History Headscratchers / Moonraker

* Drax probably left out the whole "hey, I'm gonna gas the whole planet!" part of his scheme to them. And it's not like Bond villains typically shy away from YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness.

* Is Jaws supposed to be a good guy just because he found a woman and decided to turn against his master only when he realized it was in his own self-interest? I mean, this is a guy who was morally ok with biting a woman to death just a few days earlier. Clearly not a decent human being.

** As for the possibility that the space station's size would be noticed from the ground as unusually large and bright, its important to remember that angular diameter is directly proportional to the size of the object in question '''and''' inversely proportional to the distance between the object and the observer. Or, in plain English, the further away something is from you the smaller it will look, even if its actual size when viewed up close is pretty huge. Since we're never told exactly at what altitude Drax's station is orbiting at, we can't make ''any'' assumptions about how it would look from the ground... or, for that matter, whether it would be visible to the naked eye at all. For another example of this phenomenon, consider why the sun and the moon look about the same size in the sky when the sun has approximately 400 times the diameter of the moon. [[labelnote:Answer]]Because the sun is also approximately 400 times further away than the moon, of course.[[/labelnote]]

** Because even an amateur, looking through a telescope, would quickly realize that the station was ''much'' too big to be an ordinary satellite, and would talk to ''someone'', even if that someone was just the local police, or something in the local paper: "Hey, everyone check out the cool new thing in orbit!"
*** You're forgetting that angular diameter is directly proportional to the size of the object in question '''and''' inversely proportional to the distance between the object and the observer. Or, in plain English, the further away something is from you the smaller it will look, even if its actual size when viewed up close is pretty huge. Since we're never told exactly at what altitude Drax's station is orbiting at, we can't make ''any'' assumptions about how it would look from the ground... or, for that matter, whether it would be visible to the naked eye at all. For another example of this phenomenon, ask yourself why the sun and the moon look about the same size in the sky when the sun has approximately 400 times the diameter of the moon. [[labelnote:Answer]]Because the sun is also approximately 400 times further away than the moon, of course.[[/labelnote]]

*** You're forgetting that apparent angular diameter is directly proportional to the size of the object in question '''and''' inversely proportional to the distance between the object and the observer. Or, in plain English, the further away something is from you the smaller it will look, even if its actual size when viewed up close is pretty huge. Since we're never told exactly at what altitude Drax's station is orbiting at, we can't make ''any'' assumptions about how it would look from the ground... or, for that matter, whether it would be visible to the naked eye at all. For another example of this phenomenon, ask yourself why the sun and the moon look about the same size in the sky when the sun has approximately 400 times the diameter of the moon. [[labelnote:Answer]]Because the sun is also approximately 400 times further away than the moon, of course.[[/labelnote]]

*** You're forgetting that apparent angular diameter is directly proportional to the size of the object in question '''and''' inversely proportional to the distance between the object and the observer. Or, in plain English, the further away something is from you the smaller it will look, even if its actual size when viewed up close is pretty huge. Since we're never told exactly at what altitude Drax's station is orbiting at, we can't make ''any'' assumptions about how it would look from the ground... or, for that matter, whether it would be visible to the naked eye at all. For another example of this phenomenon, ask yourself why the sun and the moon look about the same size in the sky when the sun has approximately 400 times the diameter of the moon. [[note]]Because the sun is also approximately 400 times further away than the moon, of course.[[/note]

*** You're forgetting that apparent angular diameter is directly proportional to the size of the object in question '''and''' inversely proportional to the distance between the object and the observer. Or, in plain English, the higher up the thing is orbiting the smaller it will look, even if its actual size is pretty huge. Since we're never told exactly at what altitude Drax's station is orbiting at, we can't make ''any'' assumptions about how it would look from the ground... or, for that matter, whether it would be visible to the naked eye at all. The modern ISS, for example, orbits at only 230 miles of altitude. If Drax's station was in geosync that means it would be ''100 times further away''. Which means that unless it was ''more'' than 100x as big as the ISS it would still present a smaller apparent dot to an observer on the groundm not a larger one.

