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And in old Trek it seemed that if the engines ever lost power the ship was in danger of deorbiting and crashing within hours for some reason.
by not2b 2y ago
And in old Trek it seemed that if the engines ever lost power the ship was in danger of deorbiting and crashing within hours for some reason.
- kaashif 2y agoMy theory was always that ships hardly ever orbited unpowered, they usually went into much lower powered "orbits" or even just hovered "in place" using the (immense) power of their engines.
- not2b 2y agoBut to fly so low as to slow the ship down if unpowered, they'd generate enormous heat from atmospheric friction. They could use shields but then the ship would glow, alerting the natives below and violating the Prime Directive. And they called it "standard orbit". Orbiting doesn't require power. Even a satellite in a very low orbit only needs a slight boost once in a while to counter the drag.
- XorNot 2y agoThere's no reason for the shields to cause friction though. They're not made of ordinary matter so an extended, very angular shield could probably cut through atmosphere seamlessly.
- shiroiushi 2y agoMaybe they need a very low orbit to keep the planet's surface in range of the transporters.
- not2b 2y agoNice try, but: "According to The Original Series (TOS) writers' guide, the effective range of a transporter is 40,000 kilometers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporter_(Star_Trek) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporter_(Star_Trek)
- shiroiushi 2y agoYeah, but maybe that's the maximum range when conditions are best. Much of the time, if there's an equipment problem called for in that episode, there's some issue with the planet's atmosphere ("electromagnetic storm" or similar) which causes trouble with the transporters.
- Izkata 2y agoThey're usually in geosynchronous orbit over the interesting area of the planet. That requires power to maintain if you're not just staying over the equator. Even over the equator it only works without power at a certain altitude.