The "asteroid" field
Andy
Groan.
Now that I've watched it again, I'm thinking that the asteroid field in
Empire Strikes Back was more realistic... At least they didn't have this
background of rocks moving in a phalanx formation.
I gotta knock a point off the effects for that. They've been pretty good so
far, but that one really makes me wince ;-) Come on, you guys, you can do
better than that.
Well, back to it ;)
--
A
"You won't sh-"... Bravo, Lee :)
Zombie Zack
you'd only see maybe one rock, the rest would be spaced too far apart.
What the starwars asteroids and the galactica asteroids resemble more
closely would be part of a planetary ring segment, like what Saturn
has. One could also make a case for a lagrange point, a sort of
gravitational sargasso where the natural libration of a system causes
loose stuff to accumulate. It could also have been a planet in early
formation or breakup because it was inside the Roche limit of a more
massive planet, typically a gas giant. Though a black hole could also
do it. All those would make for visually interesting settings. I
didn;t buy the dusty contrails on the Vipers: they were added to make
them easier to see for the audience, nit for any good
technical/scientific reason.
Andy
Yeah, I know all that. So what?
The CGI designers still had sheets of asteroids in a *very* low speed
*retrograde* orbit, *outside* of the bunchastuff that they were patrolling
in.
Oops.
I think that the writers would do well do try to avoid more Starwars style
backgrounds...
Glassman
"Andy" <an...@NOFRAKKINSPAM.spe.midco.net> wrote in message
news:ZvidnY9LM6Z...@midco.net...
I thought it was very well done. My complaint is that there was so much
debris that even in the Star Trek Universe there's no way they could be
flying like mad all over the place and not get boinked.
--
"Don't get me wrong... I'm SNARKY"
JK Sinrod
Sinrod Stained Glass Studios
www.sinrodstudios.com
Coney Island Memories
www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories
the other Eric
Andy wrote:
> Groan.
>
> Now that I've watched it again, I'm thinking that the asteroid field in
> Empire Strikes Back was more realistic... At least they didn't have this
> background of rocks moving in a phalanx formation.
Okay how does a debris field apear to move relative to a moving point
of view?
Regards,
-Eric
Andy
More to the point, how does the background debris field move relative to
the foreground debris field, without them both being randomly ground
dust...
Earl Grieda
You guys are being to picky. The part I liked about the asteroid field were
the shots of Starbuck taken inside the Viper from the floor. Looking up you
saw Starbuck and the asteroids around her. This was a new camera angle for
BSG and was one of the things that made this a great episode.
Ken from Chicago
"Glassman" <jksi...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:_egFf.3226$ro3...@fe09.lga...
Define "boinked".
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
Oscillating orbits. Small debris could be orbiting larger debris or be
influenced by the gravity of larger debris.
-- Ken from Chicago
brd...@iusb.edu
astronomy, among others) - the asteroid field was simply silly. Even as
a ring system. Any situation where you have objects that close moving
along non-parallel paths grinds itself out of that situation within a
million years or so at best. I've long ago learned to giggle at the
physics in 90% of SF scenes, period. I still cheer however anytime
somebody gets it righ(er)... like realizing that space actually doesn't
have an up or down (Viper manuverability). It's certainly not
"right"... but it's a heck of a lot closer than most (in the catagory
of B5, for instance).
--
Brian Davis
Andy
Thank you :-)
Given the apparent opposite/retrograde orbits we saw in that field, I
suspect that a million years would be highly optimistic for a lifetime ;-)
the other Eric
So you would deduct 20%of an episode's hard earned grade over something
techincal like that? How many great moments would they have to put in
it to win that point back?
Andy
>
> "Andy" <an...@NOFRAKKINSPAM.spe.midco.net> wrote in message
> news:ZvidnY9LM6Z...@midco.net...
>>
>>
>>
>> Groan.
>>
>> Now that I've watched it again, I'm thinking that the asteroid field in
>> Empire Strikes Back was more realistic... At least they didn't have this
>> background of rocks moving in a phalanx formation.
