response 192 of 323:

Nov 13 09:00 UTC 2000

Saw _Red Planet_ its opening night on this past Friday.  At a sort of
odd theatre (whole other story that).  Anyway, it still had the
obligatory scene of a spacecraft entering orbit by accelerating. 
Sometimes I figure its just a good shot, other times I figure the
director has such a shot just to piss off folks like russ who demand
realism in a media that by definition is fiction.  Val Kilmer is the odd
hero, despite the fact that in real life he so pissed off his 'co-stars'
by his stunts that one in fact refused to even appear in the same scenes
with him - I will leave it up to the viewer of same to figure out whom.
(He apparently went so far as to snuff cigarettes out on various body
parts of extras and crew to see how far he could go...the brat)

Anyway, this was the counterpart to _Mission to Mars_ and although it
was finished before was held back for some reason.  Its the same fucking
movie, only with all 'ghosts' -caucasians ....sorta, only different, and
a lot, a whole lot more better.  It even has the same scenes, only a lot
better, a sure as shit lot better.  There is one other 'russ' style
quibble, a shot later where the 'lander' is still seen docked with the
'mother ship' but it only is maybe two seconds at best.  And it sure has
a heck of a lot more meta content and is no less a 'cliff hanger' than
its doppleganger.  Its a better do, but I sure wish the 'majors' would
get out of the habit of stealing each others ideas and simply put out
good films.  There is a lot more meaningless 'symbolism' in _Red Planet_
(wasn't that the title of a pulp SF author of some circulation?)  (and
having nothing to do with this plot)  (There is even an odd reference to
Clarke in that one character has the same sirname, and the same
job of one of his novels and flicks of note.) (Stupid clue - 2001)

To make matters worse at one point 'the (a) (one of a few) red shirt(s)'
(none wear, but the trekkies understand the reference) (It is a 'red
planet and thus they all are....only the idiots need this pointed out)
draws a circle in the dirt and drops a stone (the same one!) in the
center in a scene which is echoed back to in the future but with no
particular inclusive significance to tie it together.

In short it is a fine movie, much better crafted than its counterpart
from the opposing team and for some idiotic reason released when it was
for no particuarly good reason.  It could have been tighter with good
editing and had the cast to carry it off to become the SF counterpart to
_The Usual Suspects_ but instead is/was a good do in its opening, but
not successfull and is to be religated to the 7.99 bin at K-mart if it
comes out on video, if it does at all.  Such is the shame and the curse 
of those that hold back and only go for 'half measures'.  (And I only
manages to commit a half spoiler I think in posting this...)

response 194 of 323:

Nov 13 17:41 UTC 2000

        To be captured into an orbit, you have to decelerate, that is,
provide thrust against the direction of your travel, otherwise, you 
could continue past the planet.

response 196 of 323:

Nov 13 21:03 UTC 2000

_Red_Planet_ was one of Heinlein's books.  I remember reading it, but I
*don't* remember the plot.  I should track it down.

response 198 of 323:

Nov 13 23:15 UTC 2000

Red Planet is my very favorite Heinlein book of all, and I am disappointed
that someone used the title for a completely unrelated movie.

response 200 of 323:

Nov 14 14:16 UTC 2000

Re: 199 - Exactly.  On previous occasions I had not known the name of the
mother of the Muses, so this time the scene hit me differently.  Olivia
Newton-Johns' character was called Kira (maybe not spelled quite that way)
and at one point she is breaking the news to Sonny and gets out a partial
syllable on her name before Sonny muffles the rest with a kiss.  I looked
up the names of the Muses and found them to be unique in less than a
syllable, so the "te" that got out in the described scene made Terpsichore
the only option.  And yes, it was a roller-disco-dance-musical, so the
Muse of dance fits.  They layered in the jokes heavily, even though most
of the audience would never get them.  They deserve credit for that, at
least.

response 202 of 323:

Nov 15 07:30 UTC 2000

Okay, layperson question:  Would it be reasonable to assume that if one were
to somehow accelerate to the velocity of a certain orbit from near the
surface, they would continue away from the planetary body until reaching that
orbit, and then automatically self-correct?

response 204 of 323:

Nov 15 12:22 UTC 2000

Okay, let me rephrase:  Starting from the surface of Earth (or, better yet,
some atmosphereless Earth-sized rock) I immediately accelerate to a speed
which would maintain an orbit of, say, 150 miles, initially in a tangent
course to the curvature of the celestial body.  What happens, barring
unforseen variables?

response 206 of 323:

Nov 15 15:20 UTC 2000

A brief non-mathematical (and I think pretty intuitive) explanation of why
things stay in orbit is at http://www.wwnet.net/~janc/bestthings/square.htm
l

Another nice paradox:  You are in orbit around the earth.  Another space ship
is in the same circular orbit, ahead of you by 1/8 of a circumference.  You
wish to catch up with the other ship.  To do so should you (1) speed up or (2)
slow down?

The correct answer is to slow down.

If fire a blast from your engines to speed you up, you will start moving away
from the earth in an elliptical orbit with it's apogee (nearest point to earth)
at the point where you fired your engine).  This is a much longer orbit,
and you will wind up falling behind your target.  Slowing down drops you
into a lower, faster orbit.  As long as you don't re-enter (oops) you should
be able to catch up with your target on that orbit.

Visualize the model of a marble rolling around in a funnel.  Speeding the
marble up makes it go higher in the funnel, slowing down as it climbs, and
having a longer path to travel, slowing down makes you dip lower, speeding
up as you do so, and taking a shorter path.

Basic rule is that you don't fly a space ship by pointing it where you want
to go and hitting the gas, not unless you have really hellaciously large
amounts of fuel to burn and don't care how fast you are going when you hit
your target.

response 208 of 323:

Nov 15 21:31 UTC 2000

"tragetory"...?   s/get/ject

response 210 of 323:

Nov 15 22:37 UTC 2000

On #205: If you accelerate from ground but don't circularize, you're in an
elliptical orbit with apogee at whatever altitude you reach and perigee at
ground level. Doing this from the Moon should be safe so long as there are
no mountains in the way. From any world with an atmosphere it's a slightly
different matter: in practice it's necessary to clear most of that atmosphere
which doing so puts you near if not at whatever altitude will suffice for a
low orbit.

Boosting forward or aft at orbit apogee raises or lowers, respectively, the
perigee, and vice versa.

response 212 of 323:

Nov 15 23:51 UTC 2000

Saw BWII: Book of Shadows, and was pleased to learn that, in my case at least,
the inverse of the movie reviews also held. The movie's generic review has
been, "If you're going in expecting Blair Witch again, because you loved it,
you'll be disappointed." I thought Blair Witch was the biggest waste of
celluloid ever produced, and only went to BoS because (a) the teasers looked
good and (b) it was so thoroughly panned. It was very good, especially for
its genre.

response 214 of 323:

Nov 16 18:14 UTC 2000

(The camera is upside down too, actually, so everything just looks right side
up :)

response 216 of 323:

Nov 16 23:12 UTC 2000

        In Wrath of Kahn, Spock mentions how Kahn is thinking in only 
two dimensions, and has the ship go relative down.  He then came up 
to shot at the thin profile of the oppenent.  All that had to be done
when hidden, was to also turn 90 degrees, to take aim at a big broad
, easy to hit saucer section.