Moons

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Moons

Post by Captain Picard's Hair »

My thoughts about the wormhole (see DS9 forum) led to me thinking about moons in star trek, and in particular, the fact that few of the surely hundreds of planets seen have moons present in the shot. This is quite easily explained by production constraints in the real world, but in universe, every habitable planet should have a moon according to modern planetary science (and not just any moon, but a large one, like the Earth's). It has been quite common to see the Earth's moon whenever Trek goes back home, but this is necessary because our moon is such a large part of our consciousness.

Modern science sees a large moon as vital to the presence of life on earth for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the moon stabilizes the Earth's axis. While the Earth's axis still does "wobble" a bit, the movements are smaller in magnitude and limited in the degree over which they vary due to the moon's gravity. Without the moon, the Earth's axis would wobble far more violently (over a range anywhere from zero degrees - directly in line with the Earth-sun axis, to 90 degrees, straight "up and down" or perpendicular to the Earth-sun axis), with disastrous effects on climate, which would vary wildly, and consequently, disastrous effects for life on Earth.
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Post by Teaos »

Well the obvious answer is time and money stopped them.

But in universe you may be able to explain it away by them just being out of shot.

You could also with a bit of a stretch argue that there could be some other gravitation factor that helps keep the planets stable with out the help of a moon.
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Post by Captain Picard's Hair »

They conceivably could always be "behind" their planet whenever we see it, but this would be a coincidence of Galactic proportions.
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Post by Captain Seafort »

Captain Picard's Hair wrote:They conceivably could always be "behind" their planet whenever we see it, but this would be a coincidence of Galactic proportions.
Or it's SOP for a Starship to approach from the non-moon side for some reason. Perhaps so the helmsman doesn't run into it. :wink:
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Post by Sionnach Glic »

Given that it's Starfleet........I wouldn't be surprised if that was a regulation.
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Post by Blackstar the Chakat »

I imagine that most shot are from 'below' lunar orbit and the moon just happened to be in one of the million positions that we couldn't see.
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Post by Bryan Moore »

Captain Picard's Hair wrote:They conceivably could always be "behind" their planet whenever we see it, but this would be a coincidence of Galactic proportions.
Well so is all of Trek!
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Post by Monroe »

In ENT they started to include large moons over homeworlds or many moons (which I think would act the same way). But computer graphics makes it easier to do that kind of thing.

...And they don't have the regulations to avoid hitting the moons yet.
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Post by Jim »

You also have to consider that a moon would be much further away from the planet that the ship would be. Therefore from the view point of the ship, the mmon could be behind the planet, or behind the ship.
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Post by Monroe »

I remeber a DS9 episode talking about the risks of using Warp inside a system. If I understood that right doesn't the ship have to approach the planet from outside its gravity well? I'm not sure if warp works the same as Star Wars' hyperspace but do they have to avoid gravity wells?
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Post by Captain Seafort »

The Star Wars problem isn't so much the gravity well as the object forming it - smacking into a planet at a million times lightspeed is detrimental to one's health. As for Trek, the issue appears to be a navigational issue rather than a technological one - HMS Bounty went warp from Earth's upper atmosphere in ST4.
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Post by Monroe »

In the Corellian Trilogy the Republic had to come up with a way to ignore gavity wells which kept shutting down their hyperdrives. I think its a bit more than running into things at 200,000x the speed of light. I think its the gravity makes the wormhole into hyperspace unstable but I'm not sure. But that's another thread.

I think there's more Trek examples of warp near a gravity well than not but I have heard a few lines saying they can't jump while in the planet's upper atsmosphere.
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Post by Blackstar the Chakat »

I remember in one episode of Voyager Chakotay was on the surface and huge (artificial) storms kept causing problems for transporters and shuttles so they tried landing the hole ship but got caught in a storm. I remember clearly that one of them suggested going to warp, but the inertia dampners were knocked offline.

In-atmosphere an in-system travel is possible but can be dangerous, especially in high-traffic areas.
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Post by Sionnach Glic »

The Star Wars problem isn't so much the gravity well as the object forming it - smacking into a planet at a million times lightspeed is detrimental to one's health.
Gravity wells seem to stop hyperdrives from working. The Interdictor class cruisers pull ships out of hyperspace by creating an artificial gravity well with their generators, so being near a planet probably stops the hyperdrive from working in some way.
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Post by Captain Seafort »

Rochey wrote:Gravity wells seem to stop hyperdrives from working. The Interdictor class cruisers pull ships out of hyperspace by creating an artificial gravity well with their generators, so being near a planet probably stops the hyperdrive from working in some way.
The Interdictors work by tricking the hyperdrive into believing that there's a planet in the way when there isn't - the safeties cut in and cut the drive ("X Wing : Rogue Squadron"). The Centerpoint grav well, on the other hand, seems to pin the ship in place in hyperspace, and the safeties knock the ship out of hyperspace to avoid damaging the drive.
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