Good Science and Bad Science And Lack Thereof In Science Fiction Films and TV Series

Gravity: The orbital cloud of debris. While I did enjoy that film, that was way off. The orbit of the astronauts likely would have been Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and it's suggested they are in a 90 minute orbit. The cloud of debris was then stated to reach them every 90 minutes as well - so would have been going twice as fast as them. That would have, due to orbital mechanics, lifted the debris to a much higher altitude and therefore beyond where it would have harmed them.

Even if the missile which caused all that had struck a satellite below them somehow causing the debris to reach their speed. They would have simply had a big cloud of junk following, or ahead, of them.

But it was a good film.

ralphkern said:

The cloud of debris was then stated to reach them every 90 minutes as well - so would have been going twice as fast as them. That would have, due to orbital mechanics, lifted the debris to a much higher altitude and therefore beyond where it would have harmed them.

Even if the missile which caused all that had struck a satellite below them somehow causing the debris to reach their speed. They would have simply had a big cloud of junk following, or ahead, of them.

Click to expand...

Not seen the film, but....

<Science Pedant says> mmmm... depends what you actually mean by 'faster', but surely lower orbits have higher orbital velocities. So if faster, debris would be on a lower altitude to them. Yes, one has to accelerate out to 'break orbit' but when it stabilises on a new one, if you are further out you will be going slower (from Kepler's third - Velocity will be approximately proportional to one over the square root of the orbital radius)...</Science pedant gets put back in box>

...but yes I take your point, if the velocity of the cloud of debris is different from the astronauts they shouldn't be on the same orbit...



Perhaps, to paraphrase Spock in Wrath of Khan: "His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking". What about if the debris is on the same orbital period but be on different planes? Therefore every 90 minutes the astronauts and the debris - which is going on all sorts of different routes around Earth merrily avoiding each other - basically all return to the original spot of the explosion? Hence giving you a potential collision every 90 minutes?

BAYLOR said:

Independence Day They fly a captured alien ship to the main mothership (which is a stretch in and off it self) , download a virus which disables the shields on all the invading ships so that we can defeat the aliens Considering how different the hardware and software is, there is no just no possible way that this works.

Click to expand...

Yes - that always really bugged me in that film (along with loads of other stuff).

As for the original question; how long have you got? The list would be too long to type! But for just one how about Avatar (or maybe we just shouldn't get started on that one) I mean... Unobtanium... please!

Mission to Mars. That one had me hopping up and down in my seat with its genetics "science." I really could not keep still every time they opened their mouths to spout some DNA hocus pocus. I think I narrated the movie in a whisper to my husband. Good thing no one was around us in the theater that day!

Venusian Broon said:

Perhaps, to paraphrase Spock in Wrath of Khan: "His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking". What about if the debris is on the same orbital period but be on different planes? Therefore every 90 minutes the astronauts and the debris - which is going on all sorts of different routes around Earth merrily avoiding each other - basically all return to the original spot of the explosion? Hence giving you a potential collision every 90 minutes?

Click to expand...

I take your point on that one, but that would perhaps rely on so many coincidences? Plus in order for the threat to be at a 90 minutes period, on the button... The explosions and the astronauts would have had to start off at the same location. It could, at a push, and here's where we have to acknowledge the simple size of even LEO, account for one pass, but the chances of the two orbiters intersecting again wouldn't be for weeks, months, years or even longer. (and again a very large coincidence it happened on the first orbit).

And JLC, one of our 'fun' drunken games at uni was to turn the sound down and speak the parts of characters. Mission to Mars should've been on the list

What I could never figure out about Mission to Mars (besides the plot, the pseudo-scientific claims, etc) was the sound-track. It sounded like someone had taken it straight out of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. I mean, the rest of the movie looks like it had a pretty decent budget, but then the background music is done by some drunk guy on a theremin?

Vertigo said:

Yes - that always really bugged me in that film (along with loads of other stuff).

As for the original question; how long have you got? The list would be too long to type! But for just one how about Avatar (or maybe we just shouldn't get started on that one) I mean... Unobtanium... please!

Click to expand...

Avatars fair game as is everything else.

Bizmuth said:

What I could never figure out about Mission to Mars (besides the plot, the pseudo-scientific claims, etc) was the sound-track. It sounded like someone had taken it straight out of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. I mean, the rest of the movie looks like it had a pretty decent budget, but then the background music is done by some drunk guy on a theremin?

Click to expand...

The music in that film was godawful , then again so was the whole film.

Bizmuth said:

What I could never figure out about Mission to Mars (besides the plot, the pseudo-scientific claims, etc) was the sound-track. It sounded like someone had taken it straight out of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. I mean, the rest of the movie looks like it had a pretty decent budget, but then the background music is done by some drunk guy on a theremin?

Click to expand...

You might find the 1968 film Mission Mars to be even less plausible. They explore mars with Space suits that are obviously not pressurized at all.

BAYLOR said:

You might find the 1968 film Mission Mars to be even less plausible. They explore mars with Space suits that are obviously not pressurized at all.