>>
>> I gotta knock a point off the effects for that. They've been pretty good
> so
>> far, but that one really makes me wince ;-) Come on, you guys, you can do
>> better than that.
>>
>> Well, back to it ;)
>>
>
> I thought it was very well done. My complaint is that there was so much
> debris that even in the Star Trek Universe there's no way they could be
> flying like mad all over the place and not get boinked.
>
>
My complaint is that there's so much debris around in close but different
orbits that it'd all be boinked into Very Small Particles by now ;-)
Andy
The asteroid field they actually seemed to be within wasn't too badly done
- even if it would rapidly tend toward chaos :)
It was that background of rocks moving along like marching soldiers that
bothered me. They shouldn't have included it, it wrecks the effect.
Sigh.
Andy
They already are in the black, the battle in RSII won high karma :)
Ok, perhaps a point is high. Still, it was just as jarring as the smoke
trail streaming in the wrong direction from Kat's fighter after her gun
blew a gasket.
Anyway, the rest of the show is SO well done... :)
the other Eric
But just when is 'now' relative to the debris field? Nobody said it
was stable or old.
Andy
I see it now! The Cylons blew up a planet, just to lure the G there to mine
the debris... It's A Trap(TM)! :-)
the other Eric
Andy wrote:
<snip>
> >> My complaint is that there's so much debris around in close but
> >> different
> >> orbits that it'd all be boinked into Very Small Particles by now ;-)
> >
> >
> > But just when is 'now' relative to the debris field? Nobody said it
> > was stable or old.
>
> I see it now! The Cylons blew up a planet, just to lure the G there to mine
> the debris... It's A Trap(TM)! :-)
We know natural collisions happen in space. There has to be some
midpoint between that collision and the final product wether that be a
dust cloud or a planetoid.
Regards,
-Eric
Doug Frisk
news:sficu1heodkk4g8g7...@4ax.com...
> On 5 Feb 2006 06:41:02 -0800, brd...@iusb.edu wrote:
>
>> Just a personal POV (disclaimer: I'm a PhD in physics teaching
>>astronomy, among others)
>
> "Repeat to yourself, "It's Just a Show", you should really just
> relax!"
>
> More seriously it's entirely possible to have a debris field that big
> and dense under the right conditions. Our solar system looked pretty
> much like that in the early stages of formation and during the
> planetary accretion stage. Two proto-planets slam into each other,
> *eventually* the debris will either merge into a new planet or scatter
> into space but we're talking thousands or tens of thousands of years
> here. In a mature system such as ours it'd be unlikely in the extreme
> but in a newly formed system, less than a billion years or so old...?
> Quite possible.
But not possible that there's be "an asteroid with rich deposits" in a newly
formed system. At least not anything other than perhaps Iron. It's the
processes within a planet that does the sorting of minerals.
But it's just a show, so I'm going to relax.
Yousuf Khan
I don't think it's all that unbelievable. They discovered a solar system
recently with several times more asteroid dust in it than our own.
Yousuf Khan
--
Everybody was flying across the sky, Superman was out of town
the other Eric
Doug Frisk wrote:
<snip>
> But not possible that there's be "an asteroid with rich deposits" in a newly
> formed system. At least not anything other than perhaps Iron.
Even if it is a new system that formed from the ashes of an old system?
> It's the
> processes within a planet that does the sorting of minerals.
Interesting. How does that work?
Regards,
-Eric
Andy
Yes, but the coincidence is fun to play with ;-)
The Roman Phalanx Asteroids still bother me, tho.
Andy
> On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 10:07:40 -0700, Andy
> <an...@NOFRAKKINSPAM.spe.midco.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> My complaint is that there's so much debris around in close but different
>>orbits that it'd all be boinked into Very Small Particles by now ;-)
>
> Define, "by now". How old do you think the field is? Have you
> radiologically dated the rocks? How many stars are there in the
> system? How old is the system?
