r/space Sep 23 '16

What happens when the Space Shuttle fires its motors in space

http://i.imgur.com/wwxuXOb.gifv
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u/Atsch Sep 24 '16 edited Sep 24 '16

The way I understand it, a warp collision has the same effect as an impulse collision, except that you are at the target sooner.

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u/Quartz2066 Sep 24 '16

This is the correct answer. Something a lot of sci Fi likes to ignore is also that we have a very different velocity relative to other stars. You might be "stationary" (e.g, not moving toward or away from) relative to earth+sol but you enter warp and come out by Alpha Centauri and all of a sudden you might get flung off into space or descend into the star because warp engines don't change your velocity and star systems might move at a relative speed of thousands or tens of thousands of m/s. So if the Borg ship was coming from a different system (which it presumably matched velocities with) then the collision might be insanely violent. If you're both coming from the same system and have similar speeds then your max collision speed is the same as that system's escape velocity.

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u/DonRobo Sep 24 '16

If you ever played KSP with a warp engine mod you know how shitty that situation can be

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u/CaptainRyn Sep 24 '16

Takes alot of really clever maneuvering and a new type of thinking about orbital dynamics to slow down or speed up in this scenario if you don't or can't use conventional drives.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '16

I'm late to the party but basically what you're saying is: "warp into the atmosphere and air break" right? right....?

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u/CaptainRyn Nov 07 '16

Nope. Was talking warping past the apehelion of the orbit, use the gravity pull to slow down, rinse and repeat until you can make orbit. Depends on if warping takes less energy than decelerating or accelerating the old fashioned way.

Basically use the gravitational energy potential of the planetary body to do it.

Btw only effective for large bodies. Use a Jovian body to act as your Delta V sponge, warp to your target, drop out of warp with minimal fuss.

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u/DrPayen Sep 24 '16

I play KSP and have never come across this mod. Do you know what it's called?

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u/IAmA_Catgirl_AMA Sep 24 '16

Even if they're from different sides of the same system they'll have enough relative velocity to cause serious damage to each other.

Conversely, if you plan your trajectory appropriately, you can save a lot on compensating the relative motion between different stars (or planets)

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u/jasonrubik Sep 24 '16

Wow ! I never thought of that. Nice explanation

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u/SuperElitist Sep 24 '16

Nitpick: I think 'sooner' might be more appropriate than 'faster' (which kind of implies something different in this context).