SciFi movies and pathetic misconceptions of tech failing for the story line.

[BrianHG]

SciFi movies and pathetic misconceptions of tech failing for the story line.

I just dont know what to say, just that it's getting bad.
The last 2 scifi's I watched has what they called 'EMP' blasts to knock out everything electric.

Hun, even old non-electronic diesel engines.
Where somehow the fire of the fuel is killed, yet when a vehicle crashes filled with fuel, there fuel explodes.
Even basic non-led flash-light cant work?

Can anyone point me to any good SciFi series which don't make such stupid mistakes?
I just want to sit and watch something where I don't get pissed through the roof for the most basic simple stupid grievances for story line.
Even future SciFis like Star Trek or The Expanse have at many times more acceptable premise than some of the crappy stupidity I have seen recently.

[AVGresponding]

The Expanse wasn't bad (I've only watched the first 3 seasons, so no spoilers please xD), though the slingshot manouver the Rocinante did with Jupiter's moons annoyed me because it would have taken weeks to perform for real, not 20 minutes or whatever it was.

Have you watched Farscape? A lot of people get put off (as was I, initially) by the Henson connection, but once you get going it's really good, and the animatronics were first rate, and often look better than even the best modern CGI.

I'm currently watching Andromeda; this is only for real sci-fi-aholics, as it's pretty poor, by and large, definitely B grade.

If you can handle classic low budget sci-fi from the last century, try Blake's 7, or Logan's Run (the series).

[TimFox]

There are some 1950s movies that are not bad on future predictions.
A good example:  "Destination Moon", based on a Heinlein novel, including his belief that the private sector should handle space exploration.
Reasonable technical stuff, including using an oxygen tank for emergency propulsion of an astronaut in his spacesuit.
The expedition has to blast off in defiance of a court order.
In a bad example, whose name I cannot remember, I remember a spaceship travelling to Mars where the astronauts smoke in the main lounge.

[CatalinaWOW]

Why would you expect accuracy in the movie industry when so much of the general public and particularly the media generators are just completely ignorant of science.

In the last week in US news media I have heard the following two statements, delivered without a hint of confusion.

1.  The sandwich has been a daytime staple for Americans for centuries.  (America, (the intended shorthand for the USA with apologies to other Americans) can barely claim centuries, and the sandwich is of comparable age, invented in England and hardly widespread at the beginning).

2.  xxx crime has been a problem in our county for 80 decades. 

Similar gaffes are so common they pass without notice and people who are equally ignorant even cite them as justification for whatever weird thought has recently come to mind.

[BrianHG]

The Expanse wasn't bad (I've only watched the first 3 seasons, so no spoilers please xD), though the slingshot manouver the Rocinante did with Jupiter's moons annoyed me because it would have taken weeks to perform for real, not 20 minutes or whatever it was.

Have you watched Farscape? A lot of people get put off (as was I, initially) by the Henson connection, but once you get going it's really good, and the animatronics were first rate, and often look better than even the best modern CGI.

I'm currently watching Andromeda; this is only for real sci-fi-aholics, as it's pretty poor, by and large, definitely B grade.

If you can handle classic low budget sci-fi from the last century, try Blake's 7, or Logan's Run (the series).

Yes, I enjoyed Farscape, and yes you need to sit patiently through season 1 for that show, but it is worth it just to see everything else.  (Many good SciFis seem to have a 'not sure yet exactly how to do this show' season 1.)
Last year, I re-watched it, but finally the HD version of it.

The Expanse was also good.

I never watched Andromeda, maybe I need to do a 1-2 day non stop on that one.
I saw all of Logan's Run when I was a kid.  I'll also have to take a look at Blake's 7.

I know the difficulty in trying to get a proper HD version of Babylon 5 as all the CGI scenes were done in NTSC, but it would be nice.  (And not the BS Youtube HD upsampled ones as they are worse than the European PAL 16:9 DVD version where all the non CGI scenes we really high quality modern film transfers (twice as good as the so called Youtube 1080p AI upscales which are blurry) while the CGI was poorly but de-interlaced and sometimes zoomed in instead of left in 4:3 as they should have been.

[tggzzz]

I'll also have to take a look at Blake's 7.

Plot line: a group of random political prisoners steal the most powerful fighter spaceship in the galaxy. Later they find an omniscient computer. Each episode they still manage to get themselves into scrapes with vastly inferior opposition forces.

The final series ending was memorably good, though.

[RJSV]

   I was just, last night, shuffling around in my robe / bunny slippers, and mumbling some semi-coherent rabid:
   "Ohh LOOK! at that screen!". (As 'Tech Tablet' screen displayed, like data and stuff).
   "And LOOK!, smart kid will save us all, look at him work that screen..." (! HACK!).
(sarcasm).

   "That busy screen, man, it's gotta be some super-tech, superscreen...and that young kid will...
Save us all, by super-hack the Tech Screen".

Roommates didn't appreciate, the analysis...

[RJSV]

(I think they were watching 'The Ark'.

[coppercone2]

I think a EMP blast would fry the glow plugs on a diesel engine it was very powerful. Some engines might rely on them, I think it depends also what fuel you have, I thought some fuels need higher temps to get going, so a electrical heater may be necessary. 

https://gemstatediesel.com/what-diesel-drivers-should-know-about-glow-plugs/

https://www.quora.com/Will-a-diesel-engine-run-without-glow-plugs

[AVGresponding]

Glow plugs require a lot of current. I would guess you'd have to be so close to the origin of the EMP for that to be a problem, that it would be the least of your problems. Remember the inverse-square rule. Also bear in mind the P in EMP; it's a pulse, and not continuous*. Most simple electrical devices (filament lamps, motors, relays/solenoids, primary/secondary cells, glow plugs and other heating elements) would almost certainly be untroubled (as long as they aren't grid connected and active at the time of the EMP), though things like power and telephone lines are, because they are so big; effectively they have a huge "detection" area.

EMP is probably mostly effective against infrastructure rather than individual vehicles/devices.


*There's three parts to a nuclear triggered EMP, E1, E2, and E3, in descending order of strength. E1 is a nanosecond event, E2 is ~1us-1s, and E3 can last from seconds to minutes, it's the "ringing" of the Earth's magnetic field as it recovers.

[coppercone2]

well at least something is there, you never know what methods they have of focusing it or making a stronger field or whatever. If you are arguing about the EM properties of naquadria or something, its pointless. we dont have something strong enough is ALOT better then steam engine failed for electrical reasons.

He never said what show it was.

out of spec unmaintained leaky compression diesel engine failure to start because of glow plug failure due to scifi technology is OK, but if it was a thriller movie, about references existing technology, then its most likely a fail. But that would not be scifi, that would be action/thriller/war.

[mendip_discovery]

Blake's 7 is very good. It was the poor cousin to Dr Who and used some of the same quarries for the alien planets. There are jokes about the wobbly sets etc but on the whole it's got some great plot lines. It's a shame Paul Darrow past away as he was trying to bring a new version into life.

As a brit I have to recomend Red Dwarf. Science no so much but there is some clever filming. They solve who the man on the grassy knowl was. Episodes such as Back to Reality where before its time.

[Monkeh]

How much sci do you want in your fi? If the show focuses on the technology, it's going to have gaping holes in it. If you just want a few elements to provide a scenario, however..

I'm currently watching Andromeda; this is only for real sci-fi-aholics, as it's pretty poor, by and large, definitely B grade.

A show which existed solely to pay Kevin Sorbo. Had its moments, though.

I think a EMP blast would fry the glow plugs on a diesel engine it was very powerful.

Glow plugs are a low voltage extremely high temperature resistive heater. No, they're not going to die from an EMP small enough to not liquify parts of the vehicle.

[CatalinaWOW]

Glow plugs? EMP?  This is exactly the sort of technical weakness that prevails everywhere.

In a forum like this I think it is more laziness than ignorance.  Most here have the facts at hand to analyze it, but actual analysis is difficult and therefore none is done.

But at its heart it is simple.  EMP is not magic, it is EM energy.  It obeys inverse square laws of attenuation (except where guided by atmosphere or wire).  And whether something dies or not depends on how many joules it takes to kill it.  Static sensitive ICs require tiny fractions of a joule and are susceptible.   Incandescent ight bulbs and glow plugs are not.  LED bulbs somewhere between, but they are designed to survive some fairly impressive 'normal' surges on the power lines.  There are exceptions.  A long transmission line oriented properly to the direction of propagation of the EMP can build a large surge, in an effect similar to a traveling wave tube.  Even robust devices connected will be killed.  But that surge will be dissipated as it goes through substations and the like (killing equipment in the process of course) so downstream equipment may well survive and folks on lines not unfortunately oriented won't be affected.

A major EMP attack would have major effects on a country, but it wouldn't kill everything in sight.

[RJSV]

   Maybe, in an EMP post-attack situation, folks might temporarily switch, backwards, to more primitive and therefore robust vehicles!  Like a fleet of old old VW bus and mini-bugs that feature 'Containing NO sensitive electronics'. 
Ditto for vintage radios, on vac tubes.  That stuff could be very popular, during the 15 years or so, required to piece the (broke) world back together...
...and start or restart electronics micros.

[AVGresponding]

In a post-apocalyptic situation, I would take great pleasure in destroying all the hippy/hipster VW rustporters, and the hippies/hipsters with them. It wouldn't be difficult.

[tpowell1830]

SciFi movies and pathetic misconceptions of tech failing for the story line.

I just dont know what to say, just that it's getting bad.
The last 2 scifi's I watched has what they called 'EMP' blasts to knock out everything electric.

Hun, even old non-electronic diesel engines.
Where somehow the fire of the fuel is killed, yet when a vehicle crashes filled with fuel, there fuel explodes.
Even basic non-led flash-light cant work?

Can anyone point me to any good SciFi series which don't make such stupid mistakes?
I just want to sit and watch something where I don't get pissed through the roof for the most basic simple stupid grievances for story line.
Even future SciFis like Star Trek or The Expanse have at many times more acceptable premise than some of the crappy stupidity I have seen recently.

I like my scifi with a bunch of action, sometimes to the point where I ignore the science. My favorite TV series to date is Stargate SG1. The later episodes were hit or miss but I still enjoyed the action.
What I don't like about the TV/Movie industry is that they group creature features and horror with scifi.
I just started watching Andromeda and I am on season 3. It has its moments...

[coppercone2]

and if the glow plug battery is connected to a battery charger that is connected to a electrical grid then it could destroy the glow plugs or wiring or explode the battery

[tggzzz]

Blake's 7 is very good. It was the poor cousin to Dr Who and used some of the same quarries for the alien planets. There are jokes about the wobbly sets etc but on the whole it's got some great plot lines. It's a shame Paul Darrow past away as he was trying to bring a new version into life.

As a brit I have to recomend Red Dwarf. Science no so much but there is some clever filming. They solve who the man on the grassy knowl was. Episodes such as Back to Reality where before its time.

Those quarries were in every programme! ISTR reading that they were within a magic distance of London such that the crew did not have to be paid for travelling.

Red Dwarf was, at its best, very good. Certainly better than Blakes 7.

I will sheepishly admitting liking the first couple of series of Blakes 7 at the time, but the defect I mentioned caused me to become rather disenchanted.

[BrianHG]

How much sci do you want in your fi? If the show focuses on the technology, it's going to have gaping holes in it. If you just want a few elements to provide a scenario, however..

I'm currently watching Andromeda; this is only for real sci-fi-aholics, as it's pretty poor, by and large, definitely B grade.

A show which existed solely to pay Kevin Sorbo. Had its moments, though.

I think a EMP blast would fry the glow plugs on a diesel engine it was very powerful.

Glow plugs are a low voltage extremely high temperature resistive heater. No, they're not going to die from an EMP small enough to not liquify parts of the vehicle.

Now, don't go into EMP pulses strong enough to fry the neurons in our brains as such strength would effect the orbits of the electrons within our biology.

It's like saying your EMP are strong enough for all replacement uninstalled stove heating element sitting on a store shelf who happen to be over a few feet in length will all vaporize.

Yes, with ease, any EMP strong enough to fry most long length wiring to HV distribution transformers will also fry the CMOS gates in an IC with the tiniest length of exposed wiring, but not vaporize the blunt wiring itself.

Also, not all old-fashioned diesel engines or generators use glow plugs.

I can imagine an EMP being strong enough to weld the inner coil windings of a spark plug ignition coil as it may act like a sensitive antenna coil, nothing electronic, just the old fashioned type you see which has a cap and a magnet off the motor's flywheel on a cheap 2-stroke engine.

[BrianHG]

and if the glow plug battery is connected to a battery charger that is connected to a electrical grid then it could destroy the glow plugs or wiring or explode the battery

No, the most likely scenario is the charger's transformer may fry itself, but secondly what will happen either way is the charger's diodes will fry to a short, shorting out the battery, thus making the wiring between charger and battery slowly burn up so long as there is enough charge in said battery to do so and there is no fusing between the battery and charger's bridge diodes.

[vk6zgo]

Blake's 7 is very good. It was the poor cousin to Dr Who and used some of the same quarries for the alien planets. There are jokes about the wobbly sets etc but on the whole it's got some great plot lines. It's a shame Paul Darrow past away as he was trying to bring a new version into life.

As a brit I have to recomend Red Dwarf. Science no so much but there is some clever filming. They solve who the man on the grassy knowl was. Episodes such as Back to Reality where before its time.

Those quarries were in every programme! ISTR reading that they were within a magic distance of London such that the crew did not have to be paid for travelling.

Red Dwarf was, at its best, very good. Certainly better than Blakes 7.

I will sheepishly admitting liking the first couple of series of Blakes 7 at the time, but the defect I mentioned caused me to become rather disenchanted.

I remember those quarries well!

In a 1960s episode of "Dr Who", they were the stamping ground of some of the cheapest aliens I have ever seen on that series, & they got pretty cheap! (Remember the "Dalek Supreme", who had an Eveready magnetlite sticking out of his "forehead" where normal ones have that strange appendage that looks a bit like a "party favour"?).

Anyhow, the dear old Beeb must have spent all their budget, as the aforesaid aliens looked uncannily like cupboards with several legs, one of which folded out to zap unsuspecting passersby.

It wasn't just Dr Who, though, the BBC also had a show starring Ray Barrett as a "troubleshooter" for the "Mogul" oil company.
The quarries stood in for the Middle East, & various other places, including in one memorable episode where it was supposed to be Outback Australia.
In it, Ray, or someone else (can't remember) was close to death in the "trackless wastes" because they "hadn't taken their salt tablets".
Ray, who was an Australian could have told them it was bollocks, as most people get enough salt in their diet.

Quite honestly, the Brits produced some seriously dire programmes back in those days, although they steadfastly believed they made the "best programmes" in the World.

[vk6zgo]

"Jericho" was full of blunders---not really "tech", but just plain old general knowledge.
It was supposed to be set in a rural community, but the characters gave no indication of the kind of knowledge widespread in such communities.

In one egregious example, a group of "heroes", told that the hospital EPP was running out of fuel, set out to salvage "gasoline" from cars immobilised by an EMP.

To this end, they grabbed a flat tray truck, found a large plastic tank somewhere, & headed off.
Why plastic? ---Their explanation was to avoid an explosion due to static electricity.

Well pardon me, "Mr big city scriptwriter", but this "ole country boy" has only seen "gasoline" transported in large steel tanks or in what we, in Oz call "44 gallon" drums, & plastic is well known for the possibility of static discharges.

"But wait---there's more!" as they say in TV ads,
When they get enough "gas", they very deftly pour it into the sump of the EPP.

Of course, EEPs are very unlikely to run off "gasoline", as they are almost universally diesel units, & rural areas are "awash" with diesel fuel, so going around milking random car tanks would not have been necessary, even had they got the fuel type right.

A farmer isn't going to drive his huge new tractor into town every time he needs to "fill up", so farms will have bulk supplies, even ignoring that in the tanks of their newer "high tech" equipment, supposedly immobilised by EMP.

Another source would be the large tanks in the locomotive/s drawing the stranded train, which was visited to salvage food, dunny paper, & whatever, in an earlier episode.

[jonovid]

the BBC screenplay known as Dr Who has lost something in recent years. too many new Doctors,  the big 2018 retcon in the name of political correctness.
all have taken their toll on the once beloved show,  with its cheesy aliens. in 2022 most i know no longer watch the show.
the Daleks have an odd pedigree- IMO  going back to the 1960s with what looks like an old louvered studio light housing for a head. industrial warning lights for eyes/ ears.
high voltage bowling ball type insulator for a nose , paint rollers for arms / guns and a rubber bumper-bace that looks familiar as the motor & chassis of carnival dodgem-bumper car.
most of this was seen at that time in black-&-white in Australia, so we failed to notice.

one of the 1970s star trek characters had a circular automotive engine air filter for sunglasses.

[sleemanj]

The only thing Doctor Who lost was a good show runner, thankfully Chibs has been ditched and we can hopefully get back to some good Doctor Who episodes, I mean, David Tennant coming back, how bad can it be.  Jodi would have been a good doctor, if the stories hadn't been trash.

Stargate Universe is my preference of that franchise, much less episodic, much more character driven, much more interesting premise instead of just "fight this week's baddies" all the time.

The first season of Upload is fun (bit of a stretch to call it science fiction, but if we are including Doctor Who...).

Ascencion mini series I loved for an interesting treatment of a Generation Ship/Ark idea, sadly only got one series so the story was unfinished but it's still worth it.  I wish there were more series about generation ships.

Dark Matter, is hit and miss, but had a lot going for it, except the whole space samurai thing, which I heartily hated.

Undone, not scifi except for being unstuck in time, but a nice series, and the rotoscope style animation is great.

Star Trek Prodigy is perhaps my favourite of the Trek universe (but Enterprise I'm partial to also), despite appearances, it's not a show just for kids. 

"Earth 2" is going back a way, but I think it's a great series, another one cut short (but thankfully since apparently the early plans for series 2 were.. not good, to jazz it up for the unwashed masses)

[coppercone2]

jericho is not scifi though, its a thriller war/disaster movie and show

[mendip_discovery]

The sand pits where always a bit of a joke. But the shows were for kids mostly so they just used thier imagination.

Oh another Brit series that any SciFi fan needs to see is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not the new one, the old one.

I quite enjoyed Fringe as it was so bonkers with the science that it allowed me to be ok with it. I think it helped with having some half decent actors.

