How gravity regulation works?
POSTED BY: CrevanReaver
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 23:48
VIEWED: 10797
PAGE 4 of 6
Quote:
Originally posted by Uriahone:Quote:
Originally posted by doctroid:Quote:
Originally posted by DonCoat:
If nothing else -- assuming (and I think you have to) interplanetary distances are comparable to what they are in our own solar system -- there's no way you're getting from one planet to another as fast as Serenity tends to unless you're going pretty darn fast -- and even then, it'll take a long time unless you accelerate pretty darn hard. In which case all the crew ought to be a thin layer of yuck on the aft bulkheads... unless the gravity generator is compensating for the acceleration to produce 1-g downward at all times.
I noticed that, but also if you noticed, that they didn't go flying into the wall every time they turned around during flight, but if they were really traveling at speeds necissary to get from one planet to the next, that would crush everybody, or take a significant ammount of time to turn around, but maybe they also have some way of defeating inertia, hell it is science fiction.
That's where the Inertial dampers come in. Hasn't anyone watched Star Trek? :)
On a side-note, it is said that, "If a starship were to jump to warp speed without using inertial dampers, the members of the crew would almost certainly die as the rapid acceleration would throw them back in to the consoles and rear walls killing them instantly. Conversely, they would also be killed if a ship were to come out of warp but in this instance the crew would be thrown forward."
I wonder how true that really is, though.
If you were to create a warp field, loosely defined as a localized, self-induced field around a ship which distorts space-time in such a manner that you're, effectively, continually propelled forward as you're warping each new section of space you traverse, then I believe the ship itself, relative to its own warp-field, would appear, to itself, as standing still. Or just appear to be travelling at the same, pre-warp speed. And this because you're not literally propelled forward THROUGH space, but rather, as it were, it is space itself, being warped, that's effectively "bend" forward (if you can call it that). You're basically just riding on its coattails. Nor is space-time warped here because you're travelling at high (near lightspeed) velocity; but rather, you bend space first, and then use the "pinch" forward.
So, that leaves me to question how much going to, or dropping out, warp would be really noticed, inertia-wise. Inertia deals with the motion of matter, and how it is affected by applied forces. Newton's First Law of Motion states: "Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight ahead, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed." Like forces that cause acceleration or deceleration. But since warping space would not be moving through space (but rather: moving space), inertia would not come into play. Turn off the warp-engine, and space around you would simply no longer be warped. So, in absentia of inertia, where's the need for Inertial dampers?
Serenity don't have warp-engines, though. Just plain jet-engines. And a standard radion-accelerator core, of course. :) The latter, I don't think, is a warp engine (let alone an FTL drive). So, I reckon Serenity would actually need Inertial dampers more than the Enterprise.
If I'm wrong, you'd best shoot me now... Or, we could talk more. :)
--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I will keep myself from making a Spaceballs reference right now.....lol
__________________________________________________
Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?
www.bikerplanet.net
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I think that given the concentration of planets the distances between worlds is likely to be somewhat less than our solar system. Assuming the single star system which is the front runner I think, all those worlds are going to be packed into the habitable zone, an area occupied by the Earth's orbit and at the edges Venus and Mars in our system. Now if you could make a brachistochrone type trajectory (constantly accelerating to the mid point then decelerating there after) you can travel some pretty hefty distances accelerating at only 1g. At maximum distance Mars is about 234 million miles away from Earth, if a Ship were to accelerate constantly at 1g to the mid point then decelerate at 1g thereafter it would take around four and a half days to reach Mars.
Originally posted by DonCoat:
If nothing else -- assuming (and I think you have to) interplanetary distances are comparable to what they are in our own solar system -- there's no way you're getting from one planet to another as fast as Serenity tends to unless you're going pretty darn fast -- and even then, it'll take a long time unless you accelerate pretty darn hard. In which case all the crew ought to be a thin layer of yuck on the aft bulkheads... unless the gravity generator is compensating for the acceleration to produce 1-g downward at all times.
Quote:Inertial force and Gravity are pretty much the same thing, so since Serenity obviously has an artificial gravity system that is minutely controllable there's no reason that couldn't be used to counteract the Inertia of anything inside the craft.
