't try to make some sort of scientifically accurate justification for it.
It's a mistake. It doesn't really matter, because most folks are capable of suspending belief for the sake of the action. But please...don't try to make some sort of scientifically accurate justification for it.
No it isn't. Full impulse a throttle setting; .25C is a guess made by some non-canon source materials based on nothing.
That said, this would appear to be another of those moments where extremely tight editing makes events seem to take place much faster than they really do. Remember that Khan beams Kirk and company into the brig and then fires on them just before the torpedoes explode; the next time we see Kirk, he's hauling Carol Marcus into sickbay right before the power goes out. That implies at least a couple of minutes passed for the guard to let him out of the brig, maybe scan Carol's leg with a tricorder and/or shoot some pain killers into that shattered femur.
True, but then they would have hit the atmosphere just a handful of seconds before they hit the ground. Orbital speed at most seems indicated -- 10 to 20kms, methinks -- and assuming a twenty-minute death plunge, that means Enterprise lost power between 12,000 and 24,000km from Earth (slightly below geostationary orbit). Which, IMO, actually fits the visuals pretty well; the exterior we see just after the ship looses power shows the disk of the Earth about as large as it would appear from a spacecraft in geosynch orbit. That suggests to me they were booking on impulse power -- probably decelerating for standard orbit -- when the engines failed.
Well that's what explosions do.
Of course, as boobatuba said, it would be a small momentum, probably, but I'm more of the mind that the ship simply wasn't at a dead stop when it dropped out of warp.
And more importantly, it really doesn't matter that much.
If you're talking shockwave, you can only have one when there is a medium for it to propagate in (air, water, ground, etc...). Space is a vacuum, there is no such medium... regardless of what special effects gurus will have you believe.
The only way the Enterprise could have received any momentum from Vengeance is to have been hit by flying debris, which would have zero effect on moving a ship that big.
It matter enough for you to make a snide jab at me when I posed a question.
Supernovas would like to have a word with you. Even solar wind is enough to impact momentum.
A snide jab ? What are you talking about ?
Neither are shockwaves in the same sense as those produced in the atmosphere. They're particulate matter (expanding, superheated gas or highly ionized, relativistic particles). But you're not going to get either from the explosions inside a ship. Instead, you'll get pieces of the ship flying off.
I asked "How would the explosion move the Enterprise?", and you came back with "Physics, actually," insinuating that my question was inanely trivial and you knew better. But in reality, your answer shows that you really don't understand what you're arguing.
As someone else pointed out, anyone who is defending the science behind this entire "fall to Earth" scene is immediately showing their lack of understanding of physics. Things don't fall 200,000 km in a matter of minutes. People inside things that fall don't experience gravity: they free-fall with everything around them. etc...
So, when Kirk orders Valeris to take the ship out of spacedock at 1/4 impulse power (about 0.06c, or 18,000 km/s)... How big is that spacedock again?
No, we are all pretty aware that the creators behind Star Trek - old and new - and most other science fiction largely ignore science in order to tell some exiting yarn.
I'm aware of that but we're talking about "shockwave" in the broadest sense, as I'm sure you knew.
If you think that was a jab, you need to grow a thicker skin. I was being blunt.
I know exactly what I'm saying. I'm not being overly pedantic like some. Someone mentioned possible shock from debris and explosion during the battle, in addition to maneuvering, which we could see the Enterprise do. I don't see why we need to crack open physics and astronomy textbooks to argue this very minor point.
Also known as "fiction". When's the last time you saw a movie that didn't play with the rules of reality at least a bit ? A sci-fi movie, I mean.
Right, they're shockwaves in the sense as those produced in space.
We ARE talking about space ships, right?
Okay?
If I want real science I'll read Popular Science (which i subscribe to) or a physics text book. When I go to a movie, I want to be entertained.
"Deep Impact" comes pretty close, but likewise had its flaws.
Actually it's not so much a problem with sci-fi movies as it is ACTION movies. Arguably the most scientifically accurate Trek movie of all time was TMP, which was an old school slow paced, hardcore space drama with nods to 2001 and Fantastic Voyage.
