Re: Star Trek Teaser Trailer Now Up On The Internets

On Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:10:54 -0700, Anim8rFSK <ANIM8Rfsk@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:


>> There's not such thing as an "orbit over the San Francisco Navy
>> Yards". There are geostationary orbits, but they only "hover" (22,300
>> miles up) over a point on the equator. San Francisco is not on the
>> equator.

>Trek never used 'orbit' the way we do.  Standard 'orbit' is way below 
>geosync, which is why they're always spiralling in at the first loss of 
>power.  They consider 'hovering under power' to be 'orbit'

I've always assumed "standard orbit" to be some typical value from the
center of the planet along the planet's equator, like "circular orbit
150% of the planet's diameter at 0 degrees inclination" or something
like that. It was never specified, but that's why the Enterprise
always seems to be the same size relative to the planet it's orbiting
in those visuals.

The first time they "spiralled out of orbit" was in "Naked Time"
because Psi 2000 was contracting beneath them and they had to keep
lowering their orbit, and the planet's gravity field was all wonky (so
the spiralling down makes sense within that context and shouldn't be
considered a typical danger to being in orbit.) The second time was in
"Court Martial", with no planet-breakup-wonky-gravity explanation, and
that was just lazy writing. I don't remember any others. ("The Apple"
was caused by external forces, not gravity or lack of engines.)

Not often, but in episodes like "Mirror, Mirror", their orbits worked
the ways ours do in the real world. Targets that the ISS Enterprise
was supposed to strike kept going out of range while Good Kirk tried
to think of a way to get out of doing it. "Galileo 7" deorbited and
burned up because it was in a very low orbit in the first place.

Also, none of the visuals in any way suggested that the Enterprise was
"hovering under power". They were always happily circling the planet
of the week.

Of course, if you have the power to hover anywhere you want above a
planet, then that could also explain how the Enterprise was built on
terra firma. They just used that magic propulsion system to fly up
into space once construction was finished.

Brian