Why Build On Earth?

[trevanian]

ChuckPR said:
Besides that, doesn't anyone remember the Trek movie The Voyage Home in which it was demonstrated that impulse power allows craft to fly and hover in totally non-aerodynamic ways?

Yeah, the flick where the winged BOP goes to WARP inside an atmosphere, after its crew plays loose and fast with altering history ... That's really one for credibility, pardon me while my eyes click from rolling so far back up in my head. If you see it on screen it is canon, right?

So what happens when the show contradicts itself, you only accept the one that you like? Like the VOYAGER BS about not turning while at warp, when the TOS ship did it constantly in the series and relied on that to intercept vger in TMP.

 

[Woulfe]

I'm still pondering what folks don't get about science FICTION, is there something i'm missing because I don't see a blasted thing wrong with the ship being bulit on Earth by Welders at all ?

Or am I reading too much into things ?

- W -
* Confused *

 

[Franklin]

scotthm said:

Franklin said:
there are inertial forces at work in space, but I don't think they are real gravitational forces (especially the farther and farther you get from gravitational pulls).

I'm sure there are quite a few cosmologists who'd be surprised to learn this. I wonder what makes galaxies cluster together, if not gravity?

If I'm in space floating in a tin can going in a straight line, all is good. If the can suddenly turns, inertia will cause me to keep going straight, and I may hit a wall of the can. It could be called a kind of artificial gravity.

Why would you be floating? I'd want my spaceship to be accelerating, thereby imparting a certain amount of 'g' force upon its occupants, making my journey more comfortable and quicker.

---------------

Second point first. I kind of meant floating inside a vessel at zero g (more or less) moving at a constant speed and direction. Then, the tin can makes a sudden turn but I keep going in the original direction until I bump into a side of the can. More or less a thought exercise, not something anyone would necessarily want to do.

To the first point, well, let's just say I was talking about how there could be advantages to working in RELATIVE weightlessness above Earth as opposed to working in 1 g. I was trying to word it in a way that acknowledged that it's impossible to completely escape gravitational effects.

In space you could manipulate heavy materials safely with tractor beams. Even placing large pieces manually would be easier because their weight is negligable. On Earth, they'd have to be manipulated with old-fashioned cranes and hoists, and things.
Or, perhaps on Earth they use anti-gravity ray guns like the ancient astronauts loaned to the Egyptians to help them build the pyramids.

I'm falling into the trap of taking this far too seriously than I should. Damn Abrams and his "is it real or is it metaphor" teaser!

 

[Woulfe]

^ We have nothing better to talk about 'till the real trailer hits sometime in summer !
It's gonna be a LONG wait 'till then.
- W -
* Sad, isn't it ? *

 

[Franklin]

Woulfe said:
I'm still pondering what folks don't get about science FICTION, is there something i'm missing because I don't see a blasted thing wrong with the ship being bulit on Earth by Welders at all ?

Or am I reading too much into things ?

- W -
* Confused *

No, you're not. I am. It's just seeing starships (especially Voyager) flying around in the atmosphere is about the ONLY thing in Trek that stretches the credulity of all of it to its breaking point for me. There's only so much disbelief I'll suspend.

As far as building starships on land goes, do they build starbases, Star Fleet Command, and space stations largely or totally on the ground, too? Those are huge.
There'd have to be pretty big space construction or at least assembly sites up there. I guess no one ever thought of using them for starships.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
See? Did you read that rant? It's me. But I've vented, and I'm done.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

trevanian said:

ChuckPR said:
Besides that, doesn't anyone remember the Trek movie The Voyage Home in which it was demonstrated that impulse power allows craft to fly and hover in totally non-aerodynamic ways?

Yeah, the flick where the winged BOP goes to WARP inside an atmosphere, after its crew plays loose and fast with altering history ... That's really one for credibility, pardon me while my eyes click from rolling so far back up in my head. If you see it on screen it is canon, right?

So what happens when the show contradicts itself, you only accept the one that you like? Like the VOYAGER BS about not turning while at warp, when the TOS ship did it constantly in the series and relied on that to intercept vger in TMP.

Personally, I don't worry about it a whole lot and enjoy the show. In the case of Voyager, I didn't watch it. Not because they couldn't turn at Warp Speed, but because I didn't enjoy the show. Seems simple enough to me.

 

[scotthm]

Franklin said:
It's just seeing starships (especially Voyager) flying around in the atmosphere is about the ONLY thing in Trek that stretches the credulity of all of it to its breaking point for me. There's only so much disbelief I'll suspend.

So you'll believe that Starfleet promoted Janeway to admiral, but you won't believe that starships can fly through a planet's atmosphere?