Click to expand...

Or the moment in Space 1999 when one of the lead Eagle pilots (Alan?) was tackling a monster in the very-near vacuum of the moon* in his space suit when his visor casually flipped up and down to reveal his bare face as he did slo-mo fighting with it.

* Moon atmosphere snippet - did you know that the Apollo missions caused the atmosphere of the Moon to increase by a couple orders of magnitude. Which sounds impressive, but it was because there was virtually nothing there in the first place, so it didn't take much exhaust and leakage to multiply it! I think it's probably all gone by now and back to virtually nothing...

Ahhh, yes, Space 1999. Back when I was so desperate for anything sf that it looked good to me. And very cool tidbit, Venusian Broon!

ralphkern said:

And JLC, one of our 'fun' drunken games at uni was to turn the sound down and speak the parts of characters. Mission to Mars should've been on the list

Click to expand...

Hey I did that game, too. Well sort of. While we were waiting for the mess to open for dinner I would put Star Trek on in the lounge. The sound was crap so we'd narrate for them. Sadly no booze. Will play quote game for chocolate, though.

Yep, complete nonsense. As if two man made computers could establish a comms link straight off and without problems, never mind a man made computer and an alien computer.

Click to expand...

unless... the aliens are really ourselves...

As if two man made computers could establish a comms link straight off and without problems

Click to expand...

Not so hard as it used to be. The Aliens in my SF on the "professional" radios have EVERY transmission mode known (Software Defined Radio does exist, I have a Radio that can do most of the modes we know*) to them over the last 5,000 years.
It does take them a few hours to figure Analogue TV and a lot longer for TCP/IP, UTF, ASCII, JPEG, Digital TV, fonts etc ...
I'm familiar with every data, fax, voice, Radio, TV, networking since about 1840s** so I tried to put this in a realistic but non-infodump / non-boring way.
* Actual modulation is based on mathematics, mathematically modulations such as OOK/ASK, AM, FSK, PM (NBFM), WBFM, GMSK, PSK, QAM, APSK, OFDM etc and various kinds of Digital data multiplexing, Error correcting are logical progressions of complexity. "Blind Scan" on a modern satellite receiver searches for signals, figures bandwidth, then modulation type and then other parameters such as symbol rate, APSK levels, FEC etc, then MPEG types in the data stream. All by software. Some of the data can be faked or spoofed TCP/IP as down half of a datalink, then a modem can "know" which uplink frequency, time slot, modulation, symbol rate and FEC to transmit back on. Communications between spacecraft will use same principles, even if laser based.

** I'm so glad having to figure RS232, RS485, RS422, Token Ring, Arcnet, Netbeui etc is rare now.

Okay, just watched Dark Matter. Why did the missiles, fired in space with no obstacles between the firing ship and the target ship to a nicely photogenic curve to orient on the target ship (this was before it moved)?

Why did a guy who clear identified as being the weapons genius fire an energy weapon directly at the big-ass cargo door? Was he LOOKING to get knocked over? And why, once he did he fire a gun at a cargo door, which he clearly hoped would put a hole in it, did it not put holes in him when it ricocheted back and sent him flying quite literally off his feet. How is it he got up again with no damage once he woke up from it?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Because in Films they only care about it looking cool, not accuracy?

Prometheus featured a scientist crewmember removing his helmet after summarily "testing the chemical composition of the atmosphere"

Frequency 2000 staring Dennis Quad and James Caviezel . Man talks to 30 years dead deceased father on ham radio . it's more in the realm of fantasy . But I like this film a lot.

Them 1954 world get terrorized by Giant Ants which were created by The radiation from Nuclear test 10 years prior. This one has a number implausibilities . First Giant ants or insects are impossibility because they don't lungs, they breath through pores in their skin, for a tiny organism that one inch or less , that system of respiration works fine but, the larger the organism the less efficient this method of breathing. A giant ant 9 feet long would not be able to get oxygen , it. would suffocate. Now even if we ignored the respiration issues there is still the fact that ti only 10 years to grow gigantic , not possible in any way shape or form , also also why wouldn't there have been a lots nest with ants of intermediate sizes?

Stephen Palmer said:

unless... the aliens are really ourselves...

Click to expand...

OOOO....neat idea. Especially as it has some bearing on the otherwise near absolute inexplicability of why they attacked us like they did in the first place. I'm gonna steal it. Don't worry, I treat ideas I abduct kindly (I have so few of my own) and they're free to go home whenever they wish

One that bothers me so bad I've actually bitched about it on here before is the fact that the clones in Orphan Black are detected by their all having identical fingerprints. That wouldn't happen, Fingerprints aren't genetic, they're created by absolutely random processes, (they're whorls in the thicker skin on our hands and feet) and that's why there's such certainty there are no duplicates. If they were genetic we'd be misidentifying innocents with their guilty relatives, especially twins, all the time

The problem is that it isn't something trivial, it's a very central plot point, and the show is so very excellent otherwise.