*** You're forgetting that apparent angular diameter is directly proportional to the size of the object in question '''and''' inversely proportional to the distance between the object and the observer. Or, in plain English, the higher up the thing is orbiting the smaller it will look, even if its actual size is pretty huge. Since we're never told exactly at what altitude Drax's station is orbiting at, we can't make ''any'' assumptions about how it would look from the ground... or, for that matter, whether it would be visible to the naked eye at all. The modern ISS, for example, orbits at only 230 miles of altitude. If Drax's station was in geosync, that means its ''100 times further away'', which means that unless its ''more'' than 100x as big as the ISS it will present a smaller apparent dot to an observer on the ground, not a larger one.

** Because even an amateur, looking through a telescope, would quickly realize that the station was ''much'' too big to be an ordinary satellite, and would talk to ''someone'', even if that someone was just the local police, or something in the local paper: "Hey, everyone check out the cool new thing in orbit!"

** You answered your own question. In order to spot something that size with the naked eye, you already have to know when and where to look. Even if somebody does happen to spot it by chance while out stargazing, and even if they are enough of an amateur astronomer that they could go 'Wait a minute, that's not on the right schedule to be the Skylab/Sputnik/etc.', why should they immediately leap to the conclusion its a supervillain's unknown orbital space lair? They'd just go 'Oh, it must be another classified spy satellite. I wonder if its ours, or the Russians'?'

** You answered your own question. In order to spot something that size with the naked eye, you already have to when and where to look. Even if somebody does happen to spot it by chance while out stargazing, and even if they are enough of an amateur astronomer that they could go 'Wait a minute, that's not on the right schedule to be the Skylab/Sputnik/etc.', why should they immediately leap to the conclusion its a supervillain's unknown orbital space lair? They'd just go 'Oh, it must be another classified spy satellite. I wonder if its ours, or the Russians'?'

* Okay, I'll buy that Drax has a sophisticated radar jamming system that can hide his space station, without anyone ''noticing'' that someone is jamming them. But what about people just plain ''seeing'' it? The modern ISS is much smaller than Drax's station, and is visible to the naked eye (it's the 3rd brightest object in the sky, after the sun and moon). Admittedly you have to know where and when to look, and it only looks like a really bright star, but it's there. Any commercial telescope can see the station for what it is. Even back in the 70's, there were thousands of dedicated amateur stargazers and astronomers constantly watching the sky, never mind NASA and the military. How could the station have possibly been built without being almost immediately noticed?

** Possibly any guards who didn't meet Drax's genetic standards would've been sterilized. They're spy-movie mooks; he could've insisted they get cyanide tooth-implants and then secretly thrown in a vasectomy while they were anesthetized.

* Drax's evil scheme could have been pulled off without the use of spaceships. Firstly, it would have been much cheaper to build his Ark underground, environmentally sealed, then to build a space station in orbit. Secondly, Drax could have used aircraft to deliver the toxin. Why? Because he runs an '''''aero'''''''space'' company, and he had a radar jamming system for his space station. And even if it couldn't be fitted on a plane, stealth wasn't a complete unknown back then. Putting stuff into space is insanely expensive, up to $10,000 to put ''one kilogram'' into orbit, which is why you didn't take your last holiday at Utopia Planetia, Mars. But I guess this was all discarded in favour of footage of space shuttles docking, undocking, and performing course corrections.

* Where did Drax's guards in the space station fit into the whole "Kill everyone on Earth then repopulate the planet" scheme? Did they get a survival bonus or something?

** Sorry but no. If you travel from San Jose to London, you will fly over the Yukon, because the shortest distance between the two cities is to fly close to the Arctic Circle. Flying directly west to east adds between 1,000 and 2,000 miles to the trip - and the Earth is rotating away from you the whole time - which it also is doing if you travel north by northeast rather than east by northeast, but the closer you are to the poles, the less there is a change of distance as the Earth rotates.

** Sorry but no. If you travel from San Jose to London, you will fly over the Yukon, because the shortest distance between the two cities is to fly over the Arctic Circle. Flying directly west to east adds between 1,000 and 2,000 miles to the trip - and the Earth is rotating away from you the whole time.

* At the beginning of the movie the Moonraker shuttle is being flown from the U.S. to England. After the Moonraker is hijacked, the jet carrying it crashes in the Yukon. Problem: the Yukon is the westernmost part of Canada, just east of Alaska. How exactly did a plane traveling from the U.S. to England end up there? Even assuming the flight started in California where the Moonraker was built, there's no reason for it to ever be over the Yukon.