Originally posted by asarian:
That's where the Inertial dampers come in. Hasn't anyone watched Star Trek? :)
You'd want to tie the pilots controls into a computer which would calculate what inertial g forces are about to be incurred, and in which direction. The gravity generator would then be compelled to produce a field of equal strength opposed to it, to all intents and purposes cancelling the inertial effects out. This would also explain why the ship shakes when an unexpected event, like getting shot at occurs, since the computer wouldn't have prior knowledge.
Quote:
On a side-note, it is said that, "If a starship were to jump to warp speed without using inertial dampers, the members of the crew would almost certainly die as the rapid acceleration would throw them back in to the consoles and rear walls killing them instantly. Conversely, they would also be killed if a ship were to come out of warp but in this instance the crew would be thrown forward."
I wonder how true that really is, though.
If you were to create a warp field, loosely defined as a localized, self-induced field around a ship which distorts space-time in such a manner that you're, effectively, continually propelled forward as you're warping each new section of space you traverse, then I believe the ship itself, relative to its own warp-field, would appear, to itself, as standing still. Or just appear to be travelling at the same, pre-warp speed. And this because you're not literally propelled forward THROUGH space, but rather, as it were, it is space itself, being warped, that's effectively "bend" forward (if you can call it that). You're basically just riding on its coattails. Nor is space-time warped here because you're travelling at high (near lightspeed) velocity; but rather, you bend space first, and then use the "pinch" forward.
So, that leaves me to question how much going to, or dropping out, warp would be really noticed, inertia-wise. Inertia deals with the motion of matter, and how it is affected by applied forces. Newton's First Law of Motion states: "Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight ahead, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed." Like forces that cause acceleration or deceleration. But since warping space would not be moving through space (but rather: moving space), inertia would not come into play. Turn off the warp-engine, and space around you would simplNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I think that given the concentration of planets the distances between worlds is likely to be somewhat less than our solar system. Assuming the single star system which is the front runner I think, all those worlds are going to be packed into the habitable zone, an area occupied by the Earth's orbit and at the edges Venus and Mars in our system.
But that's the part I don't buy. There are "dozens of planets and hundreds of moons" in the system; most of those moons must be orbiting gas giants. No one ever said all of the planets and moons were terraformable, but it's implied a lot of them are. So there are gas giants in the habitable zone, and gas giants sweep up everything around for a very large distance. (Like the region between Jupiter and Saturn.)
I admit I'd forgotten just how fast you can cover interplanetary distances at a constant 1g acceleration. But of course Serenity sometimes accelerates harder than other times (I presume several g sometimes), and they clearly never have anything like a 1-gravity force toward the aft of the ship, so clearly the gravity generator must be compensating.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Oh, and I hadn't heard the term "radion" in physics before. Has it been around long? Seems likely to be a pretty recent coinage.
Wikipedia says "Radion is also a Russian name" so maybe the drive was just invented by someone named Radion...
(I like the other explanation, though... actually fits in with some ideas I've been working on...)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Or slightly further out, it's unclear how advanced the terraforming is. Large mirrors or some other technology could extend the habitable zone.
Originally posted by doctroid:
But that's the part I don't buy. There are "dozens of planets and hundreds of moons" in the system; most of those moons must be orbiting gas giants. No one ever said all of the planets and moons were terraformable, but it's implied a lot of them are. So there are gas giants in the habitable zone, and gas giants sweep up everything around for a very large distance. (Like the region between Jupiter and Saturn.)
Quote:The Radion scalar field first appeared in the KK-Theory published in the 1920s, though it wasn't called Radion then I think.
Oh, and I hadn't heard the term "radion" in physics before. Has it been around long? Seems likely to be a pretty recent coinage.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
A very much larger star than Sol would have a very much larger habitable zone. It would start farther out but extend much farther. That would make interplanetary distances larger than in the inner solar system, but would give more room for terraformable planets and moons.
The downside is that a large main sequence star doesn't last very long -- as little as 100,000 years for a really big one. But there could be a happy medium, a system that's old enough to form planets and will last long enough to be worth colonizing.
