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Bullock's leg was entangled with the parachute cords, and holding on to Clooney's tether with one hand. The Bullock-Clooney system was inertially travelling awa

by bcoates 13y ago

Bullock's leg was entangled with the parachute cords, and holding on to Clooney's tether with one hand. The Bullock-Clooney system was inertially travelling away from the ISS, to which one end of the parachute lines was anchored. The tangle of parachute cords was straightening as the distance increased. Eventually, they will run out of slack, at which point there will be an impact which (in Clooney's opinion) would either cause Bullock to lose her grip on the tether (dooming Clooney) or cause the cord looped around her foot to slip free (dooming them both). Bullock is barely connected to anything, has only one hand free (at best), and is in a terrible emotional state, rendering her incapable of useful action. Clooney throws off his tether which causes three things to happen: 1. A small amount of seperating momentum to both Clooney and Bullock, pushing Clooney further away and slowing Bullock towards the ISS. 2. Halving the force needed to stop Bullock's movement away from the ISS. 3. Freeing up Bullock's hands to improve her attachement to the parachute cord. I have no idea if the math works out but I don't see the theoretical problem with the situation physics-wise.

vilhelm_s 13y ago
I think the parachute cord is already taut when this scene takes place (see 1:08 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjLcIxcSaik http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjLcIxcSaik), so I don't see how it can run out of slack beyond this. And in your version, where does the tension in the tether between Bullock and Clooney come from?
- Retric 13y ago
  A realistic solution would be for them to be rotating which pulls the line taught and when released he would seemingly fall. However, I don't think that's shown in the actual visuals as they would have to be rotating fairly quickly or the cord needs to be really long for that to be a significant issue. Anyway, just looking at the previews I saw a enough holywood physics to give the thing a pass. The way the ISS was destroyed looked cool but the physics was terrible.
  - arrrg 13y ago
    Not really sure why you care about that. It doesn’t pretend to be accurate so it doesn’t really matter.
    - Retric 13y ago
      Some people can't stand bad acting, I hate bad physics. I think it's the same basic issue. When a movie shows something that's close but off it simply breaks the suspension of disbelief. It's probably got something to do with the uncanny valley where talking stick figures don't cause problems, but the more realistic the setting the less wiggle room you have. I suspect most people have similar pet peeves. I remember watching a action movie with an ER doctor once. They had the same sort of reaction but with the long list of injury's people would end up with. Or how many tech people get offended by computer techno-babel in movies.
  - mrec 13y ago
    [MORE SPOILERS] They are shown rotating slowly, so it's sort of possible given an elastic parachute cord, but it's awfully contrived. You also have to wonder, given how slowly he drifted off, why Matt couldn't unstrap that empty thrust pack and use it as reaction mass, as Ryan does with the empty fire extinguisher later on. The bigger gaffe for me was Matt's instruction to Ryan, right after the first hit, to detach from the arm on the grounds that it would carry her too far away. That makes no sense at all. Detaching won't affect her velocity except to add a sizable random component based on the point in the arm's rotation where she detaches, and since he's already lost sight of her at that point that's going to make her much, much harder to find. All pedantry aside, loved loved loved the movie. Certainly the film of the year for me, and possibly the decade.
- hrjet 13y ago
  When I saw the scene, I imagined the cord and/or the parachute to be elastic. So even if the cord is taut, it may not be in a stable stationary state; the cord might snap beyond a certain amount of stress or the parachute might unhinge. Infact, after Clooney's character unleashes himself, Bullock's character recoils back, which seems to agree with my elastic theory.

by bcoates 13y ago

vilhelm_s 13y ago

I think the parachute cord is already taut when this scene takes place (see 1:08 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjLcIxcSaik http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjLcIxcSaik), so I don't see how it can run out of slack beyond this. And in your version, where does the tension in the tether between Bullock and Clooney come from?

Retric 13y ago
A realistic solution would be for them to be rotating which pulls the line taught and when released he would seemingly fall. However, I don't think that's shown in the actual visuals as they would have to be rotating fairly quickly or the cord needs to be really long for that to be a significant issue. Anyway, just looking at the previews I saw a enough holywood physics to give the thing a pass. The way the ISS was destroyed looked cool but the physics was terrible.
- arrrg 13y ago
  Not really sure why you care about that. It doesn’t pretend to be accurate so it doesn’t really matter.
  - Retric 13y ago
    Some people can't stand bad acting, I hate bad physics. I think it's the same basic issue. When a movie shows something that's close but off it simply breaks the suspension of disbelief. It's probably got something to do with the uncanny valley where talking stick figures don't cause problems, but the more realistic the setting the less wiggle room you have. I suspect most people have similar pet peeves. I remember watching a action movie with an ER doctor once. They had the same sort of reaction but with the long list of injury's people would end up with. Or how many tech people get offended by computer techno-babel in movies.
- mrec 13y ago
  [MORE SPOILERS] They are shown rotating slowly, so it's sort of possible given an elastic parachute cord, but it's awfully contrived. You also have to wonder, given how slowly he drifted off, why Matt couldn't unstrap that empty thrust pack and use it as reaction mass, as Ryan does with the empty fire extinguisher later on. The bigger gaffe for me was Matt's instruction to Ryan, right after the first hit, to detach from the arm on the grounds that it would carry her too far away. That makes no sense at all. Detaching won't affect her velocity except to add a sizable random component based on the point in the arm's rotation where she detaches, and since he's already lost sight of her at that point that's going to make her much, much harder to find. All pedantry aside, loved loved loved the movie. Certainly the film of the year for me, and possibly the decade.
hrjet 13y ago
When I saw the scene, I imagined the cord and/or the parachute to be elastic. So even if the cord is taut, it may not be in a stable stationary state; the cord might snap beyond a certain amount of stress or the parachute might unhinge. Infact, after Clooney's character unleashes himself, Bullock's character recoils back, which seems to agree with my elastic theory.