ARS

Independence Day: 1.The number of F/A-18s flying in the final battle was way more than have ever existed at any time in history. And this was after the aliens shot down the first counterattack earlier in droves. Also, RAF-marked F-16s in Iraq? (RAF don't use F-16) USAF using F/A-18s in the climactic battle at the end? (Only USN and USMC uses it) IAF with F/A-18 Hornets?? (Israel doesn't even use it) 2. During the film's climax, Eagle Twenty announces "Fox Two", which is NATO code for the launch of an infrared guided missile, but the missile shown is an AIM-120 AMRAAM, an active radar guided missile that would be launched with "Fox Three." 3. The attack on the alien ship with AMRAAMs and Sidewinders is pretty ridiculous, considering the sheer size of the target. Even the biggest air-to-air missiles in reality only have a 75-kilogram warhead - not much threat to a ship the size of a city. Air-to-ground weapons are closer to 500 kilos... or since the F/A-18 is cleared for the whole gamut of US Navy aircraft weapons, they could have led with something even bigger. Not that this would really have helped, since the entire nuclear arsenal of the world could only vaporise less than 1% of the volume of one of the saucers. Never mind the question of whether or not the missiles' guidance systems (programmed to look for airplanes) could actually recognize the damn thing as a target to be engaged rather than a mountain to be avoided. 4. The original ending for the film sees Russell being denied a place in the final counter attack against the aliens. So he takes one of the Air Force's missiles, straps it to his biplane and sends it into the cannon instead of kamikazing his F-18 after his missile jammed. If this was to be attempted in reality, the biplane would stall on its way up, making it the most awkward self sacrifice in history. Stealth: 1. I don't know who's better, the one who designed a building that still stands after a bunker buster bomb penetrates through all floors in that building at mach 3+ , or the one who designed the bomb that could withstand mach 3+ impact through all floors in that building (plus reinforced concrete slab on top of that) and still functional 2. Speaking of the building, the explosion effect where the building collapses in the middle of dense population area produces a very neat collapsing sequence where NO DEBRIS strays outside of the building's footprint with NO COLLATERAL DAMAGE. Anyone familiar with how the building demolition works will know that demolishing building with explosives WILL get messy (and that's with controlled explosion with surrounding area evacuated instead of in the middle of Rangoon with mach 3+ bomb dropped through the roof) 3. Diving vertically at 2070 knots (roughly mach 3.1, for comparison MiG-31 is mach 2.83) before opening the bomb bay doors would certainly mess up the aerodynamic, and at that speed, the Talon should've disintegrated from the sheer sudden drag induced by such action The A-Team: 1. The fight scene with the Reaper drones is utter nonsense. A Reaper couldn't intercept the A-Team's plane to begin with: the normal cruising speed of a C-130 is 336 mph (540 km/h) but the Reaper tops out at about 300 mph (482 km/h). Also, they aren't armed with machine guns, only missiles (and air-to-ground missiles at that, not air-to-air missiles), nor are they capable of the dogfighting-level maneuverability seen in the tank scene. They're designed for long loiter time in low-velocity flight, and are known to lose their connection to the satellite if they bank too hard to right or left Battlefield Earth: 1. the heroes find a hangar full of Harriers, all of which aren't used for a millennium. No aircraft should be working after about a millennium, it takes years, not weeks to learn to fly a plane, none of them have flight-suits and yet they're all stunt dogfighter material. On the positive side, they do mention that Harrier jets can hover. Note that Harriers are so unreliable that the fact that they can even be repaired after a millennium is implausible Flight of Fury: 1. They used so much stock footage that the type of aircraft varied between almost every scene, as well as having the stock footage of the SR-71 and the F-117 be fuzzy because it was not filmed in high-def, and changing from day to night and back again in a few minutes of flight time. But the worst parts were the aircraft travelling at the speed of the plot progression, with the only consistency being that higher real-world top speeds somehow translated to longer trips in the plot. To wit: -A C-130 (max speed 675 km/h) travels from California to Afghanistan carrying SEALs, in 3 hours (noted by the timestamps) without re-fueling -An F-117 (max speed 1,003 km/h) makes the same trip in less than 6 hours, again without re-fueling -An SR-71 (max speed classified, but listed as 3,540 km/h) makes the same trip in 48 HOURS, but requires re-fueling -All of them fly west over the Pacific and China, not even taking the polar route (a distance of 21,000 kilometers), which would have added a few thousand miles to their trip. Tears of the Sun: 1. The jets during the finale switched between clean (no ordinance) to carrying HARMs (anti-radar missiles - against infantry, no less), then back to clean. And then when they do fire, they shoot missiles...that turn into cluster bombs...that are napalm. There are cluster missiles, but not for aircraft, and cluster napalm hasn't been a thing since WW2 incendiary bombs. Oh, and the rescue helicopters show up moments after the jets, despite the jets being several times faster

