The science of FireFly.
POSTED BY: citizen
UPDATED: Monday, January 2, 2006 17:07
VIEWED: 9314
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This is a rehashing of Chrisisall's long lost thread, Hope you don't mind me reviving it!
Anyway, there's nothing wrong with the science and tech of FireFly.
Nothin' at all.
If you think there's a Technical/Scientific inconsistency then your understanding is flawed.
So post any problems you have with FireFly tech or science here, and you will be given the scientific explanation as too why your wrong.
Please bare in mind this thread is somewhat light-hearted, so if I call you an idiot, I don't really mean it 
.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
Remember, the ice caps aren't melting, the water is being liberated.
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go on then, call me an idiot!
ok, not my problem as such, but an interesting point -projectile weapons on board space craft.
Big no no - why? because you could blow a little hole in your bulkhead and learn to explore space the mushy way.
But would not lasers and the other mentioned weapons be just as damaging?
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"She's a mite whimsical in the brainpan."
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Quote:
seryn wrote:
Saturday, December 31, 2005 04:18
go on then, call me an idiot!
ok, not my problem as such, but an interesting point -projectile weapons on board space craft.
Big no no - why? because you could blow a little hole in your bulkhead and learn to explore space the mushy way.
But would not lasers and the other mentioned weapons be just as damaging?
Valid point, but Jayne makes mention that none of his guns would pierce the hull of Serenity, with the possible exception of Vera.
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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Excellent point, it just made me wonder when in Heart of Gold, that laser gun rips straight through metal wood and human.
ok, so it was glorified tinfoil, but it still seems that it could do damage to whatever Serenity is made of, especially as its a continuous stream and not reliant on force or anything.
Come on Citizen, is wish to stand in awe of your obviously vast intellect 
oh you know I love ya really 
doesn't get you off the hook though...
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"She's a mite whimsical in the brainpan."
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Why a laser won't punch through the hull of Serenity:
Firstly lasers lose a lot of power when interacting with matter. Serenity's hull is thick and likely made of dense material, especially in comparison to the aforementioned wood tinfoil and human flesh.
In the specific example of a Star ships hull the continuous stream or the laser would work against it as it would vaporise the top layer of material instantly into a cloud of essentially plasma and debris. This cloud would scatter the beam, quickly reducing the effective destructive power of the beam to zero. You get a small pothole in the hull and not a lot else.
If the laser worked on a fast pulse that allowed the vaporisation to dissipate, it may punch a hole through the hull if concentrated on the same area long enough.
This quote about Laser cutting is also useful:
Quote:
Lasers work best on materials such as carbon steel or stainless steels. Metals such as aluminium and copper alloys are more difficult to cut due to their ability to reflect the light as well as absorb and conduct heat. This requires lasers that are more powerful.
If star ship hulls were constructed of a material that is good at dissipating heat and reflecting light (which due to the specific concerns of space travel is not unreasonable) that would further reduce the effectiveness of the beam.
As a side note Mal is being pretty stupid mentioning a bullet penetrating the hull. A vessels hull would be required to hold up against collisions far greater than that of a bullet, and still maintain structural integrity. For instance:
Select to view spoiler:
Serenity collides with debris during the space battle in the film.
Quite simple really, Dumbass
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Remember, the ice caps aren't melting, the water is being liberated.
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*awe*
come on everyone, join in...
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"She's a mite whimsical in the brainpan."
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First of all, what does Jayne know about the science of structural materials? Jayne seems like the kind of guy who would believe that shooting a hole in a jet airliner’s porthole window would cause the bulkhead to blow out and everyone to be sucked through it. So I don’t know that we can really take Jayne seriously when he says that Vera could break the haul.
Why?