Science in TV/Film will always be a challenge as science evolves so some of it dates very quickly. Then there is the need to get some drama so they speed up some basic theory to keep pacing or blow ot pit of proportions to make it scary.

[vk6zgo]

jericho is not scifi though, its a thriller war/disaster movie and show

You are really nit-picking---it is a post-apocalyptic story, just like Neville Shute's "On the Beach", John Wyndham's "The Chrysalids", Walter M Miller's "a Canticle for Liebowitz", Pat Frank's  "Alas, Babylon", Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" & a host of other stories which were published as "Science Fiction" books, or appeared in "Science Fiction" magazines in the 1950s and 1960s.

[tggzzz]

Quite honestly, the Brits produced some seriously dire programmes back in those days, although they steadfastly believed they made the "best programmes" in the World.

Sturgeon's Law isn't just for books, nor for one country!

Some of the seriously dire programmes were extremely popular. I always hated (and was bewildered by) "The Black and White Minstrels"; nowadays it is still useful as a simple quick example of how much progress has been made. Others include "Love Thy Neighbour". (Curiously, modern idiots take "Till Death Us Do Part" as being a documentary whereas it was actually a satire).

[tggzzz]

Oh another Brit series that any SciFi fan needs to see is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not the new one, the old one.

Heresy! The best is the original radio series - it has much better pictures. Seriously. Especially in a dark room with headphones. The pioneering Radiophonic Workshop at its finest.

The only other variant that has come close was Ken Cambell's stage version at The Rainbow. That eschewed grotty prosthetics for Zaphod's second head in favour of keeping the spirit of the original: two actors in a single jumpsuit. (I imagine the actors preferred that to being the rear end of a pantomime horse).

[coppercone2]

jericho is not scifi though, its a thriller war/disaster movie and show

You are really nit-picking---it is a post-apocalyptic story, just like Neville Shute's "On the Beach", John Wyndham's "The Chrysalids", Walter M Miller's "a Canticle for Liebowitz", Pat Frank's  "Alas, Babylon", Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" & a host of other stories which were published as "Science Fiction" books, or appeared in "Science Fiction" magazines in the 1950s and 1960s.

I don't see how its sci fi unless there was a disaster that caused some kind of changes to occur. Surviving a disaster like a nuclear war seems more a thriller like 'volcano' then something to do with space, advanced technology that we did not see, etc. I consider that a misclassification unless its about how society changed and developed differently because of some kind of event. A disaster is a prelude to scifi, but dealing with a disaster hardly seems scifi. Like cherry 2000 is scifi that was introduced with a nuclear war. on the beach has what scifi elements in it? I would say that its a highly technical thriller. I would say it has low levels of imaginative technologies, if any. There is no framework of unknown technologies introduced in which to tell a logical story, its just dealing with present day crap gone wrong.

[vk6zgo]

Quite honestly, the Brits produced some seriously dire programmes back in those days, although they steadfastly believed they made the "best programmes" in the World.

Sturgeon's Law isn't just for books, nor for one country!

Some of the seriously dire programmes were extremely popular. I always hated (and was bewildered by) "The Black and White Minstrels"; nowadays it is still useful as a simple quick example of how much progress has been made. Others include "Love Thy Neighbour". (Curiously, modern idiots take "Till Death Us Do Part" as being a documentary whereas it was actually a satire).

I always found Black & White Minstrels" cringeworthy, as I couldn't see why the dancers had to wear blackface.
Sing the songs, maybe, but there was no reason to promote stupid stereotypes, no black person ever having looked like that!
From memory we also had it on TV in Australia back in the 1960s---I guess I must have been "woke" back then!

I still couldn't abide Alf Garnett, although it was a magnificent portrayal of an "Ignorant old Pommy Bastard" on the part of Warren Mitchell.
Funny thing, although I initially thought him "over the top", I met blokes like him, (all Brits) both in Oz, & during my long ago stay in the UK.

I even worked with a chap who was pretty much the manifestation in every way of another English stereotype----"Andy Capp".

Old, short & ugly, he would regale us with stories of his romantic dalliances, just like his cartoon "alter ego" who spent his time chasing what were called in that faraway time, "Dolly Birds".

Meanwhile, relatively normal, quite pleasant blokes were mostly pessimistic about their chances with members of the opposite sex.

[BrianHG]

I just started watching the movie 'The Cloverfield Paradox'.
I mean, unless our sun has dissipated, how is it possible for us to just run out of energy?
I guess I'll have to watch the rest of the movie to find out what this free limitless energy BS is about.

[Psi]

To watch any Sci-Fi you have to be willing to force your brain into assumptions that some currently understood laws of science are wrong or incomplete, and that a future discovery will replace or update them in such a way as to make what you're watching scientifically accurate.


Maybe try the TV Show Fringe.
It's easier to get your brain to accept 'Fringe Science' when it's presented as such.   
Compared to getting annoyed when a show presents real science that is wrong, if it's presenting pseudo science it's easier to accept that it could maybe be correct for the purposes of watching the show.

Also Fringe is a great show.

Another great show is Person of Interest. It starts off more of a crime/cop show, but it's a sci'fi show under that. Mainly about AI and it really gets amazing as you get into later seasons.

[tszaboo]

There are Soft Sci-fi and Hard Sci-fi movies and books. In soft, the sci-fi part is just a setting, where the rules bend to support the story. Think of Star Wars.
Hard, the story is supposed to make sense with the physics. Or at least some in universe rules. Like warping in Star Trek might not be possible with our universe, but over the years it was uphold as a semi-consistent rule (if you ignore newtrek). The Expanse is a great example for Hard Sci-Fi. Or the Martian.

To watch any Sci-Fi you have to be willing to force your brain into assumptions that some currently understood laws of science are wrong or incomplete, and that a future discovery will replace or update them in such a way as to make what you're watching scientifically accurate.


Maybe try the TV Show Fringe.
It's easier to get your brain to accept 'Fringe Science' when it's presented as such.   
Compared to getting annoyed when a show presents real science that is wrong, if it's presenting pseudo science it's easier to accept that it could maybe be correct for the purposes of watching the show.

Also Fringe is a great show.

Another great show is Person of Interest. It starts off more of a crime/cop show, but it's a sci'fi show under that. Mainly about AI and it really gets amazing as you get into later seasons.

PoI is a great show with it's over-arching story.
And yes, I could get annoyed when a story is presented as hard sci-fi and then it breaks the rules constantly. Like Gravity. Or Interstellar (none of that movie made sense in terms of physics). The latest one that I saw was a big offender was Ad Astra. If you want really really bad science, to the point where it's so ridiculous it's funny, watch Moonfall.

And what is very good was For All Mankind (apple TV series). Or Moon.
Honestly, I kinda understand why they don't make that much hard sci-fi, it could be kinda boring, where you travel months to the nearest planet, and if something goes wrong for example during EVA, you are dead in a second.

[snarkysparky]

Mega Kudos to The Expanse for taking the pains to do gravity and acceleration well.  At least in the first three seasons.  Later in the series people just walked about the ship while under acceleration.  New writers i guess.

As for Doctor who to me is seems they just quit trying to write episodes.  It became a stream of crap thrown together just to get an episode out.
The good Dr Who

The Impossible Planet,  The Satan Pit,  Silence in the Library ,  The Stone Angels...   That time period.

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

[coppice]

I'll also have to take a look at Blake's 7.

Plot line: a group of random political prisoners steal the most powerful fighter spaceship in the galaxy. Later they find an omniscient computer. Each episode they still manage to get themselves into scrapes with vastly inferior opposition forces.

The final series ending was memorably good, though.

That doesn't really give the flavour of Blake's 7. It was a space series with a super low budget. So low, they didn't even try to disguise how crudely everything was done. They chose some of the worst actors in the world. People even started joke charity funds to send the actors to drama school. The result was something you either find amusingly cheesy or just plain annoying.

[tggzzz]

If you want really really bad science, to the point where it's so ridiculous it's funny, watch Moonfall.

Ah, what it is like to be young, and not to remember 1950/60s movies[1], nor TV programmes like Space 1999.

[1] exceptions: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, 2001

[tszaboo]

Mega Kudos to The Expanse for taking the pains to do gravity and acceleration well.  At least in the first three seasons.  Later in the series people just walked about the ship while under acceleration.  New writers i guess.

Let's geek out a bit.
You could walk on the ships which were burning pro or retrograde. The ship was built like a office tower, the decks were vertical to the Epstein drive. They kept a comfortable 1/3 G on most ships. Also note the magnetic boots they were often times wearing. I think they even mentioned that Earth ships were faster because the crew could handle more Gs than the Belter or MCRN ships.
They were strapped into the seats when they were doing course corrections, so basically when the RCS thrusters would be used, not the main drive.

If you want really really bad science, to the point where it's so ridiculous it's funny, watch Moonfall.

Ah, what it is like to be young, and not to remember 1950/60s movies[1], nor TV programmes like Space 1999.

[1] exceptions: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, 2001

Well OP was mainly asking about recent sci-fi, right? Otherwise let's mention James Bond Moonraker.

[TimFox]

An important detail:  the movie Moonraker bore no resemblance to the original Fleming novel.
From Wikipedia's plot summary of the novel: 
"In the latter half of the novel, Bond is seconded to Drax's staff as the businessman builds the Moonraker, a prototype missile designed to defend England. Unknown to Bond, Drax is German, an ex-Nazi now working for the Soviets; his plan is to build the rocket, arm it with a nuclear warhead, and fire it at London. Uniquely for a Bond novel, Moonraker is set entirely in Britain, which raised comments from some readers, complaining about the lack of exotic locations."

[tggzzz]

If you want really really bad science, to the point where it's so ridiculous it's funny, watch Moonfall.

Ah, what it is like to be young, and not to remember 1950/60s movies[1], nor TV programmes like Space 1999.

[1] exceptions: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, 2001

Well OP was mainly asking about recent sci-fi, right? Otherwise let's mention James Bond Moonraker.

The OP was incorrectly stating it is a modern phenomenon, viz "...just that it's getting bad". It isn't.

The less said about any film with Roger Moore in it, the better Doubly so his James Bond films. Moore is pretty much the canonical example of a wooden actor; the only way he is capable of expressing emotion is by raising one eyebrow.

[tggzzz]

[1] exceptions: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, 2001

The Day the Earth Stood Still does exactly what OP is complaining about.  They don't mention EMP, but the aliens magically turn off all electrical devices on Earth.  In addition, the plot makes no sense.  Great movie though.

Not mentioning EMP is important, since it avoids false explanations.

Of course it appears to be magic. That is a characteristic of any sufficiently advanced science. (With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke).

[mendip_discovery]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Hmm, I guess you never watched the opening sequence of the first episode. So they did make at least 1 attempt.

I will admit I enjoyed Fringe and other than anna torv it was rather good.

Don't diss the 7 of Blake's becuase it was TV of it's time. Dr who wasn't much better.

[tggzzz]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Hmm, I guess you never watched the opening sequence of the first episode. So they did make at least 1 attempt.

I will admit I enjoyed Fringe and other than anna torv it was rather good.

Don't diss the 7 of Blake's becuase it was TV of it's time. Dr who wasn't much better.

Blake's 7 started well, but then they got the most powerful ship in the universe and an omniscient computer - and still managed to get into stupid positions every episode. More series should emulate the final episode, though.

Dr Who is fantasy, not SF.

[MathWizard]

Here's a car accident that looks like it's from The Matrix or some Marvel movie. And then the tire still catches up and hits the Kia again, and probably stops next to it LOL

[coppice]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Good sci-fi doesn't break physics (or chemistry, or anything else we understand well). It does, however, always make the assumption we have been able to work around an apparent obstacle we face today. Are you unhappy about them travelling to far so fast, with no apparent FTL technology, or they way the ships often moved in space like they were using wings against an atmosphere? I'm OK with the FTL issue. The stories won't work unless they can actually get around easily. The latter always makes me cringe.

[coppice]

Blake's 7 started well, but then they got the most powerful ship in the universe and an omniscient computer - and still managed to get into stupid positions every episode. More series should emulate the final episode, though.

They were not supposed to be the sharpest tools in the shed. Being a bunch of hapless crooks who thought they were the galaxy's master criminal was at the heart of the series.

[james_s]

and if the glow plug battery is connected to a battery charger that is connected to a electrical grid then it could destroy the glow plugs or wiring or explode the battery

No, the most likely scenario is the charger's transformer may fry itself, but secondly what will happen either way is the charger's diodes will fry to a short, shorting out the battery, thus making the wiring between charger and battery slowly burn up so long as there is enough charge in said battery to do so and there is no fusing between the battery and charger's bridge diodes.

You don't even really *need* the glow plugs anyway. Squirt a spritz of ether or even just gasoline or WD40 into the intake of an old diesel and you can start it without the glow plugs.

[Gyro]

I still get drawn back to 'This Island Earth', where the hero's parts order is intercepted by the aliens and they send him a little bead capacitor that vastly exceeds the voltage rating of his big, metal canned, Paper in Oil one to pique his interest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Island_Earth

[coppice]

I still get drawn back to 'This Island Earth', where the hero's parts order is intercepted by the aliens and they send him a little bead capacitor that vastly exceeds the voltage rating of his big, metal canned, Paper in Oil one to pique his interest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Island_Earth

This Island Earth is a pretty good movie. It has lots of nice little ideas in it like that. The overall story arc is weak, but the little ideas make it very watchable.

[Infraviolet]

Post #34, the thing with Interstellar is that it could have been good if they'd just made a movie version of the novel Tau Zero (Poul Anderson) instead. Among the many things that annoyed me with Interstellar is the way that they have a super shuttle which can pull itself out of the gravity well of a planet near a black hole with only its internal fuel reserves, and yet the same vehicle needed several stages to get off from Earth at the start of the mission.

Another annoying thing I've found is something that occurs often in superhero films. If we accept that the superhero has extreme strength and is virtually immune to injury then why:
a) Is a superhero able to restrain a helicopter from taking off without clutching an immovable ground fixing at the time, however much strength he has he cannot prevent take-off when the helicopter's liting force is greater than his body weight.
b) Does a superhero flung out from a fight plunge throuhg all manner of debris and keeping moving for hundreds of metres before halting, sure he might have impenetrable skin and somehow survive the extreme decelarations involved in the series of collisions, but conservation of momentum means he'd come to a stop, however fast he was flung, within the course of the first few big objects he hits purely due to him having only a roughly typical human's mass.

[coppice]

Post #34, the thing with Interstellar is that it could have been good if they'd just made a movie version of the novel Tau Zero (Poul Anderson) instead. Among the many things that annoyed me with Interstellar is the way that they have a super shuttle which can pull itself out of the gravity well of a planet near a black hole with only its internal fuel reserves, and yet the same vehicle needed several stages to get off from Earth at the start of the mission.

The whole movie is filled with problems like that. One moment technology looks close to present day, and the next they do something almost as amazing as the aliens, or far future Earthlings, arranging a convenient wormhole. The technology mismatch between the multi-stage booster they use to reach Earth orbit versus the much more advanced ship they use once in space sets things up very poorly for the rest of the movie. If they edited out out the launch scene the rest of the movie would have gelled much better.

[tszaboo]

Post #34, the thing with Interstellar is that it could have been good if they'd just made a movie version of the novel Tau Zero (Poul Anderson) instead. Among the many things that annoyed me with Interstellar is the way that they have a super shuttle which can pull itself out of the gravity well of a planet near a black hole with only its internal fuel reserves, and yet the same vehicle needed several stages to get off from Earth at the start of the mission.

The whole movie is filled with problems like that. One moment technology looks close to present day, and the next they do something almost as amazing as the aliens, or far future Earthlings, arranging a convenient wormhole. The technology mismatch between the multi-stage booster they use to reach Earth orbit versus the much more advanced ship they use once in space sets things up very poorly for the rest of the movie. If they edited out out the launch scene the rest of the movie would have gelled much better.

The entire premise of the movie is bad. No matter how much we mess up the earth, it will be always easier to fix it than to travel somewhere else, and terraform another planet. How are we expected to have technology that can terraform a completely alien planet, if we cannot fix minor issues here. And they had what... Crop failure and dead bees? Surely thats going to be a smaller problem than lack of atmosphere or a million km travel.
The delta V to get out from near a black hole would be astronomical, no amount of near future tech would do it.

b) Does a superhero flung out from a fight plunge throuhg all manner of debris and keeping moving for hundreds of metres before halting, sure he might have impenetrable skin and somehow survive the extreme decelarations involved in the series of collisions, but conservation of momentum means he'd come to a stop, however fast he was flung, within the course of the first few big objects he hits purely due to him having only a roughly typical human's mass.

I gave up watching DC movies years ago, and Marvel recently. Even then, the physics part of it was all over the place.

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Hmm, I guess you never watched the opening sequence of the first episode. So they did make at least 1 attempt.

Which first episode?

[Rick Law]

Re: Interstellar

Interstellar is the kind of Science Fiction that at least tried to be Scientifically accurate.  When Navy advisors opposed to certain part of the "Top Gun Maverick" scenes, Tom Cruise is supposed to have said "We are trying to make a movie, not a documentary.  (We need certain artistic freedom to make it entertaining)"

Kip Thorne (Professor at CalTech teaching theoretical physicist, gravitational physics and astrophysics) was Science Advisor and Executive Producer for the movie.  Kip was known to be amongst the top blackhole/wormhole authority at the time.  So he kept Christopher Nolan (Producer and Director of Interstellar) inline.  It was rumored (according to at least one youtube reviewers) that Christopher Nolan even took some Physics course at CalTech to prep himself for the movie.  Interesting to note that the first photo image of our galaxy's center blackhole (2022) is consistent with how Kip Thorne theorized a black hole should look -- as seen in the movie Intestellar movie (2014) which use mathematics provided by Kip to create the simulated images of the black hole.  Watching Interstellar is about as close to really flying around a black hole for anyone in decades to come.

In my mind, I put SciFi into 2 categories, Science-Fantasy Fiction, and Fantasy-Science Fiction.  "Interstellar", "2001 A Space Odyssey", "2010: The Year We Make Contact" (and many others) are in the Science-Fantasy Fiction category.  "Starship Troopers" is a good movie, but is Fantasy-Science.  "Star Trek The Next Generation" is like most other - tried to be Science-Fantasy, but at times Fantasy-Science.

Personally, I found Interstellar even with its consistence problems still managed to be a rather good Science Fantasy Fiction.

