Space and Direction: What is Up?

[Thaluikhain]

2. In order to get out far enough in our universe to find aliens we'd most likely have to develop a way to travel faster than light, and when using such technology the possibility of "meeting" alien ships in space would be almost non-existent since we would be able to basically hop from planet to planet while spending the minimum amount of time in space. Because if you can almost instantaneously get wherever you want, why would you hang out in the nothingness of space?

Hey? FTL travel doesn't necessarily mean instantaneous travel.

However, you aren't going to meet aliens anywhere near your technology level. If life on their world developed 0.00001% faster or slower than humans have, that puts them a few millennia different.

 

[sanquin]

Spaceships don't even need to be cylindrical or plane-like. They could be cubes or spheres or hexagons just as easily. Heck, even a mish-mash of shapes would work just fine. And with propulsion on all sides, space battles would look VERY different from what is shown in sci-fi. Space ships could stop dead in their tracks and reverse, or suddenly go up, down, sideways, etc.

In the end, it depends on what purpose the ship has and how all the technology will fit into it. If a ship is also meant to land on planets, it'll most likely have a more aerodynamic shape as to make atmospheric flight easier. But ships that only stay in space have no real restrictions in terms of shape and movement.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Spaceships don't even need to be cylindrical or plane-like. They could be cubes or spheres or hexagons just as easily. Heck, even a mish-mash of shapes would work just fine. And with propulsion on all sides, space battles would look VERY different from what is shown in sci-fi. Space ships could stop dead in their tracks and reverse, or suddenly go up, down, sideways, etc.

Ah...while ships could move in any direction, suddenly accelerating (or decelerating) in any direction might not be feasible. Takes as much time and power to slow down as to get started, for one. Also, you don't need propulsion on all side if you can rotate the thing to put the propulsion on the side you want.

I suspect that they'd be more mish-mash rather than symmetrical, like space stations tend to be.

 

[cathou]

actually, there's an up and down by convention, at least within solar systems. All the planets are going around there sun, their orbit is always roughly at the same level, near the solar equator named ecliptic.

Now, we can easily say that anything above ecliptic is up, and anything below is down. since every planets rotate counter clockwise as seen from the solar north pole, then if you see the planets rotating ounter clockwise you're above the ecliptic, and if you see them rotate clockwise, you see them from below the ecliptic.

now let's say that your civilisation travel a lot between stars, you should have access to the details of the system before you enter that system. you could program you computer to locate the planets and see what their direction is, and then ajust the ship up and down.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Because three dimensional encounters/exploration and ships that travel in any direction would be confusing for most viewers.

Basically this.

Ever played Evochron Legacy? A common problem in the game for newbies is "Hey, I went to the coordinates for this station, but I don't see it! The map says I'm right inside it!", and they don't think to look "up" or "down" to realize they're on the wrong Z axis. XD

 

[hermes]

Historically, because ships were made using models and strings, so there was an up and down.

Now, only because it would confuse the audience and force the designers to create ships that are not based on planes or old fiction spaceships

 

[happyninja42]

Well, I've seen some scifi use the indicators of "upspin" and "downspin", and "rimward" and "coreward" to give orientation on the galactic scale. It's juts an arbitrary establishment of what is "up" and "down" in those cases, but once it's in place, it does give you a generic, agreed upon sense of orientation when trying to get directions somewhere. Of course, in the close proximity, like a space battle, yeah, orientation is kind of pointless. However, if the various ships have a similar construction convention (putting guns near the front, and on top/bottom for maximum coverage), it would naturally dictate the orientation of the ships in relation to their targets, simply because of having to align the weapons properly. And since most pop culture examples of multiple ships near each other are almost always combat, it would make sense that they would have a relatively similar plane of attack.

Also, at least for one side of any engagement, it would make sense to have everyone operating on the same axis of attack. It's hard to give orders to a fleet if everyone's idea of "up" is different. So you all orient yourselves to the same plane, and then the commander can give orders that everyone will have a common frame of reference for. Thus reducing confusion in battle, which is always good. Clarity with orders in a life/death situation is vitally important to survival and victory.

