[meteorite-list] What Does A Real Astronaut Think Of 'Gravity'?
From: James Beauchamp <falcon99_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 21:32:33 -0500 Message-ID: <345B24A1-C49F-4903-8456-5F737BDAFCD6_at_sbcglobal.net> The answer to #2 is, YES. Ask Dr. Musgrave :) Sent from my iPad On Oct 18, 2013, at 1:23 PM, "Matson, Robert D." <ROBERT.D.MATSON at leidos.com> wrote: > Hi Paul, > > I, too, loved the movie for all the reasons that Garrett Reisman gave > in the interview. For all the very difficult things that they got > right, I was a little surprised by some of the small things they > got terribly wrong -- which would have been trivial to get right. > Here are a few, some of which were mentioned by Garrett, a few > that were caught by Neil deGrasse Tyson (who, like me, loved all > the things the movie got right!), and some that are my own. SPOILER > ALERT for those that haven't seen Gravity and intend to do so!! > I've done my best to only mention enough about the flaws to identify > them. No need to discuss the plot, overall storyline or ending. But > if you're going to see the movie, stop reading now!! > > Here we go: > > 1. As mentioned by Garrett, Sandra Bullock's inability to "hold on" > to Clooney in a particular scene. The only way this scene would > have made sense is if the end of the tether they were attached to > was rotating about the station (generating centripetal force). > But it wasn't. > > 2. Was a first-time astronaut medical doctor the best choice for > performing an EVA and doing a Hubble repair? > > 3. I'm not 100% sure of this next one (I would need to see the > movie again), but it appeared that all the satellite debris > was orbiting in the opposite direction of ISS -- i.e. east to > west. Given the country of origin of the debris, this would be > backwards. > > 4. Communication satellites would have been fine in GEO, though > I understand the plot need for a loss of communication with the > ground. > > 5. ISS and the Chinese Space Station are orbiting at different > inclinations (ISS at 51.65 degrees, Shenzhou at about 42.8 degrees), > so they are rarely anywhere near each other. When they are, they > have huge relative velocities, so there is no way to get from > one to the other. > > 6. Set aside #5 and allow for some "future" Chinese Space Station > that ~does~ happen to have a very similar orbit to ISS. If you > want to "fly" from one station to the other roughly 100 km away, > and you can only do a single propulsive burn to force the > intercept, the one thing you do NOT do is aim directly at your > target! Orbital mechanics is counterintuitive, and to perform > such a rendezvous maneuver would actually require you to aim > in the opposite direction -- and get the delta-V *exactly* > right. > > 7. If your space station has the misfortune of being in an orbit > that intersects the general orbit of an expanding cloud of debris, > you will not cross that debris cloud every 90 minutes -- you'll > cross it every 45 minutes. Of course, the pace of the movie was > already lightning fast, so having only 45-minutes between > episodes of terror may not have fit the timeline the writer > envisioned. > > --Rob > > ______________________________________________ > > Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com > Meteorite-list mailing list > Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list Received on Fri 18 Oct 2013 10:32:33 PM PDT |
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