How Did it Land? The Phoenix Stats 

I'm very much in the cockpit jetison camp, I doubt the thing could gently lower itself like a SpaceX rocket.

I’m definitely thinking the cockpit detached and landed with a parachute, the warp engines and reactor likely remained in orbit. Timo Saloniemi's Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet And Its History ("Phoenix warp drive testbed (2063)", pp. 27-30) indicates: “The crew pod of the ship was recovered by parachutes and airbags. The warp engine itself was left in orbit for some weeks, until no less than sixteen organizations claimed her on basis of being the sole financial backers of the Cochrane team. However, negotiations with Vulcans were filling the remaining communication networks at the time, and in a spectacular return to the idealism of his youth, Cochrane asked the Vulcan technicians to insert the complete specifications and blueprints of his warp drive to the Bellnet. Within 24 hours, there was not a country or alliance in the world that did not know how to build a warp engine. It soon became clear that there was not a country or alliance in the world that had the resources to do that, however, since the national industrial infrastructures were too badly damaged. The only way to build warp drives was to form an international network of relationships, just as Cochrane had done. The original warp engine received a second, larger crew pod with a 5th of November, 2064 launch of a multicorporation recovery team. A wide meteoroid shield was also installed aft of the pod to combat micrometeoroid erosion at extreme subluminal and virtual-particle bombardment at superluminal speeds. In this configuration, the ship performed a series of seven test flights, the last of which took it as far out as Saturn. The flights also gave the first warnings about the instability of primitive warp fields in the vicinity of gravity wells, almost leading to the loss of the vessel near the Moon. As the Phoenix was retired in 2065 (and the warp section stored in a high orbit and eventually brought down in the early 22nd century to be preserved in the Smithsonian Institute), hundreds of other warp engines were already under construction. The infrastructure to build them was being erected at breakneck pace, revitalizing transportation and communication and totally relocating the industry in a way that made many former political boundaries meaningless. The political alliances of the time bore no relationship to the pre-war ones; simple east-west and north-south antagonism was transformed by the emergence of powerful agricultural nations in the south, end of factionalization in the east, and the worldwide sharing of the technological lead of the west. The political principles on which the briefly defunct but now resurrected New United Nations was founded were getting antiquated fast, and it would be only a matter of years until the NUN finally collapsed, giving way to a truly unified world government.” I personally really like this explanation, it fits well.

Couple of points: 1. The Phoenix was NOT powered or utilizing Dilihium as Dilithium isn't native to this planet. Further, Dilithium isn't a fuel source, but rather a power regulator. More than likely, the Phoenix was powered by either Nuclear Fission, or Fusion power. Dilithium in itself, is required for higher warp velocities, and to regulate the matter/antimatter reactions within the warp reactor. 2. Riker's statement of "600 million dead, very few governments left" lends itself very well to how Cochrane got his hands on a dormant ICBM and began modifications into the Phoenix. While 600 million is a lot of people, with ~200 governments on this planet, and over 7 billion people today (likely 8-9 billion by 2063), one would assume a much higher death toll, if there aren't many governments still remaining. Though we don't know which countries were participants in World War 3, it's fairly safe to say that the US was a major party in it. SNW even hinted at the "Second Civil War" being a major cause that eventually led to World War 3.

The lack of deflectors are probably not much of a problem if your ship isn't going at impulse speeds and only taking relatively short journeys through warp. The warp field is warping the actual spacetime very strongly so any alpha particles and dust grains ought to have a hard time getting through to actually hit past the warp bubble. That's my own headcanon, though.

There was a similar discussion on Reddit few months back. I HCed that the Phoenix's warp drive, while in standby mode, created a basic inertial dampening field that reduced it's apparent mass. This allowed the Titan booster to lift all that mass into orbit, and let it soft land with just parachutes. The ship would still have to be heavily restored before going to the Smithsonian, because 'soft' is a relative term. The cockpit was still jettisonable, with it's own chutes and floats, because Cochrane was only 'kinda sure' the drive would do that, and Lilly wasn't risking her life on that. As for the Bonaventure, it could still be the ship that Cochrane left Alpha Centauri aboard. Still significant as the last warp ship built by Cochrane.

