Thursday, September 22, 2005

 

Cartoon Physics on new TV series "E-Ring"

Ok, so I tuned in to watch the new NBC program "E-Ring" last night and while it was better than I was expecting, I was on the floor laughing near the end of the show when they used some "Cartoon Physics" (you know, like when Wyle Coyote hangs in the air briefly as he runs off a cliff before putting up a sign and then falling....). Some minor spoilers if you haven't seen it yet.

So a secret agent is being rescued from China by a US Nuclear submarine and a Seal team and just before the seals make contact, the guys back in the Pentagon watching the operation notice that a Chinese satellite has just changed course to fly directly over the site. Now, the graphic they showed with the satellite moving along its orbit shows the satellite making a sharp left turn with what must have been at least a 10 degree orbit plane change! If the Chinese can do that with their satellites, we definitely are in trouble, because that would take a very large rocket motor on board! Secondly, apparently they think you have to be straight overhead to get whatever reconn data they would need to expose the US Sub inside of their international boundaries. Also, apparently they think we are actively tracking every satellite in real time so we would notice such orbit changes so quickly. And I didn't even analyze what they showed for the orbit speed of the object, but I have a feeling it was speeding up and slowing down to fit the drama of the scene...... Typical Hollywood.

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