 

[Thaluikhain]

However, if the various ships have a similar construction convention (putting guns near the front, and on top/bottom for maximum coverage), it would naturally dictate the orientation of the ships in relation to their targets, simply because of having to align the weapons properly.

If they have guns on top and below, they could be above or below the target and still fire. If one weapon is damaged, they can rotate their ship 180 degrees and use the other.

Also, at least for one side of any engagement, it would make sense to have everyone operating on the same axis of attack. It's hard to give orders to a fleet if everyone's idea of "up" is different. So you all orient yourselves to the same plane, and then the commander can give orders that everyone will have a common frame of reference for. Thus reducing confusion in battle, which is always good. Clarity with orders in a life/death situation is vitally important to survival and victory.

Sure, but that doesn't require individual ships to face the same way. If I know where north is, I don't have to be facing north to interpret compass directions from someone else who know where north is.

 

[Avnger]

However, if the various ships have a similar construction convention (putting guns near the front, and on top/bottom for maximum coverage), it would naturally dictate the orientation of the ships in relation to their targets, simply because of having to align the weapons properly.

If they have guns on top and below, they could be above or below the target and still fire. If one weapon is damaged, they can rotate their ship 180 degrees and use the other.

Also, at least for one side of any engagement, it would make sense to have everyone operating on the same axis of attack. It's hard to give orders to a fleet if everyone's idea of "up" is different. So you all orient yourselves to the same plane, and then the commander can give orders that everyone will have a common frame of reference for. Thus reducing confusion in battle, which is always good. Clarity with orders in a life/death situation is vitally important to survival and victory.

Sure, but that doesn't require individual ships to face the same way. If I know where north is, I don't have to be facing north to interpret compass directions from someone else who know where north is.

You're talking about a (supposedly) military force. Unless there is a tactical advantage, purposely orienting yourself to a different frame of reference is beyond stupid simply because of the possibility of confusion or misinterpretation of orders. Standardization saves lives (and makes everyone's life hell in training, but that's another story).

edit: Your compass analogy is a bit off anyway. A more apt one would be the orders are telling everyone to go "forward" with 75% of the people facing (correctly) north and 25% of the people facing south. It shouldn't be too hard for the people facing south to interpret "forward" correctly when coming from a north-facing perspective, but in the heat of a battle, emergency, or stressful situation all it would take is 1 person forgetting for even a second and all bets are off.

 

[happyninja42]

However, if the various ships have a similar construction convention (putting guns near the front, and on top/bottom for maximum coverage), it would naturally dictate the orientation of the ships in relation to their targets, simply because of having to align the weapons properly.

If they have guns on top and below, they could be above or below the target and still fire. If one weapon is damaged, they can rotate their ship 180 degrees and use the other.

Also, at least for one side of any engagement, it would make sense to have everyone operating on the same axis of attack. It's hard to give orders to a fleet if everyone's idea of "up" is different. So you all orient yourselves to the same plane, and then the commander can give orders that everyone will have a common frame of reference for. Thus reducing confusion in battle, which is always good. Clarity with orders in a life/death situation is vitally important to survival and victory.

Sure, but that doesn't require individual ships to face the same way. If I know where north is, I don't have to be facing north to interpret compass directions from someone else who know where north is.

Well I don't know what pop culture examples you are thinking of, but I can think of the big fleet battle in Return of the Jedi, where they didn't bother with facing the same way once combat was initiated. The fighters were twisting and turning all over the place, and at least one time you see a few Star Destroyers twisting at angles.

As to the weapon orientation, yes they could adjust for damage. What i'm talking about is if your guns are aligned a certain way, and they don't have 360 degree fire arcs, you have to point your ship certain directions to shoot your target. And if your ship is roughly flat on top/bottom, like most pop culture ships are, then that informs your alignment in combat.

