Subject:
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Re: Hypothetical design question
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Wed, 25 Jun 2003 12:30:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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923 times
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In lugnet.space, James Brown wrote:
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You’re misapplying inertia. The whole ship, including contents, has inertia.
If it is moving, say, 1.25 Km/s (pretty darn quick) in arbitrary direction A,
it (and all it’s contents will continue to move in direction A, and which
direction it happens to be facing doesn’t mean diddly squat.
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He does have a point as far as capital ships are concerned. A Starfury is a
one-man ship, and everything I’ve seen suggests that when a Starfury rotates in
flight, the cockpit is pretty darn near the center of rotation, so the pilot can
withstand being quickly whipped around to face 180 degrees different. A capital
ship, like the Hyperion, is gigantic, and whipping that type of ship around 180
degrees would involve a huge amount of G-force to anyone standing at either end
of the ship, because their relative vector through space would change
drastically during that manouver. Capital ships have to slowly adjust their
trajectories (it should be noted that Star Trek starships use “inertial
dampeners” as a way to cheat this fact of physics, while B5 starships show
realistic mass behavior with huge capital ships taking a long time to alter
course) or they will turn the crew into scrambled eggs.
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If it starts applying thrust, then it matters which direction it’s facing,
but not until then.
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And rotation without a change in trajectory still involves application of
thrust, though I believe that even if a Starfury was flying at near-c speeds,
the 180 degree snap-around manouver would not feel any different than if he was
standing still. I’m also pretty sure that if it was flying at near-c speeds,
and the pilot started applying slow thrust perpendicular to the trajectory, it
wouldn’t feel any different than starting from a dead stop. Consider how fast
Earth is hurtling through space, just as it revolves around the Sun (ignoring
for now the Universe Expansion theory). Now that means that any orbital craft
is traveling, on average (adjusting for which specific section of orbit it
happens to be in), the same speed as Earth. That means that a modern spacecraft
is travelling at immense speeds, but gently applying thrusters perpendicular to
the overall direction of travel doesn’t really do any harm to the crew. It’s
not how fast you’re travelling that matters. It’s how drastically you are
changing your inertia that makes the difference. Slamming to a stop from near-c
would be just as harmful as being catapulted from a dead standstill to near-c
speeds. In the end, you experience the same amount of G-force.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Hypothetical design question
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| (...) Yup. But even a ship like the Hyperion could probably spin in place relatively quickly - certainly not at starfury-like speeds - but I imagine it could still do a 180 within a couple minutes. I strongly suspect, given the shape of Earthforce (...) (21 years ago, 25-Jun-03, to lugnet.space, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Hypothetical design question
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| (...) Nope. You're misapplying inertia. The whole ship, including contents, has inertia. If it is moving, say, 1.25 Km/s (pretty darn quick) in arbitrary direction A, it (and all it's contents will continue to move in direction A, and which (...) (21 years ago, 25-Jun-03, to lugnet.space, FTX)
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