Did they explain the artificial gravity? - Cargo (2013) Discussion

[–] crash757 12 years ago

Probably same centrifugal mechanics as in the earth's orbital station, the only difference being that the station uses outer rotating parts, but the ship maybe is using an inner rotating module.

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[–] melinda2001 9 years ago

Rocket thrusters producing .5 to 1 G would create enough gravity. Unfortunately the gravity in the ship looked sideways as opposed to being in the direction of travel, so I guess we're supposed to ignore the subject.

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[–] taseron-1 8 years ago

I agree. To create a constant artificial gravity from engine trust, the ship should be accelerating during the whole travel and reach to very high speeds.
Ships traveling at that speed must start decelerating way before approaching target unless they have very (very very) powerful reverse trust engines.
As you may notice, when the ship arrives at cargo delivery station, the engine stops just a few seconds before docking and we don't see any reverse trust engines firing up (which is another mistake)

BTW deceleration would create a negative gravity effect and everything in the ship would fall "upwards".

I agree that we're supposed to ignore physics for this subject.

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[–] misterik9 12 years ago

Films rarely give feasible scenarios for artificial gravity. Huge cargo ships would not have cargo holds under gravity. Makes loading and unloading a nightmare.
As for crew habitat when the full crew gathered early on, the rotating arms could be seen clearly through the window behind them. Was this just for the visual effect only? Till then I assumed the crew habitat would be at the end of the arms.
Also, the ship was under forward thrust the entire journey, even as it approached the space station. Tsk tsk.

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[–] moodie-1 11 years ago

Actually, it helps to have (at least some) spin gravity when handling cargo in space. Without it your cargo would not stay put in your ship's hold and would drift about, wasting much time and effort to keep things organized and also reducing the available room for more cargo. Unless there was some way to attach boxes to other boxes or to the walls (or both), which would probably be somewhat unwieldy to implement (and which would add more mass to the ship). All you'd really need would be 1/50 Earth gravity (or even less) and the boxes would stay put and still be almost as easy to move around as in no gravity.

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[–] taseron-1 8 years ago

I should remind you that the captain FALL DOWN and died in cargo hold. There should be artificial gravity in the cargo hold too.

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[–] philoj 12 years ago

No. Nor did they explain how the hibernation worked, what they ate, or if the space suits used canned air or rebreathers.

But how many times do you explain how your car works?

They have a gravity field of some form, somehow. Next question.

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[–] 12 years ago

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[–] joshcryer 12 years ago

You don't actually need a "spinning space ship." If your space ship can travel near light speed or close enough you can just fly in an arc and have gravity (ie, the "trajectory" is 1-g equivalent of an arc to the destination).

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[–] moodie-1 8 years ago

You don't actually need a "spinning space ship." If your space ship can travel near light speed or close enough you can just fly in an arc and have gravity (ie, the "trajectory" is 1-g equivalent of an arc to the destination).

To quote Arte Johnson: Ver-r-ry interesting! I think I see what you're getting at. If the ship flies at a high enough velocity in a series of shallow arcs then a "downward" gravity-like force would be exerted on the inside of whatever side of the ship faced the outside of the arc. And to avoid gravityless periods when the ship changed from arc to arc all the crew would have to do would be to fly the ship in a very tight helical pattern, constantly rotating the ship to make the "floor" side always face the outside of the arc. Clever! I'm curious. I've never heard of this idea before. Can you tell me where you got it from? (I know it's been more than three years since your post but I'm replying in the remote possibility that you, or some other knowledgeable person, will read this.)

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[–] bigBang8 12 years ago

Do u know how a car works? Then better be quiet.Artificial gravity is way beyond most of people understanding, unless it's dumbed down to a centrifugal *beep*

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[–] Strazdamonas 12 years ago

Yes actually i do. Now do explain how artificial gravity works.

---------------------------------------------
Applied Science? All science is applied. Eventually.

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[–] Kent_Kainer 9 years ago

Most ppl dont know how a car works and no movie explains it and no one asks how a car works.

---
Lincoln Lee: I lost a partner.
Peter Bishop: I lost a universe!

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[–] Mellow-Fellow 9 years ago

Serious? Vehicles are pretty simple. On a Sci-Fi movie forum no less... I like to think most people know how a car works but maybe you are right. Everybody rebuilt their engines back in high school. I pay people to do internal work now days but its reassuring to know the mechanics of standard internal combustion engines. I don't know much about electric motor operation but it's not relevant enough yet that I feel I need to.

In your defense I guess people don't need to know about engines today either I just don't understand how you can go through your life using something so often like computers and cars and not understand how they operate. Hey, to each their own, I'm sure you know a lot about something I have no interest in.

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[–] mamporrero 9 years ago

"Everybody rebuilt their engines back in high school."

Americans needing a car every time they need to take a piss doesn't mean that the rest of the world is like that. Most countries don't allow children (i.e. high school students) to drive cars, and the rite of passage of buying or being gifted your first car to become an adult is a completely American one as well. You should never assume that your peculiar costumes apply to the rest of the world, even less so when you are posting in a foreign film's forum.

