If you haven’t watched the season 3 episodes Exodus Pt 1 & 2 yet, stop now and commence to catching up.
blerp
*
*
bleep
*
*
Ok, then.
A few years ago, I was participating in a usenet discussion about something I found interesting regarding this episode. Specifically, the question: “Just how fast was the Galactica falling?” As is the custom with classical nerdery, I embarked to determine the answer (in this case, using some assumptions and video analysis) with some degree of certainty.
Coming into the thread, at this point I was arguing with someone who had decided it was falling at Mach 10 because he had invoked the power of spreadsheets and Could Not Be Contradicted. His theory was that the “99,000 and falling” line meant feet because he had decided… that it does because he said so.
I had argued that the video evidence strongly indicated otherwise, and that we could measure the actual progression of the ship through the video frame to come up with a rough estimate.
Here’s my post:
I did a quick little bit of dirty photogrammetry. Using the clip at
the end right before he jumped out, I timed the aft-port corner taking
about 1.5 seconds to go from the top of the screen to when it jumped.
I measured the pixels, used an unsubstantiated “4100 foot” figure as
the length of the ship, measured the ship from front to back in the
brief second in that scene where the whole ship is visible, converted
pixels to feet, and in the end came up with it falling at roughly 1,400
FPS which is about 950 miles per hour immediately before it goes FTL.
The number is rough for a bunch of reasons:
- I hand-timed the sequence 5 times and averaged it, but it’s still
hand timed.- The viewing angle isn’t straight on, so there’s some precision lost
there.- I’m counting pixels.
- The actual length of the ship isn’t confirmed, as far as I know, so
the 4100 foot figure might be wrong.
On the other hand, even if the length is 5000 feet or 3000 feet, the
results are still not that far off.
Evidence seems to suggest that the ship is traveling at about 1,000 mph
downwards immediately before jump. This has to be above terminal
velocity (unless the FTL drives use neutron star cores) so it was
probably being slowed by the atmosphere instead of accelerating
downwards (as some of the other posts seem to suggest) and this seems
to indicate pretty clearly that it jumped in with downward velocity
already (as others have already said), but the speed is closer to 2
Mach than 10.
The actual entrance speed could be calculated if there were reliable
figures on the mass and some clever soul calculated a drag coefficient,
but it’s still probably going to be in the ballpark (+/- 500mph) of
1,000mph.
Someone with a video editor who can count specific frames could
fine-tune the number, but I think it’ll be close. I’m not a killjoy,
and I do have a life, it’s just that this was a pretty straight forward
calculation and I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone else post
equivalent results. Unless they have and I’m dumb, both very possible.
The flames? Eh… maybe it was… the fierce use of maneuvering
thrusters to keep the keel level, and the exhaust being washed up in
the turbulence? Or maybe it just looked cool? I’m fine with both.
Thoughts? Anyone here run their own math on the scene and come up with a different result?
