What KSP has taught me to be annoyed at

[zeel]

IRL launching stuff is the easier part. It is keeping the people in space alive and healthy for months (years, if we are talking mining asteroids) where the problems start.

Yep, the hard part is the part that isn't even simulated in KSP.

[TimberWolffe]

Yep, the hard part is the part that isn't even simulated in KSP.

the hard part in KSP is keeping wings on your plane when using Phys Warp

[psyper]

1) and 2)

The question remains whether the "jet pack"/capsule has enough dV for such an inefficient maneuver, but I think they deliberately omitted things to 1. keep the drama going and 2. get not to sciency in a field that is not necessarily general knowledge.

3)

Not going to comment on this again.

iirc (I really need to watch it again!) didn't they have only half an hour or so of oxygen left compared to 'a lot' of delta-v in the jet pack. therefore a hoffman manoeuvre, although efficient, will not get them to the station in time before they oxygen runs out. Also the orbital mechanics involved in calculating a manoeuver such as this would be too much for george to calculate - its not like he can drop a manoeuvre node in to his orbit and adjust it until he gets an encounter - much better to just point and click like our kerbals do in eva when transferring from one ship to another..

IRL launching stuff is the easier part. It is keeping the people in space alive and healthy for months (years, if we are talking mining asteroids) where the problems start.

Yeah I totally forgot about that. I'm going with the naive assumption that if you throw enough equipment in to the air that eventually you'll have something that works. Not enough lifesupport? Throw some more oxygen and food in to orbit. Not enough mass in the bones? throw a centrifuge system in to orbit - I'm not talking about something huge like 2001's ship but just two living quarters connected by a long enough central column and spin them up should be enough for long term transport (would it be doable to slowly slow them down to acclimatise to mars gravity and not get any ill effects?).

[KerbMav]

iirc (I really need to watch it again!) didn't they have only half an hour or so of oxygen left compared to 'a lot' of delta-v in the jet pack. therefore a hoffman manoeuvre, although efficient, will not get them to the station in time before they oxygen runs out

"But Capt'n, Ima givven ya all she got!"

I am not objecting that they had to be fast, just pointing out that the fuel might not have been enough - but since we logged this under artistic license already ...

Yeah I totally forgot about that. I'm going with the naive assumption that if you throw enough equipment in to the air that eventually you'll have something that works. Not enough lifesupport? Throw some more oxygen and food in to orbit. Not enough mass in the bones? throw a centrifuge system in to orbit - I'm not talking about something huge like 2001's ship but just two living quarters connected by a long enough central column and spin them up should be enough for long term transport

The more you carry to Mars, the more fuel you need to get there, even if you get everything into orbit in nice small boxes.

Also, imagine now big your cargo hold would have to be for a minimum crew of three alone for the years it takes to get to Mars and back (after waiting for the next window).

(would it be doable to slowly slow them down to acclimatise to mars gravity and not get any ill effects?).

The ill effects do not come from a sudden change in gravity (OK, you do not want to change it all to sudden in the wink of an eye ...), but from prolonged time of gravity not being there and the body getting weaker because the lack of strain on muscles and bones makes the body "think", that he has to much of them and reduces their mass.

(Stop it you nitpickers, yes, gravity is always there, everyone knows, have a seat, take a cookie ... )

Edited October 1, 2014 by KerbMav

[Jovus]

Not to mention the fact that it doesn't just take 5 hours to get to the real Moon.

[RizzoTheRat]

I saw an interview with a NASA astronaut who reckoned the most unrealistic thing about the film Gravity was that as far as he know there wasn't a single female NASA astronaut who would let go of George Clooney if they got their hands on him

[MarvinKitFox]

Because of KSP I was able to point out so many flaws with the movie itself.

I hereby forbid you from dissing "Gravity" for its spaceflight inaccuracies, until you have done a similarly critical analysis of "Star Wars 1"

THEN, do a similar analysis of "2001, a Space Oddysey".

I would actually be very interested in reading about the errors in 2001, it should be a short list, despite the movie being older than 93% of the readers here.

[bonyetty]

You can't play enough Kerbal Space Program and be a full time dad.

KSP didn't teach me but one thing that really annoys me is, why do actors who have an amazing ability to only play them selves get payed so much. I would also rather see India send a few more space craft to Mars than an ok movie ruined by so called actors that can't do what they are payed to do, act.