Not very bloody old, if you have entire matrices of rocks moving in
retrograde orbits. ;-)
>
> Sol is a nice, (fairly) stable, 2nd generation star that you can't
> hold up as an example. There are 3rd and even 4th generation stars
> forming out there, some less than a million years old. In the early
> stages of development "protoplanets" will form but too close to each
> other or in conflicting orbits so that they slam into each other,
> creating huge debris fields. Eventually the debris will either
> aggregate into a new planet or drift off into space but we're talking
> an astronomical scale of time here. Our own asteroid belt is fairly
> bland with maybe a collision every couple of centuries but that's only
> because after 5 Billion years the only rocks left are those that
> didn't hit each other repeated and often with great enthusiasm. The
> rest got ground up into dust and blown away with the solar wind.
> Backtrack a bit (say within 10,000 years) to just after that
> protoplanet got ripped up by Jupiter's gravitational field and it
> might look very much like this.
This ain't Vega, and the aliens don't have turboblasters ;-)
> --
> At the gates of the mighty city of Ankh Morpork stand
> two massive statues of hippopotomi. Legend has it that
> if the city ever faces mortal peril they will spring to
> life and run away.*
>
> *On a plus note, the city is almost never at that stage.
> Usually when a ravaging barbarian army invades the city,
> bent on pillage and rape, they collectively wake up the
> next morning in an alley with a splitting headahe, a
> bump the size of a turnip on the back of their skulls,
> their pockets empty and a receipt from the Thieves'
> Guild pinned to their chests. At the bottom it says,
> "Enjoy the rest of your stay in Ankh Morpork".
Kyle Thompson had just fallen asleep after a wonderful evening with his
wives, when his nightable communit went off with the nerve-destroying sound
that meant it was Important.
"Oh, hell." he muttered, turning over and pulling the bag around his ears.
Next to him, Licia stirred in her sleep; after a few seconds, he bumped her
gently aside with his hip and glided out of the bag, slapping the communit
into silence along the way. Around him, HabModule4-L7 was as quiet as a
tomb.
--
Mu.
Andy
>
> Doug Frisk wrote:
>
> <snip>
>> But not possible that there's be "an asteroid with rich deposits" in a
>> newly
>> formed system. At least not anything other than perhaps Iron.
>
>
> Even if it is a new system that formed from the ashes of an old system?
Geological processes do most of the sorting of various sorts of minerals
into veins and layers of rich ore. Anything that gets cycled past it's
melting point tends to form layers.
In a newly formed system, for the most part, the distribution is very
random. The elements it's formed from - ie, the supernova and debris
remnants in the neighborhood - do determine it's overall composition, but
veins of ore and the like come from later processes.
Andy
> Andy wrote:
>> Groan.
>>
>> Now that I've watched it again, I'm thinking that the asteroid field in
>> Empire Strikes Back was more realistic... At least they didn't have this
>> background of rocks moving in a phalanx formation.
>>
>> I gotta knock a point off the effects for that. They've been pretty good
>> so
>> far, but that one really makes me wince ;-) Come on, you guys, you can do
>> better than that.
>>
>> Well, back to it ;)
>
> I don't think it's all that unbelievable. They discovered a solar system
> recently with several times more asteroid dust in it than our own.
>
> Yousuf Khan
>
That wasn't "dust" and it had zero similarity to any asteroid system
imaginable. I can suspend disbelief in the asteroids they were flying thru,
but the background phalanx of asteroids moving at high speed relative to
the local field just made me cringe. No. Just no.
*shrug*
Ken from Chicago
<brd...@iusb.edu> wrote in message
news:1139150462....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Why do you assume the asteroid field is a million years old and not more
recent cosmic event, say comets colliding or a moons colliding with meteors
or the cylons target practicing on some planetoid?
-- Ken from Chicago
John Campbell Rees
in message <43e6...@news.bnb-lp.com> wrote:
> Andy wrote:
>> Groan.