---------------

 

[Franklin]

scotthm said:

Franklin said:
It's just seeing starships (especially Voyager) flying around in the atmosphere is about the ONLY thing in Trek that stretches the credulity of all of it to its breaking point for me. There's only so much disbelief I'll suspend.

So you'll believe that Starfleet promoted Janeway to admiral, but you won't believe that starships can fly through a planet's atmosphere?

---------------

LOL!

OK. TWO things.

 

[Opus]

EliyahuQeoni said:
Its easy to get the ship into orbit. All you need to do is tech the tech and reverse the polarity of the electron flow & bob's your uncle, you're in orbit!

Or change the gravitational constant of the universe. Either way...

 

[[[[MAC]]]]

biotech said:
<snip>

And all these people clammering for the spaceship to be built in space...

Would you build a submarine at the bottom of the sea?

<snip>

I also wouldn't put the submarine building facility in the middle of Montana,
either. There is one very good reason why all yards for building ocean-
going ships are on the continental coasts (or large bodies of water with an
open channel to the ocean like the Great Lakes or the Mississippi). It is
impractical and even impossible to build and assemble these artifacts and then
transport the fully assembled ship to the ocean for launching. This is
the way that it has been from the very first time that man has tied two logs
together to build a raft to cross a river.

Yes, components for an ocean going ship being build could be manufactured
anywhere in the world and transported to the ship building facility on the
coast for final assembly, but the size of those components is limited to
what it is possible or practical to transport over land to get to the
ship yard. That is why today even components that are manufactured in one
large module are usually manufactured in facilities near the ship yard. In
some cases subcontractors that manufacture subsystems that are physically
large will actually build a 'new' factory near the ship yard if its logical
and financially realistic when they get contracts of certain kinds.

In the case of Star Fleet's (or Star Trek's) Enterprise, the logical and
financially sound way to do it might be to build the major modules on the
ground, say the bridge module, the sick-bay module, blocks of quarters
modules, the library computer module, maybe even the entire warp nacelle
assembly, etc., and transport them by either traditional heavy lift methods
or by actual transporters and then bolt - or weld - them together
in orbit.

And then again, a culture that is living and working comfortably in space
as the Federation and Star Fleet are, would probably have facilities in
space that also assemble the major modules from smaller components. I
mean which is easier, move the entire bridge up to space as one unit or
move up boxes of colored plastic buttons, klunky knobs, and comfy chairs?
When we're talking about the time, expense, and energy required to get
things off the surface of a planet into space, smaller is always going
to be better.

Even if it were possible for the big E to do atmospheric flight, and we've
seen - on screen - many examples of them telling us that it's possible in
an emergency at probably catastrophic risk to the ship and crew to do so
(if they could do it on a whim why didn't they just land in the Enemy Within
and pick up Sulu's party rather than let them almost freeze?), there is just
no logical reason to do so. And having transporters, anti-gravity, nano-
technology, and a great tasting lite beer doesn't change this reality.

MAC

 

[biotech]

Why is everyone hung up on the enterprise landing.

There is a vast difference between being able to land, and being able to take off.

Most rockets aren't designed to land, they still take off from the surface.

Theres no point arguing with people who have already made their mind up they will accept anything about the future, other than a starship being able to resist one G and fly through an atmosphere, because that is so much harder to beleive than warp speed, transporters, body swaping, evolving into a salamander, gods being real, time travel being practical, and every species out there being able to mate with every other.

 

[ChuckPR]

trevanian said:

ChuckPR said:
Besides that, doesn't anyone remember the Trek movie The Voyage Home in which it was demonstrated that impulse power allows craft to fly and hover in totally non-aerodynamic ways?

Yeah, the flick where the winged BOP goes to WARP inside an atmosphere, after its crew plays loose and fast with altering history ... That's really one for credibility, pardon me while my eyes click from rolling so far back up in my head. If you see it on screen it is canon, right?

So what happens when the show contradicts itself, you only accept the one that you like? Like the VOYAGER BS about not turning while at warp, when the TOS ship did it constantly in the series and relied on that to intercept vger in TMP.

How about you contradict what I actually said about impulse power?


Gee, I was talking about impulse power and you change the entire subject to a perceived incongruity concerning Warp drive that has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

What's that all about?

Try actually responding to what I was saying instead of making statements about subjects I wasn't talking about and then ranting that there is a contradiction that exists only in the nonsense you - not I - decided to talk about.

Why stop at Warp drive?

Why not bring up a dozen other subjects I wasn't talking about?

Then you can continue to lecture me about contradictions in what you yourself have chosen to change the subject to.

