Stargate Universe: Light (Episode 5) [spoilers]

[ExTank]

@carnivorousplant

I thought that was standard for Apollo missions. Upon receiving a go ahead for a landing, a burn changed the trajectory into a lunar orbit.

As I understand it, that was normally the case with Apollo missions. 13 was different, due to the landing site.

[WarmNPrickly]

@ExTank

Free return trajectory, which they had to achieve with a burn of the LEM’s descent engine shortly after the initial explosion. They also did a burn after coming out from around the moon (in the book, not shown in the movie), as well as at least one course correction burn, IIRC.

WarmnPrickly: gravity is gravity. Given “shields” to dissipate heat and “structural integrity fields” to hold a ship together (IOW, sci-fi gadgetry), then atmo braking and course correction is not beyond the realm of possibility, especially using a gas giant.

We’re not going to be doing any such thing anytime soon, but a given a few hundred years of technological progress, who knows.

It’s difficult to tell how fast these ships are going, but it must have been a matter of hours to go through the sun and reconnect with the escape pod. That means they must be traveling pretty close to the speed of light. Technically, the slingshot effect may work, but I highly doubt it will be very significant. When we use these effects on probes, they are going a lot slower. The momentum transfer has to be a lot higher in a much shorter time for near light speed spaceships.

Of course, I suppose there could be days between the time the Destiny left the sun and reconnected with the escape pod.

[carnivorousplant]

@ExTank

As I understand it, that was normally the case with Apollo missions. 13 was different, due to the landing site.

It appears to me that they had changed from Free Return Trajectory before the tank burst, and the burn of 61:30 returned them to FRT; although the first quote supports your opinion about a landing site, they began with FRT.

At 30 hours and 40 minutes after launch (30:40 ground elapsed time), the crew ignited their main engine to put the spacecraft on a hybrid trajectory, a flight path that saved fuel in reaching the desired lunar landing point.

Flight controllers, meanwhile, were addressing operational problems. Their first critical decision was to put the crippled spacecraft back on a free-return trajectory, which was accomplished by firing the LM descent engine at 61:30

Quote is about half way down in this link.

[AlsoNamedBort]

@ExTank

:smack: Check the website, dumbass!

Thanks, I never saw that.

You know, even though it was fairly obvious what was going to happen (I don’t think they’re gonna destroy the ship 5 episodes in) that was still a great moment when the power came back on. I liked Eli’s look of happiness followed slight disappointment when the shuttle made it back.

I was hoping that instead of making it back, they would have to land on the planet and jump into the Stargate, leaving the ship (and most of their supplies) behind. Then all they would have is a damaged shuttle with a dead Senator in it.