Yahoo bounced this for some reason

Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 13:17:11 -0700 (PDT)

From:” Robert Thomas" [hidden email]

Subject: Intercepter Range Sorry it’s late

To: [hidden email]

 

I had planed to send this some time ago but things got busy and it just saton my computer. I think it is still topical though, so here goes.

I was watching Conflict and I had got to the part where Straker orders the interceptors to come down into Earth orbit and start to clear out the spacedebris (Supposedly) and I got to thinking about just how far a round trip that is, made even longer if they did any kind of movement once they got toEarth. Hardly what I would call short-range fighters.

Since it takes roughly two and a half hours for a lunar module to get from the Moon to Earth orbit [i] I would guess that an interceptor could do it faster if they used their version of Military Power, but I doubt if they would push them that hard outside of combat. I don’t remember what the distance is between the Earth and the Moon at any given time, but even at two and a half hours, you must really be cruising along at a good clip. It tool Apollo Eleven three and a half days to get to the Moon, if I remember right.

Since the ship would have to carry life support for the entire time that a pilot is expected to be out on a mission, I would think that this would be for a period of no less then eight or ten hours, given that Straker expected them to get to Earth, perform their mission and then return to MoonBase. I think that this is a very conservative guess, given that it would only give them a two hour loiter time. A time that would be used up even quicker if the pilot was engaged in combat because of the natural tendency of excited people to breathe faster

when engaged in combat. Not to mention the fact that fuel could become a problem as well. Of course, 80% of any long flight would be coasting anyway, once you got up to the speed and direction you wanted to go.[ii]

Since it has been established through SubSmash that SHADO doesn’t believein air scrubbers or anything other then air tanks, these tanks would have to be rather

large to contain enough air to complete a mission of such length. Where they are located in the craft is a mater of conjecture, but if as some have suggested, that the entire front half of the Interceptor is a “Lifeboat”,they would have to be located somewhere up front.

As we have seen from a number of shows that the interceptor only seem to carry the nose missile as their only weapon. There are suggestions of some sort of cannons or other armaments in the front of the spacecraft as seen in the actual pictures as well as the Interceptor “Blueprints”. Several Fanfic writes have used these to give the ships a little more versatility then as one-shot missile platforms.

I would think that the interceptors would have to have some sort of cannonsto accomplish this mission of destroying the space junk. After all, it would take

forever and a day to use limpet rockets to push everything into a decaying orbit, assuming that is, that you could attach them without a space walk. Using a small nuke wouldn’t be logical because of the flash as well as thefact that nukes send off bursts of radiation that could be detected by ground stations. Since there are no “Official” nukes in space, then or now, it would be somewhat hard to explain their presence.[iii]

I never did understood the need to use rockets. Since you have to space walk anyway, why not just tie them in line together, when you could, brace yourself on your ship, and send them down by tugging on the rope. Maybe not asneat as a limpet rocket, nor as fast, but it would get the job done on thecheap.

Of course, we now know that it is better to track everything and try to keep away from it, but that isn’t always possible.

I wonder just how common space travel was in UFOs time frame.

 

 

 

[i] “E.O.I. 2 hours 38 minutes” Foster just after liftoff from the moonin Conflict

[ii] Since there is no friction in space to slow you down, you would maintain any speed and heading until you did something to change it or were actedupon by an outside force such as an explosion.

[iii] I wonder just how far the Electromagnetic Pulse actually does travel in space. Maybe some people on Earth are all ready picking them up. I wonder how an EMP would affect a radio telescope.

 



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The average distance between the Earth and Luna is 253,000 miles.....so
to cover that in two hours you are doing approx 126,000 miles an hour.
At that rate a one way trip to Mars would take a little over 30 days.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Thomas [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 2:37 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [SHADO] Yahoo bounced this for some reason



Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 13:17:11 -0700 (PDT)

From:" Robert Thomas" [hidden email]

Subject: Intercepter Range Sorry it's late

To: [hidden email]



I had planed to send this some time ago but things got busy and it just
sat on my computer. I think it is still topical though, so here goes.

