How Fast Does The Sdf-01 Macross Go?

[briscojr84]

Okay does anyone know how fast the main engines of the Macross propels it, and if it's really fast wouldn't people get turned into paste even with artificial gravity.

This may sound like a stupid topic, but I've been re-reading David Weber's Honor Harrington series and the idea of inertial compensators has been niggling at the back of my head especially when the did the sling shot around Saturn.

[ComicKaze]

I'd imagine Macross has the same sort of stuff. Star Trek even has inertial dampeners.

Remember when the gravity failed in DYRL and everybody got floaty and inertially and mucked about with inside?

[sketchley]

Control of gravity implies being able to control inertia (or dampen it, or whatever.)

One thing to keep in mind is that Macross is not exactly a "serious" anime... so we don't have to worry about such pesky things as physics.

As for speeds... I'd give an estimate of anywhere up to as fast as the Zentraedi ships can travel (rebuilt/reconstructed technology.)

Another way to look at is, and this will require math, is to determine where Saturn is in 2009. Mark the distance between Saturn and the closest point of Pluto's orbit. Find out how much time passed in-series between the arrival of the SDF-1 at Pluto's orbit and it's arrival at Saturn.

This will give you the speed that the SDF-1 was allowed to travel, +/- time it took to move all of the civilians inside and any delays by the Zentraedi. Therefore, I'd give a rough estimate of between x2 and x10 whatever the resulting speed is.

[JB0]

Okay does anyone know how fast the main engines of the Macross propels it, and if it's really fast wouldn't people get turned into paste even with artificial gravity.

Depends on how long you thrust.

Remember, constant thrust != constant speed in space, since there's nothing to slow you down.

If you meant acceleration, it's not defined. Likely not very fast, just due to the mass involved.

Could probably work it out IF they mention how long it takes to reach orbit when it first lifts off.

[briscojr84]

Thanks for the info guys.

[JB0]

Another way to look at is, and this will require math, is to determine where Saturn is in 2009.  Mark the distance between Saturn and the closest point of Pluto's orbit.  Find out how much time passed in-series between the arrival of the SDF-1 at Pluto's orbit and it's arrival at Saturn.

This will give you the speed that the SDF-1 was allowed to travel, +/- time it took to move all of the civilians inside and any delays by the Zentraedi.  Therefore, I'd give a rough estimate of between x2 and x10 whatever the resulting speed is.

414021[/snapback]

That'll require a lot more math than it seems, as well as an idea of the crew's thrust habits.

Since thrust of any level results in acceleration, if they had the engines on full for the whole trip, they'd also be ACCELERATING for the entire trip.

It wouldn't even be constant acceleration because relativity makes it harder to move faster(culminating with infinite energy needed to reach light speed, though you can keep accelerating forever to 0.9999... C).

But...

The fold is on February 7, and the arrival at Saturn is somewhere in April 3-15.

So roughly 2 months to get from outside Pluto's orbit to Saturn.

Diffrence between the average orbital distances of the planets = about 2780 million miles. Roughly 4 light-hours.

Travel duration was something like 1440 hours, so 1/360th of lightspeed, or 517 miles per second, for the average speed. That's 1,861,200 MPH, more or less.

It's a very rough calculation, and it's got several points for errors to creep in(the biggest being where the trip started. Pluto's orbit is very lopsided, so taking the average distance is a HUGE assumption, and we don't know how far past that orbit it was anyways), but it's a good starting point.

And just for comparison, NASA's space shuttle has a general top speed of a piddly 17,500 MPH, or 5 miles per second.

Apollo 11 peaked at 24,200 MPH.

Voyager 1, the fastest man-made object in existence, moves at 38,400 MPH. And it used Jupiter's gravity to accelerate to that speed, rather than relying on thrust.

I'm not going to bother working out average acceleration. It'd be even rougher, especially since we KNOW they weren't going full-tilt for the entire trip.

[Mr March]

That's not a bad estimate, but I'd be hesitant to state any hard figures based on the stop-and-go travel of the Macross under constant attack from the Zentradi. The need for maneuvers when engaged and suffering course corrections constantly due to enemy movements would drastically affect the calculation of basic time vs. distance figures.

As I recall, many years ago a Macross fan online performed several calculations of capital ship speeds in Macross based on distances quoted in the series during combat. The fan analyzed the Booby Trap episode (in which we were given a 280,000 kilometer distance) when the Macross first fires on the advance Zentradi ships, estimating detection range and travel time across a few light seconds. The fan also analyzed the episode in which Vrlitwhai's command ship enters detection range of the Macross and the time taken by the Zentradi ship to cruise to within a few thousand meters of the Macross. The end figures sat somewhere around 0.1 to 0.2 the speed of light and the acceleration/deceleration figures where in the low hundreds to kilo g's.