The way spaceships maneuver in most sci-fi movies and television shows bears no relation to the reality of physics. Not once have I seen a ship rotate while in motion and move “backwards” or sideways while the original vector of motion was still in play. In sci-fi movies and TV the ships move like aircraft for the most part when in space a craft can be moving at high speed with it’s attitude backward or sideways or whatever with no detriment to it’s velocity until thrust is applied in the opposite direction.
I still love Star Trek etc., but I’d love to see a Sci Fi movie or show where the physics are accurate.
didnt the remake of Battlestar kindda do that ? they used thrusters to change direction and all so in a way it’s been done , maybe in a sublime way but still it’s progress ?
I guess the new Battlestar Galactica was the most accurate I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen a miniatures wargame where the way spaceships maneuver was all accurate. You don’t want to build up to big a head of steam in a maneuvering fight or you’ll just fly off the edge of the table!
Let me also point out that no one who wrote or created space battle scenes for Next Gen, DS9, V’ger or Enterprise has one freaking clue about real military procedures or tactics. Sometimes they look good, but hey almost never make any sense.
As far as ships moving in space portrayed by movies is usually a forward reverse thing but in the movie, “The Last Starfighter” the star fight turn every which way. It was kind of cool even though the movie itself was very B stylish.
How about this. Let’s assume that Star Trek is Science Fantasy and not Science Fiction.
Also, throw a little Space Opera in to the mix.
Now, Start Trek ships can do all those things in space that, in reality, they cannot do.
With that information, might we apply my question again?
I should amend this. By making Scienece Fantasy, that means the star ships can do ANYTHING.
I was originally hoping for a trek fan who could say something to the affect of "Well, an older ship couldn’t do blah, but a ship like the Defiant or Intrepid class could because of the more compact design, etc
I’m sure there are Star Trek fans who could tell you in great detail, but they’d be proven wrong before very long. There IS no set of rules for satrship maneuvering.
In TOS, the Enterprise was thought of as a huge seagoing vessel, and maneuvered with corresponding grace and deliberation.
In TNG and onward, they started showing us space battles with monsterous megatonne starships zipping around like Spitfires.
In the Kirk-era movies, especially those helmed by Nick Meyer, the ships were again given that grace and sense of mass - it made sense that such huge vessels needed time and power[/u] to alter all that inertia.
In DS9, they showed two Miranda-class ships (which we saw maneuvering with deliberate slowness in Wrath of Kahn) [i]running interference for the Defiant and maneuvering right along with it!
In Enterprise, that supposedly primitive and delicate starship that preceded Kirk’s ship, is shown doing immelmans, loops, and flying thru the atmosphere of gas giants.
So the answer is, they can do whatever the hell the writers want them to do, and thus whatever the hell YOU want them too. There are no rules that aren’t eventually broken.
In TNG there was an episode in the first season where they showed the “Picard Maneuver”. What happened was that in a battle with the Ferengi, Captain Picard commanding the Stargazer ordered his ship to fly at warp 9 directly at the Ferengi then stop right next to it. For a moment it looked as if there were two Stargazer’s. Then Picard began to fire all of his photon torpedoes and knock the living daylights out of the Ferengi. It was pretty cool.
Anyone ever read the book “The Physics of Star Trek”? I’m a big fan of ST but this book is a real downer for the “realist” – One example:
The enterprise doesn’t use “warp” technology for its “impulse” engines. These starships us some sort of energy reaction to propel the ship.
Now, one of the laws of physics state (don’t ask me any more detail…I’m not a physicist) that the most powerful and efficient energy reaction is the matter/anti-matter reaction. When matter and anti-matter collide, they destroy themselves and transform 100% of their matter into energy.
Assume that the “impulse” drives use this matter-anti matter reaction (the most efficient and powerful form of energy creation) to “push” the starship…
BUT, given the assumed mass of the enterprise – it would take (now don’t quote me because I don’t have the book on hand…) somewhere around 100 times the mass of the enterprise in matter/anti-matter “fuel” to push the ship some relatively small measure of distance….and then don’t forget about stopping it.
you guys should check out ‘Starfleet Command’ for the PC. It’s a PC game and about the Ster Trek universe. Maneuvers and battle tactics are the closest i’ve ever imagined it could be for ships that size. Can be a little boring cause it really takes time for a ship to maneuver and stop.
another game that is great for tactics and battle scenes is ‘Homeworld’.
[B)]
Unfortunately they haven’t models of some of the starships you see in both games. if they did, i’d like to know where i can get them.
I never saw Babylon 5, so I couldn’t include that in my thinking. The new Battlestar Galactica seemed to be marginally accurate.
I guess that in the far future perhaps they will be able to create artificial gravitational force that can be vectored. Perhaps that will tie in to the propulsion systems, and ships of the future can maneuver in any direction they please at any time and velocity they please. Then we’ll have ships that can instantaneously change direction and speed at any given time, and the crew won’t have to worry about inertia because the artificial gravitational force can compensate for any G-force the crew would experience. If the UFOs of today are for real, this is how they operate.