[David Hess]

Yes, with ease, any EMP strong enough to fry most long length wiring to HV distribution transformers will also fry the CMOS gates in an IC with the tiniest length of exposed wiring, but not vaporize the blunt wiring itself.

These discussions about EMP are conflating two or three different things.

A nuclear detonation in the upper atmosphere ionizes a large volume and the resulting charge pushes the Earth's magnetic field lines around causing common mode currents in power transmission lines which saturate power distribution transformers causing them to fail and short out.  The resulting power surges from the shorting transformers are hard on anything connected to the power line.  EMP weapons are detonated high in the atmosphere to maximize this effect.  A big solar storm has the same effect.

The powerful broadband RF spike attenuates with the square of the distance so is more dangerous in close proximity, where you are likely to have more pressing concerns like blast, incineration, and perhaps prompt radiation.  Most affected devices will suffer from single event upset rather than destruction and only require restarting or rebooting at most.

Among the many things that annoyed me with Interstellar is the way that they have a super shuttle which can pull itself out of the gravity well of a planet near a black hole with only its internal fuel reserves, and yet the same vehicle needed several stages to get off from Earth at the start of the mission.

Maybe they should have explained it, but I assumed that the launch included other things besides the shuttle, including consumables like fuel so they left with the maximum possible fuel load.

[coppice]

Re: Interstellar

Interstellar is the kind of Science Fiction that at least tried to be Scientifically accurate.  When Navy advisors opposed to certain part of the "Top Gun Maverick" scenes, Tom Cruise is supposed to have said "We are trying to make a movie, not a documentary.  (We need certain artistic freedom to make it entertaining)"

Kip Thorne (Professor at CalTech teaching theoretical physicist, gravitational physics and astrophysics) was Science Advisor and Executive Producer for the movie.  Kip was known to be amongst the top blackhole/wormhole authority at the time.  So he kept Christopher Nolan (Producer and Director of Interstellar) inline.  It was rumored (according to at least one youtube reviewers) that Christopher Nolan even took some Physics course at CalTech to prep himself for the movie.  Interesting to note that the first photo image of our galaxy's center blackhole (2022) is consistent with how Kip Thorne theorized a black hole should look -- as seen in the movie Intestellar movie (2014) which use mathematics provided by Kip to create the simulated images of the black hole.  Watching Interstellar is about as close to really flying around a black hole for anyone in decades to come.

In my mind, I put SciFi into 2 categories, Science-Fantasy Fiction, and Fantasy-Science Fiction.  "Interstellar", "2001 A Space Odyssey", "2010: The Year We Make Contact" (and many others) are in the Science-Fantasy Fiction category.  "Starship Troopers" is a good movie, but is Fantasy-Science.  "Star Trek The Next Generation" is like most other - tried to be Science-Fantasy, but at times Fantasy-Science.

Personally, I found Interstellar even with its consistence problems still managed to be a rather good Science Fantasy Fiction.

But Interstellar is not at all scientifically accurate. Kit Thorne focussed on one or two points, ignored everything else, and then made some rather sad looking YouTube promotional videos.. They would have looked much more reasonable if instead of saying they "followed the science" they'd followed Tom Cruise and his approach to his publicity.

[Infraviolet]

Effectively, Interstellar produced a very accurate visual rendering of a black hole event horizon, and then used that accuracy as an excuse not to strive for accuracy anywhere else. The Martian came out within a few months of Interstellar, and it mnaged to be mostly fairly accurate except for the strength of wind prortrayed in the initial dust storm (the novel had a second dust storm take place too and showed it much mroe accurately, the main hazard being slow clogging of solar panels).

[mendip_discovery]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Hmm, I guess you never watched the opening sequence of the first episode. So they did make at least 1 attempt.

Which first episode?

The bit where they didn't have sound in the junkyard scene due to being in outerspace. It was nice to have for once that they just didn't put lots of noise there.

[Rick Law]

...
But Interstellar is not at all scientifically accurate. Kit Thorne focussed on one or two points, ignored everything else, and then made some rather sad looking YouTube promotional videos.. They would have looked much more reasonable if instead of saying they "followed the science" they'd followed Tom Cruise and his approach to his publicity.

Effectively, Interstellar produced a very accurate visual rendering of a black hole event horizon, and then used that accuracy as an excuse not to strive for accuracy anywhere else. The Martian came out within a few months of Interstellar, and it mnaged to be mostly fairly accurate except for the strength of wind prortrayed in the initial dust storm (the novel had a second dust storm take place too and showed it much mroe accurately, the main hazard being slow clogging of solar panels).

I gave "high marks" for Interstellar's accurate (according to then-current understanding) simulation of black hole.  This accomplishment counts a lot because for "the rest of the stuff" we have more knowledge of them and can use common sense to create mental pictures of how they should look and work.  Whereas black hole is rather alien to our common sense.  A good visual is difficult to generate mentally.  So I agree with the priority of making black hole simulation good and pay less attention to "the rest of the stuff" in the trade-offs.

In my view, the worst error committed by Interstellar is: it would have been a heck of a lot easier to repair earth's problem they are facing (dust bowl and crop blight) than to relocate the entire population of earth.  So "leaving earth" as a solution is just a silly idea; or did they even compared resource requirement of saving-earth vs leaving-earth before making the important decision.  Well, no lift-off, no movie, I suppose.  So I accepted that premise with salt.

Every movie has to do give-and-take trade offs.  I rather enjoy "The Martian" as well, but it got problems as well.  I get really bothered by: (1) Can thin Martian atmosphere really have such a strong wind storm that can blow/carry a person some multiple-meters distance?  I doubt it.  Dust storm, sure, but humans have a much heavier mass per surface-area ratio so it needs a lot more force than probably the thin atmosphere can muster.  (2) Can he really survive the radiation a year?  Mars doesn't have a magnetic field shield, so radiation is going to be deadly unless the station there is shielded for extended stays.  (3) How about the potatoes he farmed in Martian radiation with minimal shielding?  What gives the potato nutrients (minerals, vitamins...) as the only source of food?  A bit of poop wont be enough to do that, it needed more.  (4) The final "capture" of the astronaut (The Martian) by rescuers.  The sequence of events after his capsule took him into Martian orbit then ran out of fuel.  That sequence of events is pure fantasy.  But still, it is an enjoyable movie.

By the way, Kip Throne was also involved with Carl Sagan's Contact.  He helped Carl with ensuring that the Worm Hole part of that movie is accurate to the knowledge then.

I would like to see more Sci-Fi's like these three (Contact/Interstellar/The Martian) in the Sci-Fi genre.

[snarkysparky]

Intersteller had mistakes in it that it just didn't need to have.  No plot impact,  no cost to do it right.  It just made me pissed.

First thing is building a starship at the end of a gravel road. 

Second thing is the relativistic aging of the guy still orbiting the planet while the explorers were investigating the surface.  If the difference was that much then they would not be able to leave that gravity well.

And the Daughter whining about how her dad left her there on Earth to die.   Really?   I'd rather take my chances on a slowly dying planet that marooned on a one way trip to nowhere.

There are a few more but i forget.

There would be no cost to have fixed these.

For a good Sci Fi of the same type check out Arrival.

[coppercone2]

Post #34, the thing with Interstellar is that it could have been good if they'd just made a movie version of the novel Tau Zero (Poul Anderson) instead. Among the many things that annoyed me with Interstellar is the way that they have a super shuttle which can pull itself out of the gravity well of a planet near a black hole with only its internal fuel reserves, and yet the same vehicle needed several stages to get off from Earth at the start of the mission.

Another annoying thing I've found is something that occurs often in superhero films. If we accept that the superhero has extreme strength and is virtually immune to injury then why:
a) Is a superhero able to restrain a helicopter from taking off without clutching an immovable ground fixing at the time, however much strength he has he cannot prevent take-off when the helicopter's liting force is greater than his body weight.
b) Does a superhero flung out from a fight plunge throuhg all manner of debris and keeping moving for hundreds of metres before halting, sure he might have impenetrable skin and somehow survive the extreme decelarations involved in the series of collisions, but conservation of momentum means he'd come to a stop, however fast he was flung, within the course of the first few big objects he hits purely due to him having only a roughly typical human's mass.

maybe the engines only operate in a vacuum, like advanced ion thruster technology, not suitable for lift off in the atmosphere because they would destroy themselves with plasma

alot of technologies would have a problem in the atmosphere at high power level, like blooming

[David Hess]

The Martian came out within a few months of Interstellar, and it mnaged to be mostly fairly accurate except for the strength of wind prortrayed in the initial dust storm (the novel had a second dust storm take place too and showed it much mroe accurately, the main hazard being slow clogging of solar panels).

Niven once pointed out that a huge dust storm on Mars is about as dangerous as an enraged caterpillar.

The radiation hazard on the other had is considerable unless everything is buried.

[David Hess]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Firefly is the *only* show or movie that I have ever seen showing how a ship properly descends into a lower orbit for entry into the atmosphere.  I almost jumped up to cheer.

https://youtu.be/J3rX0T2XNxs

Forward takes you out, out takes you back, back takes you in, in takes you forward.

[coppercone2]

I really want to see inertial dampers made in my life time. Hopefully connected to a ceramic resistor bank. And the bootleg space ships will use a salt water load in a tupperware when the manager does not want to buy a new load. How many watts do I need to dissipate to prevent my coffee from floating away?

Is that a shady practice done on large ships? Like discharging a battery bank into the hull ?

[BrianHG]

I'm about to watch 'Deus The Dark Sphere (2022)', will it be interesting, or a dud?

[David Hess]

I really want to see inertial dampers made in my life time. Hopefully connected to a ceramic resistor bank. And the bootleg space ships will use a salt water load in a tupperware when the manager does not want to buy a new load. How many watts do I need to dissipate to prevent my coffee from floating away?

Is that a shady practice done on large ships? Like discharging a battery bank into the hull ?

Niven's Known Space had "gravity drags" which returned the speed difference between the ship and a local mass as energy to be dissipated in a big radiator, with hilarity ensuing if circumstances required the energy transfer requirements to be too large.  Known Space also had artificial gravity so cabin gravity could be maintained at zero or high acceleration.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/humanfactor.php

[Rick Law]

Intersteller had mistakes in it that it just didn't need to have.  No plot impact,  no cost to do it right.  It just made me pissed.

First thing is building a starship at the end of a gravel road. 

Second thing is the relativistic aging of the guy still orbiting the planet while the explorers were investigating the surface.  If the difference was that much then they would not be able to leave that gravity well.

And the Daughter whining about how her dad left her there on Earth to die.   Really?   I'd rather take my chances on a slowly dying planet that marooned on a one way trip to nowhere.

There are a few more but i forget.

There would be no cost to have fixed these.

For a good Sci Fi of the same type check out Arrival.

I'll give you one more Interstellar "mistakes in it that it just didn't need to have."  Newton's 3rd Law of Motion is "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" but they had it in the movie as "To move forward, we have to leave something behind".

Normal rocket-propelled forward motion is done by rockets thrust gas out backward at speed resulting in an opposite force pushing the rocket ship forward.  That is Newton's 3rd Law of Motion.

To gain forward motion by removing "Ranger 2" from "Endurance", detaching is not enough.   If Endurance push Ranger 2 away in the backward direction, that would work.  The push backward of Ranger 2 by Endurance will results in an opposite force pushing Endurance in the forward direction.  Pushing requires energy (fuel) and fuel is what they want to conserve.   However, detaching Ranger 2 is indeed helpful.  Helpful not due to the 3rd law, but helpful due to the 2nd law "F=ma".  Detaching Ranger 2 means less mass to move. Less mass requires less force to accelerate or decelerate, less force = less fuel needed.

The gavel road has a reason.  They want to hide the facility.  A well paved road to nowhere will draw attention.  The 1971 movie "The Andromeda Strain"  first "going to the lab" scene was the two scientist driving to a secret high-tech lab on a dirt road.  The scientist driving was explaining to the new comer how much money they spend building this dirt road and removing tracks from construction so as to hide the existence of the huge underground facility.

re: Arrival

It is a good movie and I do enjoy it.  I have a couple of issue with it but not enough to not like the movie.  Mostly, I have trouble with their treatment of Time and the assumption that changing our perception of Time can give us the ability to experience events in the future.

There was a time when I spend a lot of time thinking about Time.  While that time has passed, my thoughts on Time still consumes my free time; from time to time.

[coppice]

I'm about to watch 'Deus The Dark Sphere (2022)', will it be interesting, or a dud?

Seen it. Slow and pretty dull. It was obviously made on a low budget, but they wanted it to look good. Spreading a small budget over some high quality visuals obviously meant they couldn't afford too many visuals, so they appear to have just spread a half hour of fairly polished material over 90 minutes. You still only get a 30 minute story.

[coppice]

re: Arrival

It is a good movie and I do enjoy it.  I have a couple of issue with it but not enough to not like the movie.  Mostly, I have trouble with their treatment of Time and the assumption that changing our perception of Time can give us the ability to experience events in the future.

There was a time when I spend a lot of time thinking about Time.  While that time has passed, my thoughts on Time still consumes my free time; from time to time.

Our way of thinking affecting our perception of time is the whole plot of Arrival (The Story Of Your Life). If you don't like that then the movie has nothing for you.

[Brumby]

Ah, what it is like to be young, and not to remember 1950/60s movies[1], nor TV programmes like Space 1999.

[1] exceptions: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, 2001

I might also add War Of The Worlds (the 1953 version)

[tggzzz]

Ah, what it is like to be young, and not to remember 1950/60s movies[1], nor TV programmes like Space 1999.

[1] exceptions: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, 2001

I might also add War Of The Worlds (the 1953 version)

That was certainly a cut above the "reds/homosexuals/druggies are comin' t' get ya" movies. Nonetheless, living not far from where the martians landed, the movie felt too Amuricanised.

[Rick Law]

re: Arrival

It is a good movie and I do enjoy it.  I have a couple of issue with it but not enough to not like the movie.  Mostly, I have trouble with their treatment of Time and the assumption that changing our perception of Time can give us the ability to experience events in the future.

There was a time when I spend a lot of time thinking about Time.  While that time has passed, my thoughts on Time still consumes my free time; from time to time.

Our way of thinking affecting our perception of time is the whole plot of Arrival (The Story Of Your Life). If you don't like that then the movie has nothing for you.

Time travel per se is not the issue.  It is how it was "used" in the movie.

In Interstellar, using Worm Hole to go back in time is consistent with the way we understand Worm Hole.  Constructing and transiting the Worm Hole for now are fantasies.  Accepting that two fantasies, no other Laws of Physics broken there for the time-travel part (unless there are new findings in the last few years that I am not aware of).  How Cooper can interact with Murphy's room is of course fantasy.

In Arrival, it was the brain perceiving past and future events.  That assumes future already happened so it can be perceived.  That is the part that I needed a good amount of salt to accept.  Further, learning a new language is a "software" change whereas time perception in our brain/mind is a function of both software and hardware (sub-processor level specialized groups of neurons).  To have those affected by a "language sub-processor software enhancement" takes yet more salt to accept.

Either way, both are good and enjoyable movies.  Both tried to be scientifically correct succeeding to some degree, but certainly both are good movies.

[coppice]

re: Arrival

It is a good movie and I do enjoy it.  I have a couple of issue with it but not enough to not like the movie.  Mostly, I have trouble with their treatment of Time and the assumption that changing our perception of Time can give us the ability to experience events in the future.

There was a time when I spend a lot of time thinking about Time.  While that time has passed, my thoughts on Time still consumes my free time; from time to time.

Our way of thinking affecting our perception of time is the whole plot of Arrival (The Story Of Your Life). If you don't like that then the movie has nothing for you.

Time travel per se is not the issue.  It is how it was "used" in the movie.

In Interstellar, using Worm Hole to go back in time is consistent with the way we understand Worm Hole.  Constructing and transiting the Worm Hole for now are fantasies.  Accepting that two fantasies, no other Laws of Physics broken there for the time-travel part (unless there are new findings in the last few years that I am not aware of).  How Cooper can interact with Murphy's room is of course fantasy.

In Arrival, it was the brain perceiving past and future events.  That assumes future already happened so it can be perceived.  That is the part that I needed a good amount of salt to accept.  Further, learning a new language is a "software" change whereas time perception in our brain/mind is a function of both software and hardware (sub-processor level specialized groups of neurons).  To have those affected by a "language sub-processor software enhancement" takes yet more salt to accept.

Either way, both are good and enjoyable movies.  Both tried to be scientifically correct succeeding to some degree, but certainly both are good movies.

I suspect Ted Chiang was riffing on differences between languages he actually speaks - Mandarin and English. English has a rich set of tenses that set things in very specific temporal contexts. When first learning Chinese (any dialect) an English speaker finds it bizarre that there are no real tenses, and tense has to be implied. Its a whole different relationship to time. He extended that, not to time travel, but to a perceiving a wide span of times at once, rather like we see large sections of the X, Y and Z axes not bit by bit, but concurrently.

[tszaboo]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Firefly is the *only* show or movie that I have ever seen showing how a ship properly descends into a lower orbit for entry into the atmosphere.  I almost jumped up to cheer.

https://youtu.be/J3rX0T2XNxs

Forward takes you out, out takes you back, back takes you in, in takes you forward.

Ha. Flip and burn maneuver. Despite the early sci-fi CGI it really looks like something a ship would do.
It's a strange disconnect for people. Everyone seems to know that you can go to mars every 26 months, and the route is 9 months long, but then you rarely see anything else orbital implemented. Like I was watching Red Planet the other day. They start the landing like 20 minutes early, end up kms from the original landing site. So the ship must be going 20km/h in orbit I guess.

[tggzzz]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Firefly is the *only* show or movie that I have ever seen showing how a ship properly descends into a lower orbit for entry into the atmosphere.  I almost jumped up to cheer.

https://youtu.be/J3rX0T2XNxs

Forward takes you out, out takes you back, back takes you in, in takes you forward.

Babylon 5 was good w.r.t. spaceflight dynamics. It completely avoided the "spitfires/mustang in space" syndrome. It also replaced "cowboys and indians in space" with "Roman empire / Japanese empire / Tolkien in space".

But then B5 was pioneering in many ways, including CGI, 5 year story arc, plot points being introduced many many episodes  before they came to fruition, none of the "global reset" between episodes (think Star Dreck!), general literacy, being based around classic philosophical questions, and the way the creator (JMS)  interacted with the fan base on usenet after each episode was transmitted.

