Talk:Battle of New Caprica/Archive 1

Holy frak. (And that was from the first 30 minutes.) --Spencerian 20:05, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

You took the words right out of my mouth. Most excellent! --FrankieG 20:45, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

I know! Holy frakking frak. --Talos 20:47, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

My Grandchildrens' childeren will kmow about this episode! --FrankieG 21:03, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

Was so good... I am posting my own option.... 100 out of 10. ;-) --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 21:39, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

Losses[edit]

We've said "dozens" or "hundreds", but we should decide on one, because frankly I support "dozens". Nobody died in Pegasus, and on New Caprica it didn't look like "hundreds" died considering that's a big number for these people. So what will it be? --Sauron18 17:51, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

For starters, we don't know that there weren't fatalities aboard the Pegasus (people may have died from hull breaches or whatnot before Adama gave the order to abandon ship). I do agree, however, that it was probably dozens, maybe less than a couple hundred at max (and that's stretching it, IMHO) that died planetside. I would list "Losses currently unknown" until we start getting a fleet population count again, then work our way from there.--み使い Mitsukai 18:10, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

Actually, "unknown number" would work better, since we do not know specifically either way. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 04:45, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

Which Three is this Three?[edit]

...Meanwhile, Baltar and Caprica Six attempt to stop D'anna Biers from activating a nuclear device. After the Cylons lost control of the ground situation, the majority of the agents left on a Heavy Raider and left Biers with the responsibility of activating a nuclear device to "clean up"; however, she can't find it.

How exactly was it detemined that this Three was the D'anna Biers Three? I would argue that this three was the one that tried to have the "War Heroes" boxed in Downloaded. D'anna, (assuming she died on Cloud 9, we don't know) was still alive and with the fleet according to the Timeline.

And how did we determine that Three "couldn't find" the nuke? It appears that she made a beeline for the oracle, as presumably the nuke would be located inside the "green zone". Belay-down-your-burdens 00:41, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Actually, she was named as D'anna by Baltar, which is pretty interesting. Somehow she must have been able to avoid being exposed by Anders for over a year, until the arrival of new resurrection facilities. --Peter Farago 01:12, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Look at the "Number Three" article talk page. I posted a section on some research I did to find out which Three it was :p --Sauron18 05:59, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

As interesting as this discussion is, it is more relevant for the Exodus, Part II or Number Three page rather than the page for the battle. I'm cutting down the last paragraph about this sequence for the same reason. My rationale: once the civilian ships depart, once the basestars are destroyed/debilitated, once Galactica is away, a potential squabble between Baltar and whichever Cylons happen to remain on the surface matters very little. There is very limited militarily decisive action; it ought not get more than a cursory review in a battle summary, especially with as much as we must assume to make the description accurate. - Keithustus 11:40, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

I concur with Keithustrus. Battle pages are not for episode or character narratives. --Spencerian 19:49, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Atmospheric Heating Effects[edit]

Of course it looked cool, but I am not really sure why the underside of Galactica would have been superheated as it descended toward New Caprica City the way it was protrayed in the episode. Such superheating is not the result of free-falling through the atmosphere, but actually the result of friction with the atmosphere due to extreme velocity. Which is precisely why skydivers do not burn up after jumping out of an airplane but space craft deorbiting (traveling initially at about 5 miles per second coming from low Earth orbit as an example) do. Galactica jumped into the atmosphere over New Caprica City, it did not (strictly speaking) reenter the atmosphere. It is possible, of course, that any velocity Galactica had prior to jumping was imparted to or else retained by Galactica after the jump. However, one might be pardoned for supposing that any such velocity would have been along the ship's main bow-to-stern axis (though this is not necessarily true), and not stright along the free fall axis the ship was clearly heating up on (i.e., from dorsal to ventral side). I would also point out that Galactica did not appear to be traveling at a sufficient speed in its fall to cause superheating, though of course this may be the subject of debate. Anyway, just a thought. The dramatic effect more than made up for any possible technical inaccuracy. --Felix Culpa 19:08, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

That's a good technical error to add to one of the science articles, if the general article. Galactica would have had to be moving much faster than the rate she was falling. The Space Shuttle Orbiter superheats at less than 17,000 MPH as it reenters, and its much higher. Science be damned, though--it was thoroughly badass. :)--Spencerian 19:42, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Yeah, can you give me a suggestion as to which article(s) to bring this up in? --Felix Culpa 22:59, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

But don't forget, that data is based on the chemical makeup and density of our own atmosphere. Its possible that New Caprica's atmosphere is quite a bit different than Earth's, even though it is still inhabitable. And for all we know, FTL travel causes the surface of a vessel to heat up. This is all hypothetical, but its justification for the appearance of the atmospheric heating. --Maserati1945

Yes, but we have to assume that New Caprica's atmospheric makeup is at least somewhat similar to Earth normal (which carries the underlying assumption that the Colonials are used to something along those lines), or else we would notice some sort of profound difference, such as a difference in rate of combustion, sound transmission, or any number of other things. I just do not think we have any reason to believe New Caprica is any different (atmosphericaly) from any Terran-type planet. (Probably does not hurt that they actually film the episodes on Earth. ;-) --Felix Culpa 22:59, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

