Star Wars Episode VIII (8) the Last Jedi Discussion

[tater]

12 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Also you say their megaton stuff about X wings or capital ships if it's Xwing your wrong. Your wrong because Like saying if Apollo Craft hit the moon a nuke would go off it just would happen like that.

A megaton is a the equivalent energy to a million tons of TNT. I also quoted the number of Joules. This is basic physics. KE=1/2mv² (short of relativistic speeds). Pick a mass of the craft, give it a velocity, and you can express the energy in Joules, or megatons if the energy is sufficient to merit that. I'm not wrong, do the math.

The Apollo CSM massed about 45 tons with the LM attached. At the time it approached the Moon, it had a relative velocity of ~1200 m/s. It could have burned to impact at perhaps 3000 m/s. Even assuming it magically didn't expend fuel so it hits with the full wet mass, it does the equivalent of 48 tons of TNT (0.0483 kilotons of TNT, or 2x10¹¹ Joules). Nothing at all like an atomic bomb. Remember, velocity squared. Note that at 3 km/s, an object has about its own mass in TNT as the KE. A useful rule of thumb. A kg at 3 km/s is about a kg bomb worth of energy.

 

Edited December 27, 2017 by tater

[Cheif Operations Director]

If the Concorde Jet collided with the moon at 500 MPH I doubt the explosion would be big

[DAL59]

1 hour ago, tater said:

as fantasy and don't argue it's consistent,

good fantasy movies and books are consistant

[Superfluous J]

Random thought: Maybe this kind of thing would only work while jumping to lightspeed (as opposed to actually being at lightspeed, whatever that is), which is apparently similar in ways to hyperspace in other fiction. So the damage done was not necessarily collision damage, but damage from being so near the tear in spacetime.

Or, the ship wasn't actually going THAT fast (relative to light) when it hit because it was accelerating.

So, ships smaller than cruisers would not be effective, and cruisers are expensive. Also, FTL engines may be a lot more difficult to run than just "slap it on an asteroid" so that may not even be an option. Plus, the odds of navigating an asteroid field are 3,720 to 1 so you'd lose a lot of ships going to get just one asteroid.

Edited December 27, 2017 by 5thHorseman

[tater]

40 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

good fantasy movies and books are consistant

Fair enough, this is true.

 

1 hour ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

If the Concorde Jet collided with the moon at 500 MPH I doubt the explosion would be big

Of course not, do the math. 500 mph is nothing. Rebel fighters demonstrably go at 500 to 1000 km per second.

I didn't say they did that sort of damage at the ridiculously slow speed they dogfight at, I said at the speed they are clearly capable of to travel something like a light second in under 15 minutes (first movie death star attack was under 15 minutes from scramble to blowing it up, and it had to be as far away as the Moon is from the Earth).

10 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Random thought: Maybe this kind of thing would only work while jumping to lightspeed (as opposed to actually being at lightspeed, whatever that is), which is apparently similar in ways to hyperspace in other fiction. So the damage done was not necessarily collision damage, but damage from being so near the tear in spacetime.

Or, the ship wasn't actually going THAT fast (relative to light) when it hit because it was accelerating.

So, ships smaller than cruisers would not be effective, and cruisers are expensive. Also, FTL engines may be a lot more difficult to run than just "slap it on an asteroid" so that may not even be an option. Plus, the odds of navigating an asteroid field are 3,720 to 1 so you'd lose a lot of ships going to get just one asteroid.

Yeah, this is what I assumed, it was the interface to hyperspace. Seems like smaller craft would tear smaller holes, but same effect. As I said though, if it's size, build cheap cruiser sized shells. Zero crew. Zero supplies, just hyperspace engines, and sublight engines. This would become the standard size for a missile if that was effective.

One thing that SW seems to have totally sideways are droids. They are clearly intelligent, which makes me wonder why people do much of anything. The computers would be better shots, pilots, etc., lol.

[Cheif Operations Director]

33 minutes ago, tater said:

Fair enough, this is true.

 

Of course not, do the math. 500 mph is nothing. Rebel fighters demonstrably go at 500 to 1000 km per second.

I didn't say they did that sort of damage at the ridiculously slow speed they dogfight at, I said at the speed they are clearly capable of to travel something like a light second in under 15 minutes (first movie death star attack was under 15 minutes from scramble to blowing it up, and it had to be as far away as the Moon is from the Earth).

Yeah, this is what I assumed, it was the interface to hyperspace. Seems like smaller craft would tear smaller holes, but same effect. As I said though, if it's size, build cheap cruiser sized shells. Zero crew. Zero supplies, just hyperspace engines, and sublight engines. This would become the standard size for a missile if that was effective.

One thing that SW seems to have totally sideways are droids. They are clearly intelligent, which makes me wonder why people do much of anything. The computers would be better shots, pilots, etc., lol.

Ok I thought you meant what they dogfight with. Now what about the shields you say impossible! 

I say possible if the shields are plasma or lasers style systems that neutralise solid and Radiation threats I'm referring to Electromagnetic Radiation. 