Still worth rewatching after 30 years. Newbies should start with series 3, get hooked, then watch the earlier series to see how they got to that point.

[CatalinaWOW]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Firefly is the *only* show or movie that I have ever seen showing how a ship properly descends into a lower orbit for entry into the atmosphere.  I almost jumped up to cheer.

https://youtu.be/J3rX0T2XNxs

Forward takes you out, out takes you back, back takes you in, in takes you forward.

Ha. Flip and burn maneuver. Despite the early sci-fi CGI it really looks like something a ship would do.
It's a strange disconnect for people. Everyone seems to know that you can go to mars every 26 months, and the route is 9 months long, but then you rarely see anything else orbital implemented. Like I was watching Red Planet the other day. They start the landing like 20 minutes early, end up kms from the original landing site. So the ship must be going 20km/h in orbit I guess.

Well that is one answer.  Another would be that the start was 20 minutes early and the various dynamic correction mechanisms couldn't take out the initial error.  That would exceed the capability of any system appropriate for the time frame, but is only off by one or two orders of magnitude, not the three orders that chaps you about your solution.

[BrianHG]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Firefly is the *only* show or movie that I have ever seen showing how a ship properly descends into a lower orbit for entry into the atmosphere.  I almost jumped up to cheer.

https://youtu.be/J3rX0T2XNxs

Forward takes you out, out takes you back, back takes you in, in takes you forward.

Babylon 5 was good w.r.t. spaceflight dynamics. It completely avoided the "spitfires/mustang in space" syndrome. It also replaced "cowboys and indians in space" with "Roman empire / Japanese empire / Tolkien in space".

But then B5 was pioneering in many ways, including CGI, 5 year story arc, plot points being introduced many many episodes  before they came to fruition, none of the "global reset" between episodes (think Star Dreck!), general literacy, being based around classic philosophical questions, and the way the creator (JMS)  interacted with the fan base on usenet after each episode was transmitted.

Still worth rewatching after 30 years. Newbies should start with series 3, get hooked, then watch the earlier series to see how they got to that point.

Yes, B5 had a slow season 1 which you just had to sit through, but the entire series is worth watching.
It is the same with Farscape.

[tszaboo]

Firefly was a good show but they made no attempt to get spaceflight correct.

Firefly is the *only* show or movie that I have ever seen showing how a ship properly descends into a lower orbit for entry into the atmosphere.  I almost jumped up to cheer.

https://youtu.be/J3rX0T2XNxs

Forward takes you out, out takes you back, back takes you in, in takes you forward.

Ha. Flip and burn maneuver. Despite the early sci-fi CGI it really looks like something a ship would do.
It's a strange disconnect for people. Everyone seems to know that you can go to mars every 26 months, and the route is 9 months long, but then you rarely see anything else orbital implemented. Like I was watching Red Planet the other day. They start the landing like 20 minutes early, end up kms from the original landing site. So the ship must be going 20km/h in orbit I guess.

Well that is one answer.  Another would be that the start was 20 minutes early and the various dynamic correction mechanisms couldn't take out the initial error.  That would exceed the capability of any system appropriate for the time frame, but is only off by one or two orders of magnitude, not the three orders that chaps you about your solution.

Nah, Red planet was just an overall bad science accuracy movie. They had some sort of proton storm or something, and had to do emergency landing early.

B5 is great, and does sci-fi well. As in focusing on the human element instead of the tech gizmos. The human ships are pretty grounded design with centrifugal artificial gravity, or the Star Fury wit it's 4 engines and high maneuverability. I watched the series again, after like 25 years? Too bad the CGI is quite dated, and some of the sets are... Let's just say I had no idea that plastic pallets and IBCs, and garden floor tiles are so versatile.

[tggzzz]

B5 is great, and does sci-fi well. As in focusing on the human element instead of the tech gizmos. The human ships are pretty grounded design with centrifugal artificial gravity, or the Star Fury wit it's 4 engines and high maneuverability. I watched the series again, after like 25 years? Too bad the CGI is quite dated, and some of the sets are... Let's just say I had no idea that plastic pallets and IBCs, and garden floor tiles are so versatile.

Clearly you have never watched classic British TV SF from the 60s, 70s, 80s. For starters, have a look at Doctor Who and Blakes 7...

There's a subset of fandom that amuses itself by working out what various bits are and where they came from. The most famous example is probably "a sink plunger".

(They are a bit like my old Land Rover, which had many parts from many cars (frequently Minis!), and a fuel gauge calibrated in Roentgens/hour)

[tszaboo]

B5 is great, and does sci-fi well. As in focusing on the human element instead of the tech gizmos. The human ships are pretty grounded design with centrifugal artificial gravity, or the Star Fury wit it's 4 engines and high maneuverability. I watched the series again, after like 25 years? Too bad the CGI is quite dated, and some of the sets are... Let's just say I had no idea that plastic pallets and IBCs, and garden floor tiles are so versatile.

Clearly you have never watched classic British TV SF from the 60s, 70s, 80s. For starters, have a look at Doctor Who and Blakes 7...

There's a subset of fandom that amuses itself by working out what various bits are and where they came from. The most famous example is probably "a sink plunger".

(They are a bit like my old Land Rover, which had many parts from many cars (frequently Minis!), and a fuel gauge calibrated in Roentgens/hour)

No, but why would I? I also don't watch Turkish Sci-Fi, or the Sharknado series or 90s Brazilian soap operas. Or a number of genres.
Watched Doctor who from Eccleston to Peter Capaldi, didn't really like Capaldi since most of the time I didn't understand what he was saying, plus Steven Moffat is a baboon who doesn't understand storytelling, and it went all downhill from there. I think I wanted to watch some Red Dwarf, but it's nowhere to be found.
I don't think you realize, but If you don't have access to BBC 14 or whatever channel these films are goin on, you will never see them. They are so niche, even the BBC doesn't have all the Doctor Who episodes archived.

[Gyro]

Clearly you have never watched classic British TV SF from the 60s, 70s, 80s. For starters, have a look at Doctor Who and Blakes 7...

There's a subset of fandom that amuses itself by working out what various bits are and where they came from. The most famous example is probably "a sink plunger".

(They are a bit like my old Land Rover, which had many parts from many cars (frequently Minis!), and a fuel gauge calibrated in Roentgens/hour)

There's one in an Antique shop in Southsea - a Dalek that is, not just the sink plunger! It's comforting to see that the lights on its head have amber lenses with the appropriate approval markings.

[vk6zgo]

B5 is great, and does sci-fi well. As in focusing on the human element instead of the tech gizmos. The human ships are pretty grounded design with centrifugal artificial gravity, or the Star Fury wit it's 4 engines and high maneuverability. I watched the series again, after like 25 years? Too bad the CGI is quite dated, and some of the sets are... Let's just say I had no idea that plastic pallets and IBCs, and garden floor tiles are so versatile.

Clearly you have never watched classic British TV SF from the 60s, 70s, 80s. For starters, have a look at Doctor Who and Blakes 7...

There's a subset of fandom that amuses itself by working out what various bits are and where they came from. The most famous example is probably "a sink plunger".

(They are a bit like my old Land Rover, which had many parts from many cars (frequently Minis!), and a fuel gauge calibrated in Roentgens/hour)

One episode of "Dr Who" showed, in passing, the Doc messing round with a cylindrical aluminium device with multiple knobs protruding at varying angles around its periphery.
I was bemused by the amount of detail the Props Dept had gone to with this seemingly incidental device.

I wasn't till years later, when I ended up in a Studio environment, that I realised what it really was.

Philips had produced this device which clamped to the tubular handles of one model of their Colour Studio cameras, so the operator could have "easier" access to adjustments of various parameters.

It was lying, neglected, on a high shelf in Camera Maintenance, TVW7 having decided, as evidently also did the BBC, that it wasn't worth the effort.

Then there was the "Dalek Supreme" (which my mate reckoned sounded like "the specialty of the house"), that had an Eveready "Magnet lite" mounted on its "forehead" where lesser members of the "species" had that weird thing that looked like something out of a children's party.

Re the Landrover, it always fascinated me how many parts of old Britbeasts were interchangeable with those from quite different brands, sometimes with a bit of butchery needed, but often not.

[tggzzz]

B5 is great, and does sci-fi well. As in focusing on the human element instead of the tech gizmos. The human ships are pretty grounded design with centrifugal artificial gravity, or the Star Fury wit it's 4 engines and high maneuverability. I watched the series again, after like 25 years? Too bad the CGI is quite dated, and some of the sets are... Let's just say I had no idea that plastic pallets and IBCs, and garden floor tiles are so versatile.

Clearly you have never watched classic British TV SF from the 60s, 70s, 80s. For starters, have a look at Doctor Who and Blakes 7...

There's a subset of fandom that amuses itself by working out what various bits are and where they came from. The most famous example is probably "a sink plunger".

(They are a bit like my old Land Rover, which had many parts from many cars (frequently Minis!), and a fuel gauge calibrated in Roentgens/hour)

No, but why would I? I also don't watch Turkish Sci-Fi, or the Sharknado series or 90s Brazilian soap operas. Or a number of genres.
Watched Doctor who from Eccleston to Peter Capaldi, didn't really like Capaldi since most of the time I didn't understand what he was saying, plus Steven Moffat is a baboon who doesn't understand storytelling, and it went all downhill from there. I think I wanted to watch some Red Dwarf, but it's nowhere to be found.
I don't think you realize, but If you don't have access to BBC 14 or whatever channel these films are goin on, you will never see them. They are so niche, even the BBC doesn't have all the Doctor Who episodes archived.

Er, I realise all of that!

The "modern" Doctor Who (Eccleston onwards) has modern special effects. That's why I mentioned the earlier incarnations.

You are wrong about the reason the BBC doesn't have all the episodes. In the 60s and 70s most programmes were recorded on an expensive medium: videotape. Since it was expensive, it was recycled after use for newer programmes. Astounding? Of course! Many programmes of the era no longer exist.

For Capaldi: use the subtitles. I do, because I'm deaf.

Yes, the last couple of series have been soulless design-by-committee-and-focus-groups affairs. Russell T Davies is back for the next series, and the Doctor Who actor is interestingly quirky. Promising, but time will tell.

But to get back to the point. If the principal things you notice in B5 are the props, then you are missing the soul of the series. A good intro to all the subtleties is the B5 lurkers guide, since it contains many of the interactions between JMS and fans that occurred on usenet after each episode was transmitted for the first time (see the "jms speaks" sections in http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/reference/episodes.html )

[AndyBeez]

Credible Sci-Fi?

SPACE 1999 - no Moon Base Alpha (yet) but it did predict the arrival of cathode ray based smart phones.

RED DWARF (the early series') - every EEV DMM knows that one day it will go to a dumpster called Silicon Heaven.

LEXX - just about the most left-field sci-fi of the past 30 years - But for adults only. Seriously, it's not Doctor Who.

And stop off some time to watch the original 1960 version of THE TIME MACHINE ( as later referenced in the The Nerdvana Annihilation episode of The Big Bang Theory ) A pure 1950's take on the dystopian trajectory of human kind.

There are other higher brow films such as SOLARIS 1972, by Russian Andrei Tarkovsky and SUNSHINE 2007, by Danny Boyle. But you'll need to be a student to watch them, with other students, in a student context. If you know what I mean.

Enjoy 

[TimFox]

A former co-worker, originally from the UK, had commuted to work past a job shop that constructed Dalek props for the BBC, with a yard full of them in plain sight on the side of the road.

[Rick Law]

As the OP was asking: "Can anyone point me to any good SciFi series which don't make such stupid mistakes?"...

Movies are limited-episode series, so I equate movies with series.  As they are for entertainment rather than for pure education, 100% accuracy is unlikely.  One has to give them a "give-me" or two just to create a story, but the rest should be consistent and reasonably accurate.  Particularly for space-related movie as distances involved is huge.  It will take us decades to getting to our nearest neighboring star so movies will be way too slow and way too boring if we don't allow them warp-drives.  Thus, trade-offs will be made.  We just hope they did the right trade-offs (nothing too stupid), but "right" in this case will be "observer dependent".

Besides the aforementioned Interstellar, The Martian, Arrival, and 2001, try the following, I consider them good but of course my taste may not fit others:

2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, Helen Mirren, Bob Balaban, Keir Dullea, Candice Bergen, Arthur C. Clarke... :
A sequel to "2001: A Space Odyssey" it followed the creative and scientific accuracy spirit of 2001 - it is scientifically strong (good accuracy).  Technology looks rather outdated since the movie was made in 1984.  Rather good movie I must say.

Deep Impact (1998)  Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Morgan Freeman, Leelee Sobieski... :
A 7-mile rock/comet headed for earth.  Discovered about 2 yrs before impact.  With little time to react, they choose the simple "blow it up" way.  The science of space part is so-so, accurate enough that you can enjoy it still.  The hit by the smaller broken up rock is presented quite well.  The large one...  I am not so sure a 7-mile rock could be "broken up into pieces no bigger than a brief case" (actual quote from the movie spoken by Robert Duvall).  You have to "give them" the Ion Drive, the comet landing, and the "blow it up" works, but the rest are good.  Overall, a "C+" in science but "A" for entertainment.

Gravity (2013) Sandra Bullock, George Clooney...:
Rather unique, while most are about space exploration or space war, this one is about Space Garbage causing accidents in space.  The time is accelerated (duration between events are too quick) but presented with adequate accuracy.  In reality, Sandra Bullock hasn't a chance to survive, but it is a movie.  The garbage problem and the domino effect it portraits is however real.  Few SciFi movies are about the garbage problem, so it is something to watch.

Contagion (2011)  Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow...:
Virus infected the world...  This came out before our recent virus event.  The depiction of the spreading, panic, profiteering...  It is a good movie and also very thought provoking.

I am sure there are others, but only these came to mind.

[james_s]

(They are a bit like my old Land Rover, which had many parts from many cars (frequently Minis!), and a fuel gauge calibrated in Roentgens/hour)

What were you fueling that thing with? 

[snarkysparky]

As far as the Firefly scene.  Camera shows them all stand up in the bridge.   Then the pilot yells " hold onto something"   Proceeds to perform multi G maneuvers with random acceleration directions while crew is "holding onto something"

Also the flying in the atmosphere, being chased by reavers with only rear engine thrust.   What keeps the ship from the dirt.

I know it's entertaining sci fi.   And firefly is some of the very best.   But it cut corners for the sake of the space western vibe

For the best reentry scene check the Expanse when Amos was travelling to the moon.  The sequence of landing on the moon was superb.   Sorry don't remember episode number.

[HuronKing]

Primer (2004) is a pretty fun time-travel film made by engineering students where they do NOT dumb down the plot or science fiction for the sake of the audience. It's a challenging movie but very rewarding if you can follow it.

[rdl]

Sadly, less than 20 minutes in they talk of "pulling volts from a battery". Maybe I'll give it another look later, but somehow the presentation didn't really work for me.

Primer (2004)

[RJSV]

Yes I saw that, too.

[intabits]

I haven't re-watched this piece of crap since about the time that it first appeared, so my recollection may be erroneous: "Independence Day (1996)"

The Earth super-geek (Goldblum) was able to take a captured/downed alien space craft, and somehow reverse engineer it's giga-advanced alien technology (all with zero documentation of course), identify a vulnerability, design a virus to exploit it, compile/build it into alien machine code, design/build an electrically compatible interface to the alien ship, correctly interact with the alien interface protocol to upload his virus, and use it to gain operational control of the craft.

And of course, doing all this while causing no damage to the ship, having all this work on the very first attempt, with his only error being a minor bit-flip that got forward/reverse arse-about.

Then skillfully operating the craft to defeat the bad guys...

[Infraviolet]

Post #91, pretty hard to believe aliens would use a computer architecture that humans could reverse engineer well enough in a matter of days to be able to write a virus to exploit it.

As for Babylon 5, I can recommend it too. Does a very good job of having a proper strong and continuous story arc.

[coppice]

I haven't re-watched this piece of crap since about the time that it first appeared, so my recollection may be erroneous: "Independence Day (1996)"

The Earth super-geek (Goldblum) was able to take a captured/downed alien space craft, and somehow reverse engineer it's giga-advanced alien technology (all with zero documentation of course), identify a vulnerability, design a virus to exploit it, compile/build it into alien machine code, design/build an electrically compatible interface to the alien ship, correctly interact with the alien interface protocol to upload his virus, and use it to gain operational control of the craft.

And of course, doing all this while causing no damage to the ship, having all this work on the very first attempt, with his only error being a minor bit-flip that got forward/reverse arse-about.

Then skillfully operating the craft to defeat the bad guys...

130 years ago someone sat down and pondered how he could construct a story where advanced aliens attack us and we still survive. "Let them be sloppy about bio-hazards. Everyone gets sloppy about bio-hazards" he thought, and wrote a story that worked well enough people still want to make new versions of it.

In the 1990s someone sat down and pondered how they could construct a story where advanced aliens could attack us and we still survive. "Lets have people who can barely reach orbit be able to defeat the most critically important technologies of a race that can roam among the stars. We'll give them a few hours. That'll work.". Only a small percentage of the public thought "hey, wait a minute".

As a society, I think we may be going backwards.

[David Hess]

The Earth super-geek (Goldblum) was able to take a captured/downed alien space craft, and somehow reverse engineer it's giga-advanced alien technology (all with zero documentation of course), identify a vulnerability, design a virus to exploit it, compile/build it into alien machine code, design/build an electrically compatible interface to the alien ship, correctly interact with the alien interface protocol to upload his virus, and use it to gain operational control of the craft.

My counter arguments are that the aliens had already done the work of interfacing human computer systems to theirs when they used the human satellite networks to coordinate worldwide, (1) and that as scavengers, the alien systems were only as good as what they scavenged, so they had poor understanding of their own technology.

Of course the movie neglected to explain or refer to any of this and really should not be taken that seriously.

An example of the same plot point can be found in A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge where the aliens counterhack the human systems without the humans realizing who had actually hacked them until it was too late.

(1) Why was this even necessary?  Did the aliens lack their own satellite technology?

[RJSV]

...but seems like, (if he could reverse engineer the comments, buried in the code), should be an Alien's nerd referring to Cheetos, or some other popular crap.

