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Comment by prossercj | Hacker News Reader

This is really cool.

> “In Star Trek you have shuttlecraft gliding silently past,” he says. “I thought, ‘We should have aircraft like that.’”

It's a good sign when inspiration comes from Star Trek.

Edit: Also, reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/2072/

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Being separated by vacuum sure helps to keep these shuttlecraft silent though.

I'm glad every scifi movie and TV show's sound designers decide to ignore reality and make it interesting. It wouldn't be the same without the whoosh and rumble.

I feel like a space battle that cuts back and forth between tense, Red October-style bridge scenes, and ships exploding in fire and chaos and absolute silence, would be pretty awesome.

That's actually pretty common in modern scifi. Mind you, I can't name one I'm certain of off the top of my head, but a lot of people like to get space explosions "right".

I believe "The Expanse" does this to pretty great effect.

The Expanse has engine/gun/explosion noise on most exterior shots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sax5tURLTrw

2001: A Space Odyssey and Firefly both come to mind.

Battlestar Galactica (the remake)

Gravity did it really well.

The scene in Interstellar (spoiler) where Doctor Mann gives his speech.

(spoiler) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKaydrJJUD0

Firefly

A silent explosion in deep space, a perfect sphere of white light. Cut to the claustrophobic bridge, where the faint whine of fans is interrupted by the sound of the debris field hitting the hull.

I have a solid, realistic explanation why you can hear other spacecraft and explosions in movies like Star Wars! ^_^

Because there's no such thing as a perfect vacuum? Because when there's an explosion there's also an expanding medium that sounds can travel through?

I was going to say synesthesia. I'm not sure I heard every ship I remember having sound.

Is it true that there's no such thing as a perfect vacuum? How much 'stuff' is in vacuum on average to make it impure? Sorry if these are stupid questions.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1968PASJ...20..230T A few atoms per cubic meter, but yeah, no real thing as a perfect vacuum.

I suggest AR - why would ship designers neglect an entire input channel to the humans in control?

I mean, it would be a hell of a benefit if you can hear a ship explode behind you while you look at the the one in front of you or at a screen

If you don't have that, you're a little more limited to relying on visual information for everything

A/B testing showed people like the version with sound.

My idea is that it's basically a UI enhancement: sound is the best method (at least for humans; but those space operas tend to be quite anthropocentric anyway) to perceive environment in a 3D way. So what we're hearing is not actual sound of explosions and ships; it's actually interpretations of their signals of various scanners, converted to sound and played in cockpit in such a way that the pilot can easily determine type and distance by the perceived location of its sound source. Hope this makes sense. :D

Makes sense. Car audio designers already create sounds in cars to make up for the lack of them. Doors don't make much sound anymore naturally, but they've been designed to keep making sound when they close. And road noise is simulated or piped through the speakers. There's no reason that would stop with terrestrial vehicles.

> I'm glad every scifi movie and TV show's sound designers decide to ignore reality and make it interesting.

Not every movie and TV show.

You are right though that that it wouldn't be the same.

R.I.P Firefly.

Would it be all that silent at traditional airplane speeds? Also I wonder if you ran it like the old pulse jets if it would easier to keep one aloft.

That xkcd fits my daily experience on HN extemely well.

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