Phil, I noticed that you still have the SW:AotC up on your movie reviews on the front page. I have a couple of beefs with you Bad in it, as explained below.

They are as follows.

Bad:
Someone has tampered with the Republic's archive, removing the planet Kamino, so Obi-Wan doesn't see it in the archive's map. However, the gravitational effect of the planet's star can be seen on the stars around it, which is why Obi-Wan is able to detect it. As Yoda so poetically put it, "Gravity's silhouette remains".

Good:
Well, again, scientifically this is true. Stars have gravity, and that gravity does affect all the objects around it. An advanced civilization, we can assume, could easily detect that effect. My problem with this is that the person who removed the system from the map had to have been very good (and this is even commented in the movie), and yet they forgot to change the stars around it to compensate! That's pretty sloppy on the part of the Bad Guy. Can you say "plot device"? Again, this isn't so much an astronomy error as it is a way to more easily advance the plot based on someone else's Bad Astronomy.

Explaination:
As the gravity does affect the stars about the one that was removed, even though it is is a very minor amount, had this effect been removed from the the archive maps then the other stars nearby would have now been in the wrong place, even if not more than perhaps 100 miles. However, since all ships need to know the exact position of a planet, star, asteroid field or other body to make sure that they don't accidently hit one while in hyperspace (The Star Wars version of Hypersace allows Real Space items to cast Hyperspace Shadows that are just as dangerous as their Real Space objects) this means that had the neighbouring stars, and their planets, been moved to compensate for the missing one, their positions would have been dangerously off. Such a deception would have been found very quickly because the Navcomputers would have been off target, perhaps even enough to put a ship into the planet it is travelling to. However by leaving the stars where they should be (i.e. affected by the now invisible star) they are exactly were the Navcomputer predicts and unless anyone actually looked at the map and realised that those stars were being pulled towards an empty part of space, the deception would have remained un-noticed for a long time (in fact at least ten years.)

Bad:
When Count Dooku leaves the planet Geonosis, he uses a solar sail type ship.

Good:
Solar sails are a theoretical type of spaceship, and have been used in science fiction for decades. Photons of light have no mass, but due to the peculiarity of quantum mechanics, they do have momentum. A solar sail would literally be a huge, lightweight sail (perhaps made of mylar) that can catch light. It uses the light from a star as a sort of wind, blowing the sail. A lot of the physics of solar sailing is like wind sailing on Earth's oceans! NASA is actually looking into the engineering of solar sails. They might very well make a useful method of moving through interplanetary space. You don't need to carry much fuel, since the fuel you use is raw sunlight.

However (and here at Bad Astronomy Central there is always a "however"), note that I said interplanetary space. Solar sails accelerate very slowly. It might take weeks or months to get up to a reasonable speed to move between planets. Dooku uses one to travel to another star system. I hope he's not in a hurry! It'll take decades at least to get to another star. Padme mentions that Coruscant is "halfway across the galaxy" from Geonosis, so that journey by sail would actually take thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years. Dooku better pack an in-flight snack.

For more info on solar sails, there is a webpage about the Planetary Society's solar sail project as well.

Explaination:
Dooku's Solar sail is not in fact powered by the solar winds. Here is a quote from the Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections Guide.

"The delicate reflector-surfaces of most "solar sails" unfurl to moon-like diameters, and are more commonly pushed by tachyon streams and ultraviolet lasers than sunlight. Dooku's unquie sail, however, achieves similar performance across the entire galaxy with a much smaller span and no detectable support system..."

It carries on;

"The sail is powered by an as-yet undetectable source of supralight emisions allowing Dooku's custom ship an independence, and style, unknown by any other current space-farring vehicle."

The Star Wars Fact Files state the following about the ship:

"...Dooku purchased a solar sail of unknown manufacture, which apparently powered itself through a form of supralight emission. The sail was compososed of exotic matter that allowed it to perform far better than a top-quality conventional sail of more than twice the size."

It also states that;

"For interstellar travel, Booku's sloop mounted a typical hyperdrive engine with Class 1.5 rating."

Now arguements about Supralight technology aside, the sail relies on something other than solar winds to travel with allowing it faster acceleration, and it uses a hyperdrive to travel from system to system just as any other Star Wars ship. So while the physics could indeed be argued about, perhaps their Astronomy isn't quite so bad after all.


While it doesn't excuse the other BA in the movies (stars racing past on entry to Hyperspace, sounds in space, rather dense asteroid fields, air inside the Space Slug even though its mouth was open) I do feel that in fact they might have got these two right when SW tech is taken into account.

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Howling from the Shadows

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Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Agreed on the first point. The second sounds rather babbly. But then Stars Wars is space fantasy.

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As Glom said first point is pretty good. For the second point you have to assume your audience knows nothing of "star wars science and technology." The movie gives no indication on how Dooku's ship works, and i'm pretty sure the BA is not versed in "Star Wars Technology." Even if he was, he would have to assume the audience is not.

It's also hard to expect BA to know the principles by which Dooku's ship works without explanation in the movie when those principles are made up.

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Now, it's hard to tell exactly what they mean since it's so technobabbly, but it sounds like most solar sails carry their own light source with them, like a laser that pushes the sail. That's just plain bad physics; it's like powering a sailboat by blowing into the sail. It would be possible if the laser assembly were back on a planet or a base of some sort and aimed at the spaceship from there, but they don't make it clear one way or the other.

D- for Bad Writing.