There are about another dozen things seen in Trek movies and TV episodes that are questionable but which also have nothing to do with what I was talking about.

Want to bring those up too?

So that they will prove what, exactly?



In The Voyage Home the BOP did some very non-aerodynamic manuevering via impulse power. Like I said.

In TOS the Enterprise was proven capable of atmoshperic flight.

And we pretty much know the TOS E didn't manuever inside the atmosphere because it's aerodynamic.

So common sense tells us that some force or propulsion system in use by the TOS E allowed it to manuever in atmospheric flight in a manner totally disconnected with aerodynamic flight.

Your points about series and movie-wide alleged warp contradictions even if accurate,

HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH and cannot be used to discredit impulse as the propulsion method that allowed the BOP in TVHome to fly as it did.

Don't like the Warp issue, start a thread about it.

Fact is that has nothing to do with the fact that TVHome established impulse propulsion as capable of allowing a ship to fly, hover, and manuever in totally non-aerodynamic ways within atmosphere.

And again, even in TOS the TOS E has already been shown to be capable of non-aerodynamic atmospheric manuevering - even if they never bothered to explain the technology during TOS, the TOS E is clearly shown to have that ability.

Your tangent about Warp drive in no way contradicts anything about what I said about Impulse propulsion.

Nor does it erase what was seen on both the big and small screen.

trevanian said:
If you see it on screen it is canon, right?

No.
Of course not.
Seeing onscreen in both TVHome and The Original Series
that ships of the Trek universe can manuever
in atmosphere...

I think us having seen that on both the
big and small screens must mean
it's NOT canon, right?

 

[Akiraprise]

You know...I heard rumors that the Trek Tech forum can get pretty rowdy. I really didn't believe it though. Until I started reading this thread.

Impulse drive is fake. It doesn't exist.
Warp drive is fake. It too is imaginary.

So let us all take a deep breath...all set? Good. Exhale. Deep breath...exhale. Excellent.
So lets all shake hands and agree that it doesn't matter how the Enterprise gets off the ground. Cuz it's imaginary, and I'm sure nobody wants to hurt anybody else's feelings over an imaginary starship. Even if it is a cool imaginary starship that is clearly going to use antigravity thrusters to take off and land on planets at will.

 

[Woulfe]

biotech said:
Why is everyone hung up on the enterprise landing.

There is a vast difference between being able to land, and being able to take off.

Most rockets aren't designed to land, they still take off from the surface.

Theres no point arguing with people who have already made their mind up they will accept anything about the future, other than a starship being able to resist one G and fly through an atmosphere, because that is so much harder to beleive than warp speed, transporters, body swaping, evolving into a salamander, gods being real, time travel being practical, and every species out there being able to mate with every other.

NASA does it all the time and they seem to be okay with violateing Canon and be able to bulid space ships on the ground and launch them just fine, and said space ships have never crushed themselves in 1g nor in higher g's as they launch upwards, and that's useing 1970's tech ( the Shuttle's getting up there in age isn't it ? )

One can only imagine what would be availible in 200 years to do the same thing on a bigger scale.

- W -
* NASA seems fine with violateing the bulid a spaceship on Earth, and besides it's a teaser anyway *

 

[biotech]

And skyscrapers, they should just fold up on themselves shouldn't they?

I mean all that vertical weight on such a small area.

 

[Woulfe]

biotech said:
And skyscrapers, they should just fold up on themselves shouldn't they?

I mean all that vertical weight on such a small area.

Of course, it violates Canon, why didn't I see that ?

Gosh, who knew the real world doesn't follow Star Trek's RULES, what a concept, yea, all that STEEL and CEMENT going stright up into the air, how dare it violate Star Trek canon like that.

Next thing you'll be telling me that these massive cruise ships folks have bulit as of late also violate Star Trek canon, becuse they possibly do for all I know.

- W -
* Tongue planted firmly in cheek *

 

[biotech]

Its ok, if skyscrapers are built in space and then lowered down into place I think we can get away with it.

And cruise ships dont exist because they havent been seen onscreen in any episode or film.

 

[ancient]

Maybe someone could explain the advantage of building a ship is space. Seems a hell of a lot harder and more dangerous to me...

 

[scotthm]

ancient said:
Maybe someone could explain the advantage of building a ship is space.

Don't you build ships in the middle of the ocean? Don't you build cars on the interstate highway? Hello!

---------------

 

[ST-One]

scotthm said:

ancient said:
Maybe someone could explain the advantage of building a ship is space.

Don't you build ships in the middle of the ocean? Don't you build cars on the interstate highway? Hello!

---------------

I think you missed his point by, at least, one AU.