Movie Space ships compared to the real deal

[Kerbface]

I think more important to sticking to science in scifi is to stick to the internal logic and canon of the world you create. It annoys me when daleks can only move on magnetically charged flaws and then we find out that they were originally created with the ability to move on any surface...

[razark]

No gravity turns, just straight up. Everyone here can speak for themselves but, I think we've all done that one once.

One time I went straight up, and hit the Mun. Was just testing a new ship to see how it did, and ended up smacking into it.

The sound that appears to be heard by a camera that can fly around at high speed and has the DeltaV and TWR to keep up with any rocket?

There is no camera. There is an arbitrary viewpoint that is near your ship.

Reasonable explanation for having space fighters bank in turns and have engines always on: The pilot expects it, and anything else would confuse him/her/it/them.

Atmospheric craft are cheaper and safer to operate than spacecraft. Any pilots that are training to become hot-shot space fighter jockeys are going to start their training in aircraft. The pilots will become used to banked turns, and engines burning to maintain speed. Once they transition to spacecraft, they would need to relearn the instinctive parts of flying all over, or they could use spacecraft designed to simulate it. The designers of the craft would use RCS to add roll when the pilot turns, even though it's not needed. The engines aren't really on, they just seem like they are to the pilot, because he knows that throttle is directly related to velocity. Raise the throttle up, and the engines burn to bring the ship up to speed and shut down, but the pilot doesn't need to worry about it. Lower the throttle, and the retrothrusters burn to slow the ship to the set speed, and turn off.

(Yes, it's silly, but it's as good an explanation as any other.)

[EndOfTheEarth]

Depends how you went about it.

If it was all about firing missiles from one ship to another, then it wouldn't make any sense, since to track another ship in space, the missile would have to be its own maneuverable spacecraft, and it could just be fired from the carrier vehicle.

If it was all about directed energy weapons, then it would be a slightly different matter. History Channel used to have an excellent show titled "Dogfights", and the last episode was an hour-long special called "Dogfights of the Future". The last segment discussed how a potential battle between low-orbit spaceplanes might be performed, but the end result was exceptionally similar to docking; the person on offense is trying to keep directed at the enemy vehicle, while the target is working to prevent a "docking" from happening by attempting to outmaneuver the turn radius of the aggressor's laser. However, most of these maneuvers would take place early, before either ship was in firing distance, in an attempt to throw off the other ship.

The problem that the History Channel people don't seem to think about is the possibility of a target ship flying backwards in LEO, and firing with its own weapon once both ships are within range of each other. At that distance, the weapons of choice probably wouldn't be lasers at all, but hacking and jamming equipment intended to bust the other guy's computers before he could get a shot off.

Here's the vid, the relevant parts are at 1:25:5 or so:

http://youtu.be/vnUwxDhE1kU?t=1h25m5s

Though, it's important to keep in mind that ships in sci-fi films quite possibly have different engines than we do. If they've discovered a magical, highly-efficient engine that negates the affect of planetary gravity on a ship, then some of the dogfighting stuff is closer to possible, but the turns would look really odd and require two counter-acting z-axis motors firing simultaneously to produce the appearance of a wider turning circle.

[llamatoes]

I do find myself on my SF high-horse too much, and moaning to all my other SF fan-friends ( My physics teacher) about how badly they are portrayed.

[SecondGuessing]

I can't imagine how tedious a film or book would be if it actually adhered perfectly to reality.

[nyrath]

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/respectscience.php#id--"So_What_If_I_Broke_Twelve_Laws_Of_Physics?_It's_Only_Science_<em>FICTION</em>"

"So What If I Broke Twelve Laws Of Physics? It's Only Science FICTION"

This opinion implies that the word "fiction" nullifies the word "science." Since it is "fiction", and fiction is by definition "not true", then we can make "not true" any and all science that gets in the way, right?

Nonsense. By the same logic, the term "detective fiction" gives the author license to totally ignore standard procedures and techniques used by detectives, the term "military fiction" allows the author to totally ignore military tactics and strategy, and the term "historical fiction" allows the author to totally ignore the relevant history.

Imagine a historical fiction novel where Napoleon at Waterloo defeated the knights of the Round Table by using the Enola Gay to drop an atom bomb. It's OK because it is "fiction", right?

[Warscribe]

Well, there is Lincoln - Vampire Hunter.

[Scotius]

I guess space fighters appeal to us so much, because essentially they are manly, fast, sleek, deadly machines of war. But intellectual inertia plays a role too. First trains looked like stagecoaches put on rails. First cars looked like carriages without the horses. First planes looked a lot like kites (or tried to emulate shapes of bird wings or floating seeds). When something completely new appears, we like to compare it to something well known, comfortingly familiar. And at first we don't really know how to do it better.

