lesley@garfield.UUCP (Lesleyanne Ryan) (12/05/84)
This blank is intentionally left spaced.... Is it possible to be mailed an intelligent reply to the following question? In ST III the Enterprise exploded and fell toward the planet where it burned as it entered the atmosphere. The question is that should this have occured? And if not what should have happened? Thanx Lt. Suvak utcsrgv!garfield!lesley
tli@uscvax.UUCP (Tony Li) (12/08/84)
> In ST III the Enterprise exploded and fell toward the planet > where it burned as it entered the atmosphere. The question > is that should this have occured? And if not what should > have happened? > Thanx > Lt. Suvak > utcsrgv!garfield!lesley It seems possible. Assuming the Enterprise is in a stable orbit, a large explosion could shift the center of mass greatly. Air drag from that point would quickly take over. One of the things that bothered me about the scene was the lack of destruction. If you're going to implement a self-destruct mechanism, you'd make sure that it would *DESTROY* the ship. If you set of an uncontrolled anti-matter/matter reaction, it should be equivalent to a fair sized nuclear warhead, which should be enough to easily pulverize the ship. But in the movie, we see about 50% of the ship spiral in. Curioser and Curioser.... -- Tony Li ;-) Usc Computer Science Uucp: {sdcrdcf,randvax}!uscvax!tli Csnet: tli@usc-cse.csnet Arpa: tli@usc-ecl
raiche@dartvax.UUCP (George A. Raiche) (12/10/84)
> > In ST III the Enterprise exploded and fell toward the planet > where it burned as it entered the atmosphere. The question > is that should this have occured? And if not what should > have happened? > Thanx > Lt. Suvak > utcsrgv!garfield!lesley If you are asking whether or not Enterprise should have burned upon entering the (presumably) oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, the only clue we have is from "Bread and Circuses". Capt. Merrick, of the survey ship Beagle, initially "went ashore" to find iridium ore for hull repairs. Iridium metal is one of the hardest (and most difficult to machine) metals known; it seems likely that the Enterprise hull would also contain iridium (although for weight reduction they might try to alloy it with something lighter-- maybe magnesium or aluminum. Metallurgists??) Now iridium will oxidize at the temperatures generated as a spacecraft encounters a dense atmosphere; extremely hot pieces will break away during the descent. The same thing would happen to Columbia if ONE of its underside tiles fell off during re-entry. If you are asking whether Enterprise should have been destroyed in the first place, well, now we've got an unemployed Scotsman... George Raiche Dept. of Chemistry Dartmouth
alcmist@ssc-vax.UUCP (Frederick Wamsley) (12/11/84)
<Klingon bastards, you killed my line!> Tony Li brings up a good point: > One of the things that bothered me about the scene > was the lack of destruction. If you're going to implement a self-destruct > mechanism, you'd make sure that it would *DESTROY* the ship. If you set of > an uncontrolled anti-matter/matter reaction, it should be equivalent to a > fair sized nuclear warhead, which should be enough to easily pulverize the > ship. But in the movie, we see about 50% of the ship spiral in. But what if the purpose of the self-destruct mechanism was simply to protect classified information (including design details) ? I can think of a few reasons for not setting off the engines (which, we learn from The Doomsday Machine, would make a bigger bang than any nuke ever tested(*)). For one thing, if the ship were evacuated first, the crew might not survive a matter-antimatter blast nearby. If the goal of self-destruct was simply to keep Federation secrets out of enemy hands, that would explain why the bridge was the first part of the ship to be taken out in the destruct sequence (I'll never be able to forget that scene...) Does anyone know of analogies from Earth's navies? Does any country have contingency plans for scuttling its major combat vessels? If so, I doubt that such plans involve using onboard nuclear weapons. (*) And that was just the *impulse* engines! Fred Wamsley -- UUCP:{ihnp4,decvax}!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!alcmist ARPA:ssc-vax!alcmist@uw-beaver I am not speaking as a representative of the Boeing Company or any of its divisions. Opinions expressed are solely my own (if that) and have nothing to do with company policy or with the opinions of my coworkers, or those of the staff of the Software Support Center VAX. (did I leave anyone out? :-))
zubbie@wlcrjs.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck) (12/11/84)
If the Enterprise were totally destroyed by any self-destruct device aside from some pyrotechnics circa 2001 : A Space Odessy or Star Wars there would not be much left to see in the movie right. It seems to me that the going thing is screen plays these days is to leave as many stray ends available for the production of a followup flick as possible is not so much an accident as a requirement. =============================================================================== From the mostly vacant environment of Jeanette L. Zobjeck (ihnp4!wlcrjs!zubbie) All opinions expressed may not even be my own. ===============================================================================
ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) (12/11/84)
>One of the things that bothered me about the scene >was the lack of destruction. If you're going to implement a self-destruct >mechanism, you'd make sure that it would *DESTROY* the ship. If you set of >an uncontrolled anti-matter/matter reaction, it should be equivalent to a >fair sized nuclear warhead, which should be enough to easily pulverize the >ship. But in the movie, we see about 50% of the ship spiral in. >Tony Li ;-) Usc Computer Science Yeah, that bothered me too. Perhaps because all of scotty's control patches had been zapped, he was not able to bring about the matter-anti-matter explosion. Maybe there is a backup destruct circuit using normal explosives that only destroys the command center and other sensitive areas? Anyone else have thoughts on this? -- "Where can you find Ron Christian a stale work environment Watkins-Johnson Co. with excellent pay?" San Jose, Calif. --bay area newspaper {pesnta,twg,ios}!wjvax!ron
sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) (12/16/84)
[] No WAY there could've been any significant matter-antimatter ex- plosion on that ship when it self-destructed. If there had been only a few pounds of matter annhilated, it would've made one of our H-bombs look laughable. Not only would've the klingon ship been destroyed, but the crew watching from the planet's surface would've been permanently blinded, and they might've gotten a nice sunburn to boot. Sean Casey UK dept of Mathematical Sciences