Honestly, with how humans be humans in Star Trek (see meme about warp cores and why other Federation species let humans do whatever), I could see that thing not having any deflector shielding with Cochrane deciding a flight within the Sol system being less likely to have enough stuff to get in the way of the warp bubble. Plus, being cheap.

That's always been amazing to me that on my birthday such a major event in Trek history happened. Well, the day after, but still ☺️ Assuming that that timeline works out, I'll be 64 when we obtain warp capabilities and meet the Vulcans.

The humans probably would have advanced their technology faster. It is Stated in Canon that the Vulcan's held humans back in the beginning technologically because they were both jealous and afraid.

I prefer the SpaceX booster style vertical landing, because we never see the big engine on the back of the Phoenix fire in the movie. But it has to be there for something, so it must be used for the part of the flight we didn't see, the landing. Plus it gets the crew back to the launch site the quickest.

I feel like his reaction to seeing how small Earth was meant that he changed his mind about selling it for money in First Contact. If the Vulcans had missed him and the Borg weren't around I could see him trying to convince the governments to support his project and we would have something similar to that one episode of Strange New Worlds and Mass Effect

Cochrane is celebrated even among non humans. This leads my thought he didn't invent the warp drive just humanity's but he built a better one whose template made universal travel reality

To those worried about the current eugenics wars that started two years ago, it's a lot less traumatic than the original eugenics wars of the 1990s that I lived through. I've repressed the memories of that horrible time.

I think Bajoran Lightships also had no Deflector. I would guess that only going Warp 1, he could take a lot of shortcuts: No need for Mater/Antimater Reactor and Dilithium. No need for Deflectors. But it is also only the speed of light. Plan for a _4 year_ Voyage to Alpha Centauri. Once you try to go faster, you need a M/AM Reactor, Deflectors, Inntertial Dampers and other gear that is common in TOS.

The common assertion that a ship at warp isn't moving, rather it is in a bubble of space that moves, suggests that the deflector dish isnt strictly required for warp speeds. Its likely more necessary for high sublight speeds. I can see it being more necessary for warp speeds beyond some threshold, maybe particals are more able to transition through the warp bubble at higher rates, thus causing issues with the field or the ship. Hypithetically anything that makes it from regular space, through the warp bubble to the isolated bit of regular space within shouldn't have any particular velocity unless it was already moving fast, but maybe something happens that causes them to have some relative Velocity compared to the ship?

I think the Phoenix must have had both a navigational deflector and inertial damping. Otherwise they could not have returned to Earth without being turned to chunky salsa with the acceleration forces required to slow down from 1/3 light speed.

There had to be a warp core.. Riker even says in the movie, “let’s bring the warp core online”

Imagine an iteration of Star Trek in which the Enterprise goes back in time to Earth just as Cochrane has completed his warp core. But it isn't the right time line- instead, it's an alternate time line where the Vulcans never intervened and Cochrane sells his warp drive to the highest bidding military/ corporate/ nation state. Of course, the Enterprise has to correct the time line...or else there's no Star Fleet, no Federation, and eventually...no Enterprise and her crew.

Perhaps, instead of a navigational deflector, it uses bussard ramscoops to draw dust and gas out of the way of the fuselage. It might have been that they were not intended to refuel the Phoenix, but merely clear the path. Perhaps later, when Earth realized the potential such a collection system possessed, they were refined into dedicated refueling devices.

During the run of TNG, it was demonstrated that an inverse warp field could be generated that at a high enough strength would hold the Enterprise D solidly in a zero speed state, like a waterborne ship with all anchors dropped. Using this premise the Phoenix could aim at the preferred landing point, an inverse warp field could be generated to bring it to a stop, then between thrusters and periodic relaxation of the field and then reapplication when the speed of descent through the atmosphere got a bit high, the Phoenix could have been safely landed. Geordie and Riker would certainly know how that works even if Cochrane didn't and it was implemented.

Excellent. Despite the ..."Grey Areas" , imo, this was GR8! Many thanx Rick 👍👍

Cochrane selling the Warp Drive to the highest bidder would be a great origin story for the Terran Empire from the Mirror universe ;)!

Odd how the future history books never mentioned the names of the 2 men who accompanied Zefrem Cochrane on that first ever warp-flight. You'd think they would've been as famous as Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were, in relation to Neil Armstrong . . .