[Unistrut]

This one actually seems not so bad since the deck plans are a logical extension of the antigravity trope which is so common in science fiction film. I assume this is a result of Hollywood's budget constraints regarding filming things in free fall in addition to its general lack of imagination or respect of science. Of course one could still argue that orienting the decking parallel to the direction of thrust is idiotic from a design standpoint regardless. But I wonder, if you can create 1 g gravity fields at will, why bother with dinky little rocket engines for propulsion?

There are a couple of early Sci-Fi films that actually have the ships laid out in a stacked deck fashion like this. The Palomino from Disney's The Black Hole was, as well as a the ships in a few of the films spoofed by MST3K (I think First Spaceship on Venus has a stacked deck ship). I think directors and designers moved away from it since it meant that all your entrances and exits involved people having to climb ladders, which just doesn't flow like walking down a corridor. Actually, speaking of The Black Hole the docking scene where the Palomino docks with the Cygnus is pretty nice. You can see little RCS jets fire and the Palomino drifts along without the slightest care as to which direction it's flying. The Cygnus is standard layout with artificial gravity but I think that's meant to convey how much more awesome it is than the tiny little Palomino.

EDIT:

I guess space fighters appeal to us so much, because essentially they are manly, fast, sleek, deadly machines of war. But intellectual inertia plays a role too. ... When something completely new appears, we like to compare it to something well known, comfortingly familiar. And at first we don't really know how to do it better.

This is why I'd love to see multiplayer and armaments in KSP. Not because everything must be about fighting, but because I would be completely fascinated to see what resulted. We have no premade ships, just a bunch of cockpits, fuel tanks and rockets. What strange designs would be born?

Edited May 1, 2013 by Unistrut

[Felsmak]

I'm sure a lot of people would find me weird for thinking that realistic spaceships look much cooler than typical sci-fi spaceships.

[magnemoe]

What gets to me personally is distances between ships during space battles. Starships are armed with multi-gigawatt energy cannons, relativistic missiles, quantum combat computers - and yet they still fight at distances of couple of kilometers at best. During WWII in Pacific theatre American and Japanese squadrons almost accidentally fought each other at a distance of about 2 kilometers, in a completely messed up formations that merged into one brutal and chaotic melee. This battle is famous to this day, because warships designed to fire and hit targets at dozens of kilometers fough basically at a knife-fight range. It is also considered one of biggest cluster****s of the entire war. And still Hollywood insists on showing us space battles pulled straight out of the Nelson era.

I saw an actual shot of US fighter planes attacked an Japanese cruiser during WW2, they was doing multiple passes over the ship, first thought was Stat Wars. But yes it was more kinematic than an modern attack would be. launch of sea skimmers at 100 km, Next scene is the sam and aaa on the ship try to shoot them down. Note that this work better in books.

[Ford_Prefect]

Generally, movies tend to get things very wrong. I seem to be linking to this site a lot lately...

This will be very useful to deal with all those idiots who want star citizen to become a realistic game. Thank you!

[Unistrut]

There are a few errors, the biggest to me being "engines burning down during landing in zero-g", but it still looks pretty good. It is pretty funny that they have both a hard and soft sci-fi ship in the same movie.

[magnemoe]

True about the ship design, if you are operating with constant trust this becomes even more important. Even if you have artificial gravity you would want the skyscraper design as its far easier to deal with variation of trust or artificial gravity.

Say you accelerate with 3g, suddenly the artificial gravity who keep you at one g fails. Now would you prefer the skyscraper or ocean liner design.

As for space fighter planes, I guess an realistic space fighter would be more like an missile torpedo boat. Life system for 2-6 crew, endurance of an month, not able to trust for an month but plenty of capacity to operate inside an solar system. benefit of it would be to avoid light speed delays and jamming who would cause problem for remote operated probes.

The Hollywood misconception that really annoys me is that most spacecraft are laid out like a passenger aircraft, that is, with the direction of "down" at ninety degrees to the direction of thrust. In reality, the crew quarters of a spacecraft will be arranged more like a skyscraper than like an aircraft. You will feel like the direction of "down" is in the same direction the exhaust is going.

Then comes the misconception that there is friction in space (turn off the engines and the ship slows to a stop, anybody who has played KSP knows this is stupid), that rockets are arrows (the ship MUST travel in the direction the nose is pointing, also quite stupid), and that space is two-dimensional like the surface of the ocean.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/misconceptions.php (thanks for the link Specialist290!)

But to answer the original poster's question: no, space fighters are not going to act like combat aircraft. The main reasons are here:

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php#id--Space_Fighters--Efficacy

The question is: why did Hollywood and science fiction writers ever get the silly idea that combat spacecraft would act anything like combat aircraft? My theory is that it is a comfortable metaphor.

[sal_vager]

There actually was a game with realistic flight physics and craft with engines that could pull 2G's or more, and so efficient you didn't need to worry much about fuel.

That game was Frontier Elite 2, and after that Frontier First Encounters, both by Gametek's David Braben who is remaking Elite with Elite Dangerous.

You had fighters spinning about in space, they'd travel from planet to planet with their engines on the whole time, accelerating till about half way there before activating the retro's to slow down for the second half of the flight.