COLONIZE EVERYTHING!!!

If a tank is too heavy to cross a bridge, does widening the track to distribute the load over larger area helps to mitigate it? (Doesn't have to be moving fast, just cross the bridge, when deep fording isn't an option)

If there's a terrestrial planet with planet-wide storm (imagine Mars, but with it's global dust storm cranked up to eleven) that lasts indefinitely, assuming we have a reason to go down there and build something (doesn't have to be a colony, just an outpost or comms/sensor tower with skeleton crew is enough) where's the best region to choose in order to minimize the windspeed? Is it closer to equator or closer to poles? Does the storm gets stronger in poles or in equator? (Assume the entire planet is relatively featureless like those dead rockball moons with no high mountains or cliffs)

So this is some scenes from T-34 movie (2018): On 0:36, 0:52 and 2:42, we can see that a shell causes non-penetration/ ricochet on the tank's armor, with the side effect of causing a shock that makes the crew experiences what can be described as "my ears are ringing intensely". Is this true for real-life? This same effect that's experienced by tank crews when there's a non-penetration/ ricochet on their tank? Does modern tank have this effect too?

I see. So in other words, it's all just a guess when using mathematical calculation huh? Well anyway thanks for your help, at least it gives me insight about what factors that needs consideration for further testing

Okay, so the fibers are not additive in terms of total value. But what if the reinforce material is in the form of powder? (such as wood dust) Aka it's not a fiber that acts like a frame inside the primary matrix, but a powder that's integrated into the primary matrix itself. I've already told the lab technician to give me permission to test the sample, but he denied me access because the testing machine is only calibrated for metals, not ice. Trying to run the test would likely give bad results and possibly damaging the machine because of water melting from pykrete

Wait wait... If the previous formula is based on the cross-sectional area of the sample in 1 cubic meter of material mass, then is it possible if: Assuming that for example, the reinforcement material is around 25% of the total material content (with 75% being the primary matrix), is it possible to take 75% of the force needed to break the matrix and add 25% of the force needed to break the reinforce material (both values are based on the calculation on 75% and 25% of volumes of each material respectively), assuming the reinforce material is distributed evenly throughout the matrix?

I see. Thanks!

So does it means it doesn't factor the orientation of wood fibers inside the ice matrix? If so, should it be assumed as the wood fibers are arranged randomly instead of unidirectional?

So... I've been given a challenge by my teacher. Is it possible to predict the theoretical tensile strength of a composite material solely using mathematical calculation (for example, due to the test cannot be carried out for some reason) if we know the material characteristic of it's individual components? For example, let's say we're gonna find the tensile strength of pykrete. We cannot make the pykrete, but we have the data of ice tensile strength of around 19.0 MPa and it's 18% wood reinforcement is 4.10 MPa. Is it possible to find the theoretical tensile strength of resulting composite solely using mathematical calculation without doing actual test?

