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Re: VOY S3: Rise

Jammer sez: By the way, I'm not even going to begin on the plausibility of a "300-kilometer pole in the ground extending into space.”

I’m surprised no one picked this up and ran with it a bit in the last 15 years.

Using the word “tether” to describe this alien-artifact-of-the-week implies it’s supposed to be an orbital space elevator. 300 kilometers is way too short under reasonable conditions.

The center of mass of the tether/elevator has to be at geosynchronous orbit altitude, and directly over the equator. For the Earth, thats about 38,000 kilometers, where the orbital period is the same as one planetary rotation period (aka one day). That way the elevator stays over the same spot on the ground.

If we assume the planet in this episode is earth-like in size, a 300 kilometer high synchronous orbit would mean its day is only about 90 minutes. The surface gravity would be significantly reduced because everything on the ground would already be going at almost orbital speed due to the planet’s rotation. There wouldn’t be much atmosphere left, either, even for a Vulcan’s highly efficient lungs. However it would make it really easy to launch a rocket into orbit, but only if you launch in the sunrise direction. Sunset direction launches would be really difficult.

So maybe it’s not an actual orbital tether, it’s just a really tall tower that sticks up above the atmosphere. This begs the question “Why?”. I suppose it would be a great observation platform (was there a rotating restaurant at the top?), or a free fall thrill ride with great hang time, or a long range cell tower, but I’m afraid the simple answer is “Because the script says we need a MacGuffin for which Neelix has special knowledge to make Tuvok dependent on him.” It could just as easily have been a steam locomotive (named “Blaine” instead of “Alixia”?) to take them to some horizontal destination required by the plot, and not much else would have needed rewriting. As a bonus, it would eliminate the hand wringing about just how thin the air would be at 30 kilometers altitude.

High point of the episode: Neelix telling off Tuvok. I like Ethan Phillips, and I like Neelix when he gets a story that doesn’t make him ridiculous. In this way I equate him with Armin Shimerman/Quark, but Neelix would never Rise (had to do that) to the level of peak Quark.

In 2008 (!), @grumpy_otter mentioned the Beanstalk in Heinlein’s novel “Friday” as an example of a space elevator. I liked “Friday”, it was prescient on several topics like the internet and mega-corporations.

Clarke’s “Fountains of Paradise” weaves much more technical detail into the narrative. Or for the stout-hearted reader, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy builds one (and breaks it) on Mars.. Or or Apple’s “Foundation” series for a great visualization of the destruction of an elevator, about 55 minutes into the first episode. Give the rest a miss if you read any of Asimov’s books of the same name.

Re: VOY S1: The Cloud

Regarding Jammer’s comment about it being a first for anyone bringing food to the bridge during a red alert. I just re-watched TOS “The Corbomite Maneuver”, and maybe it wasn’t an official red alert, but it was darn close:

Rand enters bridge with a tray of coffee.
McCoy: I thought the power was off in the galley.
Rand: I used a hand phaser, and Zap! Hot coffee.

Clearly establishes the lack of internal phaser discharge sensors in the Constitution class. At least in the galley.

Jammer was lukewarm on TCM, but it has become one of my favorites due to the character interaction. Plus it had Clint Howard as Balok, who is just about my age, so it was extra fun for an aspiring Trekker to watch back in ‘66.

Re: TOS S1: Arena

Funny how things float to the surface of my brain decades after watching some TV show or movie.

I was drinking my coffee this morning, silently cursing the upcoming time change to DST, and a thought suddenly occurred to me: “Hey, the Metrones rigged the fight against Kirk!” The Gorn didn’t have to reinvent gunpowder to win. The Gorn could have squeezed Kirk in half with a great big reptilian bear hug, if it could avoid getting its ears boxed again. At least I assume those were its ears. Kirk does have a talent for accidentally locating a hostile species gonads in the nick of time to save himself. (Ok, the coffee hadn’t kicked in yet).

On the other hand, the Gorn couldn’t just hide somewhere in a cold-blooded reptile trance conserving energy while waiting for speedy warm-blooded Kirk to pass out from starvation. Industrious primate Kirk was scurrying around looking for a way to kill a big strong reptile from a distance.

Amazing that I’m still thinking about Trek after 50+ years. As a kid, I had the whole set of Blish script novelizations (and his Trek novel “Spock Must Die!” with Scotty’s immortal line, “I’d rather stick a 15 Ampere tap directly into God!” He didn’t want to try drawing power directly from Hilbert space. To give a shuttle craft warp drive capability, of course. Why else would you do it? Read it if you can find a copy. Better than your average FanFic. ). I was always surprised when there was a change in the book that contradicted The Truth of the TV Episode. It wasn’t until much later that I found out that the books were done from earlier versions of the scripts than what finally ended up on film. I vaguely recall the previous reference about the Metrones in the book having actually planned to exterminate the victor’s species. I also recall something about not having coal, but there were piles of diamond dust along with the larger stones to use as projectiles. Kirk assumed the diamond dust would substitute for coal/charcoal, since hey, carbon is carbon, right? Just as well they changed it to coal in the script. It takes a lot of heat to keep a diamond burning in normal air, although it will sustain its own combustion in pure oxygen once it’s ignited.

If you’re still with me, I hope you enjoyed my rambling thoughts on one of my favorite topics. I’m sure my coherence level will be worse tomorrow after we’ve all robbed ourselves of an hour of perfectly good sleep. Perhaps they’ll come to their senses by the 23rd century and stop doing this foolish twice-annual temporal displacement ritual.

Re: TOS S2: The Deadly Years

On this day, October 13, 2021, James T. Kirk (AKA William Shatner) , at the age of 90 years young, went boldly on a mission to the final frontier aboard a New Shepard space ship.

I’m sure that not a few of the scientists, engineers, and visionaries who made the flight possible were inspired by Star Trek. This flight is a fitting tribute to that inspiration. It is also a source of satisfaction and hope for the older Trekkies among us. It certainly is for this original broadcast fan.