Red Dwarf etc...

Was I the only one who found Red Dwarf just plain boring?
I don't mean to offend anyone here - I liked the first six series. I
think that is the point though. Six series with a threee year gap before
the seventh. I think the series has lost it's edge.

On the other hand I found the pilot of Space : AAB great. Characters you
could almost sympathise with ( well a couple of them anyway ). Something
appeared to get lost in the transition to a series though. I think that
it was the main characters weren't fighting against each other anymore.
That was what made the pilot interesting for me. Ok, so the ships look
crap and the fighters use jet engines in space ( they have air intakes -
why? ).
Also - Earth has a huge space fleet ( judging by the pilot ). Why? It's
not as if they needed to defend themselves from anyone. The president
himself had already said there was no-one out there. Obviously a mere
fluke that they happened to be ready for an unknown race to launch an
entirely unpredictable attack at an unknown time, with unknown numbers
and levels of technology, and were able to meet them on equal terms.

Seaquest DSV - I wouldn't pollute my TV with that shite.
Dark Skies - A ha ha ha ha ha!

Anyone know when this Mars Attacks! film is coming out or have I missed
it already?

I hear that the X-Files is to be axed after series 5, to end with a
cliff-hanger which will be resolved in the film. I may be wrong ( it has
been known ).

Warning : this email is longer than I expected. If at any point you get
bored, feel free to skip to the last chapter, which incidentally
contains Marvin the paraniod android.


Previously I gibbered:
To which Chris Turner replied:
Losing a writer might have been the problem. The other two points were
irrelevant as Rimmer was in the episode in question and Kochanski
wasn't.
Last night's episode was better, but there was no originality again. The
humour was mainly a result of the ressurection of Ace. Rimmer's reaction
to him ( seen before ) and Rimmer becoming Ace ( seen before ) were the
only genuinely funny bits.
It seems that Red Dwarf is now relying heavily on flashy visuals and not
the scripts that used to be so sharp.


On the subject of Space : AAB, I wrote:
To which I recieved the following:

Adam Hattrell :
Chris Turner :
I would agree with the "both rocket and jet engine" theory, but they
both use the same exhaust nozzles. This is a little odd. Also, jet
engines are extremely complex bits of kit and are designed to be used in
earth atmosphere only. Minor changes in atmosphere composition would
result in a power loss. In a military craft this wouldn't be accepted.
The only viable solution therefore is that the ships have rocket engines
only. In this case why do they have air intakes?

I also muttered:
To which Chris Turner replied:
This again missed the point I was trying to make. We have a huge nuclear
arsenal as a result of a very real threat imposed by two superpowers in
a suicidal power feud. There is ( as far as I'm concerned ) no threat
from space invasion fleets and this was also the case in the pilot of
Space : AAB. Or at least the first 10 minutes or so. So why develop a
huge space fleet at enormous expense ( we are talking several hundred
thousand times more expensive than a surface fleet ) if there is no
danger imposed?
Also, the other point was the sheer coincidence that America's fleet was
on an equal footing with the Chigs'.

Did anyone see Seaquest this afternoon? Thought not.


On another subject entirely, I did a little digging on the internet and
discovered the following:

Mars Attacks! is released on Feb 28.
Star Wars Special Edition is released on Mar 21.
Empire Strikes Back SE. is released on Apr 11.
Return of the Jedi SE. is released on Apr 25.

Any trips going to be arranged for these?

That's it for now.

Andrew the insane ranter.

Oh well another long message.
The episode was quite good and I wouldn't call the specail effects that
flashy, I presumed they were being funny with the crappy special effects
at the beginning. All it was was a basic superimposing technique and a
model plane.
Of course the intakes maybe hydrogen or ion scoops for the engines as in
last nights episode they said that the space fleet was fueled by helium
-3 which would be your basic component for a fusion or plasma engine and
it is a feasible idea as space is not a vacuum to get some additional
fuel this way and it would work in or out of an atmosphere.
Last nights episode pointed out that the AI's took a chance and headed
off into deep space, personally in this case I would like a fleet of war
ships in space just in case they "take a chance" and decide to return to
finish what they started.
Yes. It was okay but could definitely be better. Why is the Seaquest the
same model, it really should be upgraded like the sub they were chasing
to have stealth and all the other stuff. Also why the hell did the GELF
sub only have four torpedos. Also who made the crap up about spontaneous
evolution.
Also are the crew idiots, Playing poker with a women who can read your
mind will make it exceedingly hard to win any money off her. Also were
the hell has she come from and why is she just a doctor, surely the
military would be using her to spy on people or is it normal to be a

A slightly shorter one this time.
I think they looked cheap because they were cheap. Each subsequent
series has had a higher budget and accordingly better effects.

On Space : AAB :
If I was building a plasma or fusion engine, I would use Hydrogen and
it's isotopes as fuel. They offer a far greater energy output and
Hydrogen is far more abundant in space ( though still not in any great
quantity ).
Good Call.
It didn't, it fired four bursts of three torpedoes, but that still only
makes twelve. Not a very impressive arsenal.
A desperate script-writer searching for a reason not to blow the base to
pieces.
Playing cards with a mind reader seemed to be a favorite pastime of the
Star Trek TNG crew as well.

Before I get hundreds of messages pointing out that I have already
called Seaquest a pile of shite, I was bored and in my defence I would
like to say I only saw the last half hour or so.

Andrew the insane ranter.

