by verbena Tue Jan 15, 2013 3:43 pm
I think a lot of stuff like this wouldn't really matter, because we'd never make do with reality.
It's like, everyone knows sound doesn't transmit in space. But you watch just about any sci-fi movie and you get sound effects. A lot of uber-nerds froth at the mouth about how "unrealistic" this is, but personally I just think they're hopelessly dim and terribly naive.
If we ever get to the point of development where we have things like "starfighters" I feel the likelihood of their not being sound accompanying a battle are pretty much non-existent. The cockpit would be absolutely lousy with speakers, and you'd get full 360-surround sound piped in. Why? A couple reasons. One, situational awareness. You ears help you map out your surroundings, and what's going on without you. That's far too important a tool to be left out. So instead they'll mock up the sounds, to help you keep track of allies and enemies and what's going on around you.
The second reason is stress and mental health. A totally quiet atmosphere would feel unnatural, and add to the pilots stress-level. This is something that would already likely be considered a high-stress job. Why add further mental strain when they can alleviate it with some simple sound effects?
I think this is pretty much the same deal. Chances are there would be very few if any actual windows. Windows are weak points structurally, prone to breakages, leaks, and the likes. Outside views would mostly be come via cameras and similar interfaces. I'm sure there will be a lot of "windows," but I feel it's likely they'll be artificial. That said, they can pipe in whatever image they want. A featureless white glow is likely not going to be conductive to mental health. So just as they're likely to artificially pipe in sounds, they're likely to make what you see while traveling faster than light into something comforting and pleasing to the human eye.
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