Edited October 1, 2014 by bonyetty

[TimberWolffe]

I'm annoyed we don't have any interplanetary/interstellar spacecraft yet because no space agency is willing to send a bunch of people into space who likely won't return like come on we have this infinite expanse ahead of us and you guys won't take advantage of it what is wrong with you all

[cantab]

It's especially annoying when one ship is chasing another - the lead ship could spin around and fire back at them in reality, but in the movies they just keep running.

This one at least is excusable. If you're trying to get away, you'd better keep accelerating or your pursuer will overhaul you. Of course you can then ask why the ship doesn't have a turreted gun, or even a fixed rear-facing one.

[michaelhester07]

I watched Armageddon on cinemax a month or so back. There's a movie that simply forgets how space works beyond launch. We got shuttles with thrusters lit doing banking turns. The asteroid has strangely earth-like gravity when they throw the extension tubes for the drill aside. KSP taught me that space doesn't work like that. Never mind this one: There is an asteroid sized plothole while they're on the asteroid. Incoming spoiler alert (if you somehow haven't seen that movie from 1997!)

The whole plot when they get on the asteroid goes like this: one of the shuttles crashed while the other survived. The crashed shuttle was intact enough that the 3 guys could get on the tank drill machine and pilot it all the way across the asteroid to the intact shuttle. About half way though this we get houston activating the nukes on the shuttles to blow up the asteroid before it can hit earth.

We get a whole scene where Bruce Willis convinces the cmdr guy to turn off the nuke. They succeed with 5 seconds to spare. This is where the plot hole is. 5 seconds later everything should have faded to white while we watch a mushroom cloud go off on the asteroid. Why? Because the other shuttle's nuke survived the crash! It is very likely that nuke survived because the armadillo tank thing from that shuttle survived. Yes. Michael Baysplosions forgot that he had a whole nother nuke worth of explosion sitting on that rock because hey... double up on everything right? Even the nukes.

KSP taught me another thing about armageddon: It is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to move a large asteroid. That asteroid wouldn't have been deflected much even split in 2 by the nuke. Now we get 2 craters on earth instead of one. The roid in Armageddon is easily bigger than a Class E in KSP.

Now on to the OT:

Gravity's plot wouldn't have worked unless the ISS and the debris cloud were on perfectly perpendicular orbits and the same altitude. Otherwise you get like 1 pass for the cloud and then you'll never see it again for at least a few days.

I do agree that Clooney's death was retarded. The moment there was any tug on that rope that they were caught on would be the end of his velocity compared to sandra. One light tug and they're both in. He didn't need to die.

[Jovus]

Looking for fidelity and continuity in Armageddon is like looking for a unicorn in a swamp. All you're going to accomplish is to become disappointed and covered in filth.

[Mesons]

If you really want to get annoyed at Trek, consider this:

The Trek universe has FTL spaceships and astronomical sensors good enough to examine things in close detail from light years away. However, a standard plot setup is for the Enterprise to arrive at a scene moments after some disaster happened and to be puzzled as to what caused it.

Why don't they just back up a couple of light minutes and look?

Because that would violate causali-- oh, wait...

[Mesons]

I hereby forbid you from dissing "Gravity" for its spaceflight inaccuracies, until you have done a similarly critical analysis of "Star Wars 1"

THEN, do a similar analysis of "2001, a Space Oddysey".

I would actually be very interested in reading about the errors in 2001, it should be a short list, despite the movie being older than 93% of the readers here.

To my recollection (and I've seen 2001 a number of times, one of my favorite films), there were no significant physical errors in 2001. I'm willing to take the religious-esque argument that seeing things beyond your comprehension doesn't make them less believable, and attribute the last ~20 minutes of the film to technology beyond our understanding.

[Mesons]

You guys should all watch Babylon 5. You'd be proud.

Not sure if serious...

Babylon 5 is all about the drama, anyways.

Edit: Oops, didn't realize I was sorta spamming. I just saw so many things I wanted to reply to, and not all at the same time...

Edited October 1, 2014 by Mesons

[Red Iron Crown]

To my recollection (and I've seen 2001 a number of times, one of my favorite films), there were no significant physical errors in 2001.

No method of radiating away all the waste heat is the only one I know of. Apparently Kubrick and Clarke argued about it, Clarke saying they were vitally important while Kubrick felt that huge radiators would make the audience think Discovery was an atmospheric craft with wings. As usually happens in Hollywood, the director won out over the writer.