There is a whole lot of gray area because Cochran was in an episode of TOS and he didn’t stay on earth after piloting his warp ship

Ever since First Contact aired, I've been wondering about this😮

That last bit reminds me of a what-if scenario I'd thought about a while back: what if the Andorians were the ones to make first contact instead of the Vulcans? I could see an Andorian science vessel cruising on by, doin' science stuff, and detecting a warp signature that...shouldn't be there. Its a bit weak, but not one they recognize. So, they go and check it out and there's this bombed-out rock of a planet at the end of the warp trail. Curiosity takes over and they land and say "hello." If nothin' else, I could see an Andorian being more receptive to Ooby Dooby and some post-nuclear bathtub moonshine, lol.

🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely greatly well done and executed and informatively explained in every detail way shape and format provided on the Phoenix and all of its functions and abilities and of it's specifications and performance, A job very wonderfully well done indeed Sir!👌.

Actually the silos were abandoned. As part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) the number of ICBMs was being reduced. Private citizens can actually buy silos to convert to homes. One was was allowed to flood (no money to keep the pumps running) and divers use it to explore. Of course the contents were removed. Cochrane didn't need government permission.

Here's the thing about warp drive; And I'm not just talking Star Trek, I'm speaking on the concept as a whole as well as within the Trek universe. Warp drive is, by definition extreme gravity manipulation. It's at the very least adjacent to any sort of anti-grav tech they also have in universe. If you have warp drive, you have anti-gravity lift tech as well (and a billion other things as well). There's zero reason that any propulsion system that can propel you faster than light, even an early, "Gen I" version wouldn't also work at the opposite end of the spectrum; In a "hover" so to speak. In fact I tend to lean that this would be the lower energy version and be what we had first. My theory has always been that the Phoenix simply flew, or maybe a better word is "floated" back down. Almost like a reverse balloon. At least part or most of the way, then it used it's rocket engine to do a traditional landing maneuver, unironically like Starship which now makes sense in context with SpaceX existing. (Elon Musk is cannon now if you count Discovery as cannon.. I do not but still). That's a flushed out and reliable tech by 2063. Stuff kept happening and advancing in the Trek universe, even during and after WWIII. War tends to spur on development so it makes sense. I always just figured that flip maneuver would happen way higher up.

My Thesis is that Cochrane may have planned to sell it, but even if the Vulcans didn't showed up, would not due to a common thing spacefarers describe: the Overview Effect! The Moment the Phoenix turns around, it hit him, how fragile everything on that Pale Blue Dot is, that "this is earth and it's so small" i would say that flotation devices are part of an emergency landing system in case something goes wrong so that they wherent that hellbend on archiving warp, well the 2 others that would fly with Cochrane at least, so they could try it again or not get transformed into fast expanding plasma. Since why build a Cockpit with space for 3 when flying alone would mean more Titanium needed to build

What I find funny is that currently the biggest limitations against warp drive are as follows: Anti matter production on a scale that would enable the reaction and generation of plasma. The warp coils. And how to transfer the energy from the reaction to the warp coils. Basically if you solve those problems, you achieve warp drive theoretically. I recently saw an interesting paper about using casimir Effects that could be localized manipulations of spacetime enough to create a warp field. But the material and energy transfer as well as being able to create micron scale plates in a large enough structure to turn it into a useful motion is still lacking. But it's kind of exciting that we are beginning to see the real world potential warp drive begin to come into effect. The future is still rather exciting. And I hope we see these things in our lifetime.

The Phoenix absolutely went Warp 1, because if it didn't, it wouldn't have broken the Warp Barrier and been noticed. Warp 1 is the speed of light, after all. Claiming it didn't go faster than Warp 0.1 would be like claiming you heard the sonic boom of a jet going Mach 0.1... which wouldn't create a sonic boom. Some of the newer Canon doesn't always line up with basic physics. Sonar in space, anyone? But I don't blame Rick on this one. I blame the "official" records.