LMAO, either the brain has strong enough psychic power to telekinetically deflect the bullet, or the sheer density of the grey matter alone makes the brain's consistency equivalent of ballistic gel

The agent explicitly stated that he (supposedly) killed the man using assault rifle shot to the head (specifically AK-47) around the effective range of said assault rifle (roughly 200m). The flashback showed that the shot landed on the left side of his forehead head-on (the man does fell and there's clearly blood spurting from his head as he fell) presumably due to the range and visibility, the agent didn't really saw (or don't have time to check)that he's still alive due to the condition of that place during the assassination (it was in the middle of a warzone, with dust storm starts kicking in)

So I found a rather interesting scene. I'll spare you the details but in short: A secret agent realized the person before him is his old nemesis, who should've been killed years ago by the agent himself. The agent asks him how he's still alive when back then it's clear that the agent killed him with a headshot on an assassination mission. The man simply replied: "That's because, there's a titanium plating implanted beneath my scalp, protecting my skull." (he's a war veteran that do have implants due to his previous injuries) Now realistically speaking, even if a headshot did bounced off the titanium plating covering his skull (obviously it still penetrates the scalp), the shock of impact itself should still highly damaging towards the brain underneath his skull right? With the impact shock transferring through plating and bone. Even if we pick handgun-level caliber bullet instead of rifles and above

Does human body has a capabilty to dodge bullets like in The Matrix? I'm not saying about could humans do it, but does a human body has a capacity to do so (Based on how human sensory perception, reflex speed and capabilities), assuming the shootout takes place in pistol range like in the movie

Taking account of heavier mass and payload, but at higher speed and engine power, does modern carrier-based aircraft need longer or shorter runway on carrier's flight deck for takeoff and landing compared to WW2-era carrier-based aircraft?

Is it legal in air force to decorate your aircraft with liveries such as squadron emblems, nose art (such as sharkmouth motif), kill tallies, etc? (Though not to a ridiculous extent that involves totally replacing the whole camo of aircraft with something like bright pink)

That's what I'm thinking: A planet with atmospheric condition that renders it impenetrable by radio waves and optical sensors, essentially creating a stealth planet where any orbital observation of it's surface feature is impossible

Is it possible for a planet to have atmospheric cloud so thick that even orbital radar imaging cannot map it's surface feature (or at least obscure it's high resolution image)? With the only way to observe it is by sending probe down there?

Does this moon system possible? A planet has 7 moons in total (It's not earth or any other planet in solar system), consisting of 1 medium-sized moon (roughly half the size of our moon) and 6 smaller moons (each roughly 10% the size of the first moon). All moons have their own orbit, and there's a period where all moons are visible in the same sky together. The moons are waxing and waning at different rate due to their different rotation and revolution period relative to the planet, resulting in different phases. Let's mark the main moon as A while smaller moons as number 1-6 (observer is at the same spot to be able to see all 7 moons together. A is tidally locked, but 1-6 are not) The phases are as follows: Monday: all 7 are present, A is at full moon Tuesday: 1 is invisible Wednesday: 1,2 is invisible Thursday: 1,2,3 is invisible Friday: 1,2,3,4 is invisible Saturday: 1,2,3,4,5 is invisible Sunday: all small moons invisible, A is at crescent moon Monday: all small moons invisible, A is at new moon Around every 3 months, all moons are always visible at the same sky at least once Note: invisible as in "not in the same sky with A"