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Argeed. For the BA to use it he has to go on either what's said in the movie or what it looks like. First point good though.
Sorry I sidesteped of the others.

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I'm quoting Glom though everyone sort of made the same point.

The explanation part of the sail was just to throw in the "idea" of how is was supposed to "work" and I did note that the physics was debatable.

The main point of contention was this part:

My arguement would be that one doesn't need to understand the ships to assume a hyperdrive. I'd note that until they Jump from Sullust to Endor in Return of the Jedi there is never any "Proof" that an X-Wing has a hyperdrive, but Luke goes from Hoth to Dagobah to Bespin in Empire Strikes back, then from Tatooine to Dagobah to Sullust in Return of the Jedi, all before any X-Wing is seen entering hyperspace. In the same way, just because we don't see Dooku's ship enter hyperspace, why should we assume that it doesn't have one? In fact the tech manuals say it does.

I probably should have made it a bit clearer.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Is it fair to trot out a tech manual?

BA in movies should be judged on what is in the movie and what is common astronomical knowledge.

Can I get a ruling here? Where's the pit boss?

With all respect to BA, I don't think that saying it wasn't in the movie is a good excuse. As noted above X-Wings weren't shown as being Hyperspace capable untill quite late in Return of the Jedi, yet no-one would have argued that Luke's had not travelled this way from Hoth to Dagobah to Bespin, and then later from Tatoonie to Dagbah to Sullust, all prior to seeing an X-Wing actually do it.

The Tantive IV (Leia's Corellian Blockage Runner) the ISD's and the Death Star were never shown entering Hyperspace, nor was it stated they could in A New Hope, yet again no-one would argue that they could not. Even Vader's TIE-Advanced had a hyperdrive, in fact the only ship shown that didn't the script made referance too, the TIE-Fighter.

Again in Empire Strikes back there is no shot nor referance to the Rebel Transport, the Nebulon Frigate-B, or Bobba's Slave I being able to travel through Hyperspace, such is assumed so with those in Ep 4.

Again in Phantom Mence, we see the N-1 fighter, again there is no mention of any hyperpace capability and none is shown, and yet in the opening of Clones two have accompanied the Ambassador's Ship. Are we to have assumed that these ships all travelled to Coruscant via sublight?

Time after time in this saga, ships are shown without any referance to them having hyperspace capability, yet such should be assumed. Of the two ships that DON'T have it, one is directly referanced as such (The TIE-Fighter) while nothing is said about the other (The TIE-Interceptor.)

That BA appears to have assumed that Dooku's ship didn't have Hyperdrive capability is against all of the accumulated evidence of the other ships and is, IMHO, bad in itself, which is why I think it should be fixed.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

It's BA either way. FTL is impossible. BA's job is to point it out so that he might use it to teach good astronomy. But they made confusion by putting in those solar sails, which are inexplicable without a load of off screen technobabble that would put Voyager to shame.

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Actually FTL travel isn't BA. You could argue it as BP, but at the same time Hyperspaces are more than just possible in theory, IIRC they have actually passed electrons through them, and should we one day learn more about them, who knows, shunting ships through them might be very possible. Remember that in 1959 the head of NASA stated catogorically that it was impossible to put a man on the moon. Ten years later they were doing just that, and now we are looking towards the first manned mission to Mars. We learn more about Physics every day and where as today we might only be shunting electrons through Hyperspaces, this might not be so is 50 or 150 years time. Something to consider before you claim something as Impossible.

My point still stands though. The paragraph I am disputing contains little in the way of teaching about Astromony, but is merely saying that he'll take decades to get where he is going, ignoring the likelihood that just so every other ship uses hyperdrives, so would this one. This information can still be present without it being incorrect to the film, or are we only interested in accuracy when it favours our arguments?

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Hyperspace is just a conceit to make space stories doable. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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Investigating Hyperspaces

The physics of Intersellar Travel

Small amount of info on SW Hyperdrive

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

That excellent piece refers to the other seven dimensions, which are not any use for FTL.

It's an interesting piece, but does little to justify the science behind SW hyperdrive. Dr. Kaku essentially admitted that we have to hope there is as of yet undiscovered scientific principles that can make FTL possible.

That requires that in the SW universe, there be another dimension called hyperspace allowing it. That does not currently agree with our universe.

http://www.orionsarm.com/intro/WhyNoFTL.html

It is common for scientist fans to try to justify things after the fact, but there's no escaping the fact that many of these things are conceits on behalf of the writers.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

Come on Glom. 150 years ago people were being pulled around in carts by horses, and flight was for the birds. Remember, any sufficiently advanced technology will seem like magic.

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Is FTL possible?

Whatever upheavals may occur in science in the future, it does not mean that FTL conceits are scientifically accurate. At best, they are scientific wishful thinking.

Back to the original point, BA has every excuse for thinking that those sails were the kind of solar sails we all know and love and not those technobabbly things described. He was right to point out Dooku wouldn't get very far with that. So given the ship has other sublight propulsion that was used to get it off Geonosis and onto Courasant, we must wonder as to the purpose of the sails. We saw the ship deploy the sails and then the scene cut to the ship approaching Courasant and retracting the sails. It is only natural to expect that BA would assume the sails were there for the purpose of getting the ship between the two cuts. I assumed the same thing. If it has conventional sublight propulsion and hyperdrive, what does it need the sails for?

Where is BA anyway? I'm going to look stupid if I go to all this trouble of defending him only for him to arrive and cede the point.

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