Sci-fi movies during and since the 1980s have mostly followed the mould of action movies, which is why movies like Wrath of Khan, Aliens, 2010, The Fly II and The Last Starfighter wound up focusing more on shoot-em-up action sequences of nail-biting cliffhangers. It turns out that when sci-fi fans want intellectually engaging speculative fiction, they crack open a book; they go to movies, on the other hand, to have a science-fictiony roller coaster ride.
In which case, it's a good thing Star Trek exists in print as well as on screen, so we can have the best of both worlds.
Star Trek's crimes against science didn't begin with Abrams. His are no worse than Roddenberry's, Bennett's or Berman's.
Is no one here more qualified to comment on physics? I did first year physics at university and very nearly passed. No I did in fact pass after a supplementary exam.
I just read the novelisation "... final maneuvers bought us to the point where we appear to be caught in the Earth's gravity well'.
It wasn't momentum, it wasn't magic, it wasn't hocus pocus or the Nexus, it was final maneuvers that caused the dive. ADF wouldn't lie to us.
I just read the novelisation "... final maneuvers bought us to the point where we appear to be caught in the Earth's gravity well'.
It wasn't momentum, it wasn't magic, it wasn't hocus pocus or the Nexus, it was final maneuvers that caused the dive. ADF wouldn't lie to us.
You're right, it's not as sciency as...
- The Voyager space probe achieving sentience just because it's traveled really far and seen a lot of things (it was sentient before the planet of living machines built it the giant 12th power space dildo).
- The Genesis Device (a much smaller space dildo) making habitable planets out of desolate space rocks and dust in the span of a day.
- The dead Spock being regenerated as a mighty morphing rapid ager until it stops precisely at his former age, and then he gets his mind rebooted from his backup hard drive in McCoy.
- A Noah's Ark worthy tale about how one breeding pair of humpback whales are going to repopulate the species (where's the Deliverance dueling banjos?) before the next time the giant space Tootsie Roll with its energy soccer ball returns. Oh, and flying around the Sun really fast causes time travel that looks like the T-1000's liquid metal dreams.
- The Enterprise flies to the center of the galaxy and through a barrier with finite vertical edges that they could have just gone over or under (since they're apparently really really fast all of a sudden) in order to talk to "God," who's kind of a dick.
- A purple energy wave designed by Prince and Mace Windu travels countless light years from inside Klingon space to wherever the Excelsior just happened to be at FTL velocities, again with finite vertical edges they could have easily flown over or under.
- The giant space ribbon of happy thoughts travels fast enough to circle wide swaths of the galaxy every 39 years, but dramatically slows down enough to allow some geriatrics to reenact Thunderdome on a jungle gym while it's visible in the air. It can't be flown into by a ship, except that's how Guinan, Soran, the other El Aurians, and Kirk originally got into it. You just have to not give a shit about the ship being destroyed... so you get something disposable like a shuttle, or a space suit. But no, stopping all fusion within a star with Treknobabble (science!) to alter its path is much easier. Oh, and robots get feelings from a microchip that can be sensed by empaths.
- You can witness the effects of an altered timeline while being protected from it if you're inside a thing that looks like a glowy energy comet.
- Magical rings from a world of condescending immortals give you long life and the ability to see reality differently. Frodo must cast the rings into the fires of the Briar Patch before the dark lord Ruafo can get his hands on them. That's the right movie, isn't it?
- People think clones who have had no prior contact with you whatsoever should exhibit your personality traits, and that you should feel guilty about the fact that if you had grown up in the exact same conditions as your clone, you'd also be an evil goth dominatrix (male: dominator?) and lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins.
So, no, I don't think the Happy Fun Ball in ST09 was particularly egregious or out of place with the wonky science of the previous ten movies. I'd say Red Matter is about on par with the utter implausibility of the Genesis Device.
DISCLAIMER: None of these comments should be interpreted as harsh criticism of any of the films, because while I have my favorites and least favorites, I enjoy them all and find them all to be rewatchable. Nor should the comments be explained or rationalized, because it's a joke to make a point that Star Trek has never been hard science, and taking it too seriously would be missing said point.
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