If I remember my fusion knowledge correctly then aren't both hydrogen
and Helium needed for a decent fusion reaction. And anyway what are they
doing mining an asteriod far out in the solar system for hlium when
Jupiter is a gas giant composed of a high percentage of helium and also
hydrogen for that matter. Maybe they've used it up already or more
likely the script writers decided to ignore it to get the cast well away
from home to meet the AI's by them selves.
Another Andrew

Okay my bollox for these topics.

Twelve or so torpedoes sounds like todays standards for torpedoes and
they'd have probably killed more than one Seaquest had it not been for
the sci-fi cop-out 'interceptors' maybe the sub was built/designed
before such a concept was transfered to submarines.

If the american space fleet wasn't up to matching the aliens then the
series would have written itself out half way through the pilot, and
who says that the other (super?) powers have space fleets that need to
be kept in check (or beaten in size to retain ego) ?

Red Dwarf seems okay, only problem I have is with the new 'bird' (Okay
I just can't be bothered to try to spell her name). Although did
anyone knowtice that the original (series one) actress was on 'Never
mind the buzzcocks' which was on just after Red Dwarf this past
Friday.

Why's everyone critisising all these programs so much, just 'cause
it's crap doesn't meen it isn't a laugh to watch it, just take a look
at the australian tv night yesterday [Saturday]. Chill out untill you
make more money than they do an episode.

Okay so half of them may be shit, okay so why does the marines in
Space Above and Beyond travel around in the Spaceballs winnebago, and
okay so I just watch Dark Skies because none of the terestrial
channals are rerunning the invaders. There still a laugh, the better
ones just need less beer to appreciate.

End of Rambling.

Darren the eternal second year,



USS-666 Devilfish
"If you not winning, you 'aint cheating hard enough"

Modern subs actually carry in the region of 50 to 60 torpedos, as well
as a complement of torpedo decoys, anti-aircraft missiles, tomahawks and
harpoons, as well as missile torpedos. This is a lot more impressive
than the pitiful subs in seaquest.
Why not I've got nothing better to do.

Andrew Smith

I won't interfere with any of the hydrogen / helium / deuterium / fusion
type arguments because I really didn't learn enough of that sort of
physics, but one thing I CAN remeber...

Smith A.M allegedly said:
Hang on. I've known the order of the planets since I was about 7 or 8,
and I've never forgotten it. See below. Also if I remember rightly, the
spacing is almost n^2 for some reason I can't remember, so the
APPROXIMATE distances from the Sun (in arbitrary units) are...

Number Dist Name
0 0 Sun
1 1 Mercury
2 4 Venus
3 9 Earth
4 16 Mars
5 25 Asteroid Belt
6 36 Jupiter
7 49 Saturn
8 64 Uranus
9 81 Neptune
10 100 Pluto

Meaning the vast majority of the asteroids will be 16-34 units away, and
Jupiter will be 27-45 units away, depending on orbits. IE asteroids will
usually be closer, paprticularly as they're a belt rather than a single
planet.

Or did the programme actually say that this asteroid was somewhere way
beyond the normal asteroid belt? I videoed it, haven't watched it yet,
sorry if I've just put my foot in my mouth.

---

Nick Waterman, Network Manager, Cimio Ltd.
nick@ nick@ G7RZQ @ GB7DEO.#32.GBR.EU
http://www.noseynick.org/ #include <disclaimer> Team *AMIGA*!
Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon.

They were actually using the Koopers belt or oort cloud (same thing)
that is beyond PLuto and is were comets originate. This has only
recently been discovered (last 20 years) and is therefore way out in the
solar system.
If you remember the first episode I believe they were near to jupiter, I
think

Andrew Smith

Wren A <A.Wren@> wrote:
[...]
Well, this is not the only viable solution. All aerospace engines work
by grabbing something heavy and throwing it backwards. Propellors sweep
great chunks of air back, jets heat air up and squirt it backwards, and
rockets and ion-engines work by taking an onboard propellant and
squirting it out the back.

Now, the force you get from throwing mass away is equal to the speed
times the mass you are throwing. However, it is more work to push
something that is already moving, so the work needed to push something
is more like the speed times the mass times the speed again. This
means that your engine either needs lots of mass or ridiculous amounts
of energy.

For an aeroplane, it's not really a problem: things like propellors and
jets grab their reaction mass from the surrounding atmosphere, and
so never run out of reaction mass. Things like ion drives need a
prodigious amount of energy, but very little fuel: this is why satellites
use ion drives. Refuelling satellites is a bitch when half the shuttle
flights have been handed over to the Men in Black. (The NSA, that is.)
The energy comes from solar panels, which aren't about to run out. But
the push is tiny, so it takes a long time: the ion drive on a satellite
gives about the same push as the weight of a drawing-pin. (about 0.01
Newtons, if you are a physicist.)

Rockets need to carry their own propellant, and so are mostly propellant.
However, it is quite feasable to build an airbreathing engine that
can push a craft to escape velocity. (See the X-30 project:
"http://spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov/NASA.Projects/Aeronautics/High.Performance.
Aircraft.and.Research/X-30.National.Aerospace.Plane/")

Such a craft might use a shaped hypersonic intake to compress atmosphere,
which is heated and squirted, or might use propellant from a tank. Now
such a ship couldn't expect to work in atmospheres that are incompatible
with the heating process, but if, say, the heating process uses fusion,
it might well operate in most atmospheres. Alternatively a propellant
tank could be fitted to allow manoevering outside the atmosphere.

In other words, it might have "air" intakes, designed to gather propellant
but not fuel.



Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

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