Another problem is that a large star would be more active, with a stiff stellar wind and probably a lot of flare activity; not too healthy for unprotected travelers.
Another possibility is a multiple star system. There's controversy about whether there could be stable planetary systems in a multiple, but it seems likely there could be if the stars were either very close together or very far apart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm pointin' right at it!
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You're probably right, given my above figures the maximum travelling time would be about a week, but we know one trip was going to take three (Out of Gas - though we also know they're taking a circuitous route), and we can infer that the time to travel between Jiang Yin and Persephone is nearly a month from Safe ("Cattle been on the ship near a month"). Though the point was that we're most likely not talking about travelling distances like Earth to Pluto, and that the travel times talked about in the show aren't excessive. Indeed there are drive systems that can easily give sustained 1g acceleration given sufficient fuel. My personal favourite for Serenity's drive system would be something like an Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive, partially based on comments from "The Tenth Crew Member" documentary where a member of the art team talks about a fusion drive. An IC Fusion drive delivers a hell of a lot of thrust and uses fuel pellets which ties in nicely with narrative from the show.
Originally posted by DonCoat:
A very much larger star than Sol would have a very much larger habitable zone. It would start farther out but extend much farther. That would make interplanetary distances larger than in the inner solar system, but would give more room for terraformable planets and moons.
Quote:There's plenty of stable orbits for Binary star systems, though I doubt you could have actually multiple stable star systems that develop naturally that close together as to make non FTL daily travel a reality. Though if I may offer a possibility, a compromise between the single and multiple star system camp, what if the 'verse is a single system, but moons orbiting gas giants in orbits as far as Jupiter have been terraformed by turning the gas giant into a small micro-star ala 2010? That may also explain why the trip between Jiang Yin and Persephone took so long, Persephone was in the normal habitable zone, Jiang Yin is orbiting one of these far out Micro-Stars.
Another possibility is a multiple star system. There's controversy about whether there could be stable planetary systems in a multiple, but it seems likely there could be if the stars were either very close together or very far apart.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
We should also keep in mind that planets (Greek: wanderers), well, move. The trip from A to B could be short one month and much longer the next.
An example in our own neighborhood is Earth and Mars. Sometimes Mars is quite close to us (we had a couple unusually close encounters in the last couple years) while at other times it's on the far side of the Sun from us.
I kind of like the idea of a distant-binary or -trinary system. Each of the stars could have its own system of planets. Going to one of these from the "main" system (the one with the Core Worlds) would always take a long time compared to moving around in the main system. But of course, it's all speculation, since it doesn't seem that Joss and the writers worked it out that far.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm pointin' right at it!
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I haven't forgotten, I just didn't want to complicate the issue. My figures for a journey to Mars above suppose that Earth and Mars are roughly opposed (although they also assume a more or less straight line trajectory, something not possible without some really good heat shields
Originally posted by DonCoat:
We should also keep in mind that planets (Greek: wanderers), well, move. The trip from A to B could be short one month and much longer the next.
An example in our own neighborhood is Earth and Mars. Sometimes Mars is quite close to us (we had a couple unusually close encounters in the last couple years) while at other times it's on the far side of the Sun from us.
) at their closest they're 'only' about 43 million miles away from each other, or just under two days travel at a constant 1G acceleration.I've made a few assumptions, but I don't think they're particularly unreasonable.
Quote:Assuming a Binary system there's actually three types of stable orbit. Orbits around each star, orbits around both stars in a roughly circular orbit and orbits around both stars in a figure of eight, swapping between orbiting each one. That was my personal favourite for a long time, because in this arrangement there's actually three separate habitable zones (one each around the two stars and one around both stars), and because of the varying orbit types more planets can be squeezed into them. With a trinary star system there's even more options.
I kind of like the idea of a distant-binary or -trinary system. Each of the stars could have its own system of planets. Going to one of these from the "main" system (the one with the Core Worlds) would always take a long time compared to moving around in the main system.
Though with the fairly plain schematic at the beginning of Serenity it's a little hard to rectify without, you know, just ignoring it.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME