(no subject)

[intrikate88]

Alright, something is bothering me from "The Waters of Mars." All my science peeps, get in here.

When the base is blowing up, I understand why there'd be explosions- plenty of fuel and stored oxygen from the life support systems. That's cool. But AFTER that, when Ten's standing in the flames contemplating his own mortality and the rules of time and if he should get help and if he remembered to call in a refill on his psychiatric medication because the voices are back again, WHY IS HE STILL STANDING IN THE FLAMES??

If I remember correctly, fire needs an ignition source (the rocket), fuel (from the shuttle, and the splodey bits of the base, and OXYGEN. There was some, yes, but I'm sure that would have burned up fairly quickly, and there are only trace bits of oxygen in Mars' atmosphere, it's mostly CO2.

I'm thinknig about this too hard, aren't I? They probably just went DAVID TENNANT LOOKS SEXY AND DANGEROUS IN FLAMES: PRODUCTION TEAM, GET ON THAT! and that was it. But still.

Comments

[ninamazing.livejournal.com]

Nah, I'd say I'm with you — this is a pretty common mistake. They aallllllways want the pretty space explosions. That have sound and endless fuel.

I haven't watched it yet, though! I realized that I never even finished the Easter special, and uh, watched Seeker instead. :D

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

The easter one is mostly fun and he saves everyone so that is happy, but make sure your happy pills are working before watching this one. It's a great, really deep and questioning episode, very worth your time, but man.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Shh! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Or the curtain!

But really, I have no idea if you could get fire using something other than oxygen. I'd almost think so, but I don't know.

[principia.livejournal.com]

See below. :)

[principia.livejournal.com]

If the substances were coated in self-oxygenating fuel from the rocket, that could lead to them continuing to burn for a bit because with such a substance the process of burning would create the necessary oxygen for further burning by releasing it from the fuel.

Which is complete handwavey crap, because I don't know of anything that man's discovered or invented that does such a thing, but I imagine it'd be something we'd have to work on for serious longterm space travel projects.

And here we go: among the other known oxidizing elements, at least fluorine is capable of sustaining fire, and would pretty much only be used as a fuel element in longterm/deep space projects because there is currently no method known to man of putting out a fluorine fire!

http://yarchive.net/space/rocket/fuels/fluorine.html

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

Huh! That is really interesting about the flourine being viable, and I do like your logic about the need for some kind of fuel that would generate more oxygen. As far as I remember, rechargeable batteries are like that- the chemicals made from the first chemical reaction create another chemical reaction from the introduction of electrical current and bring it back to the start. I suppose it would have to be like that, except on a really enormous scale.

(Forgive any glaring ignorance I display. It has been about seven years since my last serious foray into chemistry.)

[goldy-dollar.livejournal.com]

They probably just went DAVID TENNANT LOOKS SEXY AND DANGEROUS IN FLAMES: PRODUCTION TEAM, GET ON THAT! and that was it. But still.

I think that was entirely the reasoning, and I was so busy agreeing that I totally missed the science. WELL PLAYED, DW TEAM.

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

It is not bad reasoning!

...though in terms of imagry I was mostly searchign for Rose's lip prints on his helmet. *ducks*

[tsukara.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I pretty much yelled that at the screen. Physics doesn't work like that!

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

I knoooow. Usually DW doesn't take its skience seriously so I can deal with it but this wasn't even reversing the polarity, it was just THERE.

...I have a proven track record of not seeing the forest for the trees.

[dictionary00.livejournal.com]

There was a bit in the Confidential about how someone spotted the oxygen thing but RTD decided it just looked better with flames.

Usually I'm all for scientific accuracy but...it's Doctor Who! My handwaving capability goes up 100x.

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

Well, principia_coh actually made a really good point above about flourine combustion and the necessities of deep space travel fuel, so while such a thing IS currently impossible and mostly unthinkable, something to get to Mars might ahve to be developed that could do that. It's an idea anyway, but I don't think the production team cared that much to research it.