Physics in Movies: Realism vs. Entertainment

[CRGreathouse]

I guess more interesting to me would be to ask what advantage there would be to aligning all ships that way.

 

[JaredJames]

I guess more interesting to me would be to ask what advantage there would be to aligning all ships that way.

Makes navigation a lot easier. Stupid question really.

If you have one ship aligned so the top is facing the top of the galaxy and one ship aligned with the top facing the bottom of the galaxy, and then provided them with a vertical elevation and a horizontal one, they would end up flying away in a mirror image from each other (shall we say 10 degrees starboard and 10 degrees ascent). For example, one may move up towards the top of the galaxy and right, but the other would mirror this moving down towards the bottom of the galaxy and left (from a single viewpoint). The ships would think they are going the correct way from their point of view. A simple gyro would do the job if you aligned it with the galaxy fairly well. No matter what you did within the ship it would always be true to the galaxy allowing perfectly good navigation (at least to some extent).

All charts of the space could be standardised, if a ship was to invert itself in flight (fly upside down) you would have to flip the chart, failure to do so would be a major problem.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Makes navigation a lot easier. Stupid question really.

If you have one ship aligned so the top is facing the top of the galaxy and one ship aligned with the top facing the bottom of the galaxy, and then provided them with a vertical elevation and a horizontal one, they would end up flying away in a mirror image from each other (shall we say 10 degrees starboard and 10 degrees ascent). For example, one may move up towards the top of the galaxy and right, but the other would mirror this moving down towards the bottom of the galaxy and left (from a single viewpoint). The ships would think they are going the correct way from their point of view. A simple gyro would do the job if you aligned it with the galaxy fairly well. No matter what you did within the ship it would always be true to the galaxy allowing perfectly good navigation (at least to some extent).

All charts of the space could be standardised, if a ship was to invert itself in flight (fly upside down) you would have to flip the chart, failure to do so would be a major problem.

Nav could likely easily be accomplished using reference points without need of any "up" or "down". That would probably just make it more confusing.

 

[JaredJames]

Nav could likely easily be accomplished using reference points without need of any "up" or "down". That would probably just make it more confusing.

In star trek they use coordinates or something like that so the space is effectively mapped out. Not sure what what they use to judge where they actually are though.

 

[physicsnoob93]

I have seen Star Trek the (current) Movie twice, and I think it is going to look to future people just as Far Side of the Sun looks to me now. A huge spaceship traveling interstellar distances -- yet, no robots on board (torpedoes have to be loaded manually). When being attacked, with everyone on board facing an imminent danger of being drifted into space alive, shouldn't they all be wearing pressurized spacesuits? (Today's navy personnel wear life jackets, right?)

LOL! I thought the same!