Largest Starship to Enter an Atmosphere

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2007-08-21 11:01pm

Simple question: what's the biggest starship to enter a planetary atmosphere?

Bladed_Crescent · Post by **Bladed_Crescent** » 2007-08-21 11:09pm

The largest one I can think of is the Lusankya.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2007-08-21 11:14pm

My ex-wife!!! harrr.... sorry, no mor spam posts for me.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-08-21 11:21pm

ID4 city destroyer ships. The dialogue puts them at 24km in diameter, at least an order of magnitude more volume than an Executor-class ship.

Bladed_Crescent · Post by **Bladed_Crescent** » 2007-08-21 11:23pm

Just remembered: the ID4 City Destroyers. At 24km in diameter, they've got the edge on SSDs.

Bladed_Crescent · Post by **Bladed_Crescent** » 2007-08-21 11:24pm

Starglider wrote:ID4 city destroyer ships. The dialogue puts them at 24km in diameter, at least an order of magnitude more volume than an Executor-class ship.

This'll teach me not to preview.

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2007-08-22 12:22am

I recall a short Analog story ( but not the title ) where a ship that was IIIRC one sixth of the Moon's diameter landed on Earth, "or perhaps 'docked' would be more accurate" is the line I recall. Naturally it's gravity laid waste to the Earth and killed everybody.

And no, it wasn't a very serious story.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-08-22 02:12am

Starglider wrote:ID4 city destroyer ships. The dialogue puts them at 24km in diameter, at least an order of magnitude more volume than an Executor-class ship.

Hmm. Are we sure that they're actual starships? They may not individually possess interstellar capability - they may rely on the mothership for that.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2007-08-22 02:24am

Uraniun235 wrote:
Starglider wrote:ID4 city destroyer ships. The dialogue puts them at 24km in diameter, at least an order of magnitude more volume than an Executor-class ship.
Hmm. Are we sure that they're actual starships? They may not individually possess interstellar capability - they may rely on the mothership for that.

I might be wrong, but I presume that Ein is referring to "ships that can travel through space" rather than "ships that can effectively travel between stars" in the OP, even if the term "starship" might literally only refer to the latter.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2007-08-22 02:56am

How about the ships from V the TV series?
From what I can remember they are as big as the ID4 ships

FedRebel · Post by **FedRebel** » 2007-08-22 03:12am

havokeff wrote:How about the ships from V the TV series?
From what I can remember they are as big as the ID4 ships

The Lizard ships from what recall are only 3 or 5 miles across versus the ID4 aliens 15 mile across ships

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2007-08-22 05:06am

Did the flying cities in Jame's Blish's Cities in Flight stories ever land or enter the atmospshere ? They must have been pretty big.

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2007-08-22 10:46am

Gorg Boldolza class mothership from Macross Do You Remember Love was 600 kilometers wide and about 150 kilometers tall.

Screenshot

Nyrath · Post by **Nyrath** » 2007-08-22 11:13am

Lord of the Abyss wrote:Did the flying cities in Jame's Blish's Cities in Flight stories ever land or enter the atmospshere ? They must have been pretty big.

Yes, they landed all the time. That was the point, they were looking for work.

The main flying city in the novels was Manhattan Island.

The original question was a bit vague. Any starship can enter a planetary atmosphere. It is just that most are not designed to, and will burn up and leave a large crater.

More to the point is "what is the biggest starship designed to enter a planetary atmosphere."

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2007-08-22 01:02pm

VF5SS wrote:Gorg Boldolza class mothership from Macross Do You Remember Love was 600 kilometers wide and about 150 kilometers tall.

Screenshot

You know, realistically, such ships should not even be able to enter the atmosphere without knocking the planet out of orbit or unleashing untold chaos on the planet.

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2007-08-22 01:24pm

Clearly you do not know the power of Overtechnology.

Old Plympto · Post by **Old Plympto** » 2007-08-22 01:25pm

How big is the Stargate Atlantis Lantian city ship? They're certainly designed for atmospheric travel and landing. I seem to remember a line in the show that equated the city with Manhattan Island. The city doesn't seem as big as Manhattan. Perhaps the internal space?

