On gundams and orbital mechanics

[egnio98]

Hey loungers!(?)

Recently I've caught up with my childhood, mobile suit gundam. If you don't know what it is, it's a sci-fi Mecha anime that tells a scary side to war (in my opinion. I recommend it). After growing up a little and playing ksp, I've been thinking. Orbital mechanics says if you accelerate, then your trajectory changes. So do the ships and gundams just have so much dv to waste to get to their targets? How do the ships even close in on each other?! I'm curious! I'd like to hear your reasonings, as I'm sure the anime adheres to !SCIENCE! You're also of course free to discuss about gundams even!

*I've been watching Gundam Unicorn, can't wait for the last episode!

[Kinglet]

It is ridiculous how Star Wars spaceship CONSTANTLY thrust when traveling somewhere.

[OtherDalfite]

GunDam from what I have seen is purely science fiction. Warp drives and mecha suits are pretty far out there. The way in which the mecha's would orientate themselves draws a line as to how they lack realistic qualities, as the limbs may move, but that is it. They wouldn't be able to rotate without some form of RCS. The way the ships close in (from what I have seen they only remain pointed in a single direction) and would have some way to retro fire to slow themselves down. If you want an anime that adheres to realistic space physics then I recommend Planetes.

[Soda Popinski]

GunDam from what I have seen is purely science fiction. Warp drives and mecha suits are pretty far out there. The way in which the mecha's would orientate themselves draws a line as to how they lack realistic qualities, as the limbs may move, but that is it. They wouldn't be able to rotate without some form of RCS. The way the ships close in (from what I have seen they only remain pointed in a single direction) and would have some way to retro fire to slow themselves down. If you want an anime that adheres to realistic space physics then I recommend Planetes.

Not that I think Gundam is realistic (Macross* all the way!), you could re-orient using reaction wheels / gyroscopes. That's what Keppler did. No RCS needed.

* Only reason I could think of building giant war robots is to fight giant war aliens. Otherwise, having a high profile humanoid tank seems like a bad idea.

[FenrirWolf]

I figure sci-fi ships and robots just have ridiculously efficient propulsion systems that give them effectively unlimited delta-v. But even then they do have a habit of maneuvering unrealistically depending on the show in question

[technicalfool]

...mecha suits are pretty far out there...

Ahem.

The Talos project engineers would beg to differ, I think.

[OtherDalfite]

Not that I think Gundam is realistic (Macross* all the way!), you could re-orient using reaction wheels / gyroscopes. That's what Keppler did. No RCS needed.

* Only reason I could think of building giant war robots is to fight giant war aliens. Otherwise, having a high profile humanoid tank seems like a bad idea.

Oh, I had no idea it used reaction wheels. But for the size of a gundam (10 meters tall?) they would have to be pretty reasonably sized.

Ahem.

The Talos project engineers would beg to differ, I think.

Not quite a large white and red painted warrior who fights with a plasma sword though.

[6.forty]

Not quite a large white and red painted warrior who fights with a plasma sword though.

No, but MIT can make a light saber and I've got some Krylon.

[egnio98]

Is gundam really that unrealistic? I remember that it was backed with science; they even introduced the minovsky particle to explain many things. Check the Wikipedia, the page on Universal Century does explain abit.