I was watching Conflict and I had got to the part where Straker orders
the interceptors to come down into Earth orbit and start to clear out
the space debris (Supposedly) and I got to thinking about just how far a
round trip that is, made even longer if they did any kind of movement
once they got to Earth. Hardly what I would call short-range fighters.

Since it takes roughly two and a half hours for a lunar module to get
from the Moon to Earth orbit [i] I would guess that an interceptor could
do it faster if they used their version of Military Power, but I doubt
if they would push them that hard outside of combat. I don't remember
what the distance is between the Earth and the Moon at any given time,
but even at two and a half hours, you must really be cruising along at a
good clip. It tool Apollo Eleven three and a half days to get to the
Moon, if I remember right.

Since the ship would have to carry life support for the entire time that
a pilot is expected to be out on a mission, I would think that this
would be for a period of no less then eight or ten hours, given that
Straker expected them to get to Earth, perform their mission and then
return to MoonBase. I think that this is a very conservative guess,
given that it would only give them a two hour loiter time. A time that
would be used up even quicker if the pilot was engaged in combat because
of the natural tendency of excited people to breathe faster

when engaged in combat. Not to mention the fact that fuel could become a
problem as well. Of course, 80% of any long flight would be coasting
anyway, once you got up to the speed and direction you wanted to go.[ii]

Since it has been established through SubSmash that SHADO doesn't
believe in air scrubbers or anything other then air tanks, these tanks
would have to be rather

large to contain enough air to complete a mission of such length. Where
they are located in the craft is a mater of conjecture, but if as some
have suggested, that the entire front half of the Interceptor is a
"Lifeboat", they would have to be located somewhere up front.

As we have seen from a number of shows that the interceptor only seem to
carry the nose missile as their only weapon. There are suggestions of
some sort of cannons or other armaments in the front of the spacecraft
as seen in the actual pictures as well as the Interceptor "Blueprints".
Several Fanfic writes have used these to give the ships a little more
versatility then as one-shot missile platforms.

I would think that the interceptors would have to have some sort of
cannons to accomplish this mission of destroying the space junk. After
all, it would take

forever and a day to use limpet rockets to push everything into a
decaying orbit, assuming that is, that you could attach them without a
space walk. Using a small nuke wouldn't be logical because of the flash
as well as the fact that nukes send off bursts of radiation that could
be detected by ground stations. Since there are no "Official" nukes in
space, then or now, it would be somewhat hard to explain their
presence.[iii]

I never did understood the need to use rockets. Since you have to space
walk anyway, why not just tie them in line together, when you could,
brace yourself on your ship, and send them down by tugging on the rope.
Maybe not as neat as a limpet rocket, nor as fast, but it would get the
job done on the cheap.

Of course, we now know that it is better to track everything and try to
keep away from it, but that isn't always possible.

I wonder just how common space travel was in UFOs time frame.







[i] "E.O.I. 2 hours 38 minutes" Foster just after liftoff from the moon
in Conflict

[ii] Since there is no friction in space to slow you down, you would
maintain any speed and heading until you did something to change it or
were acted upon by an outside force such as an explosion.

[iii] I wonder just how far the Electromagnetic Pulse actually does
travel in space. Maybe some people on Earth are all ready picking them
up. I wonder how an EMP would affect a radio telescope.





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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





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Robert Thomas wrote:

> I was watching Conflict and I had got to the part where Straker
> orders the interceptors to come down into Earth orbit and start to
> clear out the space debris (Supposedly) and I got to thinking
> about just how far a round trip that is, made even longer if they
> did any kind of movement once they got to Earth. Hardly what I
> would call short-range fighters.
>

True, but the notion of short-range interceptors based on the Moon
makes no sense except to defend the Moon anyway - even if the Moon
happens to be in the path between the alien homeworld and Earth at
the time of an attack, it would seem very easy for the UFOs to take
the long way round.

So logically they must be capable of traversing huge distances in
a very short time.

The moon at least offers the advantage of having a low gravity and
negligible atmosphere, so I suppose it makes sense to use it as a
launch platform for interceptor craft provided they have the
necessary speed.