The Titan II is a weird choice but it kind of makes sense. It was effectively a museum piece and would have likely survived world war 3 while more modern vehicles would have likely went the way of the dodo when the bombs dropped due to the proximity of space launch facilities to likely nuclear targets.(KSC is next to Cape Caneveral AFB, Vandenburg is Vandenberg.)The missile itself in universe was probably salvaged from a museum like the Titan II Museum (its in Arizona, which makes it likely to have been relatively preserved and accessible post ww3 compared to the swamps of Florida or the Air and Space Museum which may have been deemed a military target). At that point its more getting the first stage engines rebuilt, getting everything to work together, sourcing fuel and stacking the booster under fairly primitive conditions. Cochrane (and by extent his starfleet tagalongs)was a certified steely eyed missile man to have ridden a missile that nobody had launched in at least 50 years and hadn’t carried a man into orbit in 97 years with a massive risk of blowing up due to nobody exactly remembering how the engines worked.

I like the idea of a separable command module. It matches with the "Inspection Pods" seen in ST: Enterprise. It could've used parachutes/airbags. But I see no reason why it could've landed under its own power. The Bonaventure was most definitely built later as a permanent ship after the proof-of-concept Phoenix established the technology. "What if the Vulcans never landed?", sounds like the origin story of the Confederation (ST: Picard).

If I said it once I’ll say it again. We need to codify somewhere that Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf if we ever develop FTL travel.

Nevermind landing, the real question is how it could have taken off. A Titan II couldn't possibly lob a mass that big into space, not even on a suborbital trajectory. It's also not the sort of thing you'd want to be around when it launched, the nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine propellants were hideously toxic. It's also pretty unlikely that one would still be flight worthy, given that the last one was deactivated 76 years before the supposed launch date. It's also dubious that in a nuclear exchange nobody targeted the silo it launched from.

The 'Bonaventure' must have been some kind of famous ship. So famous that the Malon made toys of it! (The model, sans nacelles, was being swished around by a Malon in the Voyager episode, "Juggernaut.")

Love this channel!!!

very, _very_ carefully...

It always bugged me that the Phoenix was launched via a Titan rocket: something designed to launch a payload of, maybe, a few hundred kilos into a ballistic trajectory. Not several metric tons, at the minimum, into Earth orbit. A payload like the Phoenix would have needed something equivalent to an Atlas or a Falcon 9, at the absolute minimum, to get into Earth orbit...and I feel like I'm being exceedingly conservative with that estimate, even. I'm not sure a Titan would have realistically gotten it out of the silo.

I figure it was just a modified SpaceX Starship (canonically part of the Star Trek universe according to Discovery). If they ever revist the Phoenix era they'll probably retcon the whole assembly to being leftover Space Force Starship - Super Heavy combo.

I figured that there was a space station that Phoenix would dock at, then a while later, the ship is returned to the surface as soon as the technology is available.

The problem with a splashdown is now your ship is up for grabs. I'm leaning toward the landing the ship notion, but I am still dubious about returning at a third light speed. If that rocket had enough fuel to go .3c and then land it, then humans should have had plenty of energy already,. and that would mean the warp drive did little to revolutionize society that wasn't already possible.

CI: "How did it land?" EM: "Hold my beer..."

The Phoenix was Star Trek's version of Salvage 1, a ship from a 1979 US TV series of the same name. Both ships were made of scrap and questionable materials.

As a sublight warp drive, it shouldn't need dilithium, as there are several canon references to fusion powered warp drives that can only achieve minimal speeds. Also for a short trip at slow speeds, the deflector dish is probably also less necessary, the hull may ablate a little bit, but it's not an extended journey

It did have a warp core. Riker specifically mentioned it, "bringing the warp core online"

I still find it funny that Zefram rebuilt and launched from Bozeman, Montana. As born and raised resident of Bozeman, i would like to know when the US military would think that it would be a good idea to put missile silos here. We are well on our way to being the most populated city in the state, at least for now. Because currently we only have silos in eastern Montana, where our population is the least and farthest spread out. It makes sense over there, having silos here is just flat weird. And on the note of water landing places, yes Canyon Ferry lake is the closest large body of water. However, if the landing was extremely precise, they could have also landed in the Hyalite Reservoir. While not very big, it would work. And is close enough to make sense in the timeframe of how Zefram got back to base camp so quickly. Also, Firsts Contact's portrayal of Bozeman makes me cringe every time ive watched the movie. I still enjoy it, but its extremely obvious that it was filmed in California, not Montana.