That's a good bit of study but there is another very big factor and that is the sheer size of the Galactica. Nothing that size has ever been witnessed to enter Earth's atmosphere and the incredible mass of it adds a multiplier. What we are seeing is a large release of energy and energy is force through a given distance and force is mass and exceleration, therefore energy = mass x acceleration x change in distance or = mass x velocity squared. Those are 3 equal parameters to energy. We know that the space shuttle superheats at 17,000 mph or thereabouts and lets assume that the gravity of New Caprica is equal to the gravity of Earth, that is g = 9.8 m/s^2. Let's also assume that the distance that they dropped was 90,000 m - a guess from the dialog but really it's just a guess but what seems a theorical large enough distance for the depicted sequence of events to have occurred. Given these parameters, if the Galactica was 654,820 times larger than the space shuttle, then it would release the same amount of energy. (I could bore you with the math but I don't think that is necessary. Ya'll get the idea.) However, I am certainly willing to bet that the Galactica is many million times larger than the Space Shuttle and therefore would release many times more energy which would account for the same superheating effect seen on screen, though objects falling fair slower than the space shuttle, and of much less size cause the same superheating effect. Case in point, the Mercury-Redstone 3 carrying Alan Sheppard to be the 1st American in space only traveled to less than 10,000 MPH (it didn't reach orbital speeds) and was 1/2000 times the size of the space shuttle and it returned superheated. There was this super-rich dude (sorry, I can't remember his name. I'll come back later with a site but right now I can't remember the dudes name.) who recently did a superhigh jump from .... I think it was 80,000 feet and he had to wear heat shielding to protect himself. Again, much smaller object and starting from a relative standstill getting superheated. Normal parachute jumpers only jump from a few hundred to a few thousand feet but no more. You gotta face it! The Galactica is one big ole vessel and it had to jump from a very high altitude to pull off that stunt and it doesn't move through atmo without consequences.--Straycat0 23:55, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Actually, I ran the math again (1st time I did it practically in my head so it was a little esque) and if I say that the Galactica is 100,000 times larger than the space shuttle dropped at the same parameters, I get 15,000 times as much energy released. Therefore, 1 million times as large produces 150,000 times as much energy. This is taking the Galactica starting at a rest stop (no speed relative to New Caprica) when it initially jumped into the atmosphere. --Straycat0 00:44, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

I think you are missing the point here: the size of the object is not the issue, it is the speed at which it is traveling. Yes, Galactica has orders of magnitude more potential energy than the Space Shuttle reentering, but most of that energy would be released upon impact with the ground, not as a result of atmospheric friction. And I am not contending that Galactica would not have heated to some degree because of free-fall acceleration: it clearly would. (As indeed spacecraft do upon launch, just not nearly to the degree they do upon reentry where they have to use drag to *entirely* eliminate their orbital velocity.) Whether it would heat it to that degree or cause that level of damage is another question entirely. And there simply is no question that Galactica was traveling anywhere near 17,500 mile per hour or even the 10,000 miles per hour of a suborbital Alan Shepard-type loft. Those speeds are blindingly fast, and Galactica simply was not going that fast based on the video evidence. I lack the math physics to prove it, but I also suspect Galactica's terminal velocity within an atmosphere would also be far, far under the figures necessary to cause deorbit-type heating. Just my two cents. :) --Felix Culpa 12:12, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Thanks for you 2 cents. It's hard to say without actually doing the math (It's definitely a good science experiment for a Physics 101 course) and nobody here can say "Oh, yeah, this is the answer" cuz nobody has ever scene a 2,000,000,000,000 KG drop from that height. But my point is the number of zeroes that are in the mass of the Galactica and I've scene superheating events in significantly smaller objects. A mass with that many zeroes is just as important a factor as how fast it is going. --Straycat0 12:28, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Been a long time since taking physics, but let me throw in my two cents. Start with the basics: terminal velocity. If something goes faster than that, it's drag slows it until it reaches that speed. Drag = heat. Let's assume, based on the info here at Wikipedia and here, that Galactica has terribly more drag than a skydiver or peregrine falcon. I'll guess it's TV is something like...pure guess...150km/h. This, btw, is 93mph or .04 km/s, absolutely nothing compared to the speeds that a ship would be travelling outside of an atmosphere. Here's the main question: after jumping, does Galactica begin with an initial velocity, relative to the planet, of 0, or does it maintain its inertial velocity? Wikipedia: "An approximate rule-of-thumb used by heat shield designers for estimating peak shock layer temperature is to assume the air temperature in Kelvins to be equal to the entry speed in meters per second. For example, a spacecraft entering the atmosphere at 7.8 km/s would experience a peak shock layer temperature of 7800 K." So, if Galactica started from a complete stop, it's shock layer temperature would be 42K, which I don't have to tell you is not going to light anything on fire. Because there was fire and all that stuff, I'm going to assume they were travelling at thousands of mph. My conclusion: when ships jump, they maintain their Newtonian momentum, which makes sense, when you think about it. It seems like the ship could have been saved a lot of wear and tear if it had manually stopped, then jumped. That way, it would fall at *only* its TV, and be subject to not much heat. . . . . . but I'm an amateur. Any experts around? - Keithustus 13:22, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Keithustus, Great analysis! However, you guess for TV I think is way off. TV is not a constant. It is a variable that has many parameters, one of which in the numerator is Mass. Therfore, the larger the Mass, the larger the TV. The impression the show gave is that it started from a standstill, what Galactica did was like a skydive. So I can make a comparison with a famous skydiver, Joseph Kittinger. In 1961, he jumped from a helium balloon at 102,800 feet (31,300 m) and reached a TV of 618 MPH (994 km/h), or mach 0.9. Since Galactica is 2,000,000,000 times more massive than he was, the TV should be considerably larger. Of course not 2,000,000,000 because the Galactica's cross-sectional area is also far far greater and that's in the denominator so without actually numbers, I can't say for sure the balance of the 2. But I think the TV is going to be more in the range of 1000s rather than 100s of km/h. Again, a guess though. The "reentry shock" effect isn't a factor because the Galactica is skydiving. It's not a question of bringing the Galactica to a rest before jumping but more of a case of Galactica matching the velocity of New Caprica as all objects in space are in motion. Before Galactica jumped, my guess is that they measured the planets vectoral velocity through its orbit around the star and attempted to match it as close as possible before jumping to allow it to enter its atmosphere at a zero velocity relative to New Caprica which would give it the best chance of pulling off its manuever. But all motion through atmosphere causes heat, how much heat is the question. All aircraft travelling above the speed of sound experience some degree of air compressional superheating along their bows, not enough to cause fire, but heating none the less. --Straycat0 14:12, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