To me, "rebuilding your engine" sounds like something people in a third world country or farmers would be forced to do, or people whose specific hobby is car tuning or amateur racing, which would be a tiny proportion of the population.

I'm sure many people know in a general sense how a combustion engine produces torque, but there's a world of difference between that and "knowing how a car works". How many people who are not car enthusiasts do you honestly think could draw a diagram for a differential? And that's just one, relatively simple component of every car.

I agree though that a number of different examples would have served better, like the physics of a flash drive or an LCD screen.

Regarding the original question, they never explained the gravity but, considering that the orbital colony in the beginning was shown to be using rotational movement, and that the thrusters in the cargo ship were always on, it seems like they had not invented a magical gravity module, Star Wars style, and were in fact using the ship's acceleration as a substitute for gravity. If the thrust of the ship was indeed perpendicular to the gravitational force as it seemed to be inside the cargo area, that had to be either an oversight or a conscious decision based on what would be more striking from a visual standpoint.

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[–] Mellow-Fellow 9 years ago

Yes I suppose that was pretty small-minded of me not to consider that most of the world doesn't even have a car in the family. I had to buy my own car and pieces and put them together myself to have a working vehicle. Turned out nice too. I'm not trying to say I had it rough just figured more people knew about things they use most often. You're right, in a foreign film no less, haha, goes to show you what I take for granted, IIRC this was a Swedish movie? I'm sure most of them drive in that developed country but I guess that's not the point.

A lot of it probably depends on personality too. I have always taken things apart and put them back together when I was young to see how they work, even still rebuild broken computers and machinery for the shop, more out of fun than financial necessity. Years ago I had a doctor pay me to come adjust a cabinet door on a kitchen I built for him because he didn't know how to use a screwdriver, true story. Cost him $200 bucks but he didn't care, nice guy. Ask me how to fix a pulmonary testicular expulsion and I'd have no idea though, he's the doctor. It just seems a little different being how simple the every-day things like cars and computers are, and the complexity of surgery. I never had to go to school for 10 years to learn to use a screwdriver or build circuit boards.

This topic has gone off on a tangent for me... I don't think it was really necessary to explain the artificial gravity... There.

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[–] rei_t_ex 12 years ago

Weightlessness is a pain to simulate in film. So artificial gravity works on the principle of insufficient budget.

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[–] emennt-1 11 years ago

Agreed :D

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[–] joshcryer 12 years ago

Simply fly in a minute arc. There, you have gravity. :D

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[–] eve_dolluk 12 years ago

As soon as a movie starts explaining artificial gravity I will instantly switch off, I am not here to watch a documentary I am here to watch a movie.

Luckily I already know how it works as I have read books and watched a few documentary's when I was in the mood for that.

"Can people handle the truth"

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[–] leah_zero 11 years ago

If you switch off a movie when it explains futuristic technology, you're not a real SF fan. Go home.

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[–] moodie-1 11 years ago

WTG!!!

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[–] raf-33 10 years ago

If you switch off a movie when it explains futuristic technology, you're not a real SF fan. Go home."

Tell me, when was the last time you heard the following line in a movie...

"When I said I was gonna cook you a meal, I lied! I just microwaved something from the freezer. The Microwave Oven heats food by bombarding it with electromagnetic radiation in the microwave spectrum causing polarized molecules in the food to rotate and build up thermal energy. I hope you like pasta?"

Never? That's strange, how is someone unfamiliar with such technology ever going to know how it works?

Current movies don't explain current technology, futuristic movies shouldn't explain futuristic technology, it actually makes them less believable as movies. Yes, it is possible to pop the bubble by over explaining.

There is a reason that you get both geeks and 'Trekkies' in this world, the former enjoy science, technology, engineering and the physics behind everything from ballistas to fusion reactors, the latter on the other hand are a bunch of muppets who believe in a world where everyone age 5 and upwards are fluent in Esperantoesque-gibberish and say things like "A build of Smegma Particles are forming on the Minge Spectrometer. Retract the Spunk Injector.".

Y'get me?

You don't know sh!t, Jon Snow!

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[–] therefdotcom 10 years ago

i give that "burn" 10/10. :D

"laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone." - Dae-su Oh

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[–] Jonstoni 10 years ago

"The Microwave Oven heats food by bombarding it with electromagnetic radiation" is not entirely accurate tho. It's the field that makes the molecules spin, they line up with the field. But I completely agree that explaining (even if it's not real technology) things is only a plus when it comes to scifi. Most often the gravity is explained with centripetal force, like they did in Europa Report.

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[–] Mellow-Fellow 9 years ago

I see what you did there.

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[–] arcadeheaven 11 years ago

It's not important for this story, and therefore not included. As in many sci-fi movies we just get to assume that mankind invents a way to control gravitons to create gravitation fields.

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[–] taseron-1 8 years ago

- How did Chuck Norris strangle him with a cordless phone?
+ It's not important for this story.

Well some people think it is important.
`It's not important for this story` is not a valid excuse for most people.