[coppercone2]

I don't see why the thing in ID4 was so unrealistic. It could be as simple that the aliens setup an ad hock cyber attack on satellites based on what they usually do, if you watch the sequel (not as bad as people say, I enjoyed it just as much as the first one in the movie theater).

It clearly showed that the aliens were a intergalactic menace. If they did the same attack for the last 50 civilizations they destroyed, why would you change your methods and get paranoid all the sudden about people still on CMOS? Intergalactic conquest is like a day job for them.

I am sure everyone here has heard "its good enough, this works, stop worrying about it" about a host of technological things at work. For some reason people seem to think that interstellar aliens would have a vastly different risk matrix then humans for some reason. Kind of like arguing about if you need to put a fuse on a circuit, you damn well know (if you were in the industry) that some people have been winging it for many years and they see it like asking them to put a safety helmet on for walking in the driveway. Its super easy to get made fun of for taking precautions lol

Its like a pest control guy getting paranoid about above average intelligence rats that are gonna coordinate an attack on him some how. And its kind of like prewar conjecture about the Russian military's projected 'success' in the Ukraine war that was on some places online last year

[vk6zgo]

I haven't re-watched this piece of crap since about the time that it first appeared, so my recollection may be erroneous: "Independence Day (1996)"

The Earth super-geek (Goldblum) was able to take a captured/downed alien space craft, and somehow reverse engineer it's giga-advanced alien technology (all with zero documentation of course), identify a vulnerability, design a virus to exploit it, compile/build it into alien machine code, design/build an electrically compatible interface to the alien ship, correctly interact with the alien interface protocol to upload his virus, and use it to gain operational control of the craft.

And of course, doing all this while causing no damage to the ship, having all this work on the very first attempt, with his only error being a minor bit-flip that got forward/reverse arse-about.

Then skillfully operating the craft to defeat the bad guys...

I seem to remember that the spacecraft was at Area 51, & it was inferred that it was from Roswell, circa 1947, so scientists had near 50 years to analyse the craft.
Remember, it was flyable---the craft that was seen to crash that the alien was captured from was wrecked.

All that said, you would think alien technology and/or operating protocols would have progressed in 49 years, & that they would notice an extra one turning up inside the mothership, especially as it would have looked weird with a massive nuclear missile "bodged" onto it.

[David Hess]

All that said, you would think alien technology and/or operating protocols would have progressed in 49 years, & that they would notice an extra one turning up inside the mothership, especially as it would have looked weird with a massive nuclear missile "bodged" onto it.

Without an external threat, the aliens would have no reason to track their own returning ships.  If the IFF says friendly, then that is good enough.

Hardly any series shows progress in technology.  It is almost always overlooked.

[coppercone2]

and scavangers or not, they might be mostly busy just mining and building stuff between occasional conquests. I don't think they said the scout ship reported back, it just went missing. For all we know the last time they had to do any conquering was 500 years ago, possibly a different generation did it, so they had nothing but simulators.

And look how fast things de-fund when the threat goes away. Everyone is always saying that the military is in a sad shape compared to the cold war times when they were expecting something, and that was only 30 years ago. Scavangers are usually greedy IMO, and lazy. Could be stupid assholes that got lucky.

Actually I remember now the second movie did say they were fighting for a while

[David Hess]

This discussion reminds me of something I wondered about in the movie Aliens.  Why did the "Colonial Marines" exist and why were they armed the way they were, including nuclear weapons?  What threat justified their existence?  Were they regularly fighting other aliens or humans?

[coppercone2]

I think they make sense because if you say hijack a ship and program something like a Nostromo to crash into a planet at high speed, it could be a country destroyer, easy bargaining chip for separatists or terrorists. I imagine you would want to nuke something like that. Explains the whole self destruct thing too.

And I think they had nations all over space, it seems part of MAD.

And you need to figure asteroid weapons are probobly popular by then, i.e. after piracy scrap a space ship then mount engines to asteroids to make kinetic energy weapons. If there are nukes floating around space then enemy leaders know they might get wiped out if they try something big.. and it seems that when you are spread out on alot of worlds, having anti asteroid capabilities is important.

Standard procedure for.. liberating a colony might be to steal nearby ships, turn them into massive kinetic energy weapons, decapitate the colony government and then start making demands to the major players. That is like becoming north korea overnight without the giant R&D program. If you design big things that can move through deep space in a reasonable amount of time, that can be misused. The hardest part for me is to imagine the issues which cause the desire for this behavior, but if I know humans, they can always find SOMETHING. I figure it has something to do with supercorporations and corruption though, you figure something like WY is NOT popular with everyone. Maybe they raised the retirement age to 82 on one of the less profitable colonies. One thing I imagined is if humans are so spread out, you might have government funded travel. Like part of pension is a guarantee to have so many trips off world per year, to stay in touch with family and stuff like that. The only thing I figure from that universe is that metal is very cheap. 

[coppice]

This discussion reminds me of something I wondered about in the movie Aliens.  Why did the "Colonial Marines" exist and why were they armed the way they were, including nuclear weapons?  What threat justified their existence?  Were they regularly fighting other aliens or humans?

The whole tone of the conversation between the marines in that movie makes it seem like they are quite experienced with encountering and fighting a variety of aliens. The conversations between everyone else makes it seem like encountering an alien is a huge novelty. Things never quite seemed to gel.

[coppercone2]

What quotes are you talking about?

I thought they were used to fighting people like pirates and PMC and stuff. The comic books and games lean towards HEAVY PMC activity in the known alien universe. It was in the 80's so I imagine they imagined communist guerillas, space pirate locations like african coastline in space, religious colonies (thats not hard to imagine!) banana republics and other 'problems'.

The motion trackers and other gear seem very well suited towards finding sabatours, squatters and so forth in space infrastructure equipment (company relays, seldom used space stations/ports, etc).

[mendip_discovery]

"Just another bug hunt"

They seemed to be at the whim of a private company so they would be very well kitted up and be used to quash the revolts etc that would possibly happen on the mining worlds.

[coppercone2]

"Just another bug hunt"

They seemed to be at the whim of a private company so they would be very well kitted up and be used to quash the revolts etc that would possibly happen on the mining worlds.

Oh yeah I forgot about that quote. I think Prometheus screwed up the canon, because there was like a huge amount of comic books and stuff that explained the universe quite well. Maybe they were used to fighting like prehistoric life forms (big mosquitos and shit) on newly colonized places. Not hard to imagine if you have a world that is semi-evolved and you start pumping O2 in there and stuff, maybe the wild life has a propensity for going crazy, combined with radioactive mutations, I don't think their planetary power sources were super clean..

And they were quite ready to adapt the xenomorph for I guess bio/ecological warfare, I guess that they already had some experience breeding 'pests' for warfare. Just this one was too much for them. Or just for colonization purposes, like that old simpsons episode, someone decided to breed flying snakes to kill off the gopher like creatures that were harming agriculturalr activity on nice planets, and that sometimes got out of hand. At the end, when you introduced the armored bears to deal with the 5 other things that were introduced, you need to send in the space marines to clean them out..


Before prometheus 're explained' everything, I had the feeling the eggs were designed kind of like landmines to prevent some places of space from being colonized. Maybe even like keeping away trespassers from minerals and stuff that were in someone 5000 year plan.

[BrianHG]

Just started watching the series 'The Ark'.

Just in the first minutes, how the stop and go of the rotating section for the artificial gravity was completely off, impossible and on top of all that, also upsidedown. 

I mean, should I continue watching the series and just F-it, or just F-it and stop before I get a headache?

I mean, everything upside-down is hard for my mind to ignore.



Why aren't these guys being flung upwards smashing their heads in this image.
It's even backwards in the next scene with an exterior view looking into the space ship.

[Monkeh]

Just started watching the series 'The Ark'.

The acting is worse than that mistake.

[mwb1100]

This discussion reminds me of something I wondered about in the movie Aliens.  Why did the "Colonial Marines" exist and why were they armed the way they were, including nuclear weapons?  What threat justified their existence?  Were they regularly fighting other aliens or humans?

The whole tone of the conversation between the marines in that movie makes it seem like they are quite experienced with encountering and fighting a variety of aliens. The conversations between everyone else makes it seem like encountering an alien is a huge novelty. Things never quite seemed to gel.

My take away was that the Colonial Marines were often tasked with eliminating dangerous, but unintelligent alien beings: "What do you mean 'THEY cut the power'? How could they cut the power, man? They're animals!"

Ripley, Burke, and Newt knew otherwise.

[coppercone2]

Ripley knew more about what the xeno does, if you consider the extended version, where it shows the xeno crafting eggs out of dead bodies in Alien. Newt got to study them for a few weeks (god knows what she saw) and Burke might be the only one that had non filtered information about them.

Based on Burke, I almost wonder if the company used like psychological profiles (or some kind of other means, like getting the marines really drunk before deployment) to try to put together a marine squad that was learning averse or something, IIRC they pretty much refused to listen to her personal report in the briefing and its unknown what was in or if they even bothered to listen to (I guess its a video?) of what Ripley had to say in her deposition. Alien 3 kind of tells us that the company might have been behind the attempt to capture them, and that it was not just a mad get rich plan Burke came up with on the spot. Every movie after that featured mr weyland seemed to show him pulling tons of strings and being deeply involved in conspiracies.

IIRC Burke kinda shushed her and told them to watch the video or something? I feel like behind the scenes he was telling them something along the lines of "she is some crazy woman that's under investigation don't let her put any crazy ideas in your head you don't want to be involved in the subsequent hearings, face court marital for being an accessory, etc"

But I also did not take too much weight in the dialog after the survival situation started, because they were sleep deprived, adrenaline filled, injured, and probobly had severe tinnitus. It made me feel that Burke had to have been coached on the possible situations by someone, because he still maintained a shit load of composure all things considered, most uh... c-level execs would be hiding under the table as soon a 1 bullet was fired. Or he had previous experience working for military intelligence or something, like a crooked military spy. Like, psychological training on dealing with trauma victims too, he convinced her to go again.. thats like a skill set a military interrogator has... so if you consider the whole universe and games and everything, I think Weyland hired some PMC to impersonate a corporate officer. 

[tszaboo]

This discussion reminds me of something I wondered about in the movie Aliens.  Why did the "Colonial Marines" exist and why were they armed the way they were, including nuclear weapons?  What threat justified their existence?  Were they regularly fighting other aliens or humans?

Nukes are like firecrackers when it comes to sci-fi. When you have ships that can do interplanetary missions, they have energy levels that can destroy planets just by accelerating rocks towards them. Even in the expanse (which is low tech compared to alien), the small corvette class ship (looks up the number) could output 5 TW power constantly. Use it to accelerate something for a day, and the kinetic energy of that is now more than any nuclear bomb ever built.
And that's just a small 5 man ship, which doesn't even have FTL.

[RoGeorge]

Would  be enough to drop a rod of solid metal from the orbit, without any explosives heads, and you'll get the equivalent of a nuke:

[AndyBeez]

Point-of-order regarding Star Wars. Why did The Empire need to build the Death Star to destroy a planet when, having already mastered faster than light hyperspace travel, their technology horizon is so advanced, they can vaporise a planet in milliseconds using a transportable black hole? Plus, this civilisation makes five parsecs in two days, so why are they still shooting at each other point-blank with blasters? Something's not right in that galaxy

[BrianHG]

Point-of-order regarding Star Wars. Why did The Empire need to build the Death Star to destroy a planet when, having already mastered faster than light hyperspace travel, their technology horizon is so advanced, they can vaporise a planet in milliseconds using a transportable black hole? Plus, this civilisation makes five parsecs in two days, so why are they still shooting at each other point-blank with blasters? Something's not right in that galaxy

Because ---  well, just watch this and have a laugh:

[CatalinaWOW]

Point-of-order regarding Star Wars. Why did The Empire need to build the Death Star to destroy a planet when, having already mastered faster than light hyperspace travel, their technology horizon is so advanced, they can vaporise a planet in milliseconds using a transportable black hole? Plus, this civilisation makes five parsecs in two days, so why are they still shooting at each other point-blank with blasters? Something's not right in that galaxy

This doesn't seem so far fetched to me.  Your argument applied to today's world would be:

We have the technology to fly between continents in hours.  Why does anyone need aircraft carriers when they can just transport nukes.  And why are people from the same civilization shooting at each other with rifles and pistols.

The peak technology of an era is never applied uniformly.  Sometimes because of cost, sometime because of transportability, and often just politics and sapient nature.

[coppercone2]

This discussion reminds me of something I wondered about in the movie Aliens.  Why did the "Colonial Marines" exist and why were they armed the way they were, including nuclear weapons?  What threat justified their existence?  Were they regularly fighting other aliens or humans?

The whole tone of the conversation between the marines in that movie makes it seem like they are quite experienced with encountering and fighting a variety of aliens. The conversations between everyone else makes it seem like encountering an alien is a huge novelty. Things never quite seemed to gel.

My take away was that the Colonial Marines were often tasked with eliminating dangerous, but unintelligent alien beings: "What do you mean 'THEY cut the power'? How could they cut the power, man? They're animals!"

Ripley, Burke, and Newt knew otherwise.

I re watched the scene, the marines defiantly did not watch the disk. Maybe hicks, he looked at least slightly interested, he seemed suspicious about the situation. Smarter then most, puts up his guard when he sees a suit n tie in disguise. Their always selling something and hes not buying it

It looked to me like
1) freeze hungover people
2) ignore hysterical woman
3) decide to go down to the planet, it must be a coaxial cable

[AndyBeez]

This doesn't seem so far fetched to me.  Your argument applied to today's world would be:

We have the technology to fly between continents in hours.  Why does anyone need aircraft carriers when they can just transport nukes.  And why are people from the same civilization shooting at each other with rifles and pistols.

The peak technology of an era is never applied uniformly.  Sometimes because of cost, sometime because of transportability, and often just politics and sapient nature.

Valid point. Which is why Star Wars resonated with movie audiences. It has been said 'the empire' was a metaphor for the Soviet Union. Whilst the rebels represented everything that was American. As for the obligatory shoot outs, just a variation on cowboys and Indians meets sword and stone fantasy genres, in space. Which in '76 was about the coolest thing ever. Who needed all of that high brow Star Trek humanity in space cr@p when we could feel the force, of movie franchising.

PS .. I think still think the rebels would have no defence against hyper-space missiles. But hey, we're back full circle to that Evil Empire.

[David Hess]

Nukes are like firecrackers when it comes to sci-fi. When you have ships that can do interplanetary missions, they have energy levels that can destroy planets just by accelerating rocks towards them. Even in the expanse (which is low tech compared to alien), the small corvette class ship (looks up the number) could output 5 TW power constantly. Use it to accelerate something for a day, and the kinetic energy of that is now more than any nuclear bomb ever built.
And that's just a small 5 man ship, which doesn't even have FTL.

All, or almost all, Hollywood science fiction suffers from that problem.  It is known as the Kiznti Lesson and it is even its own trope now - A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive.

Even more so than kinetic-kill weapons, an actual warhead adds very little to the total damage inflicted. Note that at 86.6% the speed of light the amount of kinetic energy is equal to the rest mass, which means that the projectile will inflict upon the target the same energy as if it was composed of pure antimatter.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php#id--Relativistic_Weapons

Point-of-order regarding Star Wars. Why did The Empire need to build the Death Star to destroy a planet when, having already mastered faster than light hyperspace travel, their technology horizon is so advanced, they can vaporise a planet in milliseconds using a transportable black hole? Plus, this civilisation makes five parsecs in two days, so why are they still shooting at each other point-blank with blasters? Something's not right in that galaxy

Star Wars is not science fiction.  It is space opera.

[coppercone2]

well the warp bubble thing means its not actually moving fast its just moving through like a alternate path.

In the Alien universe the thing has a tachyon shunt, which makes a negative mass field that supposedly decreases the mass of the ship to allow for superluminal travel, however you want to understand it.

I assume when you turn that off, it would lead to massive deacceleration. I wonder how dealing with inertia looks like in equations.

If its initally based on like inertia for power requirements, that might mean it needs to be still or barely moving to engage the field, then when it disengages the field it will go at the same speed it was going in to begin with. But as for dealing with conventionally accelerated very fast objects, I am not sure... I guess you need a hell of a planetary defense system. Powerful lasers should be able to vaporize it, but what trajectory would vaporized relativistic space ship matter take... would it bloom and disperse? or would you get hit with a massive plasma stream thats mostly coherent? Perhaps question for someone that works with heavy colliders. I guess you can shoot a very powerful particle beam at it, since that has mass and it would actually interact with vaporized starship on a matter to matter level rather then just change its phase via energy. But enough power should make it like explode on a nuclear level too, those explosions must unfocus the energy? Massive neutron beam to make it go critical mass via tons of radioisotopes being produced?

I would imagine they figure how to turn threats like that into aurora borealis

[SiliconWizard]

Star Wars is not science fiction.  It is space opera.

Agreed. And it's not even particularly modern in its structure. Possibly it did look cinematographically modern at the time, but the narrative itself is IMO very "Tolkienesque". I wouldn't call that science-fiction either.

[tggzzz]

Star Wars is not science fiction.  It is space opera.

Agreed. And it's not even particularly modern in its structure.

That's by design. George Lucas was inspired by the 30s Flash Gordon serials, and deliberately and explicitly set out to update the .

[.RC.]

At least parts of star wars was accurate.   The storm troopers running around unable to hit anything, was pretty accurate of how if you run and gun you hit only air.  Or in my vase when I went to a shooting range and fired a revolver while stationary, I hit nothing as well.

[coppercone2]

I thought poorly trained imperial cannon fodder are becoming more and more realistic by the day (if you follow international news). I believe they are officially referred to as 'zombies' now.

[coppice]

Star Wars is not science fiction.  It is space opera.

Agreed. And it's not even particularly modern in its structure.

That's by design. George Lucas was inspired by the 30s Flash Gordon serials, and deliberately and explicitly set out to update the .

In the 70s I went to a cinema, and among the trailers they showed the one for Star Wars. It was presented as science fiction, and looked pathetic. A few years later. when I finally saw it on TV. I thought it was pretty good, because it was fantasy hokum, with no pretensions to being science fiction at all. I've been put off a few movies that turned our ro be very watchable, because the marketing was so very bad I thought they were entirely different movies.

[Infraviolet]

Another one in Star Wars which is very wrong is the orbital mechanics during the crashing of the ship about 20 minutes in to Revenge of the Sith (III, in chronological order). The Jedi seem determined to burn thrusters the wrong way and make their situation worse, not that there's any reason a starship should begin to fall from orbit just because part of it gets blown up anyway.

