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From: tli@uscvax.UUCP (Tony Li)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Death of the Enterprise
Message-ID: <1256@uscvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Dec-84 03:01:45 EST
Article-I.D.: uscvax.1256
Posted: Sat Dec  8 03:01:45 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Dec-84 06:16:01 EST
References: <2129@garfield.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: CS&CE Depts, U.S.C., Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 23

> 	In ST III the Enterprise exploded and fell toward the planet
> 	where it burned as it entered the atmosphere. The question
> 	is that should this have occured? And if not what should
> 	have happened? 
> 					Thanx
> 					Lt. Suvak
> 					utcsrgv!garfield!lesley

It seems possible.  Assuming the Enterprise is in a stable orbit, a large
explosion could shift the center of mass greatly.  Air drag from that point
would quickly take over.  One of the things that bothered me about the scene
was the lack of destruction.  If you're going to implement a self-destruct
mechanism, you'd make sure that it would *DESTROY* the ship.  If you set of
an uncontrolled anti-matter/matter reaction, it should be equivalent to a
fair sized nuclear warhead, which should be enough to easily pulverize the
ship.  But in the movie, we see about 50% of the ship spiral in.

Curioser and Curioser....
-- 
Tony Li ;-)		Usc Computer Science
Uucp: {sdcrdcf,randvax}!uscvax!tli
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