VitaminQ wrote:Many of these may already have been addressed, but I'm not going to read through all previous posts.

I'm limiting my comments to technical flaws/questions. I don't think there are spoilers here.

-Magic "blight" that attacks across different species? A stretch. Wait, I saw grass growing. Wheat and rice are essentially grass seed, you know.

-Phytoplankton photosynthesis is responsible for most of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Does the blight kill them too?

-Solar cells powering an aircraft? Enough to power a combine? Snort. Solar energy is 700W per square meter maximum in continental U.S. Assuming 100% conversion efficiency (impossible), with entire skin of drone as a solar cell, that's about 10 horsepower. Combine? How about a garden tractor.

-NASA couldn't have put the offices half a mile from the launch silo? Hundreds of tons of liquid hydrogen and LOX right next to your cubicle... what could go wrong?

-TARS, CASE- power source? That has to be one helluva battery pack.

-"Magic rockets" (Endurance, Ranger, Lander) that provide seemingly limitless thrust from... what, exactly? All rockets require reaction mass and energy. HUGE amounts of these for orbital launches. Someone please tell me the energy source, and where the reaction mass is stored for these vehicles.

-Landing on a planet from orbit ridiculously oversimplified. Ever watch a space shuttle landing? Remember what happened to Columbia? How to shed kinetic energy? Little things like that.

-Lander has no aerodynamic shape at all, but can hit an atmosphere at Mach 15 without disintegrating? Or even getting hot?

-Standing right next to Lander rocket exhaust? Without being incinerated?

-Habitable planets with no stars?- PLEASE tell me they're not getting their heat & light from Gargantua's accretion disc?! A cool idea, I guess, but a HUGE stretch of credibility. Let's just say I wouldn't want to live there. Also creates serious logic problems.

-Please explain the frozen clouds on Mann's. Review density/buoyancy principles. Give a "real-world" example of how this is possible.

-Is there oxygen in Mann's atmosphere? From where? Without life, you don't have free atmospheric oxygen.

-Wrist jet-packs: The silliest thing in the movie. I laughed out loud. They belong on Batman, not on a "serious" astronaut.

-Another silly- Why does TARS need to mechanically operate a docking joystick? Why not a direct electrical interface to the attitude controls? What, TARS doesn't have Bluetooth? Further, if an AI can perform docking, why isn't that function already integrated into every spacecraft?

-Docking sequence: Newton's laws of motion take a brutal beating here. Mass, inertia, angular momentum, coriolis effect, asymmetrical forces- that scene is a hot mess built on pure fantasy.

-Mechanical stress on the Endurance docking ring? Is Cooper really using the docking bay to push the Endurance around? Can't believe the docking bay is designed to take those enormous torsional and shear forces.

-Geometry and travel times around the Gargantua/planet system doesn't look or feel right. Covering vast distances way too quickly. Also, Miller's planet nowhere near the event horizon, not close enough for extreme time dilation.

-Cooper's last transmission to Brand as he fell toward Gargantua is impossible. Would have red-shifted below radio frequencies.

VitaminQ wrote:

Many of these may already have been addressed, but I'm not going to read through all previous posts.

I'm limiting my comments to technical flaws/questions. I don't think there are spoilers here.

-Magic "blight" that attacks across different species? A stretch. Wait, I saw grass growing. Wheat and rice are essentially grass seed, you know.

-Phytoplankton photosynthesis is responsible for most of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Does the blight kill them too?

-Solar cells powering an aircraft? Enough to power a combine? Snort. Solar energy is 700W per square meter maximum in continental U.S. Assuming 100% conversion efficiency (impossible), with entire skin of drone as a solar cell, that's about 10 horsepower. Combine? How about a garden tractor.

-NASA couldn't have put the offices half a mile from the launch silo? Hundreds of tons of liquid hydrogen and LOX right next to your cubicle... what could go wrong?

-TARS, CASE- power source? That has to be one helluva battery pack.

-"Magic rockets" (Endurance, Ranger, Lander) that provide seemingly limitless thrust from... what, exactly? All rockets require reaction mass and energy. HUGE amounts of these for orbital launches. Someone please tell me the energy source, and where the reaction mass is stored for these vehicles.

-Landing on a planet from orbit ridiculously oversimplified. Ever watch a space shuttle landing? Remember what happened to Columbia? How to shed kinetic energy? Little things like that.