Wanna bet that the cockpit did a splash down anywhere, and the Enterprise purged of the Borg helped rescue Zephram Cochrane, Riker, and Geordi? As to its power source, a non-dilithium based fusion reactor. The fusion engine was at super maximum power to briefly power the warp drive at warp 1.05 for a few minutes TOPS before the reactor could blow. And it probably had to use liquid nitrogen -- or even better -- metallic hydrogen to keep the reactor cool long enough for the warp flight. Let's say it exhausted 80% of its metallic hydrogen coolant supply when they throttled back. And could only do a comparably slow warp return before their oxygen supply ran out.

I'm more concerned how the younger charming and sophisticated Cochrane became an uncouth red neck when he was older?

I wonder if the same technology that allows the Bussard collectors to "scoop" material was Cochrane's way to brute force a rudimentary deflector system.

THAAAAANK YOOUUUUuuuuu!!! This question has bugged the crap outta me since the movie came out.

A Titan II could lift about 4,200 lbs in low earth orbit, so the Phoenix probably weight around that much. But First Contact basically used the Gemini mission rocket and launch profile for the movie, which was clever in my mind.

The Phoenix used once, then their still can be the other designs of the warp vessels in canon for more permanent warp ships

Systems like the Bussard collectors may be there experimentally, with an eye toward more durable, reusable designs in the "future".

Since Picard said he saw the Phoenix in the Smithsonian, not a replica, it must have returned in one piece, so Cochrane would have something to show off and take potential buyers on a ride. And he must have landed it under power because precisely hitting a target from outer space is still a difficult task - I doubt Cochrane would have wanted to accidentally landed in Mongolia instead of Montana.

Lily Sloane stated it took her six months to find enough titanium to build a four meter cockpit.

I like to think that Cochran selling the Phoenix eventually leads to the Terran Empire.

Maybe its similar to Apollo command and service module, the command module detached itself from the service module. Then make an re-entry, then later the service module automatically reentered to the atmosphere then parachute itself.

The Phoenix was obviously recovered, in a museum. So scientists and engineers studied Cochrane's, really Geordi's, warp designs to build the permanent 1st warp ship.

Interesting video, and I now have a prompt to write a fanfiction story about the idea you mentioned at the end as a 'What if' story, thanks

The fuel was probably whatever substance the nuclear reactor turned into plasma. On a warp core this would likely be excess deuterium, with the intermix ratio being deuterium rich to provide the excess deuterium that becomes a plasma when the matter-antimatter reaction occurs.

"or it did not and Cochran just got veeerrry lucky." I kind of prefer that he got lucky given how ramshackle and crude this is for FTL. Maybe even have him realize just how close he got to bad times from on off hand remark by the Vulcans. Also this was the Wright flyer of human Warp capable vessels, so some of the risks may have been less pronounced.

After watching "Expanse" and Space-X's vertical landing of rocket , i can assume the Phoenix were vertically landed

It is possible that it had multiple methods of landing, because it was possibly t😢😢he first warp attempt, so, since he didn't know exactly what wouldn't happen, he had multiple methods of landing in case he landed somewhere unplanned. Fuel loss, broken parts, malfunctions, etc.

Hypothetically, for a short trip in the general vicinity of the Earth and the Moon, not leaving the Earth's magnetic field (or the sun's for that matter), Bussard Collectors could be used to suck up any particles of matter and radiation the Phoenix would run over at warp without needing an actual deflector. Now space junk is a different story, that might just be luck.

Seems to have been a mystery with other earlier Earth vessels like the DY-100 & DY-500. Transporter technology wasn't possessed by Humans yet, so it's never been clear how these ships landed or even survived entry into an atmosphere for manned exploration.

What would have happened if the Vulcans didn't make First Contact? Honestly, I think for a fair while, it would have been a lot like it is in The Expanse books/series; Humanity would have colonized the solar-system, and various power-groups would have sprung up as a result. In 50-100 years, they'd probably have had their first system-wide war, instead of "just" world wars.

Right off the bat, a ship Zipping through the void.