The one time Star Wars got the science pretty right, where that first order wide angled star destroyer ( ep VIII chronologically) gets obliterated by the kinetic impact of another ship, apparently really p*ssed off many fans on account of it making all the fancier combat of the series seem pointless. But also, it means in the final film of the series that whole thing about a planet full of sith warships could have been dealt with in one nice Pellegrino/Zebrowski move(their novel "The Killing Star" is all about that tactic).

[BrianHG]

The Jedi seem determined to burn thrusters the wrong way and make their situation worse, not that there's any reason a starship should begin to fall from orbit just because part of it gets blown up anyway.

Careful here.  Yes, if you are in orbit, in other words, moving around the planet at a velocity and angle which fights/balances the planets gravity towards it's surface, having an engine die means just maintaining you relative distance above the planet continuing to orbit.

However, if you are maintaining a surface geostationary position above the planet using some magical antigravity device while not located in the geostationary orbital plane, once that device is turned off, you will begin to drop like a rock.

It is the same for use here.  if we shoot a rocket straight up above the ground to the orbital altitude of our current international space station, once the rocket runs out of fuel, the rocket will decelerate, then begin to drop like a rock as it does not have the angular velocity around the earth to counteract the Earth's gravity.

To stop your rocket which was stationary relative to the ground from falling, it would have to go 35,786 kilometers above the equator where our geostationary satellites are located.  That is the one magic altitude above our equator where you just magically stay stationary above the ground below.  The altitude of our international space station at 408 kilometers is just way to close and if it were to stay above one point of the Earth relative to the ground, at 408km, it would drop like a rock and without it's current orbital speed, it would not burn up in our atmosphere where most of it would reach the ground.

I know in scifi they always say their ships are in orbit while having/using their impossible magical antigravity drive to be much closer to the planet and still stay above a certain land mass (IE: military point/target of interest)  just illustrates the writers using the term 'orbit' to mean something a little different than in our reality.

[coppice]

The one time Star Wars got the science pretty right

The "wings flying against an atmosphere" dynamics of most of Star Wars action sequences was getting the science pretty much right?

[AVGresponding]

As David Hess said, Star Wars isn't so much science fiction as space opera. Some of the (many) novels written under license in the period between ROTJ and TPM are decent sci-fi however, and I continue to regard them as "canon" and disregard the questionable (at best) prequels, and have a special contempt for the utter dross from Disney.

[David Hess]

Another one in Star Wars which is very wrong is the orbital mechanics during the crashing of the ship about 20 minutes in to Revenge of the Sith (III, in chronological order). The Jedi seem determined to burn thrusters the wrong way and make their situation worse, not that there's any reason a starship should begin to fall from orbit just because part of it gets blown up anyway.

Star Trek Beyond got that right at least accidentally when Nero is drilling into Vulcan - he was not in inertial orbit.  Star Wars ships obviously have some type of anti-gravity and gravity generation, so presumably could maintain a non inertial orbit where loss of power would cause a rapid acceleration toward the planet.  Of course it is never explained and is treated more like a ship sinking, but whatever.

Again, Star Wars is space opera and not science fiction, so I would not take it that seriously.

In Babylon 5 the Earth ship crews move around in freefall when the ship is not under acceleration until later ships include rotating sections or later some form of artificial gravity, but in any Hollywood production except most recently The Expanse, having to simulate freefall in many scenes is a large practical problem.

[rdl]

Geostationary orbit is not a "magical" altitude. Orbital speed in geostationary orbit is a bit over 3 km/sec.

...
To stop your rocket which was stationary relative to the ground from falling, it would have to go 35,786 kilometers above the equator where our geostationary satellites are located.  That is the one magic altitude above our equator where you just magically stay stationary above the ground below. 
...

[BrianHG]

Geostationary orbit is not a "magical" altitude. Orbital speed in geostationary orbit is a bit over 3 km/sec.

...
To stop your rocket which was stationary relative to the ground from falling, it would have to go 35,786 kilometers above the equator where our geostationary satellites are located.  That is the one magic altitude above our equator where you just magically stay stationary above the ground below. 
...

You are correct that the altitude I mentioned, to maintain that relative stationary position above the Earth's ground way below, because of the Earth's rotation, you would be traveling at your noted ~3km/sec.  And like I said it is an orbit.

[rdl]

That's probably what you meant, but not exactly what you said. You said that if you shoot a rocket "straight up" to the altitude of the ISS, it will eventually "drop like a rock", but by going farther up to 35,786 kilometers the rocket will  "just magically stay stationary above the ground below". You left out the part about also needing to accelerate tangentially to 3.1 kilometers per second.

It is the same for use here.  if we shoot a rocket straight up above the ground to the orbital altitude of our current international space station, once the rocket runs out of fuel, the rocket will decelerate, then begin to drop like a rock as it does not have the angular velocity around the earth to counteract the Earth's gravity.

To stop your rocket which was stationary relative to the ground from falling, it would have to go 35,786 kilometers above the equator where our geostationary satellites are located.  That is the one magic altitude above our equator where you just magically stay stationary above the ground below.  The altitude of our international space station at 408 kilometers is just way to close and if it were to stay above one point of the Earth relative to the ground, at 408km, it would drop
...

[newbrain]

Star Wars is not science fiction.  It is space opera.

And, IMO, quite bad space opera.
I still recall in my teens going to watch the original "Star Wars" when it came out with great expectations.
I was coming from dozen of sci-fi books (possibly ~100), and 2001, and Solaris, so I just felt I disappointed that I had watched a bad western.
I have also seen the two following movies, more from social pressure than other reasons, and can't remember having enjoyed them.

You want good space opera? Read the Culture series from Iain M. Banks.

[BrianHG]

That's probably what you meant, but not exactly what you said. You said that if you shoot a rocket "straight up" to the altitude of the ISS, it will eventually "drop like a rock", but by going farther up to 35,786 kilometers the rocket will  "just magically stay stationary above the ground below". You left out the part about also needing to accelerate tangentially to 3.1 kilometers per second.

It is the same for use here.  if we shoot a rocket straight up above the ground to the orbital altitude of our current international space station, once the rocket runs out of fuel, the rocket will decelerate, then begin to drop like a rock as it does not have the angular velocity around the earth to counteract the Earth's gravity.

To stop your rocket which was stationary relative to the ground from falling, it would have to go 35,786 kilometers above the equator where our geostationary satellites are located.  That is the one magic altitude above our equator where you just magically stay stationary above the ground below.  The altitude of our international space station at 408 kilometers is just way to close and if it were to stay above one point of the Earth relative to the ground, at 408km, it would drop
...

My meaning 'straight up' as in keeping a relative stationary position above the ground.  This means if the ground is rotating, you do have some orbital speed, it's just at low orbits like 408km up, it is not enough to stop you from falling back down like a rock.

[David Hess]

Star Wars is not science fiction.  It is space opera.

And, IMO, quite bad space opera.
I still recall in my teens going to watch the original "Star Wars" when it came out with great expectations.
I was coming from dozen of sci-fi books (possibly ~100), and 2001, and Solaris, so I just felt I disappointed that I had watched a bad western.
I have also seen the two following movies, more from social pressure than other reasons, and can't remember having enjoyed them.

I did not think Star Wars was that bad, for space opera.  I had no interest in seeing it but my parents forced me to go.  The execution was good.

My list of good science fiction movies and series is awfully short, but there are a few.  Most or all never enjoyed general popularity.

You want good space opera? Read the Culture series from Iain M. Banks.

At the time I was reading a lot of Edgar Rice Burrows, but that became a gateway to hard science fiction.

[Sal Ammoniac]

I did not think Star Wars was that bad, for space opera.  I had no interest in seeing it but my parents forced me to go.

How old were you? I was 17 when it came out and my friends and I waited in line for four hours to see it on opening day.

[rdl]

My meaning 'straight up' as in keeping a relative stationary position above the ground.  This means if the ground is rotating, you do have some orbital speed, it's just at low orbits like 408km up, it is not enough to stop you from falling back down like a rock.

It's not enough at any orbit.

[David Hess]

I did not think Star Wars was that bad, for space opera.  I had no interest in seeing it but my parents forced me to go.

How old were you? I was 17 when it came out and my friends and I waited in line for four hours to see it on opening day.

I was 7.  I saw it on the large screen at the Orange Cinedome and just got in on the tail end of a line.  The theater was completely packed.

[Kim Christensen]

My meaning 'straight up' as in keeping a relative stationary position above the ground.  This means if the ground is rotating, you do have some orbital speed, it's just at low orbits like 408km up, it is not enough to stop you from falling back down like a rock.

It's not enough at any orbit.

If you had a 35,786 km tall space-elevator at Earth's equator, and rode it all the way to the top and stepped off, you'd stay where you were relative to the elevator and the ground. (More or less)
This is because the elevator is rotating at 1 RPD (1 revolution per day) with the Earth. ie: The top of the elevator would have an angular velocity of apx 3.07km/sec due to it being affixed to the ground.

Since the the angular velocity of the Earth's rotation at the equator is 465.1m/s, if you launched a rocket straight up (And managed to maintain that angular velocity) you could reach an altitude where 465.1m/s of orbital speed was sufficient to prevent you from reentering Earth's atmosphere. Around 1.84 million Km altitude.. Not sure if this would be a stable Earth orbit due to influences from the Sun and Moon. It would probably end up in solar orbit soon enough.

[rdl]

That would work. Though I think the elevator would have to be a bit taller to allow for the counterweight.

[vad]

If the elevator were tall enough, you could surpass the speed of light. Or could you?

[rdl]

Since the the angular velocity of the Earth's rotation at the equator is 465.1m/s, if you launched a rocket straight up (And managed to maintain that angular velocity) you could reach an altitude where 465.1m/s of orbital speed was sufficient to prevent you from reentering Earth's atmosphere
....

I think your decimal point is in the wrong place.

If the elevator were tall enough, you could surpass the speed of light. Or could you?

In theory. At least I think so. In reality  probably no material would ever be strong enough and you would have problems with it colliding with the Moon.

After writing that I found a calculator and if I used it right, the height would be a bit over 4 billion kilometers. It would reach out past Pluto.

[Kim Christensen]

Since the the angular velocity of the Earth's rotation at the equator is 465.1m/s, if you launched a rocket straight up (And managed to maintain that angular velocity) you could reach an altitude where 465.1m/s of orbital speed was sufficient to prevent you from reentering Earth's atmosphere
....

I think your decimal point is in the wrong place.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Therefore at 465.1m/s, a single point on the equator would have moved 40,184,640 meters (40,185 km in 24 hours) which is approximately the circumference of the Earth at the equator.

After writing that I found a calculator and if I used it right, the height would be a bit over 4 billion kilometers. It would reach out past Pluto.

Most of these calculators only take a single body into account to keep the math simple. I think you had the Sun selected as the primary SOI instead of the Earth.
Oopps. I see you're talking about the speed of light here...

But you got me thinking... A little research turned up the term Hill Sphere which is basically the highest orbit that could be maintained, at least temporarily, around a body. For the Earth, this is 1.47 million Km, so my theoretical orbit at 1.84 million Km from Earth would be impossible because an object that far from Earth would end up in orbit around the Sun instead of the Earth.

[tszaboo]

My meaning 'straight up' as in keeping a relative stationary position above the ground.  This means if the ground is rotating, you do have some orbital speed, it's just at low orbits like 408km up, it is not enough to stop you from falling back down like a rock.

It's not enough at any orbit.

If you had a 35,786 km tall space-elevator at Earth's equator, and rode it all the way to the top and stepped off, you'd stay where you were relative to the elevator and the ground. (More or less)
This is because the elevator is rotating at 1 RPD (1 revolution per day) with the Earth. ie: The top of the elevator would have an angular velocity of apx 3.07km/sec due to it being affixed to the ground.

Since the the angular velocity of the Earth's rotation at the equator is 465.1m/s, if you launched a rocket straight up (And managed to maintain that angular velocity) you could reach an altitude where 465.1m/s of orbital speed was sufficient to prevent you from reentering Earth's atmosphere. Around 1.84 million Km altitude.. Not sure if this would be a stable Earth orbit due to influences from the Sun and Moon. It would probably end up in solar orbit soon enough.

I've been cracking my head about this for an hour now. It didn't feel right, and this was contrary to the fact what I knew about orbital mechanism. So if you just burn radial out, this doesn't work at all, and you fall back to earth, quite fast. The only way to "carry" your prograde velocity  to that high orbit is to add more speed prograde. It's because while you are going to that 1.84M km point, the direction of that vector changes, because you move and the earth moves.
But I'm going to try this tomorrow, because it's an interesting proposition nonetheless.

[Kim Christensen]

So if you just burn radial out, this doesn't work at all, and you fall back to earth, quite fast.

You can, if you reach escape velocity, then you won't fall back to Earth. Less than escape velocity, then yes, you'll fall back.
So as long as you are traveling at more than 11.2 km/s away from Earth, it doesn't matter which direction you are going*. But this is not what we do when launching a satellite which we want to orbit the Earth. Then we need to lean the rocket into a gravity turn to give it horizontal velocity in addition to getting it out of the atmosphere. Ideally a satellite, in a perfectly circular orbit around a perfectly spherical Earth, has zero vertical velocity relative to the surface of the Earth.

*  Well, you might come back in a few years if your new solar orbit intersects that of Earth's orbit around the Sun. (That's why Elon's Tesla will pay us a visit sometime in the future)

[coppice]

So if you just burn radial out, this doesn't work at all, and you fall back to earth, quite fast.

You can, if you reach escape velocity, then you won't fall back to Earth. Less than escape velocity, then yes, you'll fall back.

You only need to reach a large escape velocity if you want to shut off your engines pretty quickly and never fall back to Earth. If you had the technology to keep your engines going for an extremely long time you could just keep moving gently away from the Earth until its pull on you drops to a value low enough that your modest speed exceeds the much reduced escape velocity at the distance you have achieved. The reason we don't do that is the most efficient way we have to leave the Earth is to get as close to a ballistic launch as possible. i.e. build up speed as fast as we can, and coast.

[rdl]

I think your decimal point is in the wrong place.

Oops. My bad,  I was doing everything in km/sec

[AndyBeez]

Another one to stir the sci-fi pot.

Why do time machines always hold station? That is, they always arrive at exactly the same geodetic location in the past, present and future. Never the true motion of the earth's rotation, orbit, transit and the associated perturbations are taken into consideration. Not even tectonic and erosional elements either.

Marty McFly travelling back to 1955 from 1985 would have arrived ... in the middle of space due to the true motion of the sun around the galaxy. A mere 218 billion kilometres (1457AU) from Hill Valley.

[coppice]

Another one to stir the sci-fi pot.

Why do time machines always hold station? That is, they always arrive at exactly the same geodetic location in the past, present and future. Never the true motion of the earth's rotation, orbit, transit and the associated perturbations are taken into consideration. Not even tectonic and erosional elements either.

Marty McFly travelling back to 1955 from 1985 would have arrived ... in the middle of space due to the true motion of the sun around the galaxy. A mere 218 billion kilometres (1457AU) from Hill Valley.

Its incredibly hard to make a story flow if you are going to be accurate. Its would be tool long, and too complex. You just have to give the author some licence. How much is appropriate depends on the nature of the tale. For something like Back To The Moneymaking its supposed to be fun, not accurate. I'm much more OK with him jumping to a point on the Earth than with his parents fading away instead of just vanishing as the time lines are supposed to be changing.

[Kim Christensen]

Marty McFly travelling back to 1955 from 1985 would have arrived ... in the middle of space due to the true motion of the sun around the galaxy. A mere 218 billion kilometres (1457AU) from Hill Valley.

They always talked about the flux capacitor which allowed them to move through time. They forgot to mention the flux inductor, which when paired with the flux capacitor, allowed them to move through both space and time in resonance with the universe. 

[David Hess]

Why do time machines always hold station? That is, they always arrive at exactly the same geodetic location in the past, present and future. Never the true motion of the earth's rotation, orbit, transit and the associated perturbations are taken into consideration. Not even tectonic and erosional elements either.

Niven's time machines had to be anchored to their start point in order to return to their origin.  Heinlein's time machines implicitly could travel in space also.  Forward's time machines were wormholes with endpoints that could be moved but were otherwise fixed in space and time, and also because of the physics involving negative mass, could be used as reaction-less drives.

Also, throw out conservation of mass and energy.  Check out Larry Niven's The Theory and Practice of Time Travel.

[coppice]

Why do time machines always hold station? That is, they always arrive at exactly the same geodetic location in the past, present and future. Never the true motion of the earth's rotation, orbit, transit and the associated perturbations are taken into consideration. Not even tectonic and erosional elements either.

Niven's time machines had to be anchored to their start point in order to return to their origin.  Heinlein's time machines implicitly could travel in space also.  Forward's time machines were wormholes with endpoints that could be moved, and also because of the physics involving negative mass, could be used as reaction-less drives.

Most of the fictional time machines which are combined space and time machines still have the issue that their velocity is magically right after the hop, and they are, say, sitting nicely on the surface of some target planet. If they also deal with matching the velocity of the target they are rendezvousing with, there would need to be a massive energy exchange (and without further technical means, some serious G forces), as typically a large hop through space would put you among things travelling at an enormous velocity relative to where you came from.

[mendip_discovery]

Some just make time go faster while you sit still. So they can happily stay in the same place as they move with the earth.

[tggzzz]

Larry Niven had fun with his JumpShift teleportation machines, e.g. if you teleport from the equator to a pole, or change altitude, the kinetic and potential energy has to come/go too.

That was also the first time I came across CamelCase typography for names. It is common now, but I think Niven might have invented it.

[AndyBeez]

I suppose a time machine remains geo-effective because it makes a kind of temporal vacuole in the space time continuum? Well that's how I'm explaining all of that Star Trek, go find a Humpback Whale in the 1980s, garbage.

Another thought regarding time travel, what about the microbes riding shotgun with the traveller? A time traveller from 1989 << "Excellent" >> arriving today to pick up their sure bet copy of Greys Sports Almanac 2022, might transport the Covid Arcturus variant back to the valley - causing the timeline to skew into an alternate tangent; resulting in Donald "Biff" Trump not becoming US President. When travellers from Europe arrived in the new world carrying influenza, syphilis and smallpox, their pathogens decimated the indigenous populations. So what diseases from the future might cause issues for the ethical time tourist?

