interceptor

> I know it's quite a common belief, but in my view it's a
> misconception that the Interceptors travel at anything near the
> speed of light. I know there's something in the canon that supports
> the idea that they do by implication (can't remember what)

In the episode CLOSE UP, they quote the Interceptor speeds as
being above SOL 1. I think it may have been as high as SOL 3!
And since we've already established that SOL is "the speed
of light", that's a pretty clear indication to me.

Also in CLOSE UP, that little space probe keeps up with the
UFO all the way back to its home planet. So it also must
be going faster than the speed of light. Note that in this
episode there was no big deal raised about being able to
go faster than the speed of light. Instead, the major issue
seemed to be the photography.

Of course, as an aerospace engineer, I don't like the thought
of the Interceptors going faster than the speed of light either,
although since there's inadequate room for propellant tanks on the
Interceptors, they must be using a pretty futuristic propulsion
system, so why not make it capability of anything? :-)

Marc

"Marc Martin" wrote:

> In the episode CLOSE UP, they quote the Interceptor speeds as
> being above SOL 1. I think it may have been as high as SOL 3!
> And since we've already established that SOL is "the speed
> of light", that's a pretty clear indication to me.

That's the one yes - thanks for the reminder. As I said, in my
opinion it's best to treat it as a mistake, a writer exceeding
reasonable constraints (after all there are a boatload of
inconsistencies in other scripts), and accept that - as I firmly
believe - the Interceptors are not capable of anything like SOL 1.
It may be that the writer didn't have a clue what 'SOL' meant, he'd
just seen it used as a measurement of velocity from one of the
other scripts.

> It may be that the writer didn't have a clue what 'SOL' meant, he'd
> just seen it used as a measurement of velocity from one of the
> other scripts.

The problem with that is CLOSE UP was written by Tony Barwick,
who wrote more episodes than anyone, including IDENTIFIED,
which is the one which clearly shows that SOL is the speed
of light in both the episode and the script:

----------------
100 INT. MOONBASE CONTROL (STUDIO) 38 SECS

URGENT, WATCHFUL EYES TRACK THE U.F.O. AND THE
THREE INTERCEPTORS. BECAUSE THE PRESENT EQUIP-
MENT GIVES THE PERSONNEL SO LITTLE WARNING THINGS
HAPPEN FAST. AT A SPEED OF 8 TIMES THE SPEED OF
LIGHT THE U.F.O. CAN TRAVEL 45,000,000 MILES IN
HALF A MINUTE ... OR ONE AND A HALF MILLION MILES
A SECOND.

SID (VO SEQUENCE)
Speed one and a half million
miles a second ... Range 75 million
miles.
(3 second beat)
70 million miles
(3 second beat)
65 million miles etc.,
----------------

Tony was also UFO's script editor, so he should have caught
any mistake he made in the CLOSE UP script... :-)

Marc

SID is in a micro gravity field - obvious, or it would crash. Moving
from SID out to the moon would require trivial amounts of fuel.
Actually, almost none if you're willing to wait a while... ;-) Just a
small amount of acceleration in the direction of SID's orbit would cause
the Interceptor to "fall" out toward the moon; the more acceleration
used, the faster it would "fall" away from the Earth.

naughtyhector wrote:
> But if they went to SID they would be in Earth's gravity field which
> is much greater than the Moon's and may need extra fuel to get out of
> orbit. Who said the Interceptors had a FTL drive?

--
Mario
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Mario M. Butter | .-.
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Friends don't let friends ride JUNK!

> Moving from SID out to the moon would require trivial amounts of fuel.

Actually, moving any spacecraft from a low earth orbit to the orbit of
the moon would require quite a bit of fuel. The velocity increment
required is about 10,000 feet per second, which is about a third of what
it would take to get from the Earth to low earth orbit.

Marc (finally, being a "rocket scientist" proves useful here)

You think SID is in LEO? From the size of Earth in the background, plus
some of the requirements of the job, I always assumed it was in a GEO
orbit (roughly 22,300 miles out).