The USN has demonstrated lasers to work with the LAWS system. A turbo laser could work by firing plasma beams. In canisters so a canister discharges the plasma with each shot. A kyber crystal to vaporise a planet could concentrate Radiation and make a Artifical Gamma Burst or what ever their called 

Maby using X Rays

Or a system to concentrate High Radiation (gamma, X-Rays) with Infrared for heat.

[tater]

Lasers are not shields. Shields to me would be projecting a field.

SW has control of gravity as a force (they walk around in spacecraft), but that’s not going to help vs directed energy weapons, unless they literally make a black hole around the ship somehow. Different SF universes have hand waved shields, usually it’s pretty goofy, however. It’s a plot device to try and mitigate things that we can make now, I’d think. 

KE in a SF universe with small ships that can accelerate for long periods of time is incredibly troublesome. Take our cannonical X and Y wings heading for the Death Star in 10 minutes. They get to hundreds of km/s in a few minutes.

Say it takes as long as 5 min. That’s ~340g acceleration. How long can such a craft accelerate? An hour? That’s 12,000 km/s. 4% the speed of light. If it only took them a minute to get to cruising speed, they’d be relativistic in a few hours. Small craft is now a planet killer. Not an extinction event asteroid, like a watermelon that you fire a rifle bullet into.

[Cheif Operations Director]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Lasers are not shields. Shields to me would be projecting a field.

SW has control of gravity as a force (they walk around in spacecraft), but that’s not going to help vs directed energy weapons, unless they literally make a black hole around the ship somehow. Different SF universes have hand waved shields, usually it’s pretty goofy, however. It’s a plot device to try and mitigate things that we can make now, I’d think. 

KE in a SF universe with small ships that can accelerate for long periods of time is incredibly troublesome. Take our cannonical X and Y wings heading for the Death Star in 10 minutes. They get to hundreds of km/s in a few minutes.

Say it takes as long as 5 min. That’s ~340g acceleration. How long can such a craft accelerate? An hour? That’s 12,000 km/s. 4% the speed of light. If it only took them a minute to get to cruising speed, they’d be relativistic in a few hours. Small craft is now a planet killer. Not an extinction event asteroid, like a watermelon that you fire a rifle bullet into.

Who said they are accelerating the whole time? 

Also remember the the millinium Falcon flights too alderaan wasn't the short it was in reality longer remember they have cutscenes from the Moon into space that whole amount of time could be a day as far as we know 

[tater]

46 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Who said they are accelerating the whole time? 

They accelerate until they reach the speed required to go from their base to the Death Star, which was 15 minutes, and the Death Star was in orbit around the primary of which the base was on a moon. That whole scene was a countdown to the weapon firing in 15 min. They must have gone hundreds of km/s, and the longer it took them to reach cruising speed, the higher that speed would have to be.

46 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Also remember the the millinium Falcon flights too alderaan wasn't the short it was in reality longer remember they have cutscenes from the Moon into space that whole amount of time could be a day as far as we know 

The fighters had 15 minutes to go something like a moon distance. The base was on a jungle planet, so large enough to hold an atmosphere, which makes the distance likely far greater than Earth-Moon, in fact.

Dunno about the Falcon, presumably her fast speed was in hyperspace.

[cubinator]

3 hours ago, tater said:

One thing that SW seems to have totally sideways are droids. They are clearly intelligent, which makes me wonder why people do much of anything. The computers would be better shots, pilots, etc., lol.

Because it's science fantasy and its supposed to be fun without the burden of HAL-9000 style realism.

[tater]

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

Because it's science fantasy and its supposed to be fun without the burden of HAL-9000 style realism.

I agree it's fantasy (no need for the "science," might be better to say it's space opera fantasy). But if people are going to try and rationalize anything about it, the droids should be at the top of the list.

[KSK]

5 hours ago, tater said:

They accelerate until they reach the speed required to go from their base to the Death Star, which was 15 minutes, and the Death Star was in orbit around the primary of which the base was on a moon. That whole scene was a countdown to the weapon firing in 15 min. They must have gone hundreds of km/s, and the longer it took them to reach cruising speed, the higher that speed would have to be.

And then they accelerate to attack speed.  Man those pilots have got some serious reflexes.

Also:

"I've got a plan Artoo!"

"Beeble, beeble - bleeep?"

"You bet! How about we pull up out of this trench, flip over and come in head-on at the exhaust port. We'll be moving pretty fast - you think you can get a torpedo lock in time?"

"Bleeep, bippity, beep. *raspberry*"

"Yeah, what am I saying. You're an astromech droid with electronic reflexes. No sweat, right."

"Bleeeeep. Beep, beeppity, beep."

"No - I don't know why the General chose this dumb approach vector either. OK, let's do this!"

[Guest]

I finally saw it and totally loved it. Great film, tons of fun, wonderful hand-off, plenty of throwback touchstones. Biggest gripe (props to my wife for driving this home) was Laura Dern who just didn't fit into the movie at all. Adam Driver is seriously murdering it, love his acting, and Daisy Ridley plays a fantastic counter. Also, that alien dude who flies with Poe, that's my bro, love that guy.

