Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[DDE]

5 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Now, why did they not design the optical sensor too look like an smiley :) 

The early version of Nudelman's competing Palash design did its best:

[magnemoe]

9 minutes ago, DDE said:

The early version of Nudelman's competing Palash design did its best:

Better but still no smiley and it looks like they lost the radar. Granted you might do with optical but it might be bad weather. 
North Atlantic where Russia will mostly be operating is famous for that. 

[DDE]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Better but still no smiley and it looks like they lost the radar. Granted you might do with optical but it might be bad weather.

Funding shortcuts, actually. Nevertheless, they somehow got a pair onto each of the newer frigates.

[Spacescifi]

 

While we are on the subject of star wars consider how short RCS would last assuming they are not using AM thermal RCS for realism mods.

According to the Star Wars Wiki, here are some of the stats for the Imperial II class of Star Destro,er :

Length - 1,600 Meters

Weight - 40,000,000 Tons

Link - Imperial II-class Star Destroyer

1.4K views

View 1 Upvoter

Sponsored by Square Online

 

Not long at all. We are talking above orbital propellant thirstyness just to change ship attitude.

This ship is basically a sitting duck. It's not turning anywhere anytime fast in our universe using rocketry even if we had one.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Spacescifi

[Superfluous J]

10 hours ago, wumpus said:

All the fan theory had to be retrofitted around whatever was easy for the special effects crew to make something look good.

This describes about 90% of fan headcanon.

Star Trek added teleporters because it was too expensive to film shuttle sequences for every episode, and they'd get boring to boot. Every alien abduction movie was filmed at night with the spaceships being not much more than spotlights on cranes.

Even Romeo and Juliet had to lower her balcony in most venues because it was impractical to construct the entire wall. Just back then it was accepted as a thing plays did. No one felt the need to determine why Juliet's mansion looked more like a split-level.

Klingons in TOS didn't have tons of facial makeup because it would have been too expensive. They did in the movies and subsequent TV shows because those shows could afford that expense. That is it. That is ALL of it. All that garbage about the augment virus makes me want to puke. DS9's throwaway line from Worf about "we don't talk about it" was PERFECT and that should have been the absolute, total end of it. He should have winked at the camera, too, just for good measure.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Superfluous J

[magnemoe]

56 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

This describes about 90% of fan headcanon.

Star Trek added teleporters because it was too expensive to film shuttle sequences for every episode, and they'd get boring to boot. Every alien abduction movie was filmed at night with the spaceships being not much more than spotlights on cranes.

Even Romeo and Juliet had to lower her balcony in most venues because it was impractical to construct the entire wall. Just back then it was accepted as a thing plays did. No one felt the need to determine why Juliet's mansion looked more like a split-level.

Romeo and Juliet might use an low balcony as it will fit better in one shot or on the stage in a theater. 

Now the star trek teleporters add some options like how you could back up strike teams and restore the ones who died. 
This is the good side, well you could copy people with it to, like you and some guy on an planet both wanting an lady, no problem. 
That is not an problem until she run into herself  

 

[derega16]

3 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

While we are on the subject of star wars consider how short RCS would last assuming they are not using AM thermal RCS for realism mods.

According to the Star Wars Wiki, here are some of the stats for the Imperial II class of Star Destro,er :

Length - 1,600 Meters

Weight - 40,000,000 Tons

Link - Imperial II-class Star Destroyer

1.4K views

View 1 Upvoter

Sponsored by Square Online

 

Not long at all. We are talking above orbital propellant thirstyness just to change ship attitude.

This ship is basically a sitting duck. It's not turning anywhere anytime fast in our universe using rocketry even if we had one.

Well apparently RCS is unnecessary in the universe that spacecrafts can whoosh through space like an aircraft

[kerbiloid]

13 hours ago, DDE said:

 

A baby of theirs?

Spoiler

 

[kerbiloid]

As it's described by some author, Shakespeare and his colleagues were actually sitcom plot writers of that time.

Their plays were not a literature to be printed and read, they were for particular theatre and its scene, with particular actors, for particular viewers.

When they got a new theatre with a mechanical scene, his plays started including more travels, when the scene allowed to show "night", his plays started including more night episodes, etc.

Also, there was no copyright and piracy, just because they were not publishing their plays (it was not a serious literature, but just a text for the actors), and there was no TV.
So everyone cared only about what to show this evening on this scene, and all of them were copypasting from each other on spinal reflexes.

Edited September 1, 2020 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

10 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

While we are on the subject of star wars consider how short RCS would last assuming they are not using AM thermal RCS for realism mods.

They have what look like four vernier thrusters aft.

[kerbiloid]

And probably they were just copied from a photo with no clear idea what's that.

[Codraroll]

18 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

This ship is basically a sitting duck. It's not turning anywhere anytime fast in our universe using rocketry even if we had one.