>>
>> Now that I've watched it again, I'm thinking that the asteroid field in
>> Empire Strikes Back was more realistic... At least they didn't have this
>> background of rocks moving in a phalanx formation.
>>
>> I gotta knock a point off the effects for that. They've been pretty good so
>> far, but that one really makes me wince ;-) Come on, you guys, you can do
>> better than that.
>>
>> Well, back to it ;)
>
> I don't think it's all that unbelievable. They discovered a solar system
> recently with several times more asteroid dust in it than our own.
>
Scientists estimate that Tau Ceti a medium sized yellow star like the
sun has up to ten times the amount of asteroid and cometary activity
of our solar system.
ref: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0407/05tauceti/
--
"Like shooting flies with a laser cannon, the aims a bit tricky, but
it certainly deals with the flies." - Lord Miles Vorkosigan.
From "Komarr" by Lois McMaster Bujold
To read my Web Log visit http://www.gardd-lelog.org.uk
Andy
> During the course of this discussion, Yousuf Khan <bbb...@yahoo.com>,
> in message <43e6...@news.bnb-lp.com> wrote:
>
>> Andy wrote:
>>> Groan.
>>>
>>> Now that I've watched it again, I'm thinking that the asteroid field in
>>> Empire Strikes Back was more realistic... At least they didn't have this
>>> background of rocks moving in a phalanx formation.
>>>
>>> I gotta knock a point off the effects for that. They've been pretty
>>> good so
>>> far, but that one really makes me wince ;-) Come on, you guys, you can
>>> do better than that.
>>>
>>> Well, back to it ;)
>>
>> I don't think it's all that unbelievable. They discovered a solar system
>> recently with several times more asteroid dust in it than our own.
>>
> Scientists estimate that Tau Ceti a medium sized yellow star like the
> sun has up to ten times the amount of asteroid and cometary activity
> of our solar system.
> ref: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0407/05tauceti/
>
>
Rural, compared to Vega ;-)
( at least when it comes to the local neighborhood)
brd...@iusb.edu
really just relax" POV - I really enjoy BSG, and it's not for getting
all the science correct. Worse yet, the following sort of BotE
calculation is something I *do* to relax (scary, ain't it?). It just
always bugs me when somebody says that a show is "right", in a
technical sense, when it's not. So feel free to ascribe the following
to a personal rant :-)]
Ken from Chicago wrote:
> Why do you assume the asteroid field is a million years old and not
> more recent cosmic event, say comets colliding or a moons colliding
> with meteors or the cylons target practicing on some planetoid?
Well, probability. It's certainly *possible* that whatever formed
this environment just happened to happen within the last year or so...
but the chances against it are very large. Understand coming upon and
event that just happened in the last million years means you lucked out
and hit a window just 0.02% of the age of the solar system. You got
*very* lucky. Or, alternatively, you lucked into a solar system where
these "asteroid field forming events" happen all the time, which is
also wildly unlikely.
Note too that the early solar system looked *nothing* like this. In
the show, asteroids were seperated by something like they're own sizes
- let's assume they were in a temporarily really crowded area, and the
average seperation is about 20 radii (measuring on-screen, they are
shown closer than that). Doing the math (& assuming an asteroid density
of 1000 kg/m^3, a significant underestimate) shows that the entire
protosolar nebula out to "just" 1 AU would mass 1.3e+32 kg (or more
than 65 solar masses!). And since in any realistic protosolar nebula
you have much more H & He than "metals" (the astronomers term for
"anything that's not H and He"), a more realistic estimate of this
protostellar cloud would mass at least 100 times this (for every 690
atoms of H & He, there's about 1 atom of "something else" in the mix).
I other words, by making every calculation in favor of reducing the
protostellar nebular mass, I still end up with a drastic underestimate
that is more massive than entire open clusters of stars.
