Acheron/ LV426 in the Zeta II Reticuli - where did the nostromo land?

[Darwinsgirl]

It might have been when the shuttle would have run out of "fuel" and couldn't go at lightspeed anymore anyway. You have to keep in mind that the Narcissus was just a short-range shuttle, it was never meant to make the journey back to Earth on its own.

Burke said she "drifted" thru the core system...so this seems plausible.

[aliennaire]

It might have been when the shuttle would have run out of "fuel" and couldn't go at lightspeed anymore anyway. You have to keep in mind that the Narcissus was just a short-range shuttle, it was never meant to make the journey back to Earth on its own.

Thus, I can conclude, she just calculated the energy supply for "hyper-speed engine" and obtained that time interim.

Burke said she "drifted" thru the core system...so this seems plausible.

Yes, and 57 years too... and the term "deep salvage team".

[SM]

The Core Systems are those in Sol's immediate vicinity.  At light speed she should've reached Sol in 39 years or so.  Since she travelled past Sol and was heading away from Earth when she was picked up, and was out ther for 57 years I'd say she was travelling at near light speed most of the time.

[Xenomrph]

Well that assumes the engines only take her up to light speed and that's it. The Nostromo obviously goes faster than lightspeed if it can go from Zeta 2 R to Earth in 10 months. I'm not saying the shuttle had some sort of industrial-grade FTL drive that let it do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs ( ), but we don't really know how fast it was going. The faster it went, then the more time it spent just coasting after running out of fuel.

I can't recall if the tech manual had specs about the Narcissus' FTL drive or not.

[aliennaire]

Seemingly, Ripley didn't know the shuttle had faster-than-light drive engines too!

Ok, if to put joke aside, I remember, there was recently furor from experiement, where some little particles reportedly were moving with the speed, which exeeded the speed of light. Perhaps such a velocity is possible, though this statement isn't proven or refuted so far.

[SM]

Ripley would've known the specs of the shuttle, because she says she was going to reach the frontier in six weeks.

We however don't know how far away the frontier was.    It's really impossible to judge.  All we know for sure was that she travelled a minimum of 40 ly in 57 years.  I'd say she went a lot further if she's picked up by a "deep salvage team", but 40 ly is the bare minimum.  She could've gone near light the whole way, or supra-light part of the way then drifted.  The latter is more likely since she's not going supra-light when she's picked up.

[Xenomrph]

Actually now that I think about it, I wonder how she slowed down enough to even get picked up. FTL drive would have cut out, but objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. that's basic Newtonian physics. In space you really only have to worry about the acceleration - friction slowing you back down would be a nonissue in a vacuum.

[aliennaire]

I guess, high speeds are the feature of Einstein's (relativistic) phycics... May be other rules, than in mechanics, are aplied here?