Also: the bomber run felt stupid until I remembered that Star Wars is a space opera with a pre-internet technology-mindset to create exciting battles. I do have to question everyone standing in front of the closing hanger doors while ships race towards it, I was literally waving my arms like "THE EF IS EVERYONE DOING?" in the theatre.

Props to Lucas for getting this started but it was clear to me with Episodes 1, 2, and 3 that he just had no idea what he was doing without people really pushing back on him. Especially Episode 1 which was pretty much entirely useless to his story. You want to talk about gratuitous filmmaking for the sole purpose of making money, that would be my bid. I have no illusions about why the new films are being made but they're better written, better editted, and better filmed than Lucas did with his second trilogy, which were hot garbage. I was so glad I rolled up to the theatre for those in a cloud of smoke and promptly forgot how terrible they were until I saw some fan edits.

Glad to see my kid will get to grow up with some great space opera.

[DDE]

9 hours ago, tater said:

They accelerate until they reach the speed required to go from their base to the Death Star, which was 15 minutes, and the Death Star was in orbit around the primary of which the base was on a moon. That whole scene was a countdown to the weapon firing in 15 min. They must have gone hundreds of km/s, and the longer it took them to reach cruising speed, the higher that speed would have to be.

Reminds me of something I skimmed over yesterday.

Maximum acceleration per The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels:

• BTL Y-Wing - 2700 g
• T-65 X-Wing - 3700 g
• A/SF-01 B-Wing - 2390 g
• RZ-1 A-Wing - 5100 g

The jumping-off point was that scene in A New Hope, but this is Legends canon. And considering that they use various iterations of "fusial" or "ion" engines, both of which use no dedicated reaction mass beyond fusion products, they probably don't have that much boost capability and we're looking at close-to-sustained performance. Even if they can pull 250 g for a few minutes - rather than a few seconds - they can ram planets into oblivion.

[DAL59]

Well, we have good computers, but we still have pilots.

[tater]

53 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Well, we have good computers, but we still have pilots.

Not for long.

As it is airline pilots basically fly the first and the last few minutes of flight, the computer flies the plane the rest of the time. In space, Newton does most of the driving anyway.

Turrets? Right now, CIWS is entirely computer controlled, the people involved turn it on, or off, and it decides when to fire. Things only head further in that direction over time.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

Well, we have good computers, but we still have pilots.

At least partially due to irrational reasons. The USN reportedly sabotaged their own carrier-based attack drone program, which provides them with a stealthier, longer-ranged strike platform than the manned Hornets, and restricted their UAVs to surveillance duties.

As to dogfighting...

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36650848

Roger-roger!

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

At least partially due to irrational reasons. The USN reportedly sabotaged their own carrier-based attack drone program, which provides them with a stealthier, longer-ranged strike platform than the manned Hornets, and restricted their UAVs to surveillance duties.

As to dogfighting...

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36650848

Roger-roger!

Nobody sabatoged but having a pilot is better than a computer I don't care what "the experts" say having a living being making the decision to fire is better than a UAV

[DAL59]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Not for long.

As it is airline pilots basically fly the first and the last few minutes of flight, the computer flies the plane the rest of the time. In space, Newton does most of the driving anyway.

Turrets? Right now, CIWS is entirely computer controlled, the people involved turn it on, or off, and it decides when to fire. Things only head further in that direction over time.

There's dangers of hacking or radio jamming.  Of course, the pilots should never be shown manually flying without a hacking being mentioned or something.  Its would be cheaper and overall more effective just to send a bunch of drones though.  The real reason is that its much more fun to have humans in danger instead of thousands of small drones.

Quote

Burnside's Zeroth Law of space combat

Science fiction fans relate more to human beings than to silicon chips.

 

Ken Burnside

 

[DAL59]

If you want realistic space combat, watch the expanse.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

If you want realistic space combat

Did you just throw the gauntlet? 

 

[tater]

The expanse isn’t realistic, either. Since it pretends to be, I can’t watch it.

[GoSlash27]

 

An example of "human > computer". Of course, not a really good example, considering he was drunk at the time...

Best,
-Slashy

[kerbiloid]

On 28.12.2017 at 5:01 AM, tater said:

They accelerate until they reach the speed required to go from their base to the Death Star, which was 15 minutes, and the Death Star was in orbit around the primary of which the base was on a moon. That whole scene was a countdown to the weapon firing in 15 min. They must have gone hundreds of km/s, and the longer it took them to reach cruising speed, the higher that speed would have to be.

(I don't have SW right at hands, so...)

1. When they are flying along the surface of Death Star, their speed visually doesn't differ from a plane speed along the earth objects.
2. DS diameter, iirc, 110 km, and they are flying along the surface for a minute or more.
3. When Luke dives into the tunnel, his speed doesn't change significantly, and we can watch on a display how he is moving to the DS core. With the diameter given we can get exact speed value.

5 hours ago, DDE said:

6 hours ago, DAL59 said:

If you want realistic space combat

Did you just throw the gauntlet? 

... right in the way of an orbital object.

[Bill Phil]

It was alright. I just think there wasn't really enough time to explore the ideas they wanted to.