Talk:Flight pod

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Contents 1 The Starboard Pod's Hangar Deck 2 A Measure of Salvation 3 "Since Galactica's landing bays don't seem to use artificial gravity.." 4 Hate to be anal here... 5 Flight pods in the finale 6 The nuke: only kiloton?

The Starboard Pod's Hangar Deck

The flight-unusable hangar deck of the starboard flight pod was first used as the makeshift morgue for those killed in the nuclear strike aftereffects at the start of the Mini-Series. They couldn't be the regular hangar deck for the morgue--they're too busy retrieving the remains of two squadrons of Vipers at the time, and to have the bodies there would be cramped AND gross.

The starboard hangar is also in use at the end of the mini-series and seems to be used as an assembly area often (perhaps in "Home, Part II" as well. Unlike its port side, the starboard hangar deck is practically empty. Funerals were held here, probably in "Act of Contrition", and the bodies were buried in space through one of the launch tubes or Viper retrieval area of some kind as shown in that scene. --Spencerian 14:49, 13 December 2005 (EST)

Might be worth someone adding a section on Camp Oil Slick maybe? As a related but non-canon note, wouldn't it make more sense to put this flight pod into operational service now that Galactica has Pegasus' complement of Vipers? --Fordsierra4x4 02:20, 20 November 2006 (CST)

To add to this confusion about the starboard pod being used ... in Black Market when Racetrack is returning Apollo to Galactica, thy approach the starboard pod.--RUSnooky 23:59, 15 June 2007 (CDT)

A Measure of Salvation

Apollo mentions landing in the starboard pod in AMoS. On the Ragnar Anchorage forum someone claims that Raptors took off from it. But as far as I can see it, the only take off seen is around 35:25 and uses what looks like the port pod (cool shot btw). Can anyone confirm/deny that?

In any case I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from that. If it's indeed in an VFX shot, it could still be an error, but even the dialogue piece could be an error. It could be rationalized by saying that they wanted to land in an isolated place, as Cottle demanded a quarantine. Nearly all other evidence points to the hangar decks being relatively deserted, used for storage and for refugee camps (the pod is huge! Those aren't mutually exclusive) --Serenity 11:47, 5 February 2007 (CST)

"Since Galactica's landing bays don't seem to use artificial gravity.."

Surely Galactica's pods must use artificial gravity. It wouldn't be much use as a musum otherwise? FredTheDeadHead 11:57, 4 March 2007 (CST)

Well, that's a point, but that might have been installed later. In the Miniseries, there are spacesuited figures floating around in zero-g inside the active flightpod. --Serenity 12:26, 4 March 2007 (CST)

When does that happen? Could I have a rough timestamp please? FredTheDeadHead 14:04, 4 March 2007 (CST)

When Colonial One first docks to Galactica. At around 28:10. Look at the floor to the right of the ship. One of those workers is clearly floating. So in normal operation they don't seem to use AG. Maybe for they installed something into the floor for the museum... --Serenity 14:18, 4 March 2007 (CST)

Hate to be anal here...

... but which pictures are we talking about, exactly? Are we talking about the Nimitz comparison? If so, we need to make this far more clear and precise:

From comparing various graphics, it can be seen that the length of one of Galactica 's flight pods is around 660 metres long, 60 metres tall and 46 metres wide. Most of the internal space is taken up by the pod's enormous landing bay, giving it similar dimensions.

--Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 21:16, 24 October 2007 (CDT)

I think analysis this detailed from a single picture that was only ever meant to be rough comparison isn't helpful anyways. I don't see how that narrows it down to one-meter precision. However, I really couldn't care less about such dimensions and can easily do without them. --Serenity 01:37, 25 October 2007 (CDT)

That's my feeling on the subject, to be honest. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New}

And being more objective: it say "various graphics". But what are these? I only see one. --Serenity 01:44, 25 October 2007 (CDT)

All I've ever seen is the Nimitz comparison... Hence the reason why I posed the question. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 01:53, 25 October 2007 (CDT)

We do have the Zoic renders of the Galactica 3d model, as well as the official dimensions. Working from those, we should be able to calculate the size of the flight pods. --Talos 05:30, 25 October 2007 (CDT)

Ok, if we're going to do that, then we need to show our work so that people at home can follow along. It's probably best to put all that into Sources:Flight pod, or something to that effect, since it would fall under logical deduction. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 14:29, 25 October 2007 (CDT)

I definately agree with you there, Joe. --Talos 14:41, 25 October 2007 (CDT)

Flight pods in the finale

The finale shows that Galactica doesn't need to retract the flight pods to jump, it's just a good idea otherwise your combat-landed Vipers might go flying out the end (I'm hoping those Vipers powered up in time before they splattered on the Moon's surface).--Werthead 00:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be more accurate to say that Galactica *shouldn't* jump without retracting the flightpods. We can't definitively say that it safely can, since the one time it did (other than continuity errors showing the flightpods extended when jumping but retracted when emerging from the jump) results in structural failure.-- Fredmdbud 04:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The nuke: only kiloton?

Although we know Lee managed to lure Raiders by mimicking the release of EM from a 50 Kt nuke, to convince the Cylon ships of the destruction of Colonial One, we could assert that the Raiders were not looking for an exact quantification of the explosion. They were, after all, fooled by a transponder put on board a Raptor flying close to Cylon patrols and even a Basestar. I think the fiendish Raiders just noticed a big light and didn't start counting the rems. We also know from Razor that during the holocaust, the Raiders had enough firepower to cause impressive damage to battleships parked at the Scorpion Yards. Besides, the official Miniseries Novelization clarifies the execution of the bombardment of Caprica and makes it crystal clear that the 50 MT nukes were lobbed by Raiders. We saw that even Raptors could fire small and yet god-awfully powerful nukes at the Cylon Colony, nukes so powerful they literally made the station rotate upon impact, and we know that as we see internal explosions on the other side of the Colony, running down the arm which the Galactica is close to, that the energy of the explosions caused by the nukes finds its origins, for a large part, from the nukes themselves. As per Baltar's words, under the right pressure and heat, blowing up tylium could give you 500 TJ/kg. That's impressive and fits with powerful multi-megaton warheads carried by small crafts. The destruction of the Cylon Hub by four nukes fired by two Vipers Mk-VII, destroying the Cylon Hub and, with the released energy (with four explosions being relatively identical regardless of their point of impact), also destroying a nearby Basestar, would support the existence of such high yield nuclear ordnance for small crafts. --Mister Oragahn 01:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Only problem with this statement is the fact that the official novelization is not canon. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 03:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Right. The rest still works though, but I have to revise my judgment regarding the Colony vs nukes:

The Colonial nukes are not weak, but there's a limit to how far we can pretend they dealt damage to such a huge Colony. Regardless of their point of impact, they caused massive explosions. The problem with artificial structures being hit is that you don't really know what's being hit. There could be considerable reserves of tylium, weapon caches and nuke stocks here and there.

Even asteroid impacts against the colony were making near Galactica sized explosions, despite low speed impacts.

I don't think the Colony is super tough. It's reasonably tough to survive such explosions, but obviously mere low speed asteroid impacts can cause significant surface explosions.

NOTE: the differences are that I recently realized that the explosions on the surface of the Colony, near Galactica, were caused by asteroid impacts which I didn't spot before, and I really think the explosions were enhanced by the Colony's own weapon and fuel depots. --Mister Oragahn 01:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)