The reality of actual space combat, versus hollywood combat boils down to this though hollywood space physics is utter bullshit. None of it works like that in actual space, so none of the combat is accurate. If you are going to criticize the fine details of space combat, when the fundamental rules of said combat are even more unrealistic, well, then I don't know what the point is honestly. The reality of space combat is likely going to be loooooooooong distance combat. So long distance that you can't see the target, and are firing missles based on sensor data, and assumed trajectories based on gravitational wells. But, since that's really boring to look at, and would take hours of real time between when you shoot and when you learn that the shot hit, it wouldn't make for very good entertainment. So they use simple examples, that make sense to use landwalkers, who comprehend things with a concept of "down" to orient with, and go from there with the story.

 

[sanquin]

Ah...while ships could move in any direction, suddenly accelerating (or decelerating) in any direction might not be feasible. Takes as much time and power to slow down as to get started, for one. Also, you don't need propulsion on all side if you can rotate the thing to put the propulsion on the side you want.

I suspect that they'd be more mish-mash rather than symmetrical, like space stations tend to be.

Ah right, a ship's movement would be limited to how fast it can accelerate and the G-forces on the people inside.

 

[Thaluikhain]

You're talking about a (supposedly) military force. Unless there is a tactical advantage, purposely orienting yourself to a different frame of reference is beyond stupid simply because of the possibility of confusion or misinterpretation of orders.

Assuming all ships are capable of doing everything they need to do equally well in all directions they need to do them, then yes, it's simpler if they are all aligned. If not, then there definitely can be a tactical advantage to having ships aligned differently, the same as not having everyone facing the same direction on the ground.

edit: Your compass analogy is a bit off anyway. A more apt one would be the orders are telling everyone to go "forward" with 75% of the people facing (correctly) north and 25% of the people facing south. It shouldn't be too hard for the people facing south to interpret "forward" correctly when coming from a north-facing perspective, but in the heat of a battle, emergency, or stressful situation all it would take is 1 person forgetting for even a second and all bets are off.

What's stopping them from picking a direction beforehand and saying that that is their reference point? Again, like people do in combat.

 

[Tanis]

Maybe there's some kind of universal center?

Like, where the 'big bang' was?

So...everyone just agrees 'Universal North' is a thing?

 

[Laughing Man]

Im more curious about real life applications. I get it for movies, but if we do eventually colonize space effectively, it will be something to deal with.

You need to have a basic understanding of the concept of Hohmann Transfer to understand how this would work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit

Put simply everything in the Universe tends to spin around other larger things in the Universe, Moons spin around Planets, Planets around Suns and Sun around the centre of the Galaxy. Space travel is less about point your vessel at your target and fly their in a straight line and more about doing transfers from one orbit to another.

It's tricky to describe but what you are trying to do is put your crafts flight path in the same location as the targets flight path so that the two meet each other at the same time.

Part of the problem is that when two vessels meet they may meet each other doing vastly different speeds along their respective orbital paths. If you've done your transfer burn right you'll meet your target doing roughly the same speeds however in most cases you'll have to be an encounter or orbital matching burn, this involves turning your vessel prograde and then burning your engines until your speed (and orbit) now matches that of your target vessel.

To put it simply in most space encounters you would only ever see two vessels point nose to nose AFTER one of the vessels had already done a number of weird and strangely angled engine burns that would bring it's orbit in to alignment with the target vessel.

To put that in context directions, in space tend to be referenced based on your vessel vs whatever it is you are aiming to meet up with.

 

[09philj]

Maybe there's some kind of universal center?

Like, where the 'big bang' was?

So...everyone just agrees 'Universal North' is a thing?

We can all go hubwards, rimwards, turnwise, and widdershins.

 

[Catnip1024]

Well, if it doesn't matter which way you are facing from a purely mechanical view, surely having an agreed convention on up makes everything so much easier? It makes space easier to wrap your head around, it makes interactions with other ships easier to coordinate, and it makes your fleet look so much tidier. Just because space is big doesn't mean you should leave spaceships lying around facing whatever way you like.