10 Ways Space Travel Isn't Like The Movies

[Roo Stercogburn]

I was nosing around on IMDB and there was a link to this. Most of it will be well known to sci-fi fluff nazis but its still a mild chuckle to read.

Ten Ways Space Travel Isn’t Like Television or the Movies Infinity and Beyond

I can't help but notice Star Wars and Star Trek get the largest number of dishonourable mentions here

 

[TdC]

heh amusing. I did notice a pic from 2001: a space odyssey in there. tbh, that is probably one of the most realistic movies featuring extensive space travel I've ever seen (not the last bit, obv).

 

[Tom]

...or the bit where Frank is falling through space...

 

[nath]

Firefly/Serenity should have got an honourable mention for the sound thing - they handled that quite well for such a mainstream program/film.

 

[rynnor]

Not entirely accurate, space isnt completely empty, its not a perfect vacuum and within the solar system practically cluttered by space terms. (he actually contradicts himself on point 7 where he talks about interstellar particles shredding a ship ).

Not enough for the normal propogation of sound but if you were close enough to an explosion you would hear the shockwave of parts of the target as it battered your hull.

On wormholes no-one knows so you could just as well guess they would be usefull as guess against - its still just a guess.

On the time it takes to get places the new Ion engines that Nasa are developing could greatly cut travel times and no doubt there will be many future advances.

On travelling at lightspeed (if it were possible) then it might be advisable to use it outside of solar systems to cut down on particle impacts but presumably you would use some kind of electromagnetic deflector to prevent them hitting the hull.

If this sounds like science fiction it is actually being developed at the moment to protect astronauts from cosmic rays.

Edit - oh and if I really wanted to be pedantic I might say that when he talks of not hearing laser blasts its best to remember that lasers being coherent light beams are in fact silent.

 

[Ch3tan]

also he uses trek as an example for everyone speaking English, but they used the universal translator as a plot device for that, and actually explain this. Also the gravity thing, they explain by constantly visiting "earth like" planets.

 

[DaGaffer]

Actually I thought most of that was just pedantry, and except maybe the sound and xplosions thing, a lot of SF has come up with the necessary hand-waving to explain stuff (like FTL ships having shields for instance). Oh, and he's not entirely accurate about the vacuum thing either.

 

[Wij]

More important are things like inertia and the difference in time experienced by those travelling vs those on-planet, which is covered well in A Reynolds Revelation Space with the 1g acceleration ships (which also provides 'gravity' handily). Tau Zero covers some of these problems too.

 

[xane]

Firefly/Serenity should have got an honourable mention for the sound thing - they handled that quite well for such a mainstream program/film.

Firefly made the mistake of assuming guns cannot be fired in space.

IMO, the worst mistake is spaceships that travel like aircraft, swooping away and diving on targets, engines on all the time, Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 had more "realistic" spaceship movement.

 

[xane]

also he uses trek as an example for everyone speaking English, but they used the universal translator as a plot device for that, and actually explain this.

An interesting episode is Darmok

 

[Ch3tan]

Yes yes, "shaka, when the walls fell" and all that. This thread lets us get our geek on.