8/14/2023 0 Comments Who died in serenity movie![]() ![]() Based on the thickness of the orbiter’s forward facing windows and the basic strength of the glass, made of fused silica, the windows of STS-92 could have resisted a pressure of 8,000 pounds per square inch–nearly three times that of a crocodile bite (amazing in two respects). That little fleck of paint was almost a catastrophe. Robert Lee Hotz notes in the Wall Street Journal that “NASA shuttle engineers have replaced the spacecraft’s debris-pitted windows after almost every flight since 1981, at a cost of about $40,000 per window.” And such replacements from serious impacts are commonplace. Based on the size and the speed (9 km/s!) of the fleck that hit STS-92, I calculated that the window weathered an approximately 5,000 pounds per square inch impact, creating more than enough damage to warrant a window replacement. A deformation large enough could eventually cause window failure upon repeated take-offs and re-entries.Īfter engineers examined the crater in the window, the shape that best explained the damage was a sort of miniaturized plate. A shuttle window has never been penetrated by a hypervelocity impact, but it doesn’t have to be. ![]() The largest impact to a shuttle window occurred when a fleck of paint struck STS-92–a flight to the International Space Station. Shuttles today are outfitted with shielding to prevent such disasters, and feature two-and-a-half inch thick windows–the thickest pieces of glass ever produced in the optical quality for see-through viewing. Tens of thousands of pieces of extraterrestrial trash litter the orbit of Earth, meaning that a shuttle’s final impact could come from an errant hex nut. Our spacecraft obviously must account for this deadly debris. Travelling at a blistering 9,000 meters per second in orbit, the equations deem it lethal. In terrestrial situations, a speck of paint is less than harmless. If I could prove that a modern shuttle window (assuming that a future window would be even better) could withstand the impact that killed Wash, I could have the ultimate in fanboy closure: the movie is “wrong,” and my version of the story lives on. What if the Reaver spear couldn’t plausibly make it through the forward windows of Serenity? The movie may have been set in the future, but we too have built spacecraft with windows, and they are made to withstand impacts. One of my favorite characters just died, as Firefly died. ![]() The immediacy of the violence, and his wife Zoe’s touching reaction, kept my mouth agape well into the next few minutes of the film. Universe,” pilot Hoban “Wash” Washburne meets his end at the tip of a Reaver spear. Late in Serenity, after crash-landing at the mysterious base of “Mr. Needless to say, if you haven’t seen Firefly or Serenity, the ensuing discussion is spoiler-laden (and you should go watch them!). It’s a scene that drove me to NASA forums and technical reports, glass manufacturers, my calculator, and eventually to this post. One scene in particular shook me, like the unexpected sight of a Reaver ship. He put in scenes that would only have appeared in a last hurrah like Serenity. But the forced end of Firefly also forced Joss Whedon’s hand. Watching Serenity let me spend a bit more time in the ‘verse, and the film thankfully resolved a number of outstanding loops just craving to be closed. It was to my delight to learn that in 2005 there was a full-length movie in response to public (and private) outcries for more of Serenity and her crew. It all ended abruptly, due to early cancellation, with the last episodes of Firefly barely answering any central questions or exploring the rich universe that had been so lovingly crafted by creator Joss Whedon. It certainly awakened the fanboy in me, and I quickly understood why my girlfriend envied me for being able to watch the series for the first time. Nearly ten years after the show first aired and then was subsequently cancelled, I holed up in my room, coffee and external hard drive in hand, aiming to blaze through one of the most beloved sci-fi series.Ī mix of science fiction and “spaghetti-western” genres, Firefly was wonderful. ![]()
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