In Geostorm, I saw many times the characters can walk normally in the space station. Because the space station is in space, can someone tell me why gravity exists here?
2 Answers
Basically they used Handwavium for some parts and then just outright ignored the science on the rest...
Just a small number of the gravity errors I noticed, I won't even go into the The weather control systems which are just... truly... ridiculous, all of them... just terrible!
- Spinning the station to create artificial gravity is alluded to, at one point towards the "climax" of the film the station "stops" spinning and they get zero g... however the station is not shown to spin at all up until that point.
- They dock shuttles in the side of the station that should be spinning and then just walk out onto the deck
- The station doesn't seem to orbit the planet, it seems locked in position, but is definitely in Low Earth Orbit, not Geostationary orbit
- The "net" around the planet doesn't orbit it just hangs in space above set points... this is simply not possible with current materials... even currently experimental materials have no chance at achieving this.
- You would never stack that many shuttles next to each and launch them in situ, you'd roll out to a launch pad before taking off... a single failure at launch could lead to a sizable explosion which packed that closely would destroy all of them
- you just wouldn't use shuttles for the job, you'd use conventional 2 stage rockets and just improve of the ability of propulsive landings like Blue Origin and SpaceX are doing
- This may seems a little petty as a lot of spinning station sci-fi films are guilty of it, but if the station is spinning... why aren't the stars?
And a big one:
After the station is destroyed this would without doubt create a Kessler syndrome effect making space travel impossible for a good hundred years or more but he is supervising the new station within months
Believe me... I could go on... but my missus gets angry with me when I do so I'll leave that small list
It's just one of those films that its best to not look into the science behind it... they read the science and decided that cool visuals were more important to the point I'd actually put it in the top 5 for least scientifically accurate sci-fi films I've ever watched.
Well yes, it can be "created", it's called artificial gravity, and according to this website:
In space, it is possible to create "artificial gravity" by spinning your spacecraft or space station. When the station spins, centrifugal force acts to pull the inhabitants to the outside. This process could be used to simulate gravity. It wouldn't be exactly the same, though, because large Coriolis forces would also be present, and things would fall in curves instead of straight lines.
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3While theoretically this is true, does this answer actually apply to this movie? Having watched some youtube videos of the space scenes, gravity is shown in non-rotating parts of the space station - like when Gerard Butler walks off the shuttle.– iandotkelly ♦Feb 6, 2019 at 11:34
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It's probably some combination of this answer and dramatically waving hands HEY LOOK OVER THERE!– Steve-OFeb 6, 2019 at 14:34
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@iandotkelly well the space station appears to be "rotatable" in the movie, I don't think it must rotate super fast, but still in a lot of movies it's just fiction. Feb 6, 2019 at 16:29
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There's a small obviously rotating section in the station, but the shuttle lands elsewhere on a floor that is a radial of the station (rather than a circle around the station) - so if it were rotating it would tend to apply a force outwards, not towards the floor it's "standing" on. So Gerard Butler walking down the ramp makes no sense at all. This section doesn't even appear to be rotating ... so to have apparently close to earth gravity doesn't make any sense either. What we see in these clips cannot be explained by centrifugal/centripetal forces.– iandotkelly ♦Feb 6, 2019 at 16:41