A lot of time, on movies that features aircraft from pre-jet age, especially WW2 aircrafts or biplane aircrafts, it's frequently shown that during the takeoff sequence, a pilot will jump into the cockpit, casually flip a couple of switches and moments later, the aircraft is ready to fly off the ground. This is pretty inaccurate, starting aircraft engines, particularly older ones, is often complicated and time-consuming. Even in newer aircraft with computers to help manage the process, there are still a series of deliberate steps so pilots can notice and diagnose engine problems before costly damage and/or safety risks occur. In fact, many jets don't even have the ability to start their engines, and have to be hooked up to a "starter cart" on the ground to get the engines spinning. Many piston-engine planes require either a ground crewman turning a starter crank or manually spinning the prop while the pilot does his thing in the cockpit. There are plenty of aircraft that can start without external help, but even those have a much longer startup sequence than you'll generally see on television Now, on to the actual movies. Some glaring mistakes and bad sciences about aircrafts: In Stealth, the F/A-37s would never be able to take off from a carrier. Aside from being based on a somewhat dubious concept aircraft which would likely have trouble transitioning between wing angles, there's the minor issue that they're apparently all but VTOL-capable, swing-wing CATOBAR aircraft with comically gigantic missile loadouts and utterly insane range; there's no way an aircraft with such a laundry list of capabilities would be able to take off from a standard Nimitz catapult, and it's doubtful if it could do so at all, especially not with the stated empty weight of nine metric tons for a 70-foot aircraft. And even if all that weren't true, there's the small matter of their rear landing gear being secured to the carrier's deck with tie-down chains when they're on the catapult. There's also the infamous exploding plane scene, where Jessica Biel punches out seconds before her plane explodes. Next, the pilotless-but-still-in-one-piece plane twists around and starts barreling after her (although it had been twisting around before she hit the eject). Then it explodes, and an enormous cloud of wreckage chases her down. The level of debris raining on her rather suggests she was carrying a Lockheed C-130 troop transport in her missile bay. Slightly less obvious but equally hilarious is how the F/A-37s are shown to outfly Su-37s using exactly the kind of cool supermaneuver those very Su-37s introduced in real life. Somehow, the Russian pilots in movies only know how to fly in straight lines. Made even worse when you know that those very same maneuvers are reserved for airshows and technology demonstration, and that no competent pilot would actually be stupid enough to attempt one in an actual dogfight. Made even more worse (worser?) that they are in a dogfight at all, when both sides are equipped with Beyond Visual Range missile technology, which means dogfighting is your last resort, not your go-to strategy for an engagement. Or the fact the non-stealth Faux-37s weren't even detected until they were only 25 miles out, etc. There's also the fact that these Su-37s are shown as two-seaters, when the only two Su-37s in the real world only have room for the pilot. The F/A-37's cockpit also has more elbow room than do passengers on commercial jets. A bit more forgivably, the joystick is in a between-the-legs placement; most American jets since the F-16 have a side stick. In Moonraker, the sequence in which a space shuttle blasts off from the aircraft carrying it. The shuttle is never carried with fuel or live batteries, that would be far above the carrying limit of the carrier aircraft. Even if Drax somehow arranged for them to be onboard, the Shuttle is basically a glider — its engine and onboard fuel aren't enough to fly it any great distance as if it were a regular jet plane. It is also impossible to carry a shuttle on the back of a normal 747, even if you could add a cradle on top. The turbulence caused by it renders the normal rudder basically useless (the NASA 747 used to ferry the shuttles had additional vertical steering surfaces installed at the ends of the horizontal tail surfaces for this reason, this is also why An-225 Mriya used twin-tail design: in order to put the rudders away from the turbulence caused by Buran on top of it so it remains usable