Comments on: p. 166 (Chapter Six)

By: The Occupant

The Occupant — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:16:47 +0000

An even better example is the “Flying Bedstead”, the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, though that was more of a flying spider.

By: Tara

Tara — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 16:30:37 +0000

I love it when you guys figure out the science stuff for me! I’ll also point out that the Contact Team had what must have been a very similar discussion back when they first saw the Hiawatha. And Carl was “out” for major portions of the event.

By: Quieteye

Quieteye — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:13:16 +0000

Here’s my take on it:

The ship has a gravity cancellation field around it. This is either a result or a requirement of the on-board gravity. With this working, a ship won’t accelerate due to gravity. Thus, it could “fall” (i.e. fly closer to the planet surface) very slowly if it wanted. Of course, if the gravity field fails at any point in the descent then all bets are off (hello brick).

However, there is still the problem of the ship’s and planet’s vectors (speed and direction). I’m assuming the ship can travel at high sub-light speeds to go between planets within a solar system in a reasonable time. I have to assume that the ship can normally change it’s vector relatively quickly if it needed to (maneuverability is a requirement amongst military vessels). Lifeboats, OTOH, would have very limited maneuverability.

So, the Hiawatha suddenly appears not too far from the planet with not matching vectors. The difference is enough that abandoning ship would get them killed (the lifeboats wouldn’t be able to get away from the planet’s path). The ship’s sub-light engines are not at full capacity (and could go at any minute), but the captain hopes to be able to match vectors before the planet runs into them. For the most part, the captain succeeds. It’s possible the anti-gravity failed just before landing (that’s why the captain didn’t order everybody to lifeboats once the vectors were closely matched).

By: Glennnn

Glennnn — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 13:23:42 +0000

I’m sorry.
As HardWearJunkie has said several times, This is ONLY a webcomic.
Even though the facts are true about those speeds involved, it really interferes with the enjoyment of reading this story to actually expect it to be completely based in our physical Universe.
Its Tara’s Universe, and she can do whatever she wants with it !

By: Glennnn

Glennnn — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:27:54 +0000

Coming out of their jump and into normal space where they were on a collision-course with the planet called for quick action.
If the jump engines put the ship at a velocity independent of the Galaxy, they had about 1.3 million miles an hour in one direction (the velocity of our galaxy) and also around 500,000 miles an hour due to its rotation speed to make up for, plus the velocity of the local star and the orbiting speed of the planet and its rotation.
To land their ship intact they had to match all those velocities until their relative velocity was zero!!!
This makes landing a jet plane (brick) on an aircraft carrier (postage stamp) a piece of cake, by comparison.

By: PABadger

PABadger — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:20:29 +0000

I’m with Hardware on this one; this is a low speed crash. It looks more like most of the damage came from the weight and mass of the spaceship hitting the ground heavily than the speed of the spaceship slamming into the ground. Spaceships go fast, and if this thing had really been travelling, there’d be a bigger crater and less wreckage, as the forces involved would have basically disintegrated the ship under even moderate speed (which, for a spaceship, is pretty darn fast; the runway at Kennedy for the shuttle landings, a much smaller brick, is 15,000 ft). To me, this looks like they landed a ship that really wasn’t supposed to land on terra firma, and they did it pretty well.

And Tara: as a trauma professional (EMT-B), I actually find nothing wrong with this sequence, aside from some details that would have slowed the story down. And besides, it’s a memory, so you can always say that Carl was just a little hazy on the details at the time, and thought it took a much shorter time than it did.

By: redbeard

redbeard — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:03:38 +0000

Most of what trauma professionals do to a patient these days simply boils down to compensating for lack of knowledge by assuming the worst possible case and treating the patient using that assumption until they can get the patient somewhere that they can find out more. I think we can assume that the handheld scanners they’re using here are probably giving the medics the equivalent of a whole hospital full of advanced scanner equipment as currently available — so they have a lot of on hand, immediate knowledge of the particular patient’s condition, and will only use what measures they really need, saving a lot of messing about.

By: HardWearJunkie

HardWearJunkie — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 06:04:54 +0000

With page 102, I’d have to say they were not travelling all that fast. To sustain the seemingly minor structural damage shown on that page the ship would have to have been moving very slowly in relation to the planet (probably travelling in the direction of the rotation), hit their reverse thrust or anti-gravity generators, and pray that they’ve slowed down enough to crash land without shredding the ship apart. I’m reminded of the Pitch Black opening sequence with the crash landing.

Then again, this is a comic.

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:54:33 +0000

Look at page 102 to see the full extent of the damage. Looks like a little too much forward momentum as the ship hit the ground.

By: Stewart

Stewart — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:25:45 +0000

You are all missing the simplest solution for the spaceship-looks-like-a-brick quandry:

magic space elves.

The crew keeps them in captivity under the floorboards, where they run around at night, screaming their horrible cries. Why do you think nobody’s in a hurry to sign up for these deep-space missions?