-Lander has no aerodynamic shape at all, but can hit an atmosphere at Mach 15 without disintegrating? Or even getting hot?

-Standing right next to Lander rocket exhaust? Without being incinerated?

-Habitable planets with no stars?- PLEASE tell me they're not getting their heat & light from Gargantua's accretion disc?! A cool idea, I guess, but a HUGE stretch of credibility. Let's just say I wouldn't want to live there. Also creates serious logic problems.

-Please explain the frozen clouds on Mann's. Review density/buoyancy principles. Give a "real-world" example of how this is possible.

-Is there oxygen in Mann's atmosphere? From where? Without life, you don't have free atmospheric oxygen.

-Wrist jet-packs: The silliest thing in the movie. I laughed out loud. They belong on Batman, not on a "serious" astronaut.

-Another silly- Why does TARS need to mechanically operate a docking joystick? Why not a direct electrical interface to the attitude controls? What, TARS doesn't have Bluetooth? Further, if an AI can perform docking, why isn't that function already integrated into every spacecraft?

-Docking sequence: Newton's laws of motion take a brutal beating here. Mass, inertia, angular momentum, coriolis effect, asymmetrical forces- that scene is a hot mess built on pure fantasy.

-Mechanical stress on the Endurance docking ring? Is Cooper really using the docking bay to push the Endurance around? Can't believe the docking bay is designed to take those enormous torsional and shear forces.

-Geometry and travel times around the Gargantua/planet system doesn't look or feel right. Covering vast distances way too quickly. Also, Miller's planet nowhere near the event horizon, not close enough for extreme time dilation.

-Cooper's last transmission to Brand as he fell toward Gargantua is impossible. Would have red-shifted below radio frequencies.

VitaminQ wrote:Many of these may already have been addressed, but I'm not going to read through all previous posts.

I'm limiting my comments to technical flaws/questions. I don't think there are spoilers here.

1. Magic "blight" that attacks across different species? A stretch. Wait, I saw grass growing. Wheat and rice are essentially grass seed, you know.

2. Phytoplankton photosynthesis is responsible for most of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Does the blight kill them too?

3. Solar cells powering an aircraft? Enough to power a combine? Snort. Solar energy is 700W per square meter maximum in continental U.S. Assuming 100% conversion efficiency (impossible), with entire skin of drone as a solar cell, that's about 10 horsepower. Combine? How about a garden tractor.

4. NASA couldn't have put the offices half a mile from the launch silo? Hundreds of tons of liquid hydrogen and LOX right next to your cubicle... what could go wrong?

5. TARS, CASE- power source? That has to be one helluva battery pack.

6. "Magic rockets" (Endurance, Ranger, Lander) that provide seemingly limitless thrust from... what, exactly? All rockets require reaction mass and energy. HUGE amounts of these for orbital launches. Someone please tell me the energy source, and where the reaction mass is stored for these vehicles.

7. Landing on a planet from orbit ridiculously oversimplified. Ever watch a space shuttle landing? Remember what happened to Columbia? How to shed kinetic energy? Little things like that.

8. Lander has no aerodynamic shape at all, but can hit an atmosphere at Mach 15 without disintegrating? Or even getting hot?

9. Standing right next to Lander rocket exhaust? Without being incinerated?

10. Habitable planets with no stars?- PLEASE tell me they're not getting their heat & light from Gargantua's accretion disc?! A cool idea, I guess, but a HUGE stretch of credibility. Let's just say I wouldn't want to live there. Also creates serious logic problems.

11. Please explain the frozen clouds on Mann's. Review density/buoyancy principles. Give a "real-world" example of how this is possible.

12. Is there oxygen in Mann's atmosphere? From where? Without life, you don't have free atmospheric oxygen.

13. Wrist jet-packs: The silliest thing in the movie. I laughed out loud. They belong on Batman, not on a "serious" astronaut.

14. Another silly- Why does TARS need to mechanically operate a docking joystick? Why not a direct electrical interface to the attitude controls? What, TARS doesn't have Bluetooth? Further, if an AI can perform docking, why isn't that function already integrated into every spacecraft?

15. Docking sequence: Newton's laws of motion take a brutal beating here. Mass, inertia, angular momentum, coriolis effect, asymmetrical forces- that scene is a hot mess built on pure fantasy.

