Hard SF details in Serenity (*possible spoilers*) by DonCoat

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Hard SF details in Serenity (*possible spoilers*)

POSTED BY: DONCOAT
UPDATED: Saturday, October 8, 2005 18:13
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Saturday, October 8, 2005 6:13 PM

Firefly and Serenity aren't really hard SF -- that is, they don't rely on accurate science details. But sometimes we do get some hints about how things might work in the 'verse.

Here's an example from Serenity. When we first come aboard, a piece has just fallen off during reentry: the "primary buffer panel". This gets both Mal and Wash very interested.

Now, what is this thing, and why are they concerned about it? We get a hint almost immediately. Wash says that Kaylee needs to "give us some extra flow" to "offset the burnthrough".

Here's how I interpret this. Serenity has no obvious heat shielding, such as the Space Shuttle's tiles or the ablative shield of Apollo-type capsules. How can it survive a reentry?

There are a few possibilities. We could require the ship to slow down so there's little or no speed difference, hence no significant friction. But that can't be the case; we can see we're coming in hot.

Or, there could be some super material, a metal or ceramic that resists frictional heating better than anything we know. Certainly possible. On the other hand, if a piece of that fell off (oh, say, a primary buffer panel) the ship could still be in danger of overheating and burning up. Such was the fate of Columbia when it lost a critical part of its heat shield.

Which brings us to possibility 3. Some high-speed aircraft use active cooling of their leading-edge surfaces -- they run cryogenic fuel through passages in the wings and nose, then dump the heat overboard by burning that fuel in the engines.

I'm now convinced that Serenity has exactly that kind of active cooling system, and that's what Wash was saying when he recites what at first seems to be just a line of Trekkish technobabble. He's saying, Kaylee needs to pump more cryo coolant through the nose to offset the loss of the heat shield, so we don't burn up.

Anybody notice any other such details?

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