Just how did it fly?

[McAvoy]

Keep in mind that Atlantis seems to be fairly shallow in terms of how much water it displaces. I am only saying that from the perspective without any real hard math to support it. Just an observation based on my experience on different types of ships displace water.

It is entirely possible Atlantis is built fairly light or uses technology to prevent itself from sinking.

[jmoz]

Maybe Atlantis is already buoyant but uses energy or ballasts? or tanks filling it with water or something to make itself heavier to sink? Like a submarine.

[thekillman]

or tanks filling it with water or something to make itself heavier to sink? Like a submarine.

God what episode was it? i think in Ghost In the Machine it shows that the city indeed has such tanks.

Keep in mind that Atlantis seems to be fairly shallow in terms of how much water it displaces.

Yea that's true. Still, the city isn't that high either: most of it's volume is the engine platform. The buildings on top would not contribute an aweful lot of weight. All in all i think it's a fair amount.

[McAvoy]

I don't think those buildings would be that heavy either. I would be more concerned about the engines. Typically in ships, the engines are the heaviest, unless the ship is armored, then it would be armored.

Obviously, Atlantis isn't built like a true warship and it relatively fragile.

[thekillman]

I don't think those buildings would be that heavy either. I would be more concerned about the engines. Typically in ships, the engines are the heaviest, unless the ship is armored, then it would be armored.

Obviously, Atlantis isn't built like a true warship and it relatively fragile.

yea yea, but it means that the displacement of Atlantis isn't that out of the ordinary as you said. I think it's fairly O.K. It's not much of a spaceship either: it acts more as a platform with some necessary systems than a full-blown spaceship with all the necessities. All in all, i doubt it's such a rare thing.

[maxrpg]

You could fart in space and that would create enough thrust to start you moving would it not? lol.

Would you actually need a powerful engine or anti-gravity device in space in order to move though I thought maybe it would be possible to create something that when activated would "vibrate" the ship slightly and in a non sick feeling way cause it to wiggle and jiggle just enough to create some type of thrust causing it to move through space. Or vibrating panels in different areas if you activated 1 it would cause you to turn ect.

I don't know I'm no scientist

[thekillman]

You could fart in space and that would create enough thrust to start you moving would it not? lol.

Would you actually need a powerful engine or anti-gravity device in space in order to move though I thought maybe it would be possible to create something that when activated would "vibrate" the ship slightly and in a non sick feeling way cause it to wiggle and jiggle just enough to create some type of thrust causing it to move through space. Or vibrating panels in different areas if you activated 1 it would cause you to turn ect.

I don't know I'm no scientist

Anything vibrating would move the ship up and down by exactly the same amount. Or: the ship itself would start to vibrate, although it's massive enough that you'll probably never notice aside from the one corridor where the vibrating plate is in.

Not sure if you understand trigonometric, but a vibration is a sinus wave and the average is 0.



In space (generally), the whole "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" applies the most obvious. If you farted while strapped to the bottom of Atlantis, the entire city would move. Because the city is so massive, it would only move the tiniest of bits and you certainly would not notice. However, if the entire bottom was filled with farting people that continuously farted, you might eventually move the thing from a, say, earth orbit to mars orbit. The effect would kind of be the same as an ion engine: superlow thrust but continuous thrust.

Would you actually need a powerful engine or anti-gravity device in space in order to move though

While i am pretty certain the engines on Atlantis are big enough, i doubt the city could ever store enough fuel (even if it used naquahdah as fuel and ReMass) and Reaction Mass to move it anywhere.

[maxrpg]

lol nope I don't know much about science I was just trying to think of other ways you may possibly be able to move an object without "Fuel" type thrust engines.

What about sound waves?. Giant speakers pointing outwards or possibly hanging giant speakers outside the ship blasting sound waves at the ship and thus thrusting it forward perhaps :\ ..a bit of Meat Loaf of something like that should be loud enough lol

[thekillman]

What about sound waves?. Giant speakers pointing outwards or possibly hanging giant speakers outside the ship blasting sound waves at the ship and thus thrusting it forward perhaps :\ ..a bit of Meat Loaf of something like that should be loud enough lol

ha ha. it would work if there was air in space


The only non-fuel ways are using an external power source.

e.g: solar sail, laser-beamed power, bussard ramscoop, well that's about it.

[K5Rakitan]

My best guess is the anti-gravity rays Burroughs mentioned in his stories. Then again, he did not explain those very well either.

[SuperCoolPhantom]

Well the ancients made stargates, city-ships, ZPMs, drones etc etc. I get a feeling it wouldn't be impossible to alter the thrust of different parts of the stardrive to somehow get some kind of turning system

[thekillman]

Well the ancients made stargates, city-ships, ZPMs, drones etc etc. I get a feeling it wouldn't be impossible to alter the thrust of different parts of the stardrive to somehow get some kind of turning system

Doing this is literally first-years dynamics. It's super-easy to do and most certainly does not require technology on the level of the Ancients

[rgritt]

Magic.

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

Something else troubles me about all of this though..

Atlantis is powered by 3 ZPMs yes? Yet the hologram room is said to drain a ton of power - which is a tiny little room at the top of the central tower.

Right, so we know that drains lots and lots of power from the ZPMs. How on earth in that case, could just 3 ZPMs not only power but propel a huge city weighing millions of tons like Atlantis? It makes no sense!

So I figured the engines may possibly use some sort of fuel and the ZPMs are simply used for flight control of the engines instead. Oh but hang on.. Atlantis was almost depleted of drones so the same would make sense for the star drive fuel too. Then we also see Atlantis take off rigged to the underwater power station via a cable. So it clearly uses electrical energy to power the star drive somehow.

So how on earth did 3 little ZPMs manage to take a huge great starship into orbit and hyperspace but have trouble powering a hologram?

I'm confused!

[thekillman]

Something else troubles me about all of this though..

(..)
I'm confused!

Well you are right, in that it makes no sense the holo-room takes so much power. I suspect it has more to do with what's going ON with that room. Essentially, when it's on, a big supercomputer is busy interpreting the user's request, processing them and pulling up data.

However, the holoroom does not nearly require a ZPM: I think the "load of power" is mostly a case of being easily distinguished in the power grid as being more draining that most normal systems (i.e. the Gate Shield).

When it comes to propelling a ship like that, it actually does not require that much energy at all. Certainly not enough energy to blow up 3 Earths.