Text 15480, 117 rader
Skriven 2007-06-18 14:12:50 av Dan Dassow (1893.babylon5)
  Kommentar till text 15477 av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (1890.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: A trip on the wayback machine...
============================================
On Jun 17, 10:36 pm, Matt Ion <soundy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was searching for something on the Lurker's Guide and stumbled across
> this old gem... I never read any of this when it the show was originally
> being made, so I'd never seen this before, but man, this is classic...
>
> ------
> [Usenet postings by JMS] Search - Previous - Next
> Re: ATSFOS-Tossing bodies out
> 22 Mar 1994
>
>       "But the line about the body being bound to the station by gravity
> was idiocy of the most annoying kind, because it blatantly screams that
> the people writing and producing the show don't bother to check the most
> trivial elements of the science they portray.  What they happen to get
> right, they get right by sheer coincidence."
>
>       The only thing that I would agree with in your analysis is the word
> "idiot."  I would, however, apply it in your direction, since you so
> willingly applied it in mine, as the person who writes and produces this
> show.
>
>       1) We do fairly thorough research into the science of our show.  We
> work hard at it.  We subscribe to the various scientific journals, we
> use advisors on stuff we don't fully understand ourselves.  We make a
> concerted, conscious and deliberate effort to get the science *right*,
> as much as is practical within a TV format.
>
>       2) Your attitude is the kind of reprehensible crap I get from people
> who aren't paying attention, and just assume that if something isn't done
> to what THEY consider satisfactory, that people are just sluffing it off,
> that they're idiots, they don't bother.  My response: who the fuck are
> you?  Where the fuck were YOU when we were having production meeting after
> productin meeting trying to determine how to do some of this stuff?  I
> didn't see your name on the list, didn't see you in the room, where do you
> get off characterizing our attitude?
>
>       And now for the good part.
>
>       3) This weekend, I was at the Space Frontier Foundation to receive an
> award for Babylon 5 for Best Vision of the Future, part of which was its
> recognition of our *deliberate efforts* to get things right.  Zero-G
> maneuvering, civilian use of space, a working O'Neill station, on and on,
> all the stuff you think  happens by "coincidence."  And which has not
> generally HAPPENED on TV before.  In attendence were the Delta Clipper
> team of engineers, astronaut Pete Conrad, leading researchers with NASA,
> JPL, McDonnell-Douglas, you name it.
>
>       And one of the people there, who had been with SDI and the Space
> Program for 12 years, currently a top-level NASA consultant, pulled me
> aside and said that after seeing the line about the gravity not letting
> the body get very far -- and THAT is what was said in the script, and in
> the episode, NOT your characterization of a body "bound" to the hull --
> he said he sat down to do the math required to come up with the actuall
> MASS of B5, starting with the 2.5 million tons of actual structure, plus
> likely vegetation, quarters, occupants, ships docked inside...and when
> you add it all up, it came to about the same mass as a fairly small
> moon...and IT WOULD BE ENOUGH TO KEEP THE BODY FROM -- AS STATED IN THE
> SCRIPT -- GETTING VERY FAR.
>
>       The body would drift from the station a bit, get pulled back, hit
> the hull, bounce, drift a bit, and be pulled back.  Or go into a slow
> elliptical orbit.  (He mentioned that in the history of the Apollo
> program, little bits of debris that would flake off the outside of the
> ship would remain in proximity to the ship, just on the basis of ITS
> mass and gravity, and it's not very big.)
>
>       A couple of other high-level engineers backed him up, and said that
> it was quite reasonable.
>
>       What's the difference?  THEY sat down and did the math.  YOU just
> sat down and ran your mouth, and decided to go around insulting people
> for being inaccurate when in fact YOU are the one who "didn't bother to
> check the most trivial elements of the science."  I don't think you really
> grasp how big this place is, and how massive it is, and its effect on the
> surrounding area.
>
>       I, however, DO know how massive the station is, and DID bother to
> call around to a few people I know who know this stuff even better than I
> do, to ask them about this *before I wrote it*, just to be sure.
>
>       I put your message on the same level as the occasional screed that
> flies through here blathering on about how there shouldn't be gravity in
> the observation dome since it's in the center of the station WITHOUT
> stopping to LOOK at the goddamned thing and see that it's 1/3rd of the
> way down FROM the center, giving at least 1/3rd G.
>
>       Let me tell you a story.  It's about Van Gogh.  He was due to be
> visited for the first time by his idol, Gauguin.  He covered the walls of
> his home with his paintings, and awaited Gauguin's arrival.  Gauguin came.
>   One by one, he walked down the line of paintings.  Upon coming to the
> end of the paintings, he turned to Van Gogh and said, "You paint too
> fast."
>
>       "No," Van Gogh said, "you LOOK too fast."
>
>       You look too fast.
>
>       And next time, you might want to actually CHECK your figures before
> you go around calling people idiots.
>
>       Blockhead.
>
>     jms

Matt,

This was a very heated discussion. See the following link for details.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/22ypmu

Original Link:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.babylon-5/browse_frm/thread/cf8e8102d71d21cd/3cb2f6ef19f27cd2?lnk=st&q=ATSFOS-Tossing+bodies+out+jms&rnum=1&hl=en#


Dan Dassow
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