What's some dumb science you've seen in fiction?

[credoconsolans]

Why is that bad science?

An airlock is a pretty small space. The air in it would be gone in a split second, a single "poof!" and it's all over. No air, no pushing people into space.

If it was a huge warehouse-sized area, it would make more sense. But in SciFi movies the air keeps rushing out until the door is shut, no matter how large the airlock.

Oh, I thought you meant in general - an airlock goes and the whole spaceship is being decompressed because the door is open.

That would cause problems and is not bad science.

So yes, just the airlock itself, when the rest of the ship is closed off, would empty quickly.

But I rarely see this in sci-fi shows.

 

[credoconsolans]

Yet Star Wars is the one series that actually did show a ship upside down. Beginning of Episode 2 - The Clone Wars. Senator Amidala's ship arrives on Coruscant, then has to turn upside down to be right side up to the landing pad.

They also showed (in one of the prequels) everybody falling sideways as the ship turned 90 degrees if I remember correctly.

I find it's difficult to judge such things in sci-fi movies because all the ships supposedly have artificial gravity which, since it hasn't been invented yet, we don't know the particulars of how it would act in extreme situations and what modifications would be done to adjust for the super-speeds of spaceships.

 

[Davka]

I've been re-watching the serenity series, and much as i love the show, there are some cringe-worthy aspects. Like when the Serenity crew encounters an unmanned ship in interplanetary space, and there's a brief explanation as to why the other ship is spinning. Relativity, go fuck yourself! WE are the only valid reference point, dammit!

 

[Keith&Co.]

IIRC< there's at least one scene where Serenity does half a barrel-roll to dock with the Alliance vessel, so the two are apparently upside down to each other, but no one seems to act as if that's unusual...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I've been re-watching the serenity series, and much as i love the show, there are some cringe-worthy aspects. Like when the Serenity crew encounters an unmanned ship in interplanetary space, and there's a brief explanation as to why the other ship is spinning. Relativity, go fuck yourself! WE are the only valid reference point, dammit!

Sorry, but the system they are in is a reference point.

I also think you can determine if you are spinning even if there's nothing else around--a spinning object experiences an outward force.