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Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame


peadar1987

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2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Well Moscow was the last capital ship sunk ...

Depending on what happened to the Admiral Makarov, which reportedly was blown up yesterday. 

 

Anyway, I recently re-read The Martian and noticed how some of the assumptions made in writing that book have changed as time goes on. It's not so much "bad science" as a change in the understanding of how things work. A major plot point in that book (which takes place in 2035) is that NASA doesn't have rocket boosters available that can hurl even a small probe to Mars on short notice, and only one extra chance is given when China repurposes one of theirs. Now, barely ten years after the story was first written, rapid reuse of Falcon 9 boosters would make this predicament much less of an issue. Even a single Falcon 9 can get 4 tons to a Mars transfer orbit, while the Iris probe in the book was only 900 kg. You may not exactly be able to dial SpaceX and have a supply probe on the way to Mars by the next month, but ... hmm ... actually, may you, if it's enough of an emergency?

Also, the listed capabilities of the Ares mission solar panels and rover batteries seem kind of bad. 10.2% efficiency is far from great for a solar panel these days, and the rover batteries were stated to have a capacity in the low tens of kilowatt-hours - less than what you'd find in any modern electric car. But I guess these can be excused by "space-grade gear has lower specs than Earth-based gear because concessions were made to weight/radiation hardening/dust protection/something".

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7 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

Also, the listed capabilities of the Ares mission solar panels and rover batteries seem kind of bad. 10.2% efficiency is far from great for a solar panel these days, and the rover batteries were stated to have a capacity in the low tens of kilowatt-hours - less than what you'd find in any modern electric car. But I guess these can be excused by "space-grade gear has lower specs than Earth-based gear because concessions were made to weight/radiation hardening/dust protection/something".

Don't forget Mars is much farther away from the Sun compared to the Earth, so solar panels on Mars, would always be worse than those on Earth. Unless we figure out how to achieve 100% efficiency, which is impossible.

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18 minutes ago, GuessingEveryDay said:

Don't forget Mars is much farther away from the Sun compared to the Earth, so solar panels on Mars, would always be worse than those on Earth. Unless we figure out how to achieve 100% efficiency, which is impossible.

Efficiency doesn't have anything to do with that, though. It's simply a measure of how much of the incoming sunlight it can capture, independent of what that amount actually is. Mars receives less sunlight than Earth, but the portion of it a solar panel would be able to capture would not be affected by that. And in The Martian, the efficiency of the solar panels is explicitly said to be 10.2 %, which is less than half that of state-of-the-art solar panels today.

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5 hours ago, Codraroll said:

You may not exactly be able to dial SpaceX and have a supply probe on the way to Mars by the next month, but ... hmm ... actually, may you, if it's enough of an emergency?

A quick phone call with somebody with imminent domain powers might grease those wheels a bit too. 

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57 minutes ago, Dinlink said:

The Expanse: No serious Kerbal would believe a show where spaceships comes without snacks... Who goes into space without snacks?? Nonsense...

I'm sure there are many snacks onboard, also burning at 8G's from Earth to Jupiter in a week or two is pretty Kerbal to me.

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The same Expanse.

In the first season the beltalowda were high and thin, suffering from bad food, drinking something special (can't remember exactly).

In other seasons they have been shortened and don't differ from the terrestrial humans.

Probably, the protomolecule had affected them.

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  • 4 weeks later...
2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

1899

The moment when the heroine 
(spoiler)

  Hide contents

stops the time and takes the bullet with fingers from air.

Conservation laws! Where are you? Both momentum and kinetic energy should release somehow to stay constant.

well considering that...

Spoiler

...the whole damn thing is a simulation...

...i think it works out. the thing that really bugs me is...

Spoiler

...the wonkiness of the centrifuge on the prometheus. which now that i think about it may also be a simulation.

from the previews i kind of figured this for an occult lovecraftian cosmic horror and not scifi show, though im pleasantly surprised. 

 

Edited by Nuke
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  • 2 weeks later...

Scanning the bottom  shelf of my bookcase I noticed a book, er, graphic novel(?) that was given to me by my Big Brother for Christmas when I was 10 or so, over 40 years ago. And even back then, I knew that a meteor in deep space would not be flaming or leaving a smoke trail...

drRmwu6.jpeg

Kudos to anyone who recognizes this story...

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2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Kudos to anyone who recognizes this story...

The style reminds me a bit of the work of Don Lawrence, (Storm, Trigan Empire)  although that's likely wrong, as well as too exotic for what you're referencing...

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2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

And even back then, I knew that a meteor in deep space would not be flaming or leaving a smoke trail...

These two guys in the tiny boat even suddenly swapped their places from shock, too.

Spoiler

Besides the fact that the blonde's face has been deformed by heat, and his dad(?) wears black spectacles and probably doesn't see anything at all. 

Btw where's his fishing rod?

Edited by kerbiloid
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/30/2022 at 3:02 PM, GuessingEveryDay said:

Don't forget Mars is much farther away from the Sun compared to the Earth, so solar panels on Mars, would always be worse than those on Earth. Unless we figure out how to achieve 100% efficiency, which is impossible.

But we can get pretty close!

Even 50% would be amazing!

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On 12/13/2022 at 8:51 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

Good eye, it is indeed, 

The binding is held together with forty-year-old packing tape...

That’s a pretty rare find in the US! I grew up with the comics. Scientific accuracy was never a goal but the stories were certainly exciting and fun to read, especially for 10 year olds. And the visual style — clearly very,  very unique. I didn’t even expect to be right about it!!

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  • 4 weeks later...
4 minutes ago, tater said:

Worse than Interstellar? Cool, will not watch.

Okay, remind me how bad of a movie Interstellar is.

It has some scientific accuracy problems, but it's miles better than what Star Wars/Trek does.

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5 minutes ago, intelliCom said:

Okay, remind me how bad of a movie Interstellar is.

I want my 2 hours back. I hated all of it except the O'Neill cylinder. Starting with the initial premise, the SSTO thing, the idiotic water world garbage, pretty much everything.

Oh, and the writing, characters, and story.

Also the soundtrack.

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