logoalt Hacker News

manmalyesterday at 7:28 PM3 repliesview on HN

The Expanse also was (for me) the first to introduce the concept of a braking burn. Star Wars ships just stop without turning around - can’t unsee it. I think the way X-wing fighters “fly” also wouldn’t work at all, I don’t see any reaction mass coming out the sides.


Replies

mr_toadtoday at 12:01 AM

Lucas wanted to make a swords and sorcery epic in space, and that’s what he did. And he wanted to make space battles look like WWII dogfights, so he did that too. There’s no point trying to compare Star Wars with any sort of realism.

QuercusMaxyesterday at 7:34 PM

Babylon 5 was the only show in the 90s that actually had any sort of physics based space combat (as opposed to Star Wars-style "they're really just airplanes but we're pretending it's space").

show 1 reply
grey-areayesterday at 9:03 PM

Biggest thing they all still get wrong for reasons of drama is showing humans wrestling with controls and flying like a fighter pilot. Real spaceships do not and will not have humans in the control loop except to specify a destination or target.

show 4 replies