Newton's 1st Law by Techboy

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Newton's 1st Law

POSTED BY: TECHBOY
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 10:46
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 1700
PAGE 1 of 1

Saturday, October 26, 2002 7:10 PM

Not that I want to get all techy on people, nor detract from a supurb episode (the first show I wanted to watch a second and third time right away), but was Serinity still drifting, or staying put? A body in motion and all that.

================================================
Today, as I was having lunch, I was watching the birds in the trees and wondered what it would be like if birds knew that people didn't like being shat on. As I was thinking this, a bird shat on my sandwich. Perhaps I knew too much...

-Simon Travaglia
If you like that, check this out.[url= http://bofh.ntk.net/]

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, October 27, 2002 12:31 AM

LIVINGIMPAIRED

Quote:
Originally posted by Techboy:
Not that I want to get all techy on people, nor detract from a supurb episode (the first show I wanted to watch a second and third time right away), but was Serinity still drifting, or staying put? A body in motion and all that.

Yeah, I think I remember them mentioning that they would eventually drift to the planet they were aiming for, but the problem was that they wouldn't live that long.

________________

"You still don't get it. It's not about right. It's not about wrong... It's about Power." —Morph-O-Monster, "Lessons"

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, October 30, 2002 10:46 AM

BULBUS

Yeah, there's no problem with drifting in space. Technically, if you look at it in a simplistic manner, you'd only need to fire your engines once to get to top speed, and then cut them off. With no air to speak of, there's no friction to slow you down. You'd keep going off in one direction forever.

Space isn't that simplistic though, there's attractive forces from other planets, stars, and even from ships passing you by. Most of these forces would be too small to be detected, as in the case of ships, but if you were near a planet and your engines shut down, and you hadn't been going that fast to begin with, you could conceivably be locked in a orbit that would eventually result in reentry.

That's why navigation is so tricky in space, what with all the planets moving around, calculating their influences on your course, correcting your heading, aiming for where the destination will be... etc. etc.

Of course, I could be wrong about my post here, I freely admit it. I'm not a physics master or anything, so if someone corrects me, I won't take it wrong

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

YOUR OPTIONS

SHARE THREAD

NEW POSTS TODAY

USER	POST DATE

USER

POST DATE