As to lifetimes of a situation like this, again assume a seperation
of around 20 radii for the average. That means that for every 40
asteroid radii you travel a reasonable but rough estimate is that you
have a 1-in-400 chance of hitting an asteroid, or to put it another way
you have only a 1% chance of surviving a journey of 74,000 asteroid
radii. If you assume further a relative velocity of just 1 radii per
minute (seems reasonable, if on the slow side, from what I see on the
screen), that's a collision *per rock* once every 50 days or so. Again,
that means *EVERY* rock could be expected to have at least one
collision every 50 days. If you want, i can try to take into account
the fact that each collision increases the probability of collision due
to fragmentation and make a conservative estimate of how long the field
would last... but given the nature of the beast, if it lasts in the
displayed form for more than 100 years (0.01% of the "million" I was
generously giving it before) it would be astonishing.
Hey, what can I say - I spend most of my USENET time in
rec.arts.sf.science <grin>. And I think I just found a possible exam
question for my A100 students... (& if any of your are reading this,
don't panic, I'm semi-kidding ;-)
--
Brian Davis
brd...@iusb.edu
> the background phalanx of asteroids moving at high
> speed relative to the local field just made me cringe
I missed that - I'll have to watch for it tonight maybe (watching
with the podcast).
--
Brian Davis
brd...@iusb.edu
> The big iron-nickel jobbers are going to shrug off most impacts, even
> between each other that aren't head-on-head collisions.
Why? Consider a closing speed of just 1 m/s between two iron-nickel
asteroids 500 m in diameter. Ni-Fe has a density of 7680 kg/m^3, so
upon collision either they stick (and need to dissipate 1.25e+11 Joules
- equivilent to 30 tons of TNT) or bounce off, which requires a
strength greater than the yield strength of steel (in other words, it
can't happen). Note that collision really has to occur much faster than
that - 1 m/s closing velocity is about what you expect due to just
their mutual gravity. Any actual approach velocity would add to this.
In my BotE calc, I assumed a closing velocity on the order of 4 m/s
("one radii per minute", here stated for a 500 m asteroid), which would
shoot the above energy estimate up to about 2 kt (that's kilotons, like
in nuclear weapons). And these are still very very *VERY* low closing
velocity estimates - realistic systems have closing velocities on the
order of a few percent of the orbital velocities IMS, so at 1 AU from
the Sun closing velocities, *before* gravitational attraction, would be
on the order of 300 m/s (that collision energy is now up around 10 Mt
for our 500 m diameter Ni-Fe asteroids).
> The denser the material, the more likely there will be an elastic collision
> that each will survive.
Not quite. The higher the ratio of the yield strength to the
density, the less damage will be done. But this doesn't vary by a whole
lot for most materials (including metals).
> It takes a LONG TIME to grind down an asteroid made of iron
> and the size of a mountain.
It might take a number of collision events to do this - but the
whole point of my first derivation was that in the asteroid system
shown, collisions would be happening at very very short intervals - so
short that the situation shown is simply not supportable for any
reasonable geologic time (like even 1% of a million years).
Now if you want to assume the asteroid belt is the result of a very
very recent collision, you can - but we know it's been there for at
least a month, and in that time the slightly different velocities would
spread the results out over a larger volume of space, and you could
work backwards to when the bulk density of the expanding debris would
have been equal to a single object (based on the observed random
velocity component). Again, it doesn't work.
I really liked JMS's explaination for this: "the Whitestar moves at
the speed of plot". In other words, never let the physics get in the
way of the story you are trying to tell. But to be fair, this also
means never try to defend physics to support your series, unless you
set out to use it that way in the first place (some great books come to
mind... but no movies).
As an aside, one of the things I loved about BSG early on was the
way the nuggets flew with Starbuck. The nuggets initally tried turns
like airplanes (flat sweeping turns) while Starbucks were much more
realistic (rotations along a principle axis). Not that I believed for a
second that *anyone* who would be let loose in a spacecraft would make
such a silly error, but I had fun thinking they might.