16. Mechanical stress on the Endurance docking ring? Is Cooper really using the docking bay to push the Endurance around? Can't believe the docking bay is designed to take those enormous torsional and shear forces.

17. Geometry and travel times around the Gargantua/planet system doesn't look or feel right. Covering vast distances way too quickly. Also, Miller's planet nowhere near the event horizon, not close enough for extreme time dilation.

18. Cooper's last transmission to Brand as he fell toward Gargantua is impossible. Would have red-shifted below radio frequencies.

1. Blight attacks chloroplasts. A lot of plants - as in, ALL PLANTS - have chloroplasts.

2. See #1.

3. They never said the drone was purely solar powered. They never mention what powers the combines.

4. Who said they would be in the conference room during launch? Also: very very thick wall.

5. It's almost as if they were built by a military more advanced than we are!

6. This is the only valid complaint in the entire list.

7. Both the Ranger and Lander are equipped with heat shields.

8.



9. Who said the Lander uses rockets while in VTOL mode?

10. If you look very closely at pictures of Gargantua, there's a chance you might glimpse the utterly massive disk of gas glowing as bright as the frickin' Sun. And before you start complaining about the radiation, the disk isn't hot enough to make ionizing radiation. Its emission spectrum is Sun-like.

11. I already did a while ago: http://www.nolanfans.com/forums/viewtop ... 10#p888576

12. They never claimed there was O2 in the atmosphere. Confirmed when Cooper couldn't breathe when his helmet was broken.

13. That's a flaw with you, not the movie.

14. Sure, let's just add another needlessly complicated interface instead of having the robot use the controls which will already be installed for human use anyway.

15. Endurance is spinning on one axis, and there happens to be a docking port aligned with said axis. The Lander also has a docking port aligned with its center of mass. Line up the axes, match the spin, and you're golden.

16. It's almost as if Endurance was built to withstand high internal stresses since it'd be flying in areas of high tidal forces!

17. So what if it doesn't "feel right?" It agrees with the math. Orbital speeds near Gargantua's event horizon are measured as fractions of lightspeed, and time dilation makes the trip feel rather quick. And I already did a comprehensive FAQ on Miller's world: http://www.reddit.com/r/interstellar/co ... _spoilers/

18. Cooper's final transmission was him saying "detach" before he even detached. Nothing he said past that point was broadcast to Amelia at all.

VitaminQ wrote:Many of these may already have been addressed, but I'm not going to read through all previous posts.

I'm limiting my comments to technical flaws/questions. I don't think there are spoilers here.

-Magic "blight" that attacks across different species? A stretch. Wait, I saw grass growing. Wheat and rice are essentially grass seed, you know.

-Phytoplankton photosynthesis is responsible for most of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Does the blight kill them too?

-Solar cells powering an aircraft? Enough to power a combine? Snort. Solar energy is 700W per square meter maximum in continental U.S. Assuming 100% conversion efficiency (impossible), with entire skin of drone as a solar cell, that's about 10 horsepower. Combine? How about a garden tractor.

-NASA couldn't have put the offices half a mile from the launch silo? Hundreds of tons of liquid hydrogen and LOX right next to your cubicle... what could go wrong?

-TARS, CASE- power source? That has to be one helluva battery pack.

-"Magic rockets" (Endurance, Ranger, Lander) that provide seemingly limitless thrust from... what, exactly? All rockets require reaction mass and energy. HUGE amounts of these for orbital launches. Someone please tell me the energy source, and where the reaction mass is stored for these vehicles.

-Landing on a planet from orbit ridiculously oversimplified. Ever watch a space shuttle landing? Remember what happened to Columbia? How to shed kinetic energy? Little things like that.

-Lander has no aerodynamic shape at all, but can hit an atmosphere at Mach 15 without disintegrating? Or even getting hot?

-Standing right next to Lander rocket exhaust? Without being incinerated?

-Habitable planets with no stars?- PLEASE tell me they're not getting their heat & light from Gargantua's accretion disc?! A cool idea, I guess, but a HUGE stretch of credibility. Let's just say I wouldn't want to live there. Also creates serious logic problems.

-Please explain the frozen clouds on Mann's. Review density/buoyancy principles. Give a "real-world" example of how this is possible.

-Is there oxygen in Mann's atmosphere? From where? Without life, you don't have free atmospheric oxygen.

