Dumb science question.How is it the crew is not shaken about when they pitch the craft over? Apparently they can just walk around the bridge during all this motion.
Inertial Dampeners! Of course, there's not a whole lot of science on how to create such a thing. Without them, though, most of our popular science fiction would be a lot more boring (and bloody).
"Sir, we're accelerating at 1/10,000 light speed. We'll arrive at our destination in 5.6 years."
"Ma'am, they just fired and we can't move out of the way without crushing all of our crew!"
"We're about to hit the other ship, and due to our relative speeds the survival rate will be zero percent."
Eric summed it up. Because of the minimal gravity pull in space (not lack of, gravity is everywhere) the inertial dampeners and gravity plates mean that the crew feels next to nothing when moving. It doesn't matter if it's forward, backward, up, or down, it all has the exact same effect on them.
I think the funniest version of this was when Saturday Night Live did a Star Trek parody, where everyone had to lean to the sides as they performed evasive maneuvers.
The time marks go in reverse, so forward to 8:10.
Also note, the "Link" button doesn't really work, it mangles the html.
the inertial dampeners keep the crew from feeling the speed changes during rapid acceleration, similar to fighter pilots g suits that make the blood not rush into the head or feet and explode. the gravity if similar to star trek is based along the central beam, or backbone as described when deyvn was moving in eva to the bridge of the celestia. the gravity center is this beam which runs along the baseline of the ship.
of course this is speculation and only ryk knows the real answer about the gravity
I disagree. There are multiple references where they refer to gravity plating, and also to adjusting the intensity of the gravity. The gravity can't be coming from a single source. There must be multiple local generators, and he refers to "Gravity Plates" that seem to be the plate of metal on the floor.
Inertial dampeners would be separate, where they generate a field that suppresses inertia within the field. This allows the ship to jump between zero and 15,000 mph and yet the occupants are not turned into jelly on the back wall.
How you could suppress the inertia of mass is an interesting question. You would seem to be cheating science, but it sure makes writing fiction easier!
I think Mike Shepherd solved the problem of high-G accel in his Kris Longknife novels by introducing gravity couches his characters use during manouvering and/or high acceleration. But I like the inertial dampeners tech a lot more 😀
I think Mike Shepherd solved the problem of high-G accel in his Kris Longknife novels by introducing gravity couches his characters use during manouvering and/or high acceleration. But I like the inertial dampeners tech a lot more
It certainly seems like it would be easier to build drive systems without acceleration (such as ) than it would be to build an inertial dampener. An example would be something like an sublight Alcubierre drive. Although, that's mostly because there are at least concepts on how to build them.
Have you heard of Alcubierre’s "Warp Drive"? This is real science, but the energy required was so high that no one thought much about it. Apparently someone recently looked at it and decided the energy requirements are not so high after all.
http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive
I know it is all wishful thinking for those of us reading this series, but apparently it is being taken seriously. Do some searching on your own and weigh in.