Vanas · Post by **Vanas** » 2007-08-22 01:32pm

I image that quite a few very big ships have entered planetary atmospheres. The real trick is getting them back up again.

Wasn't the DSII in Endor's upper atmosphere?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2007-08-22 03:02pm

Old Plympto wrote:How big is the Stargate Atlantis Lantian city ship? They're certainly designed for atmospheric travel and landing. I seem to remember a line in the show that equated the city with Manhattan Island. The city doesn't seem as big as Manhattan. Perhaps the internal space?

About a kilometer across. Anubis' flagships were substantially bigger.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2007-08-22 03:27pm

I think the most 'dramatic' atmospheric entry I've ever seen was the Husker Hail Mary from the Battle of New Caprica on BSG.

Quite badass.

Gustav32Vasa · Post by **Gustav32Vasa** » 2007-08-22 03:37pm

NecronLord wrote:
Old Plympto wrote:How big is the Stargate Atlantis Lantian city ship? They're certainly designed for atmospheric travel and landing. I seem to remember a line in the show that equated the city with Manhattan Island. The city doesn't seem as big as Manhattan. Perhaps the internal space?
About a kilometer across. Anubis' flagships were substantially bigger.

Isnt Atlantis bigger then Hive ships?

McC · Post by **McC** » 2007-08-22 05:01pm

VF5SS wrote:Gorg Boldolza class mothership from Macross Do You Remember Love was 600 kilometers wide and about 150 kilometers tall.

Screenshot

Was this actually in the atmosphere, or was it just so friggin' big that it looked like it was? I was never really clear on that, given that they go from the shot of it coming over the horizon at one point, to the shot of it back in orbit when the Meltrandi arrive.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2007-08-22 05:26pm

Gustav32Vasa wrote:Isnt Atlantis bigger then Hive ships?

No. Quite the opposite. As I recall, the interview with the effects supervisor that gave '11 Km' for Hive Ships said they utterly dwarf the city, but we rarely get to see them to scale.

If you get the chance, compare the shots of the Daedalus class inside the gap of a Hive Ship in Allies - especially the diagram - with the shots of it against Altantis. While that shot suggests that the hive ship is less massive than has been said (unless the Daedalus is almost a kilometer long, and even if it is, that would mean the City is not more than four kilometers in radius, still smaller, though much larger than I'd calced in the past) The Hive Ship is far bigger than Altantis.

Here's an interview stating the Hive Ships are meant to be larger, too.

A rainmaker digital supervisor reiterates 'over 11 Km'

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2007-08-22 06:12pm

McC wrote: Was this actually in the atmosphere, or was it just so friggin' big that it looked like it was? I was never really clear on that, given that they go from the shot of it coming over the horizon at one point, to the shot of it back in orbit when the Meltrandi arrive.

The Meltrans arrive after the peace negotiations. I assume at some point between that and the arrival of the Gorg Boldolza fortress it could have gotten back into orbit. It sure didn't take long for the Macross to book it off the Earth after the Zentradi started blasting the planet if that's any indication of how fast Overtechnolgy can make a ship move.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-08-22 09:18pm

VF5SS wrote:
McC wrote: Was this actually in the atmosphere, or was it just so friggin' big that it looked like it was? I was never really clear on that, given that they go from the shot of it coming over the horizon at one point, to the shot of it back in orbit when the Meltrandi arrive.
The Meltrans arrive after the peace negotiations. I assume at some point between that and the arrival of the Gorg Boldolza fortress it could have gotten back into orbit. It sure didn't take long for the Macross to book it off the Earth after the Zentradi started blasting the planet if that's any indication of how fast Overtechnolgy can make a ship move.

If the Gorg Boldolza is 150 kilometers tall, that means that even sitting on the surface of the Earth, a good chunk of the ship is going to be technically in space. I find it unlikely that the mobile fortress would decide to skim the surface of the planet at an altitude equivalent to a mere fraction of its total height, so it seems entirely plausible to me that Gorg Boldolza never actually entered Earth's atmosphere.