Flight of the Phoenix

Ridgerunner

Ridgerunner

Vice Admiral
So, how did Riker, LeForge, and Cochoran get back to Earth's surface, seeing how the Phoenix is a modified ICBM with no landing gear? And no wings? Did they leave it in orbit, and parachute back Apollo-style?

Seems like a waste to throw it away after going through so much trouble to build it.
 
And here I thought this would be a reference to the movie "Flight of the Phoenix". ^_^


Anyway, assuming that the engines can retract (they deploy after the first stage is dropped), then Cochrane could have just mounted parachutes and airbags on the Phoenix and had it land that way (like NASA's new CEV is supposed to land). Assuming that the ICBM is a modified Titan missile (as the appearance implies), then it has a core diameter of ten feet (3.00 meters). Using that for scale, the Phoenix is about twice as big as a standard TNG shuttlecraft, and probably weighs somewhere around ten to twenty metric tons--plenty light enough for the parachute-and-airbags style of landing.
 
Why can't it just glide to a landing strip like the shuttle? Giant space wings aren't a requirement for that -- look at the early plans for the Gemini capsule, which would have deployed a Rogallo wing during re-entry and slid to a ground-landing on skids.
 
Dude, Star Trek.

The Phoenix was a space ship in the future that could travel faster than light. It's possible it had an additional piece of Star Trek technology that would allow it to land without too much trouble.
 
Petey, the issue here is that if it could land using its engines like a Star Trek shuttlecraft, then why would it need a rocket to launch? The assumption, then, is that it does NOT use its engines for landing, but instead makes an unpowered landing.
 
Ijuin said:
Petey, the issue here is that if it could land using its engines like a Star Trek shuttlecraft, then why would it need a rocket to launch? The assumption, then, is that it does NOT use its engines for landing, but instead makes an unpowered landing.
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its simple. in sublight travel the impulse drives are used.

for faster than light travel, warp drive is used.

that thing only had warp and conventional rocket propulsion.

and the rocket was empty so they used a parachute.
 
Right. The need to use a rocket to launch implies that it had no internal liftoff/landing engines of its own, thus a parachute/paraglider.
 
Ijuin said:
Right. The need to use a rocket to launch implies that it had no internal liftoff/landing engines of its own, thus a parachute/paraglider.
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Well I guess I was thinking of some sort of futuristic anti-gravity system that still kind of sucks... powerful enough to make a gentle and graceful landing but somehow limited enough to be unable to help anything escape Earth's gravity.

But, you know, a parachute or some kind of weird skid system would do the trick too.
 
I meant that the explanation is MAGIC, just like with everything that happens in Xena. And yeah, Lucy can fly.
 
I love how Lucy always gets Charlie Brown to try and kick the football.

When Charlie Brown is lying on the ground, in pain, knowing he was tricked again... I can really identify with that.
 
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