Depends on what they are doing. If they want to stay over a certain spot, then they either have to go all the way out to geosync, or they have to have a powered orbit, where they are not going fast enough to stay in orbit, but make up for it by thrusting constantly.
The expectation is that the power stays on, and there are backups and auxiliaries. Enough happening to make you start falling to the surface is the exception.
Seems like it would be a great way to get the dusting done.
Gee, thanks. I just tried reversing the polarity on my vacuum, and now the room looks like the Moon.
I assume you’ve read Doc Smith’s Skylark series? Our hero discovers a new, deeper level a matter that gives him an impenetrable shield and unstoppable weapon. Then in the next book, the bad guys have figured out how to duplicate it, so he discovers a deeper level that enables him to bypass the previous one. Rinse and repeat for each new book.
Even as a teenager with very little science background, it was too much. Probably made worse because I read them all back-to-back and it was really obvious he was just reusing his Mcguffin.
But that’s exactly what happens - molecules (proteins, mostly) are arranged in ways to strengthen particular neural pathways.
A memory is encoded information, in a format readable by your brain. You can make a DVD by arranging molecules into a particular pattern that, when read by a DVD player, turns into Star Trek. When you watch it, your brain takes a bunch of molecules, and arranges them in such a way that, when your brain access them later, you remember watching Star Trek.
Yeah, it’s even in the published trade paperback of the script.
It isn’t a star trek. It is a planet trek. They never land and trek around on a star.
Sounds like that could lead to hairy palms.
Space Angel tried. Sort of. A jet from the ship’s nose would cause the ship to turn, but the turn stopped as soon as the jet cut out.
My memory is that Babylon 5 was praised for its fighter ships being relatively realistic? Other then the whole improbability of fleets matching velocities to actually be able to deploy something like that, of course.
Watching airline disaster videos…just thought of a Trek inaccuracy
JJ Abrams first Trek movie, Sulu cant get the ship to warp: Look, you either have checklists, or you don’t. And since you don’t, there wouldn’t be any ‘trying to figure out what you did wrong’. The computer needs to either set you up to succeed or tell you what you’re doing wrong with a verbal or visual warning.
Yeah i can fanwank this away but its still annoying.
Course the helmsman and navigator positions never made much sense. What are they doing for 8 hours?? Why is the screen just showing a boring starfield for 99.9999% of the time. You don’t fly a starship at warp under visual contact rules! If you HAVE to have those poor schlubs on the bridge at all times, again this isnt a cruise ship, have them running simulations, studying…something. Picard gets to eff off to his own lounge and listen to music or what have you!
When Picard’s in his lounge, they are playing Galaga on the viewscreen.
There must be a “boss button” on the console to immediately switch over.
Internal sensors monitor Picard’s door. The second he triggers it to open, all the screens switch to “Work Mode.”
Except that one time when Wesley hacked the programming so that Data’s screen showed explicit Orion Slave Girl-On-Girl porn.
To be fair, Data did ask him to.
But, thinking on it, it does make sense for those stations to be occupied at all times. Airline pilots could probably get up, watch a movie, or take a nap. Most of the time, with very little input, the plane can do everything but land and take off on its own, and some can even do that. However, they stay at the controls, constantly monitoring and maintaining situational awareness, so that if something comes up, they don’t have to get up to speed before they can deal with it. The same could be said for those tasked with watching over a starship travelling across the galaxy.
I agree, totally.
However, unlike planes, there’s pretty much nothing to hit* in space, and you can’t fall down out of the sky if the engines quit. In Niven’s Known Space ships, they pretty much fly themselves (yes, except for the mass sensor, which is actually just an excuse to need a pilot for storytelling purposes.) Even as far back as pre-TNG I wondered what the bridge crew did all shift.
*except for giant space amoeba, temporal rifts, Negilum, interphase space, time quakes, flypaper traps, blood sucking gaseous clouds, wormholes…OTHER than that the ship could run by itself. 
We don’t really know what it’s like to fly through warp. There could be currents and eddies that you need to avoid, “jet streams” that you can use to be more efficient, it could even be more like driving down a highway on cruise control* than flying a plane.
Around planets, I always assumed they were station keeping, as they would stay over one spot on the surface, and they wouldn’t be far enough out to be in geosynchronous orbit, so they very well could fall out of the sky if the engines quit. (Technically, they would go into an elliptical orbit, which if not high enough, will have the perigee within the planet.)
*and as you point out, they have to watch out for the hazard of the week.
Yes, the powered hover, which explains how the ship could spiral down in Court Martial and The Naked Time etc. Examples the other way are how the Halkans fall out of range during the orbit, but we can just assume that’s Mirror thinking. They weren’t as clever as us normal universe people.
Its really the Helmsman and Navigator I feel for. Spock is always in his viewer when nothing is going on…though the way that is set-up is going to be hell on his back. Uhura is still doing communication stuff…I guess.
