• dalekcaan@feddit.nl
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    19 hours ago

    Let’s not forget Moonraker, which includes a scene where the US army launches a space shuttle to attack Elon Musk a crazed billionaire’s eugenics space station, which is then intercepted by the billionaire’s own space shuttle (which he stole from himself by having someone sneak aboard and launch it while it was being transported on the back of a 747) and then a bunch of army guys and henchmen come out of the cargo bays of their respective shuttles and have a big laser gun fight.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      18 hours ago

      Doesn’t Moonraker also like, end on Jaws and… some lady… just like, living happily ever after… in space, like, they just get the space station now, or something?

      Also, doesn’t Jaws bite through a fucking ski lift cable?

      And… this is not only possible to do, apparently, but the cable doesn’t, you know, instantly decapitate him on being severed?

      Like what happens when an arrestor cable on an aircraft carrier snaps, it whips around with literal bone crushing force?

      I may be mixing up two movies or just remembering something wrong, but uh yeah, Moonraker is a fucking insane movie.

      I will note though, that the actual Space Shuttle did get flown around on the back of a 747.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Carrier_Aircraft

      • dalekcaan@feddit.nl
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        16 hours ago

        Oh yeah, nothing wrong with the 747 carrying the shuttle, that was accurate. The bit that got me was the shuttle launching from the back of it, minus fuel tank no less (as an added bonus, the 747 cockpit had a handy little alert to let the pilots know the shuttle was launching, since that was apparently a big risk of happening).

        Don’t get me wrong, I liked Rodger Moore and his less serious take on Bond, but sometimes things got a little… silly.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          16 hours ago

          So… that is rather wild…

          But its not entirely out of the realm of kinda/maybe/almost possible.

          Like, yes, a rocket essentially hot staging away from a jet is gonna… end really badly for the jet, and probably also the rocket.

          But… tone it down a bit… and…

          Behold, the first supersonic, reconnaissance, drone aircraft:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21

          Basically, its a scaled down A-12, which itself was the precursor to the SR-71… and it piggy-backs on an M-12, basically another variant in the SR-71 family tree.

          I’ve actually seen the D-21/M-12 combo at the Boeing Flight Museum in Seattle, here’s wiki’s pic:

          So yeah, its a parasite craft, launches at something like 60 to 90k feet, takes a bunch of pictures at … potentially nearly the Karman line… then poops out a capsule with a parachute, containing the film to be recovered and developed, and then blows itself up.

          First flight in 1964.


          Nowadays, we and the Russians and the Chinese strap fuck off huge missiles to basically fighter/multirole aircraft, fly them up to as high as they can go, and then shoot said fuckoff huge missile.

          … said missile then proceeds to blow up an LEO satellite, which would be moving at… something like Mach 22-24? ish? … if you carry Mach notation outside of the atmosphere.


          Its actually an at least feasible in theory concept to do something like a two stage space craft system, where the first stage is an aircraft, and the second stage is a spacecraft.

          While the space shuttle is way too heavy to achieve orbit with its own fuel, missing the external tank and SRBs… it is possible that if a shuttle just simply released from the 747, allowed it to dive and get clear, as the shuttle glides… then the shuttle lights its candles…

          That could theoretically get an empty shuttle to s decent suborbital trajectory.

          As fsr as I know, the shuttle did actually disengage mid flight from one of those 47s, though it just tested gliding aerodynamics, its landing and nav and comm systems, would land on a runway.

          Also uh… Branson’s thing, Virgin starship or Stsrship one or whatever, its basicslly a similar idea, fly a small rocket up to a certain altitude, as a parasitr of an aircraft, detach, get clear, light candles, break Karman line.

          Though afaik it is only sub orbital capable?

      • HakunaHafada@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        17 hours ago

        You’re not mixing movies up. Both of those things are in Moonraker. My favorite plot armor in that movie is when Bond and Dr. Goodhead escape from below the shuttle’s exhaust about 5 seconds before ignition, and yet somehow they aren’t immediately burnt to a crisp.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          16 hours ago

          Doctor what-now…?

          Dr. … Goodhead.

          Right, yes, ok.

          I forgot this is the movie series with a character named ‘Pussy Galore.’

          EDIT:

          Anyway, yes, thats another extreme… reality break, that the rocket exhaust doesn’t evaporatr them.

          Again, not sure if I am remembering this right, but I think, that if you… do whatever it is you have to do to unlock the Moonraker mission/level in singleplayer Goldeneye64… I think they ‘fixed’ that.

          I recall a part of the level where you have to either clear the blast zone or shut some blast door or something, otherwise you get smoked.