Guess I should input my few cents from being a fan of aerospace and spaceflight. Personally I'm also in capsule landing gang. The feathering system with the nacelles seems like a poor idea for control as the centre of mass of the vehicle is likely squarely in the rear, so it would be liable to falling engine first even if the nacelles could generate any leverage at all (as they're not at all lifting surfaces). The explicit lack of landing gear for the main body of the craft is also a problem, even if maybe the vernier thrusters could be used for soft touchdown on a badly crumpled engine nozzle. I did briefly think of fanning out the end of the nozzle as its shaped in an odd manner with lots of little seemingly articulating plates, but then the vernier engine exhausts would blast that and either tear them off, or generate no downwards thrust. Also, the capsule has what looks like a metallic tile pattern on one side so conceivably they could have intended for it to reenter with the belly, not the back, towards the airstream, but there's an unshielded wedge right down there which would be very liable to burn through. For the vehicle's sublight performance, it having a delta V (maximum change in velocity) of 2/3rds the speed of light (assuming the top speed of 0.3c is half of that to allow for it to slow down) seems laughably overpowered for a craft that needed a chemical booster to get off the ground. As star trek does not care about engine power of that level having the capability of leveling cities, the Phoenix would easily be able to lift off from the surface of Earth, into orbit, and out to where it was intended to jump to warp at no issue. In regards to those internal fuel tanks, it would need those for the main engine and the fusion reactor in all likelihood. I also do not buy the craft having any antimatter onboard as I don't see no superdupersized particle smasher at their little missile silo town. Cochrane ain't manufacturing that stuff. I also personally believe in no dilithium onboard the Phoenix as the need for it in warp drive despite being so far from the field generating nacelles you'd think would invalidate it. IIRC prior to disco season 3 the only time a warp reactor actually generated a subspace/warp field of its own alongwith the nacelles was the enhanced warp drive on the silver blood voyager duplicate. For that matter, also ignoring that everyone would either be dead or seriously injured from the noise of the rocket launching, its insufficient. While its stated to be a "Titan 5" (not a Titan 2 as you let slip) in spite of that rocket family stopping being ICBMs long, long ago, and its main engine is not a LR-87 by any stretch of the imagination (the massive single nozzle with no obvious turbomachinery being a giveaway), the first stage wouldn't be enough to get the thing to escape velocity let alone out of the atmosphere. Titan 2, uprated for the Gemini capsule, could only put around 3.7-3.8t into low earth orbit, and that was with two stages. The LR-91 powered second stage is entirely absent on the Phoenix. Really the Phoenix should have been shown staging off its booster and igniting its main engine well within Earth's atmosphere, not at the point where its exceeded the altitude we'd consider the start of medium Earth orbit.

It probably ejected the cockpit, but even if it didnt, I'm sure the Enterprise E could have slowed its re-entry using its tractor beam if it had to.

Even if the Borg were able to stop the flight, wouldn't the Vulcans have picked up the Borg's warp signature?

I assume if the Vulcans never made First Contact, that Cochrane would have gone on to sell the design and events would have played out similarly to the Mirror Universe.

I suspect warp is possible without the M/AM power source but to achieve the higher warp factors one cannot get the power needed from a traditional nuclear reaction(fission or fusion). conventional nuclear was plenty to break the light barrier in a tiny thing like the Phoenix similar to how a small rocket motor was enough to break the sound barrier in the Bell X-1

Well something tells me the crystals only make warp easier by a considerable factor, maybe he just brute forced things without the crystals.

Allow me to offer an alternate scenario. In the episode, *The Changeling,* when Kirk realizes who he is talking to, he described Cochran as, "The inventor of the space warp," not the *human* inventor. He goes on to say that, "There's a whole galaxy waiting to honor you." This strongly implies that Cochran was not merely the first human to develop warp drive, but the first being among the Federation worlds. The Star Trek novel, and I forget its title, which described first contact, said nothing about the Vulcans having warp drive, merely that they detected the warp signature and chose to investigate. Vulcans, being a long lived and stoic race, could have engaged in interstellar travel at significant fractions of the speed of light. If they could go fast enough, time dilation would make that easier. My theory is that the Vulcans did not yet have warp drive, but they learned about it from us, and the knowledge spread from there. This means dumping all of *Enterprise* as canon, but so what? It has very significant problems being canon anyway. For those who ask how the Vulcans could have detected a warp signature without having warp technology, the same way a Kalahari bushman can detect a sonic boom without knowing what it is. We can reasonably speculate that a warp signature would be an energy burst consisting of electromagnetic radiation, gravitational radiation, and tachyons. The Vulcans would certainly have been able to detect this and certainly could have considered such an unusual phenomenon worth investigating.