If a Firefly class spaceship is to be space worthy it must be able to withstand small meteors with relatively high velocities, since space is riddled with tinny pieced of ice, iron and rock that can travel at velocities well above those imparted by small arms. This goes for the glass as well. Furthermore, there is the pressure of reentry which is considerable. (Also I think Firefly maybe the first space opera type science fiction to ever attempt to accurately deal with the violent pressures of reentry.)
So, can Vera really breach the haul? We saw Vera do that in which Jayne shot out the windows of a space station. Maybe Vera just cracked the windows. That’s what it looked like. Is this a typical space station or just a Wal-Mart space station bad guys use to capture Fireflies? This is a fair indication that someone thought about this, because high tensile bullet proof glass cannot stop a high velocity bullet. Something like a 7.62 fired from Remington .308 rifle will go right through even very thick and dense bullet proof glass like it was butter.
Now AFRL may be designing transparent composite called ALON (Aluminum oxynitride, read: “transparent aluminum” for star trek fans) that can be resistant up to .50 caliber high velocity rounds, which is considerably larger then Vera’s caliber. That’s the kind gun that can turn an engine block into scrap mettle. So I’m inclined to believe that the issue is a little more complicated the Jayne makes it sound.
As for lasers?
I’m a ballistics guy, and lasers and particle beams are huge lumbering things that require unfathomable amounts of energy to be useful for military purposes and their use is much more limited then science fiction generally makes them appear. Everyone who has read a science fiction forum knows about the guy who asks about using a mirror to block lasers? Well, that would only work if the lasers light was such that it reflected off the mirror, which may or may not be case, but it illustrates the complexity of lasers and how little of that science is actually address in science fiction movies/tv. Particle beams, not lasers, would be a more dependent general use weapon, but they suffer from many limitations as well. My point is that, in many cases, it works much better to treat a "laser" as if it were a magical weapon.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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I often wonder about the gravity issue. I imagine Inara could put freefall to use quite artistically.
Scorpion Regent
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
First of all, what does Jayne know about the science of structural materials? Jayne seems like the kind of guy who would believe that shooting a hole in a jet airliner’s porthole window would cause the bulkhead to blow out and everyone to be sucked through it. So I don’t know that we can really take Jayne seriously when he says that Vera could break the haul.
Why?
If a Firefly class spaceship is to be space worthy it must be able to withstand small meteors with relatively high velocities, since space is riddled with tinny pieced of ice, iron and rock that can travel at velocities well above those imparted by small arms. This goes for the glass as well. Furthermore, there is the pressure of reentry which is considerable. (Also I think Firefly maybe the first space opera type science fiction to ever attempt to accurately deal with the violent pressures of reentry.)
So, can Vera really breach the haul? We saw Vera do that in which Jayne shot out the windows of a space station. Maybe Vera just cracked the windows. That’s what it looked like. Is this a typical space station or just a Wal-Mart space station bad guys use to capture Fireflies? This is a fair indication that someone thought about this, because high tensile bullet proof glass cannot stop a high velocity bullet. Something like a 7.62 fired from Remington .308 rifle will go right through even very thick and dense bullet proof glass like it was butter.
Now AFRL may be designing transparent composite called ALON (Aluminum oxynitride, read: “transparent aluminum” for star trek fans) that can be resistant up to .50 caliber high velocity rounds, which is considerably larger then Vera’s caliber. That’s the kind gun that can turn an engine block into scrap mettle. So I’m inclined to believe that the issue is a little more complicated the Jayne makes it sound.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
Don't forget to take into account that the bullet fired from Vera is also accelerated by the velocity of the moving ship it is fired from.
Scorpion Regent
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Finn, Largely what I was getting at, but explained better.
One of the issues with Particle beams would be accelerating the particles. CERN requires an accellerator the size of a city to accellerate the particle stream. It's very possible that a Particle beam weapon would be a ship mounted thing.
ScorpionRegent:
What is you specifc problem with Gravity?
{EDIT} Learns to read things before posting.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
Remember, the ice caps aren't melting, the water is being liberated.
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