--
Brian Davis
Glassman
> the other Eric wrote:
>
> >
> > Andy wrote:
> >> brd...@iusb.edu wrote:
> >>
> >> > Just a personal POV (disclaimer: I'm a PhD in physics teaching
> >> > astronomy, among others) - the asteroid field was simply silly. Even
as
Let me just comment that you guys are like the "Lone Gunmen" from
X-Files arguing over whose computer Kung-Fu was the best! LOL
--
"Don't get me wrong... I'm SNARKY"
JK Sinrod
Sinrod Stained Glass Studios
www.sinrodstudios.com
Coney Island Memories
www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories
Ken from Chicago
<brd...@iusb.edu> wrote in message
news:1139189951....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
So then all that points to is that this is an ARTIFICIAL construct, either
designed to MIMIC an asteroid field or CAUSED by people or cylons--or
aliens, or perhaps the original 13th tribe--maybe running into something or
blowing up something or something got caught in the crossfire.
The point is NOT that this couldn't happen but rather the ORIGIN of this
particular phenomenon is up for debate.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
<brd...@iusb.edu> wrote in message
news:1139195513....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
How large are the original objects before the grinding down begins?
> Now if you want to assume the asteroid belt is the result of a very
> very recent collision, you can - but we know it's been there for at
> least a month, and in that time the slightly different velocities would
> spread the results out over a larger volume of space, and you could
> work backwards to when the bulk density of the expanding debris would
> have been equal to a single object (based on the observed random
> velocity component). Again, it doesn't work.
>
> I really liked JMS's explaination for this: "the Whitestar moves at
> the speed of plot". In other words, never let the physics get in the
> way of the story you are trying to tell. But to be fair, this also
> means never try to defend physics to support your series, unless you
> set out to use it that way in the first place (some great books come to
> mind... but no movies).
I fail to understand why when there are many plausible interpretations of a
given scene people argue FOR the interpretations that makes least sense JUST
to discredit the scene.
> As an aside, one of the things I loved about BSG early on was the
> way the nuggets flew with Starbuck. The nuggets initally tried turns
> like airplanes (flat sweeping turns) while Starbucks were much more
> realistic (rotations along a principle axis). Not that I believed for a
> second that *anyone* who would be let loose in a spacecraft would make
> such a silly error, but I had fun thinking they might.
>
> --
> Brian Davis
>
Sure, the nuggets probably got their initial training on atmo vessels and
eventually branched out to space flight. The slow steady predictable turns
in atmo flying is probably preferred by space traffic controllers than
retired viper jockeys who try to relieve the glory days in some shuttle by
hot dogging it doing radical turns at the last second and mucking up the
well-ordered 'verse of your average STC.
-- Ken from Chicago
Ken from Chicago
> On 5 Feb 2006 19:11:53 -0800, brd...@iusb.edu wrote:
>
>> It might take a number of collision events to do this - but the
>>whole point of my first derivation was that in the asteroid system
>>shown, collisions would be happening at very very short intervals - so
>>short that the situation shown is simply not supportable for any
>>reasonable geologic time (like even 1% of a million years).
>
> enough. You're also assuming every collision is a head-on collisions
> which really isn't going to happen that often, no matter what your
> Physics 101 textbook taught you.
Psst, angular momentum. A lot of the kinetic energy instead of just being
straight impact gets absorbed into SPINNING the object instead of merely
ramming it.
-- Ken from Chicago
brd...@iusb.edu
> big enough.
I'm not sure what you mean. For my (admitedly very simple) model,
10,000 years is roughly 70,000 collisions. And you're correct, they
won't all be head-on - but do you mean you think you need more than
70,000 impacts?
> no matter what your Physics 101 textbook taught you.
Absolutely. Which is why I tried at every step in the BotE
calculation to underestimate the effects in order to overestimate the
timescales.
I guess when it comes right down to it, I can say with absolute
anecdotal authority that the physics involved in BSG makes at least one
physics professor laugh out loud if he's asked to consider it
seriously. This does stop the same physicist from enjoying the show or
applauding the few examples of *good* physics that he spots (or, more
to the point, using them to point out things to his students).
--
Brian Davis
brd...@iusb.edu
> The slow steady predictable turns in atmo flying is probably
> preferred by space traffic controllers
I would doubt that, as the turns they show the nuggets doing are
tremendously wasteful of fuel (and we now do know there is *some* fuel
limit, as the 1st patrol was at BINGO.
> hot dogging it doing radical turns at the last second...
I'd agree with the "last second" part of that statement, but what I
loved about the way Starbuck flies is that it actually pays attention
to how you *should* do manuevers in free-space. You don't do sweeping
turns, because they're wasteful of reaction mass (you do them in
airplanes because there reaction mass is free, it's all around you).
Those "radical turns" are *exactly* how any spacecraft still bound by
Newton should manuever. And for that, intentional or otherwise, I give
the show a physics thumbs-up.
--
Brian Davis
Ken from Chicago
<brd...@iusb.edu> wrote in message
news:1139232941....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Ken from Chicago wrote:
>
>> The slow steady predictable turns in atmo flying is probably
>> preferred by space traffic controllers
>
> I would doubt that, as the turns they show the nuggets doing are
> tremendously wasteful of fuel (and we now do know there is *some* fuel
> limit, as the 1st patrol was at BINGO.
No, I meant before the massacre, that for civilians STC, slow, steady
predictable turns were probably preferable to last second or last minute
hot-dogging by bored ex-viper jocks hired to be civilian pilots acting as if
their shuttle or cargo ship or ferry is a viper and making high-risk
maneuvers in landing fields or docking ports.
>> hot dogging it doing radical turns at the last second...
>
> I'd agree with the "last second" part of that statement, but what I
> loved about the way Starbuck flies is that it actually pays attention
> to how you *should* do manuevers in free-space. You don't do sweeping
> turns, because they're wasteful of reaction mass (you do them in
> airplanes because there reaction mass is free, it's all around you).
> Those "radical turns" are *exactly* how any spacecraft still bound by
> Newton should manuever. And for that, intentional or otherwise, I give
> the show a physics thumbs-up.
>
> --
> Brian Davis
I agree for space combat or "open" space, sharp turns are the way, ala the
classic video arcade game ASTEROIDS, where you did a sharp 90-180 degree
turns and thrusts to move around the field.
-- Ken from Chicago
Zombie Zack
hours... the game that came before that, space war, was also a
favorite, because you had to intuit how to orbit and shoot around a
black hole in the middle of the game screen, and one of the ships
looked like NCC1701:-)
Bruce Stewart
There is a simple answer to the observed phenomena, the creation of the
Asteroid belt is a fairly recent (in Astronomical terms) event.
Bruce S.
--
Replace the by by blueyonder.
Bruce Stewart
> [Disclaimer: I actually agree with the "it's just a show you should
> really just relax" POV - I really enjoy BSG, and it's not for getting
> all the science correct. Worse yet, the following sort of BotE
> calculation is something I *do* to relax (scary, ain't it?). It just
> always bugs me when somebody says that a show is "right", in a
> technical sense, when it's not. So feel free to ascribe the following
> to a personal rant :-)]
>
> Ken from Chicago wrote:
>
>> Why do you assume the asteroid field is a million years old and not
>> more recent cosmic event, say comets colliding or a moons colliding
>> with meteors or the cylons target practicing on some planetoid?
>
> Well, probability. It's certainly *possible* that whatever formed
> this environment just happened to happen within the last year or so...
> but the chances against it are very large. Understand coming upon and
> event that just happened in the last million years means you lucked out
> and hit a window just 0.02% of the age of the solar system. You got
> *very* lucky. Or, alternatively, you lucked into a solar system where
> these "asteroid field forming events" happen all the time, which is
> also wildly unlikely.
>
Having not seen the episode yet, as we are some distance behind.
Just because the chances for a result are astronomical :) , does not mean it
isn't going to happen, we're here for a start. :)
As I understand it for an Asteroid belt to exist, there has to be 1 of 3
events, either in resonance orbit with a Jupiter like mass, so no planetary
formation can take place, leftovers from Stellar System creation (KBOs
etc.), or a disruption of an existing planet(oid) by some
impact/gravitational effect. Now you are saying that "asteroid field
forming events" are highly unlikely, but doesn't that just apply to our
Solar system due to Jupiter "Hoovering" up incoming comets? If there wasn't
a Jupiter Like Object in that position, surely the likelyhood of such an
event would be much higher?
You are also forgetting 2 essential facts, 1) it is a TV drama, 2) it has a
limited budget.
If they had the time and money to employ an Astrophysicist to do all the
appropriate calculations and modelling as well as just giving some
technical advice, then I would give more credence to your criticisms, but
within the setup of the show, I think they're doing a great job.
Crusade made a big thing of their connection with JPL, I didn't see much of
an effect on what went on screen, other than changing the colour balance on
planetary shots.
> Hey, what can I say - I spend most of my USENET time in
> rec.arts.sf.science <grin>. And I think I just found a possible exam
> question for my A100 students... (& if any of your are reading this,
> don't panic, I'm semi-kidding ;-)
>
Bruce S.
CatPanDaddy
>>
>> We know natural collisions happen in space. There has to be some
>> midpoint between that collision and the final product wether that be a
>> dust cloud or a planetoid.
>
> Yes, but the coincidence is fun to play with ;-)
>
> The Roman Phalanx Asteroids still bother me, tho.
>
I will have to review it. If they were marching in any direction other than
"parallel to the Viper (or camera's) course" I'd call shenanigans, otherwise I'd
just say we were seeing a stationary block from the perspective of a moving
camera. I wish my spatial memory was better than it is though, I hate how
quickly the rest of you pick up on everything without having to review the tape.
Andy
Looked yet? ;-)
(To be honest, I haven't managed to view it again either - keep falling
asleep... busy days)
elr...@pop.uky.edu
> The Roman Phalanx Asteroids still bother me, tho.
I have some asteroids that are bothering me right now, too. But I don't
think they are the same kind you are referring to.
-Eric
Andy
I'd imagine that Roman soldiers were familiar with that kind, as well. ;-)
--
A
I am not an Cylon by logic. I am an Cylon because that's what I am and
cannot be otherwise.
the other Eric
I have looked again and I think I see what you mean. There are some
scenes where the editors got it wrong. It is a shame too since that
episide is one of the best. Maybe they will re-edit it for the DVD to
fix that problem and put it in cronological order. That would be cool
but fat chance of that happening.
Regards,
-Eric
Andy
>
> Andy wrote:
>> CatPanDaddy wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > "Andy" <an...@NOFRAKKINSPAM.spe.midco.net> wrote in message
>> > news:WIqdnWy2kp3...@midco.net...
>> >>>
>> >>> We know natural collisions happen in space. There has to be some
>> >>> midpoint between that collision and the final product wether that be
>> >>> a dust cloud or a planetoid.
>> >>
>> >> Yes, but the coincidence is fun to play with ;-)
>> >>
>> >> The Roman Phalanx Asteroids still bother me, tho.
>> >>
>> >
>> > I will have to review it. If they were marching in any direction other
>> > than "parallel to the Viper (or camera's) course" I'd call shenanigans,
>> > otherwise I'd just say we were seeing a stationary block from the
>> > perspective of a moving
>> > camera. I wish my spatial memory was better than it is though, I hate
>> > how quickly the rest of you pick up on everything without having to
>> > review the tape.
>>
>> Looked yet? ;-)
>>
>> (To be honest, I haven't managed to view it again either - keep falling
>> asleep... busy days)
>
> I have looked again and I think I see what you mean. There are some
> scenes where the editors got it wrong.
No, this is a scene where the people who determined what the asteroid field
should look like got it very, very wrong.
It happens...