Combat was bad though, it really showed how badly space combat might be, craft couldn't actually stop on a dime like they do in the movies and instead they would fly around each other.

Relative to the other craft your ship was pretty manoeuvrable, but relative to a planet you would both be in your orbits still, slowing down a bit, speeding up a bit, changing your angle slightly.

The game handled craft pretty much like KSP does even though you couldn't see your own orbit, but when you were in a fight, it was like the movies in a way, but more like two rocket powered hovercraft on ice!

[ilikemoneygreen]

There actually was a game with realistic flight physics and craft with engines that could pull 2G's or more, and so efficient you didn't need to worry much about fuel.

That game was Frontier Elite 2, and after that Frontier First Encounters, both by Gametek's David Braben who is remaking Elite with Elite Dangerous.

You had fighters spinning about in space, they'd travel from planet to planet with their engines on the whole time, accelerating till about half way there before activating the retro's to slow down for the second half of the flight.

Combat was bad though, it really showed how badly space combat might be, craft couldn't actually stop on a dime like they do in the movies and instead they would fly around each other.

Relative to the other craft your ship was pretty manoeuvrable, but relative to a planet you would both be in your orbits still, slowing down a bit, speeding up a bit, changing your angle slightly.

The game handled craft pretty much like KSP does even though you couldn't see your own orbit, but when you were in a fight, it was like the movies in a way, but more like two rocket powered hovercraft on ice!

David Braben is a code on RCT3. I recognize my cheats.

[SecondGuessing]

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/respectscience.php#id--"So_What_If_I_Broke_Twelve_Laws_Of_Physics?_It's_Only_Science_<em>FICTION</em>"

It's fine to be stupid in fiction so long as you aren't trying to be taken seriously. Internal consistency is far more important to literature to external consistency, and so if you decide that the speed of light is a suggestion rather than a law then that's fine so long as you can justify it in the narrative. The vast majority of science fiction is not about science; like all genres it typically about people in different situations and circumstances, and if you can achieve a human story more successfully by taking Newtonian physics a la carte then for love of god you'd better not be breaking out a copy of principia mathematica to aid your writing.

You're actual quote is rather self-refuting, too, as the most successful and famous detective fiction of all time, the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories, are based on a character endowed with what effectively amounts to a superpower.

[Sleipnir]

Yeah I had a feeling it was all just for show, however as someone said earlier, with more advanced engines and even things like warp drives Hohmann transfers and gravity turns would be unnecessary. Rest makes sense though. I guess it just looks cooler to have space fighters behave like atmospheric jetfighters

[Richy teh space man]

Black Hole Video

There are a few errors, the biggest to me being "engines burning down during landing in zero-g", but it still looks pretty good. It is pretty funny that they have both a hard and soft sci-fi ship in the same movie.

When that rock crashed through the ship and started rolling down, how were they even able to breathe or avoid decompression blowing them into space?

Nvm.. I'll jsut keep munching popcorn and watching the pretty explosions

[nyrath]

I guess space fighters appeal to us so much, because essentially they are manly, fast, sleek, deadly machines of war. But intellectual inertia plays a role too. First trains looked like stagecoaches put on rails. First cars looked like carriages without the horses. First planes looked a lot like kites (or tried to emulate shapes of bird wings or floating seeds). When something completely new appears, we like to compare it to something well known, comfortingly familiar. And at first we don't really know how to do it better.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but the first moon ship, the Apollo Comand/Service module and the Lunar module, did not particularly look like an airplane.

[nyrath]

This will be very useful to deal with all those idiots who want star citizen to become a realistic game. Thank you!

And be sure to check out the various pages on space combat.

[nyrath]

I can't imagine how tedious a film or book would be if it actually adhered perfectly to reality.

I gather you were not a big fan of Saving Private Ryan? That one was so close to reality that it induced flash-backs in veterans.

[nyrath]

If it was all about firing missiles from one ship to another, then it wouldn't make any sense, since to track another ship in space, the missile would have to be its own maneuverable spacecraft, and it could just be fired from the carrier vehicle.

The missile would also have the advantage that its design does not have to include mass for a life-support system, consumables, a habitat module, crew members, or propellant to return to base. The target does not have that luxury. So if you shot the missile at the target, it could follow the target through the entire solar system, for months. And it would eventually catch the target because it has a much better mass ratio. The only thing the target can do is try to take out the hostile missile with antimissiles or a point-defense system.

[nyrath]

I saw an actual shot of US fighter planes attacked an Japanese cruiser during WW2, they was doing multiple passes over the ship, first thought was Stat Wars.

That is because the space battles in A New Hope were based on filmed World War I and World War II dogfights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_sources_and_analogues#Film

(ninth point)

[razark]

That is because the space battles in A New Hope were based on filmed World War I and World War II dogfights

Don't forget that the trench run was ripped straight from The Dam Busters, including the dialogue.