[coppice]

I suppose a time machine remains geo-effective because it makes a kind of temporal vacuole in the space time continuum? Well that's how I'm explaining all of that Star Trek, go find a Humpback Whale in the 1980s, garbage.

Another thought regarding time travel, what about the microbes riding shotgun with the traveller? A time traveller from 1989 << "Excellent" >> arriving today to pick up their sure bet copy of Greys Sports Almanac 2022, might transport the Covid Arcturus variant back to the valley - causing the timeline to skew into an alternate tangent; resulting in Donald "Biff" Trump not becoming US President. When travellers from Europe arrived in the new world carrying influenza, syphilis and smallpox, their pathogens decimated the indigenous populations. So what diseases from the future might cause issues for the ethical time tourist?

Biohazards aren't generally well handled in any kind of science fiction. More serious writers, like Artthur C Clark, point them out, but mostly handwave a solution. In reality these would be really tough issues. Most time travel tales have someone appearing on the same spot at another time, like that place was just a vacuum moments before. In reality the air would need to be moved out of the way. A few tales address things going horribly wrong when someone appears at a spot that now has, say, a building, but the general issue of atmosphere is completely ignored.

[AndyBeez]

... A few tales address things going horribly wrong when someone appears at a spot that now has, say, a building, but the general issue of atmosphere is completely ignored.

Terminator does it by burning a landing sphere in the target space. Not very practical

[TimFox]

Larry Niven had fun with his JumpShift teleportation machines, e.g. if you teleport from the equator to a pole, or change altitude, the kinetic and potential energy has to come/go too.

That was also the first time I came across CamelCase typography for names. It is common now, but I think Niven might have invented it.

If I remember correctly, Niven's teleportation system conserved momentum by having a heavily-loaded barge anchored in Lake Michigan to absorb individual impulses, which approximately cancelled out over the week.

[David Hess]

Another thought regarding time travel, what about the microbes riding shotgun with the traveller? A time traveller from 1989 << "Excellent" >> arriving today to pick up their sure bet copy of Greys Sports Almanac 2022, might transport the Covid Arcturus variant back to the valley - causing the timeline to skew into an alternate tangent; resulting in Donald "Biff" Trump not becoming US President. When travellers from Europe arrived in the new world carrying influenza, syphilis and smallpox, their pathogens decimated the indigenous populations. So what diseases from the future might cause issues for the ethical time tourist?

With those small differences in time, the disease is still a contemporary of the life it infects.  Part of the Red Queen effect is that parasites and diseases are adapted to the life they encounter and not the life of the past or future, so it is not a given that a "modern" infectious disease would be well adapted to the distant past, or the reverse.  Countering that, the most deadly diseases are ones which are *not* well adapted.

I think a more interesting aspect is the Red Queen effect itself between predators and prey.  Would a modern animal simply outclass its distant ancestors?  In some cases this will absolutely happen, which brings a whole new angle on introducing an invasive species.  How good were the dinosaurs really compared to a mammal that evolved 250 million years later?

[David Hess]

Larry Niven had fun with his JumpShift teleportation machines, e.g. if you teleport from the equator to a pole, or change altitude, the kinetic and potential energy has to come/go too.

That was also the first time I came across CamelCase typography for names. It is common now, but I think Niven might have invented it.

If I remember correctly, Niven's teleportation system conserved momentum by having a heavily-loaded barge anchored in Lake Michigan to absorb individual impulses, which approximately cancelled out over the week.

Eventually the momentum transfer and energy difference was dissipated like that, but not all booths supported it, which led to interesting locked room mysteries.

As Niven points out in his Theory and Practice of Teleportation, you can make a space drive for Earth by teleporting something like iron filings uphill so that they fall back into the transmitter.  Of course this needs to be put at a pole or the iron filing will precess and miss the transmitter.  Also use a vacuum.  In 30 days, the mass of the iron filing has doubled ...

[tszaboo]

So if you just burn radial out, this doesn't work at all, and you fall back to earth, quite fast.

You can, if you reach escape velocity, then you won't fall back to Earth. Less than escape velocity, then yes, you'll fall back.
So as long as you are traveling at more than 11.2 km/s away from Earth, it doesn't matter which direction you are going*. But this is not what we do when launching a satellite which we want to orbit the Earth. Then we need to lean the rocket into a gravity turn to give it horizontal velocity in addition to getting it out of the atmosphere. Ideally a satellite, in a perfectly circular orbit around a perfectly spherical Earth, has zero vertical velocity relative to the surface of the Earth.

*  Well, you might come back in a few years if your new solar orbit intersects that of Earth's orbit around the Sun. (That's why Elon's Tesla will pay us a visit sometime in the future)

Well, you are the one who is insisting into launching satellites with only radial out burns. And yes, of course if you leave the spere of influence of earth you don't fall back, but that's also a bad strategy to go into an orbit now, isn't it?

[Kim Christensen]

So if you just burn radial out, this doesn't work at all, and you fall back to earth, quite fast.

You can, if you reach escape velocity, then you won't fall back to Earth. Less than escape velocity, then yes, you'll fall back.
So as long as you are traveling at more than 11.2 km/s away from Earth, it doesn't matter which direction you are going*. But this is not what we do when launching a satellite which we want to orbit the Earth. Then we need to lean the rocket into a gravity turn to give it horizontal velocity in addition to getting it out of the atmosphere. Ideally a satellite, in a perfectly circular orbit around a perfectly spherical Earth, has zero vertical velocity relative to the surface of the Earth.

*  Well, you might come back in a few years if your new solar orbit intersects that of Earth's orbit around the Sun. (That's why Elon's Tesla will pay us a visit sometime in the future)

Well, you are the one who is insisting into launching satellites with only radial out burns. And yes, of course if you leave the spere of influence of earth you don't fall back, but that's also a bad strategy to go into an orbit now, isn't it?

Nope... Just taking issue with the line highlighted above.
Of coarse, launching satellites meant to go into Earth orbit using that method would be a failure.
But you could go to Mars that way, instead of going into low Earth orbit first, but it's not done that way for various reasons.

[CatalinaWOW]

There are a great many ways to move around in space when you have essentially unlimited energy and "magic" propulsion systems.  And orbit is as good a word as any to describe what they are doing.   No one gets particularly upset when a pilot comes on the intercom and says "We are going to be orbiting the airport for a while waiting for a landing slot".

[MathWizard]

There's some disaster movie where they literally "fly" something like a Star Trek shuttle craft, into the CORE of the Earth, in modern times. There's sci-fi that does crazy stuff, but this is something else. It's not some tunnel boring machine either. I don't think it has lasers  or anything vaporizing the rock in front of them either. Maybe it did, but still.

[coppercone2]

that kind of technology is attributed to a plasma drill, the idea is there is a strong hot plasma made infront of something that melts the rock and thermal design so that the rock is solidified after the craft to form a tunnel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_deep_drilling_technology

I would say it more like.. swims through rock rather then flies. If you superheated everything to make a gas bubble you could fly like cavitation craft, but that is technology... 10m years in the future maybe lol

If you want it fast you would need some kind of chiller to solidify the rock fast enough so there is not a bunch of lava behind the craft (different thermal conductivity and specific heat of lava), also possibly some kind of thermionic cooling effect would need to be used for that

But IMO not that crazy, its kind of like cutting through ice with a string, Just very hard.

Often done with plasma cutters to put holes in metal, but its not that good because usually the hole is hardened as fuck (nitrided), so its hardly a good pilot hole, I would prefer virgin steel (but it could serve as a OK pilot hole for an annular cutter center shaft if you got that)... if you deal with plasma cutter you know how much of a bitch hardened steel on the edge can be, thats what they hide in the brochures about productivity, it seems much worse then oxyfuel cut steel. Best way is to smack it with a hammer and chisel if you don't mind deformation to crack it of, then grind.

A combination approach is interesting too, if you have the power, to crush the rock with carbide cutters then melt it on the back 'exhaust chute' to make a glassy tunnel

[rdl]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Core

It's actually a pretty good movie if you can do a little belief suspension.

There's some disaster movie where they literally "fly" something like a Star Trek shuttle craft, into the CORE of the Earth, in modern times. There's sci-fi that does crazy stuff, but this is something else. It's not some tunnel boring machine either. I don't think it has lasers  or anything vaporizing the rock in front of them either. Maybe it did, but still.

[coppercone2]

kinda wonder how good those ships would be if they have a force field, if you can stop all those explosions maybe the shield generator can backfeed to make a plasma drill, those shields all seem plasma based anyway. Startrek ships might be natural digging machines

[tszaboo]

So if you just burn radial out, this doesn't work at all, and you fall back to earth, quite fast.

You can, if you reach escape velocity, then you won't fall back to Earth. Less than escape velocity, then yes, you'll fall back.
So as long as you are traveling at more than 11.2 km/s away from Earth, it doesn't matter which direction you are going*. But this is not what we do when launching a satellite which we want to orbit the Earth. Then we need to lean the rocket into a gravity turn to give it horizontal velocity in addition to getting it out of the atmosphere. Ideally a satellite, in a perfectly circular orbit around a perfectly spherical Earth, has zero vertical velocity relative to the surface of the Earth.

*  Well, you might come back in a few years if your new solar orbit intersects that of Earth's orbit around the Sun. (That's why Elon's Tesla will pay us a visit sometime in the future)

Well, you are the one who is insisting into launching satellites with only radial out burns. And yes, of course if you leave the spere of influence of earth you don't fall back, but that's also a bad strategy to go into an orbit now, isn't it?

Nope... Just taking issue with the line highlighted above.
Of coarse, launching satellites meant to go into Earth orbit using that method would be a failure.
But you could go to Mars that way, instead of going into low Earth orbit first, but it's not done that way for various reasons.

You really gotta stop straw manning, or cherry picking some extreme boundary condition, where something doesn't apply.

[Kim Christensen]

So if you just burn radial out, this doesn't work at all, and you fall back to earth, quite fast.

You can, if you reach escape velocity, then you won't fall back to Earth. Less than escape velocity, then yes, you'll fall back.
So as long as you are traveling at more than 11.2 km/s away from Earth, it doesn't matter which direction you are going*. But this is not what we do when launching a satellite which we want to orbit the Earth. Then we need to lean the rocket into a gravity turn to give it horizontal velocity in addition to getting it out of the atmosphere. Ideally a satellite, in a perfectly circular orbit around a perfectly spherical Earth, has zero vertical velocity relative to the surface of the Earth.

*  Well, you might come back in a few years if your new solar orbit intersects that of Earth's orbit around the Sun. (That's why Elon's Tesla will pay us a visit sometime in the future)

Well, you are the one who is insisting into launching satellites with only radial out burns. And yes, of course if you leave the spere of influence of earth you don't fall back, but that's also a bad strategy to go into an orbit now, isn't it?

Nope... Just taking issue with the line highlighted above.
Of coarse, launching satellites meant to go into Earth orbit using that method would be a failure.
But you could go to Mars that way, instead of going into low Earth orbit first, but it's not done that way for various reasons.

You really gotta stop straw manning, or cherry picking some extreme boundary condition, where something doesn't apply.

Just admit that you were wrong and move on.

[NiHaoMike]

[MaddyRZ]

Dark Matter, The Expanse, and Altered Carbon. Doctor Who was a nice show, but not anymore. For me it was the casting. After 50 years of the Doctor being a male character, I didn't see the point in changing it given the narrative. Jodie Whittaker is an amazing actress no doubt, but Doctor Who is a role that not anyone can play given the long history of the show. There's no progression in the show storywise.

[5U4GB]

Plot line: a group of random political prisoners steal the most powerful fighter spaceship in the galaxy. Later they find an omniscient computer. Each episode they still manage to get themselves into scrapes with vastly inferior opposition forces.

You're not watching it for the sophisticated plot, you're watching it for Paul Darrow and, for a lighter note, Michael Keating.  It also contains a lot of things that later became common in other series like longer story arcs rather than one-episode set pieces, the creators of several later series were big fans of Blake's 7.

Also that characterisation is vastly oversimplifying it, the same to some extent would hold for about half the Star Trek series: Powerful spaceship(s), powerful computers, and they still get into scrapes etc.

[5U4GB]

As a brit I have to recomend Red Dwarf. Science no so much but there is some clever filming. They solve who the man on the grassy knowl was. Episodes such as Back to Reality where before its time.

Oh, and then you can't miss Hyperdrive: "They've shot the captain.... they've shot first officer York... now they're turning their guns on me, I wonder what they'll do next?".  Or the Queppunian Doom Ray: "I now have a weapon of unimaginable power… The DOOM RAY!  Watch! As my DOOM RAY disintegrates him.... in under 3 days...  And then, when it's had a week to recharge, it's your turn!".

Not to mention the Lallakiss Battle Song.

[5U4GB]

Its incredibly hard to make a story flow if you are going to be accurate. Its would be tool long, and too complex. You just have to give the author some licence.

Consider an accurate movie rendition of some space manoeuver:

Ensign X: Initiating Womble manoeuver.
Crew sits there flapping their hands over panels with random lit symbols on them.
Time passes
Ensign X breaks wind.
More time passes.
Ensign X: Well, that's the end of my shift, can I get anyone anything before I turn in?
Ensign Y: Nah, all good, thanks!
More time passes.
Ensign Y sneezes.
Several more hours pass.
Ensign Y leaves at the end of the shift.
Several more hours pass. Ensign X returns for their next shift.
Ensign X: How's it going?
Ensign Z: So far so good, another two days to go.
Ensign X: Yup.
More time passes.

Not exactly riveting viewing is it?  I mean, it's cheap to produce and all, but I don't think it'll hold onto its audience.

[tggzzz]

Plot line: a group of random political prisoners steal the most powerful fighter spaceship in the galaxy. Later they find an omniscient computer. Each episode they still manage to get themselves into scrapes with vastly inferior opposition forces.

You're not watching it for the sophisticated plot, you're watching it for Paul Darrow and, for a lighter note, Michael Keating.  It also contains a lot of things that later became common in other series like longer story arcs rather than one-episode set pieces, the creators of several later series were big fans of Blake's 7.

Surely you mean Jacqueline Pearce or Glynis Barber.

Also that characterisation is vastly oversimplifying it, the same to some extent would hold for about half the Star Trek series: Powerful spaceship(s), powerful computers, and they still get into scrapes etc.

Star Drek had equally (or more) powerful opponents. Always hated the "global reset" requirement (notably missing from ST: Discovery) though.

B5 Rulez. Hope there's good news later today, and that the WGA strike doesn't get in the way.

[tggzzz]

Its incredibly hard to make a story flow if you are going to be accurate. Its would be tool long, and too complex. You just have to give the author some licence.

Consider an accurate movie rendition of some space manoeuver:

Ensign X: Initiating Womble manoeuver.
Crew sits there flapping their hands over panels with random lit symbols on them.
Time passes
Ensign X breaks wind.
More time passes.
Ensign X: Well, that's the end of my shift, can I get anyone anything before I turn in?
Ensign Y: Nah, all good, thanks!
More time passes.
Ensign Y sneezes.
Several more hours pass.
Ensign Y leaves at the end of the shift.
Several more hours pass. Ensign X returns for their next shift.
Ensign X: How's it going?
Ensign Z: So far so good, another two days to go.
Ensign X: Yup.
More time passes.

Not exactly riveting viewing is it?  I mean, it's cheap to produce and all, but I don't think it'll hold onto its audience.

Cue Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War"

[AVGresponding]

Plot line: a group of random political prisoners steal the most powerful fighter spaceship in the galaxy. Later they find an omniscient computer. Each episode they still manage to get themselves into scrapes with vastly inferior opposition forces.

You're not watching it for the sophisticated plot, you're watching it for Paul Darrow and, for a lighter note, Michael Keating.  It also contains a lot of things that later became common in other series like longer story arcs rather than one-episode set pieces, the creators of several later series were big fans of Blake's 7.

Surely you mean Jacqueline Pearce or Glynis Barber.

Shameful! No mention of Sally Knyvette!

I should probably not mention I had a cat called Soolin...

[coppice]

Plot line: a group of random political prisoners steal the most powerful fighter spaceship in the galaxy. Later they find an omniscient computer. Each episode they still manage to get themselves into scrapes with vastly inferior opposition forces.

You're not watching it for the sophisticated plot, you're watching it for Paul Darrow and, for a lighter note, Michael Keating.  It also contains a lot of things that later became common in other series like longer story arcs rather than one-episode set pieces, the creators of several later series were big fans of Blake's 7.

Terry Wogan was such a big fan he started a charity to raise funds to send the cast to acting school.

[coppercone2]

Cue Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War"

That author IMO was very interested in statistics, the basis for making his world believable was kind of like demographic statistics and stuff. He reminds me of particle accelerator analysis people

Battlestar galactica new one basically had no motion of the big ships but it remained interesting.

The movie battleship is based on a board game but it was made interesting

Maybe its only as boring as your captain

If space combat is boring and dismal it means your shield generators and armor are too weak. But Haldman inadvertently went into that when he was attempting to show progress, because the boring combat stuff is when the ship is built like the moon lander, out of paper thin aluminum.. I think once you start rolling 12 foot thick steel things get more interesting... oragami shop vs pipe works


so
1) did you develop a good power distribution system for the 100 TW reactor on board?
2) did you manage to weld up that heavy steel?


Even more interesting if someone develops some kind of field that diffracts light and spreads out laser beams, then you need to get closer and use mass. Like say a wall of some kind of exotic particle wall (gripped by EM) that act as a diffuser barrier 2 miles away for the 10TW laser beam that is going to hit the ship. Like if it just happens to make a prism made of exotic matter assimilate in the path of the laser cannon. Plasma wave guide things or something, not really sure what it would be, but its scifi

[David Hess]

1) did you develop a good power distribution system for the 100 TW reactor on board?

Even more important than the power distribution and reactor is how did you cool it?

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/heatrad.php

And I am quite sure that you are going to make things infinitely worse by insisting on your precious nuclear power reactors and megawatt laser cannons. Human bodies only make enough waste heat to kill everybody, reactors and lasers can make the entire freaking ship glow white-hot and vaporize.

[tggzzz]

Plot line: a group of random political prisoners steal the most powerful fighter spaceship in the galaxy. Later they find an omniscient computer. Each episode they still manage to get themselves into scrapes with vastly inferior opposition forces.

