I walked in on my roommate watching “Don’t Look Up” right during the space shuttle launch scene. Literally every single thing was wrong. The trajectory the shuttle took off the launch pad. It flying RIGHT SIDE UP as it did the gravity turn like a fucking airplane. The fact 50 other rockets were in formation with it despite that being stupidly dangerous, them all having different TWR ratios, there not being nearly enough launchpads anywhere in the world to do that, etc. Just everything.
We have existing video footage of shuttle launches. It’s not some crazy mystery. This isn’t Gravity where they add a window that doesn’t exist on the ISS for dramatic tension. It’s not Star Wars where the X-Wings behave more like airplanes than spacecraft for visual appeal. This was deliberate negligence.
A very common one is spacecraft seem to always launch in a direct line away from the planet. They just go straight up. That’s the least efficient way to get into space. But I usually let it slide because explaining orbital mechanics and Hoffman transfers isn’t necessary for good story telling.
For real. Omg you just reminded me of another absolutely stupid scene from the Netflix series, Another Life. That series’ writing is so bad some people think it’s on purpose.
So the ship needs to perform a gravity assist to avoid a cloud of dark matter or something. During the slingshot maneuver, they get so close to the star that they should’ve been absolutely vaporized. But you know what, fine. Flying unnaturally close to the star looks cool and the rule of cool applies. But their first attempt at the gravity assist FAILS and now they have to try again.
That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
Star Wars where the X-Wings behave more like airplanes than spacecraft
My favorite part of Empire Strikes Back was when Luke takes his (presumably) short-range interceptor X-Wing and flies it to another star system to hang with Yoda. I dunno, maybe canon explained this one somewhere (was Yoda’s planet in the same star system as Hoth or something? are X-Wings capable of FTL travel for no reason?).
Heh, that’s actually the canon reason. Whereas TIE Fighters would launch from star destroyers like aircraft from a carrier, X-Wings would jump into hyperspace along with the frigates they were escorting.
The X-Wing is explicitly hyperdrive equipped. That’s also part of why it has an astromech droid seat in it (R2), apparently so the droid can handle the jump calculations. A lot of later technobabble in the expanded universe expounded on this after the fact, but I presume this decision was made on a snap basis specifically so Luke could go to Dagobah in his cool plane spaceship.
You get to make hyperspace jumps yourself in your X-Wing a few times, fittingly, in the X-Wing games.
Star Wars had basically no concept of fuel until like, one of the recent movies I didn’t watch. Obi-Wan calls a TIE fighter “a short range fighter” in A New Hope. Luke flies an X-Wing all over creation; several are shown jumping to hyperdrive alongside other larger ships in Jedi, it’s established that X-Wings are FTL capable.
Worst was some show my MIL was watching. A team of super savants is trying to stop an ICBM from nuking Los Angelas, and not only was it completely not understanding orbital dynamics but they didn’t even seem to follow any kind of rudimentary in-universe laws of physics (usually shows and movies just treat spaceships like submarines which at least if it’s consistent it can still make a decent story) as the ICBM was 30 seconds from impact 3 times over a 20 minute period somehow
Space Flight.
I walked in on my roommate watching “Don’t Look Up” right during the space shuttle launch scene. Literally every single thing was wrong. The trajectory the shuttle took off the launch pad. It flying RIGHT SIDE UP as it did the gravity turn like a fucking airplane. The fact 50 other rockets were in formation with it despite that being stupidly dangerous, them all having different TWR ratios, there not being nearly enough launchpads anywhere in the world to do that, etc. Just everything.
We have existing video footage of shuttle launches. It’s not some crazy mystery. This isn’t Gravity where they add a window that doesn’t exist on the ISS for dramatic tension. It’s not Star Wars where the X-Wings behave more like airplanes than spacecraft for visual appeal. This was deliberate negligence.
A very common one is spacecraft seem to always launch in a direct line away from the planet. They just go straight up. That’s the least efficient way to get into space. But I usually let it slide because explaining orbital mechanics and Hoffman transfers isn’t necessary for good story telling.
Anyone who hasn’t done a Mun landing shouldn’t get to direct space scenes.
For real. Omg you just reminded me of another absolutely stupid scene from the Netflix series, Another Life. That series’ writing is so bad some people think it’s on purpose.
So the ship needs to perform a gravity assist to avoid a cloud of dark matter or something. During the slingshot maneuver, they get so close to the star that they should’ve been absolutely vaporized. But you know what, fine. Flying unnaturally close to the star looks cool and the rule of cool applies. But their first attempt at the gravity assist FAILS and now they have to try again.
That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
You typing “TWR ratio”.
Go KYS yourself!!
/s 😂
My favorite part of Empire Strikes Back was when Luke takes his (presumably) short-range interceptor X-Wing and flies it to another star system to hang with Yoda. I dunno, maybe canon explained this one somewhere (was Yoda’s planet in the same star system as Hoth or something? are X-Wings capable of FTL travel for no reason?).
Heh, that’s actually the canon reason. Whereas TIE Fighters would launch from star destroyers like aircraft from a carrier, X-Wings would jump into hyperspace along with the frigates they were escorting.
The X-Wing is explicitly hyperdrive equipped. That’s also part of why it has an astromech droid seat in it (R2), apparently so the droid can handle the jump calculations. A lot of later technobabble in the expanded universe expounded on this after the fact, but I presume this decision was made on a snap basis specifically so Luke could go to Dagobah in his cool
planespaceship.You get to make hyperspace jumps yourself in your X-Wing a few times, fittingly, in the X-Wing games.
Back when they made the first movie they literally used WW2 fighter footage to design the final battle with the Death Star.
Star Wars had basically no concept of fuel until like, one of the recent movies I didn’t watch. Obi-Wan calls a TIE fighter “a short range fighter” in A New Hope. Luke flies an X-Wing all over creation; several are shown jumping to hyperdrive alongside other larger ships in Jedi, it’s established that X-Wings are FTL capable.
Worst was some show my MIL was watching. A team of super savants is trying to stop an ICBM from nuking Los Angelas, and not only was it completely not understanding orbital dynamics but they didn’t even seem to follow any kind of rudimentary in-universe laws of physics (usually shows and movies just treat spaceships like submarines which at least if it’s consistent it can still make a decent story) as the ICBM was 30 seconds from impact 3 times over a 20 minute period somehow