Marc Martin wrote:
> Actually, moving any spacecraft from a low earth orbit to the orbit of
> the moon would require quite a bit of fuel. The velocity increment
> required is about 10,000 feet per second, which is about a third of what
> it would take to get from the Earth to low earth orbit.

--
Mario
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Mario M. Butter | .-.
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Camera men on strike, Slides at 11.

> You think SID is in LEO? From the size of Earth in the background, plus
> some of the requirements of the job, I always assumed it was in a GEO
> orbit (roughly 22,300 miles out).

--- In [hidden email], "Marc Martin" <marc@u...> wrote:
> > You think SID is in LEO?

Upon reading the writers guide in FAB28 perhaps I might amend what I
have written before. It states that SID is in orbit around Earth on
the complete opposite side to the Moon and the same distance. SID
covers the portion of space that Moonbase cannot see as the Earth is
in the way.It also states that Interceptors or some other craft can
dock with it. It also states that SID can change its position, hence
what looks like 2 rocket nozzles on the rear end.There is also a
diagram stating what the different parts of SID are for. The 2 bug
eyes are airlocks. Underneath from them is the Interceptor docking
bay with clamps and a docking collar to hold the Interceptor nose
steady (perhaps one may have to bear in mind that possibly Mike Trim
designed SID to have dock his original Interceptor design not Derek
Meddings revision).

There are also notes on the Interceptors, herewith a slightly edited
version.
"When the Interceptors have been launched, appropriate time should be
allowed for them to be flown into the estimated path of the UFO
(maybe many hundreds of thousands of miles ahead of it). When in
position (that is directly ahead of and facing the oncoming UFO) they
would release their atomic warheads/missiles. These missiles would
then quickly and automatically break up into ten smaller parts and
then after about 10 seconds would erupt in a blanket atomic
explosion. The UFO would be destroyed as it flew into the explosion
or be caused to divert." No mention is made of their speed capability
but there are notes on the UFO's which is faster than light, SOL
being Speed Of Light.

So if SID is on the opposite side to the Moon perhaps it would have
seemed strange to send out a Lunar Module in the complete opposite
direction to carry out repairs. Perhaps that is a reason why they
used the NASA vehicle to avert suspicion.


Regards,
Barry

> Upon reading the writers guide in FAB28 perhaps I might amend what I
> have written before. It states that SID is in orbit around Earth on
> the complete opposite side to the Moon and the same distance.

The UFO writer's guide was written months before they started making
the series, and many things in the writer's guide are contradicted by
what we see in the series.

If SID was in a lunar orbit, as the writer guide states, then the
Earth would be seen as very small in the background. Also the
SID repair mission would have taken much longer. I think it's
safe to say that SID is pretty close to Earth.

Marc

<snip> I think it's safe to say that SID is pretty close to Earth. <snip>

It actually states in one of the UFO novels that SID is in Earth's orbit.

Griff

So is the moon, and it's 250,000 miles away. ;-)

Griff wrote:
> It actually states in one of the UFO novels that SID is in Earth's orbit.

--
Mario
MIB # 2932

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Recovery program for excessive talkers: On-and-on-Anon.

> From LEO, the Earth should pretty much fill the screen, in most every
> viewed direction. In addition, from a LEO, SID would not be in LOS of
> SHADO HQ for most of the time, so they would either need a whole series
> of antennas around the world, or multiple SIDs. A GEO orbit, on the
> other hand, would keep SID over SHADO HQ all the time, plus have enough
> distance out for better tracking of incoming UFOs.

The distance between the surface of the earth and a GEO orbit is about
the same as 3 Earth diameters. Look at any photo of SID next to the
Earth, and you'll see that it is *much* closer than that:

http://ufoseries.com/hardware/sidEarth.jpg

As for GEO being more practical, that may be true, but we're talking
about what we see in the TV series, not what would happen in real
life. :-)

Marc

Hi, Marc,

Monday, February 9, 2004, 7:06:41 PM, you wrote:

M> As for GEO being more practical, that may be true, but we're talking
M> about what we see in the TV series, not what would happen in real
M> life. :-)

Well, yes. Which is a great reason not to count too much on the
apparent size of the Earth in the background. I refuse to believe that
anybody involved in the making of the series calculated orbital
altitude, then sat down with a slide rule and figured out how big the
Earth should appear. I think they just said, "What looks cool?"

