Why are sci fi space ships so slow?

Question

Why does it seem like in just about every sci fi feature if there not in hyperspace or something the spaceships seem to go about 30 m.p.h.? And in the vacum of space would'nt a huge carrier be just as fast and manurverable as a fighter?

Answer 1

tham153, scotty(or maybe it was the kelven from amdromeda) managed warp 11 once, eppisode "A rose by any other name"

Star ships go SO FAST, but we dont have warp technology, YET

keyboardcommander, how should a Vulcan address a Cylon?(yea, I was rased by humans, so I have a sence of humor, get off my back)

Answer 2

As fast, but not as maneuverable. Keep in mind, vacuum or not, there are inertial stresses with aceleration and turning which would require a larger ship to go a little slower. Anyway, it does seem that the big ones just labor along, doesn't it? I think they should do something about that. George Lucas, are you reading this?
But keep in mind, the bigger a ship is, the slower it will APPEAR to be moving. Filmmakers may use this illusion to help give the impression of size, since imaginary spacecraft don't give us many size references. I read somewhere that the Saturn V moved at 60 miles per hour by the time its tail reached the top of the gantry, yet because it is so huge, it looks like it's barely moving. And I remember some fishing films on TV from when I was a kid. Many of them showed the fish jumping out of the water in slow motion, making it appear huge. I thought one must have been as big as the boat, but when he pulled it in, it was only the size of his leg. I laughed.

Answer 3

good call... but remember that the ships have to be moving relative to something else to notcie how fast they are going. and if the neareset star or planet is a lightyear in the background it won't appear to move at all.
About maneuverability, you are exactly correct they should have about the same capabilities however, an airplane on Earth will always be much more maneuverable because it is slicing through air thus using friction and drag to roll pitch and yaw. In space there is only a vacuum so they can't just move a flap to roll, they must expell a propellant in the opposite direction to begin and end the maneuver. So it is much more complicated to maneuver in space.

Answer 4

First of all, a huge carrier would not be as fast and maneuverable as a small fighter, because it has mass, whether or not it has weight, and momentum relates to mass. F = ma, and when m is large, you are going to have to make F large to get any sort of change in a.

As for the models going slowly, well if you were the special effects modeler who spent all that time making the Nostromo for Alien or the Millenium Falcon for Star Wars, wouldn't YOU want them to pan slowly by your ship.

Besides, if you were on the ship, it would feel like it was moving slowly, because it takes so frigging long to get from one place to another.

Answer 5

No, a huge carrier would have maneuvering problems very similar to those a huge carrier on Earth would have. It's true that in deep space a huge carrier like Battlestar Galactica would be weightless. However, it would still have the same mass as it did on its home planet. And, starting, stopping, and turning something with a great deal of mass requires a great deal of force.

The energy (or force) required to accelerate, stop, or turn is proportional to the mass of an object -- not its weight.

Note: You can think of mass as a immutable property of an object. Think about a lump of gold that weighs a pound on Earth. If you moved that pound of gold to the Moon, would it have fewer atoms? No, moving that lump of gold to the Moon would not change its molecular structure or content at all. Therefore, it would have the same mass on the Moon as on Earth and the same mass in deep space as on the moon. One more way to think about this is that weight is a measure of mass and gravity while mass is just mass.

Answer 6

When a space ship moves through space, there is nothing around relative to which you can appreciate the speed. The only thing you have is the nearby stars, which are as useful to estimating spaceship velocity as the horizon is to a car on the highway.

A huge carrier would never be as maneuvrable as a fighter due to its high mass. What matters is the ratio of thrust (from engines) to mass, according to Newton's second law. For this reason, fighters are reduced to bare essentials: essentially, an engine with fuel tank, weapons and pilot controls.

And I recommend you to watch Andromeda, when they move from one star to another through slipstream, you can get dizzy...

Answer 7

Maneuverability depends on power vs mass. Being out of the atmosphere only helps a little. To make a U-turn, for example, you have to get rid of all the kinetic energy from going one way, and restore all that kinetic energy going the other way. Unless you can use a planet's gravity as a fulcrum, to reverse the direction of the kinetic energy by doing a half orbit. But maneuverability means being able to do that wherever it's needed, not just where a planet happens to be.

Answer 8

Even in the weightlessness of space, everything is still heavy. It would still take more strength to push a semi in space that it would to push a tricycle in space.

The problem with the portrayal of space ships in movies (or live NASA feeds for that matter) is that space is so vast, there's no point of reference to get an idea of how fast they're moving. Imagine any scene of Spider-Man swinging through the canyons of New York. Take away the buildings but still have Spidey swinging around as he always does. Without the buildings zooming by him in the background, he looks like he's going really, really slow. Same with space ships. Sometimes they look like they're just sitting there in space, when in actuallity they're travelling thousands of miles an hour.

There's too much space in space. :P

Answer 9

I think what you are referring to is the slow speed of spaceships as they go "over head" in movies like close encounters and the various star trek movies. I believe the slow speed is to impress people in the theater with the special effects. You are right that in space, spaceships of any size would have to be fast to travel great distances.

Answer 10

A larger ship would not be as maneuverable as a fighter because it has a larger mass. It would take much more fuel to accelerate a carrier in whatever direction, then a fighter would take.

Answer 11

They have yet to film a Sci-fi movie in Space. But you are correct. Star Trek and Star Wars are both notable exceptions however they have other Physics problems.