Eh, that's not really a problem for the Empire. According to the stats you quoted, Square Online would have eaten the costs if one were shot down.

[kerbiloid]

Me has previewed the s01e01 of Away...

(I should put it in spoiler, but the wall of text is an antispoiler itself.)

Several places may be stealable for part modders, though probably nothing new. For me, these doors, walls, etc, look like they were filming in a rented fridge facility and its diner.

1. The initial long scene. H.Swank is staying outside of the lunar base "Alpha" (wow, this was unexpected!) and noodles time by "holding" the Earth with fingers and so on.
(Thanks moongawds, there is no Pizza Tower to support with the shoulder...)
(Thanks once again for the helmet is not highlighted from inside! Yeah, it isn't!)
(Though, the orange filtering glass is a garbage. We can clearly see her face with or without it.)

Why keep the helmet flashlights on when the place is sunny?
Why run on the regolith at all?

Why is the rocket on the lunra launchpad so tall and aerodynamic? Are they aware there is no air there?
Why is it cryosmoking, and why are the (small clouds) of the evaporation falling down in vacuum, rather than dissipate radially?

When she is staring at the Earth in the sky, we can see four light reflections: two flashlights, the Earth, and the Sun. When she opens the sunglass, we still can see them. Is she idiot to open the sun filter looking towards the Sun?
And why is the Sun at the dark half of the Earth disc?! What highlights the Earth then? Her flashlight?

The soles of the spacesuit are flat. No edges.

"Two weeks earlier" she's at the football soccer girls playing with ball game.
Is she aware about the quarantine?

What can be better than an international space crew made of one human per country: China (chemist), Russia (idx, just "the most experienced cosmonaut", so probably overseer/supervisor and just a jack-of-all-trades so experienced that even can't remember what was his post initially), US (she-boss, because US gave most part of money), India (pilot), GB/UK (potatonist botanist with no space experience).

"Chances to survive are 50:50".
Even Gagarin had 2:1. They are kamikaze.

The door of moon building is right at the ground level. No stairs.
Do they have a broom inside to broom the regolith out?

Why is this door opened just with a handle? What if somebody is in the airlock behind? Where is some indication/confirmation?

The airlock. When she gets in from the moon, the light is white.
A second later, with no pause, the light gets red, she takes off the helmet.
Is she aware that the chamber must be first filled up?
Why the "safe" signal is red, while the "vacuum" is "white"?
What means the "20:00" minutes countdown behind her? It starts counting down, once she took off the helmet. And why does she keep sitting when she already has taken the helmet off?
The scenery is ancested from a submarine movie? She needs a 20-minute long post-vacuum decompression?

And after "00:00" the light gets white again, and the inner door opens.
Indeed, this could be nothing but a decompression. Divers can calculate the lunar atmospheric pressure from this.

They play low gravity. Walking slowly, etc. That's great.

But taking off the dusty suit in the habitat is silly.

The ball falling from ~1 m for ~3 seconds looks a bit slow for the Moon.
Also the amount of various balls in every first scene makes to think that: 1) the authors are really focused on balls; 2) what can go wrong when several adult childs are throwing them in a spaceship room?

The cherry on this pie: the sweat remover (a chemical, an acid!) in the oxygen atmosphere turns into a flammable/explosive substance, so they have to catch the pieces of liquid fire around.
When the heroine catches theb with T-shirt (in a long jump along the corridor), it contacts with sweat and explodes, too.
So, if i get this right, any attempt to wash the clothes would become a fire show???

And the ship is full of its bubbles.

Four crew members tell different versions about the incident, and all are depicted. It's like a moviemade of all flashback versions filmed to have some to be chosen from

My working hypothesis is that the HSw's character is probably a X-mutant changing the reality and making time to stop.

4 crew members, and 2 (CN, RU) of them are blaming and hating the commander and prepare mutiny and ask 2 others to support.
And pay attention, the Mars flight is yet haven't started, they are still on the Moon (I don't know why that Moon when they need Mars).

A lot of personal drama since exactly 50% of the episode. HSw was a bad omen since the trailer, what did they hope on?

The Starship-looking rocket outside is for Mars, btw.

Commander and Earth are discussing if they can start the flight with the mutiny onboard or not.
(Of course, they will).

I'm not sure if the rocket engines in vacuum form the Mach diamonds, but what should they not do is making fire clouds. They do both.
(Btw, what give bright, dense, cloudy, yellow flame in vacuum? What did they fueled their rocket with?)

 

[derega16]

Talk about Vernier. I'm an UC gundam fan but always annoying how they always misuse the terminology related to rocket design all arcoss the series when describe part of MS/MA apart from orbital-mechanic-don't-work-this-way or march diamond in-space that can see in all the popular sci-fi. Like confusing between RCS and Vernier, "Apogee Motor" on MS, etc.