in-flight). The other problems can be explained with this being something more like an earlier design, which included air-breathing jet engines with a significant internal fuel store. You'd still never get enough fuel on board it without it being noticed to be overweight when it was loaded on the carrier, or at the very least when the carrier was being pre-flighted and the crew noticed the landing gear was reading thousands of pounds more weight than it should be. Additionally, if the shuttle firing its engines while attached to the 747 causes the latter to explode, why does the 747 have an indicator in the cockpit for 'Shuttle Ignition' (!) as if they were expecting it to happen? In GoldenEye, the real Eurocopter Tiger cannot survive an EMP and cannot lock missiles onto itself. The MC at the demonstration where it is stolen announces it as a prototype with new features. Another is during the scene where the MiG pilot killed when his aircraft augurs gets unresponsive in after the first EMP (hammering his fist on the canopy in a vain attempt to escape). He should have pulled his ejection handle. Aircraft ejection seats are specifically designed to function with no power source of any kind, and are largely immune to EMP, the phenomenon being reasonably well-understood as an effect of nuclear weapons detonations. Even systems with electronic initiation have a backup system. As a rule, much more concern is spent making sure the ejection seat doesn't go off when it shouldn't, such as when the plane is on the ground In Tomorrow Never Dies, the Chinese planes that attack the stray British ship are repeatedly described as "Chinese MiGs". Although China does have MiGs, these aren't them; the aircraft are clearly recognizable as Q-5s, an indigenous Chinese type (admittedly partly based on MiG-19 technology, but very different in appearance). Apparently a case of the special effects department doing better research than the scriptwriters. On the other hand, a Qian-5 that drops a torpedo would be an extraordinary beast. They should have used the Chinese Harbin-5 bomber, based on the Ilyushin-28. In the teaser, when the Royal Navy frigate fires the cruise missile at the terrorist "flea market", M tells 007 he has four minutes to get clear. The target is 400 miles from the ship. A Tomahawk cruise missile (as shown) has a top speed of about 550 miles per hour. It should have taken the missile about 43 minutes to get there. The novelization blows it even more thoroughly, with a Harpoon missile being launched, and traveling 800 miles in 4 minutes 8 seconds. First of all, a Harpoon (an antiship missile) has a maximum range of less than 100 miles, and second, it travels at about the same (determinedly subsonic) speed as the Tomahawk. To do 800 miles in 248 seconds, it would have needed to achieve about 11,600 miles per hour, or about 3.2 miles per second - about half of Earth's escape velocity. Also, any object traveling that fast at low altitude would burn up like a meteor hitting the lower atmosphere - plus what the shock wave effects would do to anything along its path on the ground. In Casino Royale, one scene features a prototype "Skyfleet S570", possibly intended as a fictional version of the then-new Airbus A380. The actual plane we see, however, is obviously a Boeing 747 with external fuel tanks hanging from the wings (specifically, it's the decommissioned 747 that lives on the Top Gear test track). This makes very little sense for any civilian aircraft. Also, a Czech Airlines plane is seen. That airline did not operate flights to Miami in 2006 (no doubt due to the scene being filmed at Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague, where the airline is based). In Asteroid, a laser (judging by its size, geodesic; and of course, with the ray visible in space) fastened onto an F-16, manually aimed at a megameter or so, which blows up the big asteroid. Made even worse by the comment in-film that the lasers had to be fired from within the atmosphere to be aimed properly, as though having all that air in the way made it easier to target something in space. Though one could argue that it would be silly even with the Pentagon's "realistic" solution — an experimental laser cannon on a Boeing 747, which at least could take out missiles or aircraft. As opposed to the plain and sane original idea: arrange meeting of damn stone and little fusion device, the higher orbit the better (even better with a group of miners), then watch some fireworks.