[SolarLiner]

I, for one, enjoyed Gravity very much and appreciated everything that it got it right, thanks to what KSP and Orbiter taught me. Yes, it is true, there are things wrong in this movie, but if every movie were this right with (orbital) physics I'd be very happy.

I can be mad at the X-wings physics, but not at Gravity's.

[JordanL]

Not sure if serious...

Babylon 5 is all about the drama, anyways.

Edit: Oops, didn't realize I was sorta spamming. I just saw so many things I wanted to reply to, and not all at the same time...

Babylon 5 does a better job with the orbital mechanics and science of it than almost ANY sci-fi I've ever watched. I was dead serious.

The show itself was about the characters and the drama, but the sci-fi aspects were so well done.

[KerbMav]

No method of radiating away all the waste heat is the only one I know of. Apparently Kubrick and Clarke argued about it, Clarke saying they were vitally important while Kubrick felt that huge radiators would make the audience think Discovery was an atmospheric craft with wings. As usually happens in Hollywood, the director won out over the writer.

Nevertheless the director factored in the brains of his audience?!

The Star Trek answer to this would be a special converter that takes the heat and does something with it.

[Hotblack Desiato]

This particular part of Gravity was the most annoying to me. Not only was it completely bogus (He was nearly stationary relative to her, so he pretty much should have already been moving back towards her, even if his pack weighed two tons. A slight tug might not have done it, but she was giving him a good 15 seconds of focused yank, which should have been enough to shift a very considerable weight in space), but it could have been fixed very easily- just make the station have gained some spin from the debris strikes. It probably would have, too, especially if a module depressurized asymmetrically. If they'd done that, not only would they have made it realistic for him to experience a force (centrifugal force) pulling him away from the station, but it would have added to the dizzying and disorientating mood of the film to have her trying to board the station while it was spinning (and deal with the forces while trying to get around inside) while probably keeping it easy enough to keep track of what was happening.

It's not just an example of movies forgetting about how physics works for creative license, its an example where the correct physics would actually have made a better movie.

did not see the movie, but I could think of some physically correct ways of getting them in dramatic problems.

we all know, if we set up a maneuver node for a rendevouz/docking, that our spaceship has some momentum relative to the target. now imagine, they had enough fuel to set up the correct maneuver, and right at the target, when they have to bring the spacecraft to a relative velocity of 0, they run out of fuel, drifting away again at very low speed. and then, in this situation, they could use their space suits to switch over to the station.

doing it "the kerbal way" would be even a bit more accurate (if it is possible to operate the ISS-airlock from outside) because docking is a maneuver which requres extremely high precision.

the only thing would be: the majority of the audience would not understand (at first), why the highest efficiency of maneuvers is accomplished when they are really far away. maybe a few minutes of scenes during lectures where she was would help to give the audience a grasp of how mechanics work.

[psyper]

perhaps flashbacks of when she was training and they are teaching her orbital mechanics

[magnemoe]

Nevertheless the director factored in the brains of his audience?!

The Star Trek answer to this would be a special converter that takes the heat and does something with it.

Yes, or more probably believe the radiators was solar panels, they would be thiner than wings and black and satellites and IIS has solar panels.

Note that the original matrix idea was that the matrix used human brains for storage or and part of the computing.

This was too complicated for the director who came up with the heat idea who is totally idiotic and most know.

In fact I guess the average sci-fi viewer know more science than the average director.

[ratchet freak]

perhaps flashbacks of when she was training and they are teaching her orbital mechanics

or just flashback of her playing KSP

[Wanderfound]

The Star Trek answer to this would be a special converter that takes the heat and does something with it.

Inconsistently, forgotten about whenever the plot demands it, and with implications that shatter the logic of the setting entirely if considered in any depth.

The Star Wars answer would be to turn a dumping-the-waste-heat scene into a very bad videogame tie-in.

Blake's 7 would have just let everyone cook to death. Except Avon, of course; he'd figure out a way to focus the heat onto his crewmates, leaving himself untouched.

[KerbMav]

Note that the original matrix idea was that the matrix used human brains for storage or and part of the computing. This was too complicated for the director who came up with the heat idea who is totally idiotic and most know.

Really?? That would have made so much more sense!