Also I never understand why the mechanic designer never consider aerospike as all the engineering challenges can be handwaved away when you have a giant robot as it make sense on something that supposed to be general purpose machine that can operate both on earth and in space.

Edited September 5, 2020 by derega16

[cubinator]

12 minutes ago, derega16 said:

Apogee Motor

Ah, that's simply the manufacturer. https://www.apogeerockets.com/

[Bill Phil]

3 hours ago, derega16 said:

Talk about Vernier. I'm an UC gundam fan but always annoying how they always misuse the terminology related to rocket design all arcoss the series when describe part of MS/MA apart from orbital-mechanic-don't-work-this-way or march diamond in-space that can see in all the popular sci-fi. Like confusing between RCS and Vernier, "Apogee Motor" on MS, etc.

Also I never understand why the mechanic designer never consider aerospike as all the engineering challenges can be handwaved away when you have a giant robot as it make sense on something that supposed to be general purpose machine that can operate both on earth and in space.

Vernier engines can actually be part of the RCS, though Apogee Motor is a bit weird.

Though by the time of the Universal Century it's possible that a number of terms have changed...

I guess aerospikes just aren't really well known enough or considered desirable for the "cool factor".

[derega16]

24 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Vernier engines can actually be part of the RCS, though Apogee Motor is a bit weird.

Though by the time of the Universal Century it's possible that a number of terms have changed...

But what they called vernier some of them look more like just ridiculously powerful RCS than real Vernier

Buy yeah its about 22-23th century terminology might change considered they called WWII "medieval"

Edited September 6, 2020 by derega16

[kerbiloid]

Finished the Away previewing.

It's another "homespace".

The Gravity-style space occupies about a half of episode in total, and a half of that you can see in the trailer.
Everything other is about squabbling in a rented fridge facility portraying the ship and social caretaking on the Earth.

[DDE]

8 hours ago, derega16 said:

Talk about Vernier. I'm an UC gundam fan but always annoying how they always misuse the terminology related to rocket design all arcoss the series when describe part of MS/MA apart from orbital-mechanic-don't-work-this-way or march diamond in-space that can see in all the popular sci-fi. Like confusing between RCS and Vernier, "Apogee Motor" on MS, etc.

I haven't got a clue about the series, but a vernier X is just a weaker version of X used for fine adjustments. This includes such things as a vernier RCS on the Shuttles and some of the earlier Soyuz models. You can easily stretch the definition of verniers to include RCS in its entirety, especially if it's part of the main propulsion system as it is with ODUs on Buran and Soyuz-TM.

[Nuke]

started that 'raised by wolves' series. its fairly new, just learned about it today and watched the first 3 episodes. its essentially about children being raised by athiest androids on keplar-22b after earth is destroyed in a crusades-esque holy war.

 anyway skip ahead to episode 3, and you learn that antibiotics can fix radiation poisoning. it disturbs me that in a world with internet access, and wikipedia on your phone in your pocket, you can still make an obvious factual error in a script. and ignoring the fact that the name pretty much says what it does (and doesnt do). other sci-fi series would have done something like 'radiation meds' or something like it ('super space drugs' would have also worked). 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Nuke

[DDE]

47 minutes ago, Nuke said:

anyway skip ahead to episode 3, and you learn that antibiotics can fix radiation poisoning. it disturbs me that in a world with internet access, and wikipedia on your phone in your pocket, you can still make an obvious factual error in a script. and ignoring the fact that the name pretty much says what it does (and doesnt do). other sci-fi series would have done something like 'radiation meds' or something like it ('super space drugs' would have also worked). 

As you may have noticed by my Armageddon posts, I love looking for places where someone went wrong. Here, I think they did have the right information. Antibiotics (and anti-fungals) are used on ARS victims to combat infections caused by immunosuppressive effects of bone narrow damage.

[ARS]

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.

Edited September 8, 2020 by ARS

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, Nuke said:

anyway skip ahead to episode 3, and you learn that antibiotics can fix radiation poisoning. it disturbs me that in a world with internet access, and wikipedia on your phone in your pocket, you can still make an obvious factual error in a script. and ignoring the fact that the name pretty much says what it does (and doesnt do). other sci-fi series would have done something like 'radiation meds' or something like it ('super space drugs' would have also worked). 

Maybe they were thinking of antioxidants. I've heard eating lots of those can help with radiation.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

Maybe they were thinking of antioxidants. I've heard eating lots of those can help with radiation.

That's because a major damaging mechanism for radiation is radiolysis of water in the tissues into oxygen radicals, yes.

But I'm still thinking antibiotics. Either that, or chelation compounds like Prussian blue.

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Nuke said:

anyway skip ahead to episode 3, and you learn that antibiotics can fix radiation poisoning

Do you still wonder why their Earth is destroyed?

The efficiency of the antibiotics against the radiation is limited only by the thickness of their layer.