rec.arts.startrek.tech #19275 Subject: Re: Manuvering Followup-To: rec.arts.startrek.tech Date: Tue Jun 21 19:09:32 PDT 1994 > Why is it that the enterprise banks on Turns? > > The EP will be at a dead stop: it will begin > to move forward, then slide off towards the > intended direction. Why not just spin about > to that direction and then go? 'Cuz the helmsman learned to fly airplanes before he learned to fly spaceships! ;-) Seriously, though, one possibility is that the positioning and/or design of the thrusters, impulse engines, etc. make it more efficient or faster to turn that way. Or maybe banking helps them to build up momentum somehow, so they're travel ling faster when they've finished the turn. (These aren't very convincing arguments, though, without some scientific data to back them up.) Of course, I suspect that it's for the same reason the Enterprise goes "whoosh!" in the vacuum of space: intellectually we know know that it wouldn't work that way in space, but psychologically we're used to hearing a "whoosh" when a jet flies past and seeing aircraft bank when making a turn.
Copyright © 1994, 1995, 2004 by Kevin Savetz. The information in this book was collected in 1994-1995 and has not been updated since.