MorphineSoldier wrote:
Actually, it's completely necessary. We have windows in the shuttles too for similar reasons. In space there are a SHITLOAD of things that could potentially rain hell on your electronic equipment, particularly things that rely on relay signals of some kind, like radar or camera feed.
Between stars having flares, gravitational pulls from celestial bodies and dust kicked up from space debris your equipment is liable to fuck up at any time. In that situation, the only thing you can rely on is that your engine is working, and you can presumably navigate visually if you have to..
Actually, I suspect the reason there are windows on the shuttle is more for tradition than anything else. I've seen them land the thing with the runway only visible for maybe 30 seconds or so, and it has little use in space. (Operationally... science and beauty are other considerations.)
If the shuttles' computers were to fail, the orbiter would become a very expensive brick.
I suspect that the right layout for a space warship would be to have a well-protected combat command center, with a bridge for less dangerous operations. (Similar to Navy ships... and Battlestar Galactica seems to get this right.)
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Another Old-Fashioned Bishoujo Gamer
Supporting creators since 2004; Code > Drama
(When was the last time you backed up your game?)
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming" - Theodore Roosevelt
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