Vast Distances by Schism

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Vast Distances

POSTED BY: SCHISM
UPDATED: Saturday, February 21, 2009 08:59
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Friday, February 20, 2009 8:48 AM

If the Sun were the size of an orange...

...the Earth would be a grain of sand thirty feet away.

...Jupiter would be a cherry pit an entire city block away

...Pluto would be another grain of sand a futher ten city blocks away.

...the next orange (sun) would be a two thousand mile trek away.

(Paraprhased from Robert Jastrow's "Red Giants and White Dwarfs")

That's how much 'black' there is.

Most sci-fi doesn't really reckon the size and vastness of it that way. And if they do, they throw a warp drive or 'switch to light speed' patch onto the plot hole.

Firefly does try to emphasis the vastness of space, but given the above, do you think they do a realistic job of it?

Serenity could have a good engine that propells it at a good speed, but notice how the proximity alert only sounds when they're within visual distance of an object, and they always end up making a slow approach...

However they do at times say "x-planet is a good week away from here" so they do indicate some distance.

FF/Serenity is good at working around the sci-fi cliches as a rule.

What do you think about this one?

*granted the above is about OUR solar system*

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Friday, February 20, 2009 1:11 PM

FREELANCERTEX

Pluto's not a planet anymore though :P

yeah, firefly does tend to throw some added reality in there ^_^ still, for certain systems to be only a few weeks from each other, theyre either really close to each other, or the ships can travel slightly faster than normal speed.
Given that Mars is only half an AU (bout 46.5 million miles) away and it takes like...i think over a year to get there? makes u wonder :P

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Saturday, February 21, 2009 8:59 AM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by Schism:
Firefly does try to emphasis the vastness of space, but given the above, do you think they do a realistic job of it?

Yes and no.
On the one hand, they do make it clear that even if you have a space ship that flies at a million miles an hour, it will still take days or weeks to fly around a solar system.

On the other hand:
(1) Although Serenity doesna' break the laws of Physics by traveling faster-than-light, the ability to accelerate to a million mph in 20 seconds without the ship and everyone aboard ending up very, very thin and flat doesn't score highly in the plausibility stakes, either.

In some ways, wormholes or hyperspace jumps are more plausible (from a SF point of view) because we have no idea what the rules might be, whereas there are known, calculable problems associated with moving at a million mph - such as getting vaporised if you hit a piece of grit or having to somehow dump/store enough kinetic energy to level a city in order to slow down.

(2) As you touched on - despite the speeds at which they travel, when they do encounter other craft the relative velocity seems to be a few knots...

(3) One point omitted from your description of the solar system is that everything is whanging round the sun very fast. Our current means of interplanetary travel sends probes on intricate orbits (Jupiter... via Earth and Venus and Earth again) in order to get a free ride from gravity. Now, Serenity's magic engine makes things a bit more "point and shoot" but you still have to point at where your destination will be in 2 weeks time.

The verse is presented as if it is a series of fixed points and regions on the map (e.g. see the discussion of Miranda's location in the BDM).

(4) Every planet in the 'verse looks suspiciously like it is within 3 hours drive of LA. Can't think why. :-)

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