The video is a sarcastic one, though. The full (actual) context is: "Humanity has reached beyond the stars, then the warp gate systems collapsed, leaving many colonies isolated and fighting between each other for dominance. corporations on far reach of the colonies starts to make money from these conflict, supplying warships on several factions. War is just a business from them, and no one can deny or resist it. Since the collapse of galactic warp gates, the technological setback due to the lack of cutting edge technology and sufficient research facilities means that only frontier corporations holding the high-end stuff, which they keep for themselves. Their technology simply too arcane for the low colonies who's fighting between each other, leaving their ships and weapons systems technology safe from reverse engineering"

So I've been from Youtube recently and I stumbled upon this phrase: "We cannot make a new ship anymore because all major corporations put DRM on their ships..." Could you actually DRM a ship so it can't be reverse-engineered? I'm not talking about the software, but the actual, physical design of the ship (or any other vehicles and stuff that isn't a software) that's being sold commercially being sold with built-in copy protection so no one can copy it. Because if I recalled correctly, back then the Soviets managed to make a carbon copy of American B-29 that crash landed on their soil (which later designated as Tu-4) without any of the original design drawings whatsoever and simply make their own drawings by measuring the real stuff. Could there be a way to DRM the vehicle to prevent this kind of reverse engineering?

Pearl Harbor (2001) 1. During the beginning of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese plane is shown dropping a bomb that falls straight down onto an American ship. In reality the bomb should fall in a parabolic arc due to having forward momentum from being carried through the air by the plane that dropped it 2. Rafe manages to fight in the Battle of Britain, Pearl Harbor, and the Doolittle Raid. Naturally, this wasn't true of any real pilot. It is ridiculous to suggest that a fighter pilot would be selected to later pilot a medium bomber in the Doolittle Raid, especially because of the unusual demands of taking such a large plane off a carrier. Rafe, Danny, and the rest are P-40 pilots. Retraining them for a different single-engine fighter would take weeks. Getting them to the point of being able to get a multi-engine bomber off the ground, much less landing it without dying, would take months. The level of proficiency needed to launch a loaded B-25 from a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier would take years to achieve. Doolittle really was qualified in every plane the Army Air Corps had, but only because he was a freaking test pilot. Furthermore, the crews on the Doolittle Raid were specially selected for their experience and proficiency with the B-25, not for their willingness to take on a suicide mission. Rafe flying for the RAF in 1940 while still serving as an officer in the US Army Air Force obviously wouldn't happen, as that would be a clear violation of American neutrality. 3. When she capsized, USS Oklahoma did not turn 180 degree like what's depicted in the movie. She only rolled about 120 degrees before her superstructure came to rest on the shallow harbor bottom, with only the two starboard screws out of the water. Also, many of the more dramatic real life events aboard the battleships, (namely USS Nevada's attempted breakout and subsequent beaching, the emergency counterflooding to save USS West Virginia from capsizing, and the firefighting effort aboard USS California (whose magazines had to be flooded to save the ship from a catastrophic explosion)) are ignored. Which is ironic because West Virginia was Dorie Miller's ship. 4. The way Danny and Rafe fly, with zero maneuvering while flying on low altitude in a straight line while being tailed by Zeroes, would get them killed very fast in real life. It's only thanks to plot armor that the Zeroes somehow just keep missing. Rafe's line "We can't outrun them, we'll just have to outfly them!" is also pretty cringe-inducing, given that it is completely inverted from how the USAAF were supposed to dogfight Zeroes in P-40s, even at that point in the war: The P-40 was less maneuverable than the Zero, but could fly faster than it, meaning the best strategy was literally to outrun them and pick them off in fast hit-and-run attacks instead of trying to get into a turning dogfight with Zeroes, which is literally suicide. A little fun fact is, if you slow down the dogfight scenes (especially the "fly low to lure the Zeroes to collide"), you will notice that all aircraft does not have functional control surfaces, meaning they maneuver purely using the power of plot) 5. No carrier in the movie is accurate, since all have angled flight deck (which is only introduced after the war) and steel decks instead of wooden ones (only British carriers have armored flight deck in 1941). Then again, this movie isn't even trying to hide the rows of Spruance-class guided missile destroyers during the Japanese bombing scene, or the modern Kitty Hawk-Class supercarrier and modern attack sub accompanying the fleet during the Doolitle raid, or North Carolina-class battleship in one of the Japanese intelligence photos (she's not in Pearl Harbor at that time, she's on east coast (with USS Washington) still having her engine issues corrected), or even small things like the Arizona Memorial before she even sank, an M26 Pershing tank in stock footage (that tank isn't even on drawing board yet, the design started at 1942) and a large building with 'Est 1952' printed on the front