One of my favs the concept of turning a weapon of mass destruction to that of science and exploration. The Vulcans held humanity back by atleast 50 years until Archers team took it for a spin 😂 humans were itching to dip their toe..

How did it land? We can assume Cochrane along with Henry Archer, designed the Phoenix with retro rocket technology similar to Musk's Startship. 😊

Quite the Magic Carpet Ride.

In all honesty, the middle may have been mostly inoperable, and the radioactive material may have been fuel grade, but not weapons grade.

It could be argued that the Phoenix was crewed primarily by Starfleet officers. By that logic, calling it a Starfleet vessel isn't that far-fetched.

Even if it didn't need to harvest fuel, the Phoenix may have included Bussard collectors as a technology evaluation or demonstration. Since Cochrane hoped to sell warp technology, he'd also need to provide refueling technology. Bussard collectors as proposed in the real world use huge magnetic funnels projected in front of the vessel to scoop up particles. This could have been employed on the Phoenix to help protect the occupants from high speed subatomic particle radiation.

From what I've seen, the engine core was a decommissioned nuclear fusion reactor from the US Navy, and the cockpit detached and reentered like an IRL NASA or SpaceX capsule.

It's got a fusion rocket. It likely didn't need to aerobrake for EDL because it has vastly more Delta V than any of us are used to taking into consideration. It likely landed in that lake tail first as a means of soaking up any radiation that would be left over from that reactor but if the reactor used He3 it's reaction would have been aneutronic and cooled of fairly quickly.

I believe the warp "stage" was left in orbit and the vulkans adjusted its orbit so it doesnt descend to earth... The "capsule"/"cockpit module" landed...

It just works

Seriously, I wish we would stop doing the later years of trek and do more prequels. The Ww3 time period would be fascinating and I'd imagine a lot cheaper in production for paramount to do

that diagram is poster they gave out at movie theaters when it came out.

When I saw the movie back in '96 and all the other times since I have wondered when the thing covering the nacelle broke off at the same time as the nacelle extending. I would guess the covering part would break off, then a second later the nacelle comes out. It just looks weird the way they did it in the movie.

Since “the big Z” was primarily interested in selling the design for big bucks I assume he built in ejection seats for him and his assistant, BUT what about Riker and LaForge? 🧐

Way back in time, humans got to alpha centri at sub light speeds Cockerin. Was a centrian and he with humans created the first warp. Vulcans didn’t enter until later

Good video

I’m curious how they dealt with inertial dampening on the maiden voyage?

I like the jettison theory since it's a callback to the Gemini missions but yeah it's a massive plothole for him to get back to Bozeman by the next day. The Soviets/Russians have always managed to do land landings so it could have done something like that.

Ive come to the insane side of the franchise (positively). I'm home

I suspect that in star trek lore space vessels where in service prior to first contact.

I wonder if First Contact was written with current rocketary knowledge, IE if the writers knew about SpaceX and the ability to land a rocket. Could it be feasable that they wouldn't have used a Titan ICBM as the base for the Pheonix and instead used a Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy launch system?

Cockpit Jettison would be more realistic but i think the landing theory is more canonical since picard remembers seeing it kn the museum It would be more likely for it to be still existant and in one part if its in a museum (Of course the vulcans could have fished the rest of the machine out of space or later humans but if the capsule was seperated the body would probably have burned up in the athmossphere)

a deflector array probably wasn't necessary on such a small rig, the warp field should have made material contact impossible

I bet the cockpit had both powered and parachute landing capabilities, and it HAD to set back down at the launch site (or within a short drive’s distance) in order to make FC with the Vulcans. I reckon the ascent stages were lost, and, later, another ICBM was converted to match the original launch design. This was placed in the Smithsonian. There’s also a possibility that, eventually, the warp-capable section of the Phoenix was recovered from high orbit.

My head cannon is it re-entered and landed to Lynard Skynards Freebird.