You're not watching it for the sophisticated plot, you're watching it for Paul Darrow and, for a lighter note, Michael Keating.  It also contains a lot of things that later became common in other series like longer story arcs rather than one-episode set pieces, the creators of several later series were big fans of Blake's 7.

Surely you mean Jacqueline Pearce or Glynis Barber.

Shameful! No mention of Sally Knyvette!

I should probably not mention I had a cat called Soolin...

FTFY 

Jacqueline Pierce embraced and even revealed in the reactions of young males to the character. Sally Knyvette grew to hate her "housewife" character.

Then there's Jan Chappell.

[coppercone2]

1) did you develop a good power distribution system for the 100 TW reactor on board?

Even more important than the power distribution and reactor is how did you cool it?

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/heatrad.php

And I am quite sure that you are going to make things infinitely worse by insisting on your precious nuclear power reactors and megawatt laser cannons. Human bodies only make enough waste heat to kill everybody, reactors and lasers can make the entire freaking ship glow white-hot and vaporize.

something quantum radiators

freeze ray related technology. I see the acoustic cooling being inspiration for whatever. Assumes ideal known radiator is highly inefficient antenna with bad VSWR. Because it kind of is, like a jumbled antenna pile or something, it radiates a little slowly and resonates internally or something. If heat is motion like a wave, and its stored, that would imply like a resonator behavior with decay due to leakage from antenna effectsish, like a LC super conductor that radiates at some frequencies.

[David Hess]

1) did you develop a good power distribution system for the 100 TW reactor on board?

Even more important than the power distribution and reactor is how did you cool it?

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/heatrad.php

And I am quite sure that you are going to make things infinitely worse by insisting on your precious nuclear power reactors and megawatt laser cannons. Human bodies only make enough waste heat to kill everybody, reactors and lasers can make the entire freaking ship glow white-hot and vaporize.

something quantum radiators

freeze ray related technology. I see the acoustic cooling being inspiration for whatever. Assumes ideal known radiator is highly inefficient antenna with bad VSWR. Because it kind of is, like a jumbled antenna pile or something, it radiates a little slowly and resonates internally or something. If heat is motion like a wave, and its stored, that would imply like a resonator behavior with decay due to leakage from antenna effectsish, like a LC super conductor that radiates at some frequencies.

Or use a blackbody radiator.  The solution does not require handwavium.

The design of Discovery in 2001 originally included radiators, and the mounts were left on the model after the radiators were removed by Kubrick.  Niven's and Pournelle's stories sometimes included heat management.

[tggzzz]

B5 Rulez. Hope there's good news later today, and that the WGA strike doesn't get in the way.

It seems it can't get in the way 

"New Babylon 5 animated movie is coming, creator confirms. J Michael Straczynski said the project is "already finished" and coming "very soon"."
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/babylon-5-animated-movie-confirmed-newsupdate/ and probably elsewhere.

[AVGresponding]

Jacqueline Pierce embraced and even revealed in the reactions of young males to the character. Sally Knyvette grew to hate her "housewife" character.

Then there's Jan Chappell.

Not quite sure what you mean by "housewife character". She had great wardrobe, had plenty of attitude, and kicked ass when required?

[tggzzz]

Jacqueline Pierce embraced and even revealed in the reactions of young males to the character. Sally Knyvette grew to hate her "housewife" character.

Then there's Jan Chappell.

Not quite sure what you mean by "housewife character". She had great wardrobe, had plenty of attitude, and kicked ass when required?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Knyvette#Television_career  She later complained of her Blake's 7 role that Jenna had "started off as this really exciting, intergalactic space pirate, but then she became a sort of housewife on the Liberator".

I remember her character becoming boring.  But I agree about the, um, wardrobe.

[coppercone2]

1) did you develop a good power distribution system for the 100 TW reactor on board?

Even more important than the power distribution and reactor is how did you cool it?

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/heatrad.php

And I am quite sure that you are going to make things infinitely worse by insisting on your precious nuclear power reactors and megawatt laser cannons. Human bodies only make enough waste heat to kill everybody, reactors and lasers can make the entire freaking ship glow white-hot and vaporize.

something quantum radiators

freeze ray related technology. I see the acoustic cooling being inspiration for whatever. Assumes ideal known radiator is highly inefficient antenna with bad VSWR. Because it kind of is, like a jumbled antenna pile or something, it radiates a little slowly and resonates internally or something. If heat is motion like a wave, and its stored, that would imply like a resonator behavior with decay due to leakage from antenna effectsish, like a LC super conductor that radiates at some frequencies.

Or use a blackbody radiator.  The solution does not require handwavium.

The design of Discovery in 2001 originally included radiators, and the mounts were left on the model after the radiators were removed by Kubrick.  Niven's and Pournelle's stories sometimes included heat management.

Eventually you will need a better radiator because its going to look ridiculous because scifi designers don't have the time to do thermal analysis for space x, but I see your point that it should be a more prominent feature.

And I am not sure its pure handwavium, the idea of phonons (not photons, the heat one) and stuff is pretty profound. I think they bring thermal superconductors into play, but its not going to decrease radiator sizes. The reply to this one is interesting about sapphire second sound
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/130869/thermal-superconductivity

https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.3633

[coppercone2]

Interesting idea for heat control too is to juggle it, like heat up objects to as hot as they get, then jetison them from the ship but keep it on a tether or some how control it, that way you can radiate alot more energy because you have a giant surface area. Like if the enterprize had a deck of cards that got to white hot and then jetison them and make it orbit the ship with a tractor beam.. then at least if there is a material with insane thermal mass, it could be used this way, that the ship enters some kind of cooling state eventually but does not look absurd with the amount of radiators attached to it.

Otherwise, space peacocks.

[David Hess]

Eventually you will need a better radiator because its going to look ridiculous because scifi designers don't have the time to do thermal analysis for space x, but I see your point that it should be a more prominent feature.

Sure they do:

P = A * ε * σ * T4

    P = the power of waste heat the radiator can get rid of (watts)
    σ = 5.670373×10-8 = Stefan-Boltzmann constant (W m-2K-4)
    ε = emissivity of radiator (theoretical maximum is 1.0 for a perfect black body, real world radiator will be less. Should be at least 0.8 or above to be worth-while)
    A = area of radiator (m2)
    T = temperature of radiator, this assumes temperature of space is zero degrees (degrees K)
    x4 = raise x to the fourth power, i.e, x * x * x * x

[coppercone2]

[AVGresponding]

Eventually you will need a better radiator because its going to look ridiculous because scifi designers don't have the time to do thermal analysis for space x, but I see your point that it should be a more prominent feature.

Sure they do:

P = A * ε * σ * T4

    P = the power of waste heat the radiator can get rid of (watts)
    σ = 5.670373×10-8 = Stefan-Boltzmann constant (W m-2K-4)
    ε = emissivity of radiator (theoretical maximum is 1.0 for a perfect black body, real world radiator will be less. Should be at least 0.8 or above to be worth-while)
    A = area of radiator (m2)
    T = temperature of radiator, this assumes temperature of space is zero degrees (degrees K)
    x4 = raise x to the fourth power, i.e, x * x * x * x

Modern materials reach 99.9%, though I expect you'd want to factor in contamination and damage over time. The (average) temperature of (interstellar) space is 2.7°K. Why not recycle some waste heat into electricity?

[David Hess]

Modern materials reach 99.9%, though I expect you'd want to factor in contamination and damage over time.

Since practical emissivities only make a proportional difference in size, emissivity can be ignored unless it is terrible.  There is just not much to be gained with "perfect" emissivity.

This reminds me of current efforts to make more efficient electric motors and motor controllers for electric vehicles.  Both are already pretty efficient, so there is not much to be gained there.

Why not recycle some waste heat into electricity?

Project Rho discusses that.  It results in a greater volume of lower temperature heat, so now the radiator is less effective to the 4th power, and must be even larger, to the 4th power.

Niven might have recognized the problem, and the solution, but only briefly refers to it.  In his stories, spacecraft have storage systems and radiators for handling heat, but also concentrate it, adding even more heat and reducing efficiency, but this reduces the size of the radiators because they can operate at a higher temperature, taking advantage of that 4th power.

[5U4GB]

Even more important than the power distribution and reactor is how did you cool it?

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/heatrad.php

That looks like a SF project, but something very similar was going to be built by NASA until they cancelled it like almost everything else they do that's cool (sigh), look up the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter.  That would have been an amazing craft...

[AVGresponding]

Modern materials reach 99.9%, though I expect you'd want to factor in contamination and damage over time.

Since practical emissivities only make a proportional difference in size, emissivity can be ignored unless it is terrible.  There is just not much to be gained with "perfect" emissivity.

This reminds me of current efforts to make more efficient electric motors and motor controllers for electric vehicles.  Both are already pretty efficient, so there is not much to be gained there.

Why not recycle some waste heat into electricity?

Project Rho discusses that.  It results in a greater volume of lower temperature heat, so now the radiator is less effective to the 4th power, and must be even larger, to the 4th power.

Niven might have recognized the problem, and the solution, but only briefly refers to it.  In his stories, spacecraft have storage systems and radiators for handling heat, but also concentrate it, adding even more heat and reducing efficiency, but this reduces the size of the radiators because they can operate at a higher temperature, taking advantage of that 4th power.

After a quick skim, the immediate problem I see with the argument is the misunderstanding of how the second law applies, generally, and specifically in relation to thermo-electric modules.

"What's the problem? Well, the general problem is that pesky Second Law of Thermodynamics. In this context, it tells you that it is impossible to destroy heat, the best you can do is move it around. So using a thermocouple to convert heat into electricity is impossible.

The specific problem is that a thermocouple does NOT convert heat into electricity. It converts a heat gradient into electricity. The original heat is still there. In fact, the conversion process adds even more waste heat to the original total.

As an analogy, think about a hydroelectric dam. The water in the reservoir is at a higher gravity gradient than the water downstream. The hydroelectric dam converts the gravity gradient into electricity. But the water is still there after passing through. The dam does not convert water into electricity, if it did the water would disappear. In the same way a thermocouple does not convert heat into electricity, the heat is still there."

Ok, firstly "the conversion process adds even more waste heat to the original total" implies the creation of energy, which as we know, is impossible. Using their analogy, this would equate to the generation of extra water during the operation of the dam, a clear nonsense idea.

The use of a "hydroelectric dam" as an example is telling; the use of the term "gravity gradient" here is misleading, in the context of use. A dam converts potential energy into kinetic energy by flowing H₂O molecules with high potential energy down the gravity gradient, through a turbine where this potential energy is converted into kinetic and then electrical energy (with some losses, inevitably ending up as waste heat), and for the purposes of this argument you may consider the molecules of H₂O to be the equivalent of the photons that carry waste heat away from a radiator.
The water indeed does not disappear, but it does lose potential energy, just as thermal energy is converted into kinetic energy in a steam turbine, or electrical energy in a thermoelectric module. TEMs are pretty inefficient, 6% or so for commercially available stuff, NASA are achieving on the order of 20% in their most advanced TEGs. The cold side of your TEM is the radiator, the photons of waste heat don't disappear, nor are they destroyed; they radiate out into their environment, with even local space (within the solar system) being cold enough and large enough to be effectively an infinite heatsink.

The heat is not "destroyed"; there is a flow of high energy photons from the hot side to the cold side, and as they drop to a lower energy level, this causes electrical current to flow, as the photons give up their energy. Yes, you need a thermal gradient for this to happen, just as you need the gravity gradient to create a difference in potential energy for a hydroelectric dam to work.

[BrianHG]

TEMs are pretty inefficient, 6% or so for commercially available stuff, NASA are achieving on the order of 20% in their most advanced TEGs.

Do you have your acronyms backwards?  Maybe something has changed in the last 5 years or so...

TEGs, like the ones on the Voyager space probes, which operate on the Seebeck effect, can only achieve maximum 6% efficiency in the best of cases.

The latest tech Stirling generators which use a magnet piston floating in helium as a lubricant can achieve 20% efficiency under optimum circumstances.  However, this tech is not usually labeled today as TEG.  It is possible to get even better efficiency with a normal Stirling engine, however, you will now have moving and rotating components which will wear out needing maintenance every few years.

[AVGresponding]

TEMs are pretty inefficient, 6% or so for commercially available stuff, NASA are achieving on the order of 20% in their most advanced TEGs.

Do you have your acronyms backwards?  Maybe something has changed in the last 5 years or so...

TEGs, like the ones on the Voyager space probes, which operate on the Seebeck effect, can only achieve maximum 6% efficiency in the best of cases.

The latest tech Stirling generators which use a magnet piston floating in helium as a lubricant can achieve 20% efficiency under optimum circumstances.  However, this tech is not usually labeled today as TEG.  It is possible to get even better efficiency with a normal Stirling engine, however, you will now have moving and rotating components which will wear out needing maintenance every few years.

Yes, I could have been more clear in explaining the difference between a TEM and the general TEG term, thanks. I think it depends who you ask as to whether Stirling engines are labelled (correctly or otherwise) as TEGs (in this specific context), I would tend to agree it's perhaps not the most accurate way to do it. I suppose it's an easy/lazy oversimplification since they effectively turn heat into electricity.

[coppercone2]

This reminds me of current efforts to make more efficient electric motors and motor controllers for electric vehicles.  Both are already pretty efficient, so there is not much to be gained there.

Just don't underestimate how many of those things there are out there. The number of motors working vs small efficiency gain = HUGE

Smaller motors in weirder form factors are the future I think. I think that is where the 'wow' is going to come from if we see what motors look like in 100 years. Gearbox elimination/reduction too.

I can imagine something like instead of a motor attached to the shaft its gonna be like a sleeve that you put over a shaft that bolts onto something one day. Like slip this 2 inch thick piece of steel over the shaft and connect some wires to it and it is a car. Or just like bearings that are actually motors. It's gotta go some where eventually that is cool.

Maybe we will see the procedure being instead of replacing the belt and motor bearings, it will just be like 'replace this small integrated car propulsion ASIC the size of a large ball bearing with a 300A plug on it'.

[BrianHG]

TEMs are pretty inefficient, 6% or so for commercially available stuff, NASA are achieving on the order of 20% in their most advanced TEGs.

Do you have your acronyms backwards?  Maybe something has changed in the last 5 years or so...

TEGs, like the ones on the Voyager space probes, which operate on the Seebeck effect, can only achieve maximum 6% efficiency in the best of cases.

The latest tech Stirling generators which use a magnet piston floating in helium as a lubricant can achieve 20% efficiency under optimum circumstances.  However, this tech is not usually labeled today as TEG.  It is possible to get even better efficiency with a normal Stirling engine, however, you will now have moving and rotating components which will wear out needing maintenance every few years.

Yes, I could have been more clear in explaining the difference between a TEM and the general TEG term, thanks. I think it depends who you ask as to whether Stirling engines are labelled (correctly or otherwise) as TEGs (in this specific context), I would tend to agree it's perhaps not the most accurate way to do it. I suppose it's an easy/lazy oversimplification since they effectively turn heat into electricity.

The Seebeck effect turns a difference in temperature directly into electricity.  The Sterling engine turns a difference in temperature to expand and compress a gas.  That change in density of the gas is used to move a piston or turbine.  This is basically a thermal motor/engine.  That engine's motion is used to move a magnet or coil to generate electricity like any conventional alternator.

[David Hess]

Smaller motors in weirder form factors are the future I think. I think that is where the 'wow' is going to come from if we see what motors look like in 100 years. Gearbox elimination/reduction too.

Getting higher power density is a different matter.  And there higher efficiency is required because it becomes more difficult to remove waste heat.

This would matter for an aircraft, but not so much in a traction application.

[coppice]

This reminds me of current efforts to make more efficient electric motors and motor controllers for electric vehicles.  Both are already pretty efficient, so there is not much to be gained there.

I think they are mostly trying to make electric motors for cars more efficient to simplify the cooling requirements in a confined space. Even if you have 99.9% efficiency, moving to 99.99% would eliminate 90% of your waste heat. The efficiency of current electric cars varies quite a bit, but I don't think that has a lot to do with the motor efficiency.

[BrianHG]

Arrrgggg, again.

I just started watching a TV series called 'Revolution' from 2012.
OK, I give them the 'magic effect' of no electricity anywhere, even from batteries.  100% fair.

But, the claim of they cant pump water or plow their fields.
They show candles still work.
Any old hand-cranked diesel tractor engines (many farmers still have them even if they are not in use today) with no electronics whatsoever should burn diesel as well and run perfectly fine.
And, why cant they still not use old fashioned wind mills for pumping water, let alone old fashioned diesel engines to do the same job.

Has all scientific knowledge and it's use become taboo?

I bet some old WW2 tanks with diesel engines and a hand cranked inertia-starter should also still work fine.

[Andy Chee]

Has all scientific knowledge and it's use become taboo?

Published scientific knowledge online can potentially be lost in a digital apocalypse.  Printed books in libraries can also be burnt and destroy much scientific knowledge.

Today's generation prefers to "look things up on Google" rather than committing knowledge to their brains (well they might commit useless knowledge, like who Taylor Swift's latest boyfriend is).

I don't know what the premise of 'Revolution' is, but I can easily imagine a human society where established scientists are regarded as heretics and are executed.  Such a society then has to re-learn science from scratch.

[5U4GB]

I can easily imagine a human society where established scientists are regarded as heretics and are executed.

If you're a scientist working in the field environmental science, in particular as it applies to climate change, or vaccines, or responding to pandemics, we're already not too far from that now...

[coppercone2]

get out of my cash flow you ******* hippy!!

[SiliconWizard]

Do you think as Homer said in the Iliad, that "Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed." ?

[Andy Chee]

Many people have panned the movie 'Interstellar' (2014) starring Matthew McConaughey.

In the opening scenes, the child aged "Murph" is disciplined by the school principal for perpetuating the myth that humans really landed on the moon.

I can easily imagine the Apollo moon landings becoming a myth!  The internet has enabled conspiracy theorists to give equal voice to genuine scientists.  So it shouldn't be surprising that the large human population untrained in science literacy, might begin leaning towards conspiracy.  Natural selection does the rest.

[5U4GB]

The internet has enabled conspiracy theorists to give equal voice to genuine scientists.  So it shouldn't be surprising that the large human population untrained in science literacy, might begin leaning towards conspiracy.

Many people prefer simple falsehoods to complex truths, unfortunately.  And a conspiracy theory can give you answers to everything, unlike science.