--- In [hidden email], Robert Thomas
<screwedmorethenonce@y...> wrote:
...
> I had planed to send this some time ago but things got busy and it
just sat on my computer. I think it is still topical though, so here
goes.
>
> I was watching Conflict and I had got to the part where Straker
orders the interceptors to come down into Earth orbit and start to
clear out the space debris (Supposedly) and I got to thinking about
just how far a round trip that is, made even longer if they did any
kind of movement once they got to Earth. Hardly what I would call
short-range fighters.
>
> Since it takes roughly two and a half hours for a lunar module to
get from the Moon to Earth orbit [i] I would guess that an
interceptor could do it faster if they used their version of
Military Power, but I doubt if they would push them that hard
outside of combat. I don't remember what the distance is between the
Earth and the Moon at any given time, but even at two and a half
hours, you must really be cruising along at a good clip. It tool
Apollo Eleven three and a half days to get to the Moon, if I
remember right.

Conflict is an episode with "huge" reality holes. I think it is
useless to try to speculate about the interceptors, etc., based on
this episode. That is, if you try to explain something, then you end
up making several other "holes" in other aspects of the episode!!

But when I watched this episode when I was a kid, without any
critical technical knowledge, I just thought it was great!

David Levine

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Durdan" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 3:10 PM
Subject: RE: [SHADO] Yahoo bounced this for some reason


> The average distance between the Earth and Luna is 253,000 miles.....so
> to cover that in two hours you are doing approx 126,000 miles an hour.
> At that rate a one way trip to Mars would take a little over 30 days.
>
> Jim
>


I'm sure that was a typo and you really meant 239,000 miles. :-)

When I finally got my taped episodes and I watched them as an adult, I
became very surprized by the inconsitancies. As a kid, I was a massive fan
of the space program, and I applied all the same standards to UFO - thus I
assumed the module flights to the moon took 2 or 3 days and not just 2 hours
as I later found out.

Now I see the producers simply picked a round number - "...Well, we'll
make this ship which flies to the moon, and it will go 100,000 mph! So the
trip will take 2 1/2 hours...." , thus they'll get there by dinner time.

Somehow a 2 1/2 hour trip to the moon took a lot of the seriousness and
romantisism out of the show for me, since now all the moonbase crew could
simply ride up there in the morning for each work day, and then return home
each evening to their houses back on earth.
Now I see many examples of the show referring to trips to the moon for
quite trivial purposes. I liked it better when going to the moon was a big
deal, and crew rotations necesitated being several weeks long.

The same can be said to the interceptor launch standards. I'm sure Gerry
and the crew wrote the show on the ideals of WWII and Cold War Air Force
adventures - launch times in the scores of seconds, target connection times
within minutes or hours. The idea of a few seconds difference off the launch
pad to intercept a target hundreds of thousands of miles (or even worse
MILLIONS) out in space is just simply ludicrous.
Perhaps this also led to the rather inconvenient problem, discussed so
much here, of the pilots sliding down their shoots and hopping into their
ships, without suits and in a vacuum, like the intrepid pilots of WWII
running out to the field and taking off to meet the incoming enemy.
Fact is ,these two scenarios just don't go together, but watching the
show as an ignorant kid, I didn't see that, and it was great fun.
Nowadays, I have to adjust out these inconsistancies in my mind to make
them work, and ignore some of the shows "canon". Maybe that makes me anal,
but it just makes more sense that way....at least in my mind.

Dave H.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Thomas" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 2:37 PM
Subject: [SHADO] Yahoo bounced this for some reason




> I would think that the interceptors would have to have some sort of
cannons to accomplish this mission of destroying the space junk. After all,
it would take
>
> forever and a day to use limpet rockets to push everything into a decaying
orbit, assuming that is, that you could attach them without a space walk.
Using a small

----------------------------------------------------

This may be old ground, but simply blowing the stuff up only makes
things more hazardous up there - lots of high speed schrapnel and debris
left orbiting behind. Better to sling the stuff back to earth to burn up
over the Pacific or something.

-------------------------------------------------

> I never did understood the need to use rockets. Since >you have to space
walk anyway, why not just tie them in >line together, when you could, brace
yourself on your >ship, and send them down by tugging on the rope.

---------------------------------------------

????????

Dave H.