9 Comments

1. HSLD says:
   July 13, 2009 at 10:23 pm

   It takes some suspension of disbelief to watch space nazis who are capable of building interplanetary warships still driving around on Zundapp sidecar outfits.

   Someone should also tell them that there isn’t a ‘dark’ side of the moon….
2. CountingCats says:
   July 13, 2009 at 10:33 pm

   and motorbikes, with a fuel tank, in a vacuum.

   Yeah, I know, but doesn’t it look like fun?
3. HSLD says:
   July 13, 2009 at 11:03 pm

   Actually I suppose it does. It’s got an air of ” Sky Captain and the Thingies of Tomorrow ” ( or whatever it’s called ) about it. My missis forced me to watch that and I thought I’d hate it, but it was actually quite enjoyable.

   If they got the ghost of EE Doc Smith to script it, I’d forgive all the inconsistencies. That man wrote some terrible rubbish, but it wasn’t half fun stuff.
4. Infidel753 says:
   July 14, 2009 at 12:43 am

   I hope there is at least a nod to Heinlein’s Rocket Ship Galileo.

   It does look potentially rather entertaining, in a Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow kind of way.

   I could buy the lunar motorcycle (it could have an oxygen tank as well as a fuel tank) — but that the road has enough traffic to be worth painting a double yellow line down the middle? And did the Germans drive on the left back in the Nazi days?
5. Nick M says:
   July 14, 2009 at 12:59 am

   The lunar motor cycle would have probs with gravity too. Just sayin…

   Nick M, BSc (physics) MSc (astrophysics)
6. RobtE says:
   July 14, 2009 at 4:38 am

   It does have a certain Sky Captain feel to the look of it, doesn’t it? It’s one of my fave movies.

   But one question - how did they manage the on-board navigation? Slide-rules? Forget computers. The technology simply didn’t exist until well after the war. Never mind solid-state electronics, they didn’t even have the concept of RAM.

   If you want really believable sci-fi, try Destination Moon*. It was made 20 years before Apollo 11, and propulsion system aside, it’s pretty damn accurate. But then Heinlein had a hand in that story too. Oh, and the rockets are straight out of Buck Rogers. And it’s done by private enterprise, not a government agency. In fact, the government are the bad guys.

   * I know, I know. The types that hang out here have probably already seen it a hundred times. Just sayin’.
7. IanB says:
   July 14, 2009 at 6:02 am

   I think you’re all taking it a trifle too seriously. Bear in mind this is from the creators of Star Wreck. It’s a comedy which is based on a pulp fiction idea, hence the flying saucers and anachronisms.

   I’m looking forward to it a lot.
8. HSLD says:
   July 14, 2009 at 6:42 am

   RobtE - I think if you make the assumption that they are using some sort of fictional zero point energy source ( which goes hand in hand with nazi saucers of course ) then the navigation problem becomes a lot less important. Getting to the moon isn’t difficult until you figure a fuel and life support budget into the flight. Our space nazis can then make as many course corrections as they like and solve their navigation problems empirically. They don’t have to capture the moon in a precise orbit because there aren’t any fuel or time considerations - just strike a balance between crashing into it and not capturing it at all.

   I bet it could be done with an analogue computer, similar to the ones used in WW2 gunnery and torpedo aiming, combined with a souped up version of a radar altimeter.

   Now can we have a space RAF please ? With hydrogen peroxide fuelled Mk46 Spitfires launched on top of Black Knight boosters ?
9. Infidel753 says:
   July 14, 2009 at 6:48 am

   First rule of old-fashioned SF — everything in outer space is basically the same. If the Nazis had rockets that could hit London from the Netherlands, that means they could travel to the Moon and colonize it since it’s all rocketry and it’s all basically the same.