--

Jonathan Andrew Sheen

http://www.leviathanstudios.com
Leviathan of the GEI (Detached.)
[hidden email]

"What'dya expect? I'm a New Yorker!"
-Anonymous New York Firefighter, 9/12/01

--- In [hidden email], "Griff" <griff@g...> wrote:
> <snip> I think it's safe to say that SID is pretty close to Earth.
<snip>
>
> It actually states in one of the UFO novels that SID is in Earth's
orbit.
>
> Griff

If Gerry Anderson and his staff took the time to ponder options for
SID, I'm sure one idea would have been to have SID in Martian orbit.
Certainly, you'd want an early-warning device like SID to be as far
out as possible to detect objects approaching from deep space.

CONTENTS DELETED

Jonathan Andrew Sheen wrote:

> Well, yes. Which is a great reason not to count too much on the
> apparent size of the Earth in the background. I refuse to believe
> that anybody involved in the making of the series calculated
> orbital altitude, then sat down with a slide rule and figured out
> how big the Earth should appear. I think they just said, "What
> looks cool?"
>

Absolutely. Rather like the alien planet shown in the end
credits .. at the speed of light the CLOSE UP probe would have
been there in minutes, not months.

"Doug" wrote:

> If Gerry Anderson and his staff took the time to ponder options for
> SID, I'm sure one idea would have been to have SID in Martian orbit.
> Certainly, you'd want an early-warning device like SID to be as far
> out as possible to detect objects approaching from deep space.
>

No offence Doug, but that makes no sense whatever! :)

The trouble is, deep space extends in all directions from Earth,
not just in the direction of Mars. Even assuming that UFOs always
approach Earth from the same general direction, the relative
position of Earth and Mars changes from month to month, so that
Mars will often be further away from the Alien homeworld than
Earth. Practically speaking it would presumably be a simple
matter for the Aliens to approach Earth from the 'other side' of
Mars at all times - given the distance between Earth and the
Alien planet (disregarding the end credits in which it's seen to
be a distant member of our own solar system), avoiding Mars on
the way in represents a tiny detour.

James

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Gibbon" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 10:30 AM
Subject: Re: [SHADO] Re: interceptor (and SID connection)


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

Exactly.
...And the same reasoning applies to the falacies of using only
moonbased interceptors.....What happens when the UFO's come in from the
opposte direction? If the interceptors have only conventional maximum speed
capabilities, they couldn't skirt the Earth on a 1/2 million mile trip (one
way even!) out to meet the inbounds in a matter of minutes like the fans on
this site are so fond of believing.
On the other side, believing in FTL capabilities for the interceptors
stretches the imagination for a civilization 10 years away from 1970. In
that case, also, travel to the moon would then be only a matter of seconds,
and there would be no need for a moonbase, since everyone could just commute
back and forth to work there each day, and run home to Earth on their lunch
breaks.
For that reasoning, it would have been best if the writers hadn't given
them FTL, and only used the interceptors for sweeping the moon clear of any
alien activity of using the moon as a launching point from their deep space
operations down onto Earth itself.

Placing SIDs in orbit around each planet would be a senseless waste of
resources, since most of them would be out of play on any particular
approach. Also, they would be impossibly far away for practical periodic
maintenence, and very vulnerable to attack or sabotage from the aliens.
Also, the transmission time delay because of their distance, would make
their early warnings arrive at the Earth far too late, since the UFO's
traveling in at FTL would out run their warning transmissions.
Ideal SID placement would be a GPS style constellation of satellites
around the Earth, affording complete and uninterrupted coverage of the 3D
space around it, and affording practical mechanical maintenence.

Dave H.

I believe that the satellites are called Bulldog satellites or at least that
is what I thought I heard them called in one episode.

James K.


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