-Wrist jet-packs: The silliest thing in the movie. I laughed out loud. They belong on Batman, not on a "serious" astronaut.

-Another silly- Why does TARS need to mechanically operate a docking joystick? Why not a direct electrical interface to the attitude controls? What, TARS doesn't have Bluetooth? Further, if an AI can perform docking, why isn't that function already integrated into every spacecraft?

-Docking sequence: Newton's laws of motion take a brutal beating here. Mass, inertia, angular momentum, coriolis effect, asymmetrical forces- that scene is a hot mess built on pure fantasy.

-Mechanical stress on the Endurance docking ring? Is Cooper really using the docking bay to push the Endurance around? Can't believe the docking bay is designed to take those enormous torsional and shear forces.

-Geometry and travel times around the Gargantua/planet system doesn't look or feel right. Covering vast distances way too quickly. Also, Miller's planet nowhere near the event horizon, not close enough for extreme time dilation.

-Cooper's last transmission to Brand as he fell toward Gargantua is impossible. Would have red-shifted below radio frequencies.

VitaminQ wrote:Many of these may already have been addressed, but I'm not going to read through all previous posts.

I'm limiting my comments to technical flaws/questions. I don't think there are spoilers here.

-Magic "blight" that attacks across different species? A stretch. Wait, I saw grass growing. Wheat and rice are essentially grass seed, you know.

-Phytoplankton photosynthesis is responsible for most of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Does the blight kill them too?

-Solar cells powering an aircraft? Enough to power a combine? Snort. Solar energy is 700W per square meter maximum in continental U.S. Assuming 100% conversion efficiency (impossible), with entire skin of drone as a solar cell, that's about 10 horsepower. Combine? How about a garden tractor.

-NASA couldn't have put the offices half a mile from the launch silo? Hundreds of tons of liquid hydrogen and LOX right next to your cubicle... what could go wrong?

-TARS, CASE- power source? That has to be one helluva battery pack.

-"Magic rockets" (Endurance, Ranger, Lander) that provide seemingly limitless thrust from... what, exactly? All rockets require reaction mass and energy. HUGE amounts of these for orbital launches. Someone please tell me the energy source, and where the reaction mass is stored for these vehicles.

-Landing on a planet from orbit ridiculously oversimplified. Ever watch a space shuttle landing? Remember what happened to Columbia? How to shed kinetic energy? Little things like that.

-Lander has no aerodynamic shape at all, but can hit an atmosphere at Mach 15 without disintegrating? Or even getting hot?

-Standing right next to Lander rocket exhaust? Without being incinerated?

-Habitable planets with no stars?- PLEASE tell me they're not getting their heat & light from Gargantua's accretion disc?! A cool idea, I guess, but a HUGE stretch of credibility. Let's just say I wouldn't want to live there. Also creates serious logic problems.

-Please explain the frozen clouds on Mann's. Review density/buoyancy principles. Give a "real-world" example of how this is possible.

-Is there oxygen in Mann's atmosphere? From where? Without life, you don't have free atmospheric oxygen.

-Wrist jet-packs: The silliest thing in the movie. I laughed out loud. They belong on Batman, not on a "serious" astronaut.

-Another silly- Why does TARS need to mechanically operate a docking joystick? Why not a direct electrical interface to the attitude controls? What, TARS doesn't have Bluetooth? Further, if an AI can perform docking, why isn't that function already integrated into every spacecraft?

-Docking sequence: Newton's laws of motion take a brutal beating here. Mass, inertia, angular momentum, coriolis effect, asymmetrical forces- that scene is a hot mess built on pure fantasy.

-Mechanical stress on the Endurance docking ring? Is Cooper really using the docking bay to push the Endurance around? Can't believe the docking bay is designed to take those enormous torsional and shear forces.

-Geometry and travel times around the Gargantua/planet system doesn't look or feel right. Covering vast distances way too quickly. Also, Miller's planet nowhere near the event horizon, not close enough for extreme time dilation.

-Cooper's last transmission to Brand as he fell toward Gargantua is impossible. Would have red-shifted below radio frequencies.

VitaminQ wrote:"Was one of these actually a flaw in the movie? Interstellar is science-fiction"

But so many are saying the science in the movie is "dead-on." Is this supposed to be a "realistic" movie or not?

Trying to have it both ways?

Perhaps my definition of "flaw" is not the same as other folks'. I accept that.