From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!karn Newsgroups: net.startrek Title: Re: Physics gaffes Article-I.D.: eagle.746 Posted: Wed Jan 26 19:25:40 1983 Received: Sat Jan 29 09:07:24 1983 References: eagle.745 alice.1422 Ah, but in addition to Sulu's voice, we also hear the motors opening and closing the hangar deck doors! Seems to me that somebody once argued their way out of a similar problem in Star Wars by saying that they had perfected an "ears up" (as opposed to "heads up") display which generated sounds inside a ship which appeared to come from the windows beyond which the fighters were attacking. Sounds like a pretty strained explanation to me. Another thing I've always wondered about is communications and transporting - does it have to be line-of-sight? We know from several episodes that there is a distance limitation on both, but I wonder if the Enterprise has to be line-of-sight to someone on the planet surface even if it is in a near orbit. Since the planets always appear to be turning on the viewscreen, we can assume that the orbits are not usually geostationary, although I did hear Sulu remark once that they had achieved one. However, they more often refer to "standard orbit"; what is this supposed to be? Phil