I'm back. First, I apologize if removing all the tab-tab-tab-tabbing throws anyone off, but it was wasting a lot of room so I replaced each tab depth with a line of whitespace and two alternating tab depths. So, here's what I did:

Determine size, displacement, and then determined density of Akula-class submarine, the world's largest. It worked out to be 994 kg/m3, with a full load.
Determined far larger volume of a Mercury class battlestar, using its specified dimensions. Alright, here's the first big overestimate: I used the same density for the Battlestar as for the sub. The density of the sub ought to be far higher than that of the Battlestar, because I used the maximum distance of each dimension, as if the battlestar was a rectangular prism. Clearly, it's not, so this will give us an overestimated, and thus, safer, result. Using the same mass, which, as I said, is far higher probably than it should, the mass of Galactica becomes ...within a significant digit or two of... 140,000,000,000 kg.
Now to the equation: TV = Sqrt( (2 * mass * gravity) / (coefficient of friction * cross section * density of air) )

2 is 2. Easy
mass is 1.4 x 10^11, as above
gravity....a bit of research indicates that it only lowers slightly, with it at 9.8 where we live, and 9.7 at the fringes of what is generally considered to be the atmosphere. I'll go with 9.75...minor flub.
coefficient of friction is hard....it is normally determined experimentally with a wind tunnel, but there are some computer programs that can do it for you, if you have the time, expertise, and precision. On the other hand, the battlestar as shown was kind of like a flat disc falling flat on its face, which has a coefficient of 1.3. Works for me. FYI, airplanes usually are in the .05 to .2 range, cars in .2 to .4, a smooth curved surface at 1. They don't really list a lot of things over 1.3, though...not worth flying I guess.
cross section. multipy length times width from specifications. 784770 m^2. Easy
atmospheric density. It's like 1.3 kg/m^3 near sea level, and is somewhat less than 1 high up. 1 sounds fine for me. We're just hoping within a significant digit, after all.

4. Put all the numbers in the formula. Now, before the answer comes, remember that this is a right rectangular prism with a density matching that of a Russian submarine, and thus weighs probably 4-8 times what it ought, and that the friction is different in who knows what ways...my cheap estimates put the "block Battlestar" hitting a maximum velocity of 1635 m/s, or 1.6 km/s, or 3,657 mph...JUST UNDER MACH 5 (at sea level). Yikes! Given all the overestimating, I'd round it down to mach 4, maybe 3.5, who knows? Either way, who wants to put money on something built for combat damage to accept heat/turbulance stress at that eventual speed? I'm sold on them carefully match the rotation of the planet as suggested above...but I really don't have the time right now to determine how long it would take or what distance would be covered while reaching that speed (the air resistance really throws off those high-school equations). I've hit the edge of my grasping at this. Hope this has been entertainin and maybe not too uneducational. - Keithustus 18:26, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Keithustus, that was very beautiful, I have to hand it to you. Wonderful! That must of taken you a little bit of time to come up with all those numbers. I'm looking it over and I like how you given leaway for error and I will take that TV of Sealevel Mach 4 to 5. It's about an imaginary spacecraft so we can make our own assumptions. So with this TV, we can now determine heat energy released by superheating friction with the atmosphere and that's another set of equations.....--Straycat0 19:19, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Or we could assume that FTL travel superheats the hull of a ship, and that caused the effect. Makes it much easier to swallow.