The movie "The Wandering Earth" (2019) has stupidly ridiculous (and insulting) plot as if it's flipping the bird to the science itself before throwing it out of the window, and makes Deep Impact or Armageddon plot looks plausible by comparison. In the near future, the sun is exhausting its fuel, and will soon turn into a red giant, destroying the entire Solar System in three hundred years. Under threat of planetary annihilation, humanity bands together to construct 12,000 enormous "Earth Engines" on Earth's surface to propel it out of the Solar System to a new home (Alpha Centauri), Planetary Annihilation style. However, upon approaching Jupiter to make use of gravity assist, thousands of engines get knocked offline all across the globe, threatening to plunge the entire Earth into Jupiter The idea that the entire Earth can be equipped with giant thrusters to push it out of orbit. The Earth Engines, each one is stated to be eleven kilometers tall, and the torque engines around the equator are even bigger. One Earth engine over Paris is shown to make the Eiffel Tower look like a blade of grass. There are ten thousand standard thrust engines and two thousand more torque engines. The 10,000 Propulsion Earth Engines are said to output a combined 150 trillion (1.5 x 10^14) tons of force to propel Earth to Jupiter's neighborhood in 17 years. However, according to NASA engineer John Elliot, this feat would require something more like 2.5 quadrillion (2.5 x 10^15) tons of thrust... FOR EACH OF 10.000 ENGINE The Sun suddenly dying in a span of a few hundred years. In reality the sun would still shine for another five billion years. The technology (besides the Earth Engines) does not seem much more advanced than current modern era. The movie takes place in 2075, as shown by display monitor in one scene. This means that the Earth Engines were activated in 2058 at the earliest, since the prologue that takes place 17 years before shows the Earth in its usual position, before the engines were activated. In fact, Han Zi'ang states that no Earth Engine had failed in 30 years, which means that at least one was completed in 2045, and were being constructed earlier still How the hell they carry a FREAKING MINIGUN as one of their loadout while they're transporting and replacing the engine's core!? What's the reasoning behind it!?. It is explicitly stated that due to the Earth Engines' influence, the planet's rotation stopped, causing tsunamis all across the globe, devastating the surface and forces humanity to live underneath each of the engine city. By that point there's nothing alive on surface, only perpetual darkness and eternal blizzard that flash-freeze anyone wandering outside without protective suit. If the reason for minigun is for self-defense, a handgun is more than enough. To hammer the point of stupidity even further, the only legitimate "target" that's being fired upon by said minigun is JUPITER, LOOMING IN THE SKY when one of the team member gets frustrated after losing the core and began cursing while firing on said planet Since the Earth has stopped rotating and it is being propelled away from the Sun, only the northern hemisphere is exposed to sunlight, while the southern hemisphere, facing away from the sun, is in permanent night. Since the Earth Engines that push Earth are facing towards the sun, this means that most of the Earth Engines are on the lit side of Earth, with only the torque engines approaching the dark side. However, the engines are also mentioned to be powered by ordinary rocks burned using "heavy fusion" technology. From John Elliot from the same article as above, it would also take 95% of the Earth's mass to power the entire 4.3 light year trip to the Alpha Centauri system. By the time Earth reaches it's destination, there will be nothing left of it to be considered "planet" anymore The "gravitational spike" that Jupiter causes. No, planets cannot randomly increase in gravity. What's even more stupid is, the solution to escape from Jupiter's gravity? Ignite the atmosphere of Jupiter to propel Earth away. Igniting Jupiter's atmosphere would cause a shockwave strong enough to wreck the entire Earth. The plan's outcome is even more devastating for the people on the surface of the planet. Assuming such a powerful explosion can even happen, an explosion powerful enough to push Earth away to allow it to overcome Jupiter's gravity while it's 30 minutes from breaching its roche limit would crush all the Earth Engines on the side of the planet that the shockwave hits, killing everyone who is currently on that side of Earth, sending shockwaves through the entire crust and probably caving in every underground city on the face of the globe, and leaving the world with one hell of a dent. Of course, none of that happens and Earth simply continues on its merry way.