How to build your own rocket ship in a realistic way

Started by Alatriste, June 22, 2009, 07:54:42 AM

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Alatriste

June 22, 2009, 07:54:42 AM
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

What the title says. A truely fascinating SF page of the diamond hard variety. Only the section aptly named 'Common misconceptions' would be enough to justify a visit.

A short list of those misconceptions:

Space Is Not An Ocean
Space Is Three Dimensional
Rockets Are Not Boats
Rockets Are Not Fighter Planes
Rockets Are Not Arrows
.
.
.
And very specially There Ain't No Stealth In Space!!!!!

Josquius

#1
June 22, 2009, 08:01:33 AM
Fighter plane spaceships in particular anger me to no end.
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Razgovory

#2
June 22, 2009, 08:31:53 AM
Damn,  Looks like I don't know shit.  I didn't think space was an ocean or that rockets were in fact boats.  Looks like I was suffering under a common misconception.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

grumbler

#3
June 22, 2009, 10:25:45 AM
The guy left out one common misconception that he appears to be unaware of:
"The purpose of science fiction is entertainment, not education, and the "facts" in it serve the fiction element not the science element."

I enjoy watching/reading writers who work diligently to accommodate the laws of physics in their fiction as much as anyone, but to chastise shows and writers for using common conventions (even when wrong) when it serves their story purposes better is to put the cart in front of the horse.  Sure, shows could have their spaceships travel around upside down relative to one another, but that doesn't serve the purposes of the story because the audiences wouldn't like it.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Syt

#4
June 22, 2009, 10:31:28 AM
So, that's the pysicists' version of the guys who nitpick ahistoric details in movies like The Patriot or A Bridge Too Far?
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Razgovory

#5
June 22, 2009, 12:12:03 PM
Quote from: Syt on June 22, 2009, 10:31:28 AM
So, that's the pysicists' version of the guys who nitpick ahistoric details in movies like The Patriot or A Bridge Too Far?

I really liked a Bridge To far.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

PDH

#6
June 22, 2009, 12:41:05 PM
Where is Far?
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-Umberto Eco

-------
"I'm pretty sure my level of depression has nothing to do with how much of a fucking asshole you are."

-CdM

lustindarkness

#7
June 22, 2009, 12:57:37 PM
Quote from: PDH on June 22, 2009, 12:41:05 PM
Where is Far?
The other side of the bridge.
Grand Duke of Lurkdom

Razgovory

#8
June 22, 2009, 01:09:03 PM
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Alatriste

#9
June 24, 2009, 07:29:41 AM
Quote from: grumbler on June 22, 2009, 10:25:45 AM
The guy left out one common misconception that he appears to be unaware of:
"The purpose of science fiction is entertainment, not education, and the "facts" in it serve the fiction element not the science element."

I enjoy watching/reading writers who work diligently to accommodate the laws of physics in their fiction as much as anyone, but to chastise shows and writers for using common conventions (even when wrong) when it serves their story purposes better is to put the cart in front of the horse.  Sure, shows could have their spaceships travel around upside down relative to one another, but that doesn't serve the purposes of the story because the audiences wouldn't like it.

That's one thing, but the 'airplanes in space' complete with roaring engines that get noisier when approaching and then vanish gradually in the distance, is quite another.... 2001 shows it can be done well (even 2001 included several simplifications; they didn't include heat radiators or fuel depots in the Discovery, for example... but they weren't ridiculous mistakes)   

Darth Wagtaros

#10
June 24, 2009, 09:17:24 AM
Quote from: Alatriste on June 24, 2009, 07:29:41 AM
Quote from: grumbler on June 22, 2009, 10:25:45 AM
The guy left out one common misconception that he appears to be unaware of:
"The purpose of science fiction is entertainment, not education, and the "facts" in it serve the fiction element not the science element."

I enjoy watching/reading writers who work diligently to accommodate the laws of physics in their fiction as much as anyone, but to chastise shows and writers for using common conventions (even when wrong) when it serves their story purposes better is to put the cart in front of the horse.  Sure, shows could have their spaceships travel around upside down relative to one another, but that doesn't serve the purposes of the story because the audiences wouldn't like it.

That's one thing, but the 'airplanes in space' complete with roaring engines that get noisier when approaching and then vanish gradually in the distance, is quite another.... 2001 shows it can be done well (even 2001 included several simplifications; they didn't include heat radiators or fuel depots in the Discovery, for example... but they weren't ridiculous mistakes)   
2001 was also about as slow as molasses on a Vermont winter morning.  I like space battles and explosions and the USS Reliant blowing up the Enterprise.  The hard sci-fi version of that would take weeks (relative) and involve sloooow turns and info dumps of the variety that make Dave Weber look concise.
PDH!
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