How Does a Star Destroyer FLY in Atmosphere? 

Star Destroyer's fly because Tarkin orders them to fly. That's why.

if you want to know how to land a star destroyer i kindly advise you to follow Anakin Skywalker‘s landing technique for another happy landing

I know I'm coming to this four months late, but I want to address some things: 1. The figure you want is MASS not Weight. it's still in kg's so that's easy to understand. 2. Ships are probably a terrible gauge to estimate by since ships need to be buoyant and ISD's do not. 3. The Forbes article specifically states that it's estimate does not include heavy armor. 4. ISD's are pretty heavily armored, so at a GUESS its probably ten times higher than the estimate given. 5.Inertial Compensators are NOT a type of Anti-gravity. They are a means of allowing All of a ships components and crew to be accelerated at the same rate, rather than experiencing the normal inertia that would crush them flat at high acceleration. 6. The Compensators MIGHT be used to prevent the crew from FEELING high G's if the ship landed, but they wouldn't hold it off the ground. 7. REPULSORLIFT. These ARE anti-gravity and are almost certainly why the ship is "floating" as that is their intended purpose in cannon. (That's most likely what that round thing on the bottom of the ISD was) 8. The Shielding as well as surface area on an ISD Most likely the limiting factor, not the engines, which would set a top atmospheric speed of 975kph as atmospheric drag would be massive. Likewise any higher speed (i.e. breaking the sound barrier) will add significant heat load to the shielding/armor. 9. Because of #6, #7 and #8 and Escape/Orbital VELOCITY is irrelevant. The ISD can float up at a stately 5kph for all that it matters. It clearly doesn't need to reach orbital velocity at ALL to stay "UP", the engines can hold it up without it needing to reach a standard orbit. (Orbits are low energy to maintain, high energy to get to) 10. This one bothers me the most. In the real world, the Shuttle doesn't encounter the same temperatures as the Apollo Command Modules during reentry NOT because of surface area, but because the Shuttle never goes higher than Low Earth Orbit, while the ACM goes to Lunar orbit and back. This is the FIRST time Velocity has been important. Reentry from LEO is 7.8km/s, while Lunar reentry is nearly half again more at ~11km/s. 11. Lastly, and this is important, #10 is irrelevant to everything else. Why? Because an ISD would not be making an unpowered reentry relying on atmospheric drag to slow it down, except under the most Dire of circumstances. An ISD would slow from orbit using it's massive engines and enter the atmosphere at less than the Stated maximum atmospheric speed, ~0.28kps or 975kph. Doing otherwise would bend the bird and void the warranty. Thank you for your time, i just had to vent.

Wait hold up, the cruise ship really has a mk19 grenade launcher?

I'm so sorry you said something terribly incorrect, the sound at 5:08 is not the coolest sound ever but the second coolest, with the coolest being the Slave 1's Seismic bomb in Attack of The Clones

The ISD uses the crews hatred for dolphins to keep her floating

Title: How does a star destroyer fly in atmosphere? Video: Talk about how cruise ships are made.

3:06 yeah im going to need some sources for that

Actually, with those powerful engines, repulsorlifts and (appearant) lack of fuel issues, the ship could render itself at a standstill relative to the motion of the surface and then gently slip into to atmosphere, greatly reducing the stresses and temperatures involved.

like a brick, thats how it flies.

9:20 You seem to have mistaken what "Escape Velocity" is; its the highest speed an object can move and not have a hyperbolic orbit, not how fast an object needs to travel to reach space.

5:10 *coolest noise ever* Slave one's seismic charge: "Am I a joke to you?"

Most cruise ships have a Mk-19 grenade launcher on them?! How do they keep that information hidden? I never heard of this!

I think the answer for all gravity defying action in Star Wars would have to be repulsor lifts. The only real source (though not entirely canonical) for the technical workings of most of these ships are the roleplaying games, in which you have Landspeeders, which can hover up to a few meters above the ground, Airspeeders, which can often reach orbit but aren't capable of maneuvering when out of atmosphere, and then proper Starships which can transition seamlessly between moving in atmosphere and space. Repulsor technology was so common and cheap in StarWars that it was used in everything from elevators to toys to make things float.

Wait...do cruise ships actually have grenade launchers on board? Or am I just missing the joke?

4.44 million kg makes no sense to me. If the Allure of the Seas is 100,000 tons and a ton is a thousand kg and volumetrically the cruise ship is 44.4 times smaller than the star destroyer, the star destroyer would weigh 44,400, 000,000 kg, which is 10,000 times larger than the number you're referencing. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

Why wasn't a military ship used? That would make a little bit more sense, because of armor, generator, and weapons

maybe they achieve it kinda like the Orks achieve warp travel in Warhammer 40k, they just believe hard enough

8:05 I wonder if those two Star Destroyer commanders, exchanged insurance information.

Another theory: it’s sci-fi and no star wars ships follow any known laws of physics, the reason they can fly in atmosphere is because of sci-fi laws of science.

just putting this out there, but isnt escape velocity only important with short duration chemical propellant? if an ISD could still move in atmosphere it could just ascend straight up at 1 km/h and eventually escape the gravity well after a very VERY long time, no high escape velocity needed.

Imperial fleet vs star Forge please. If you can I will be vary happy.

9:25 Escape velocity is the speed required for a *non-propelled* object to escape the gravitational influence of a massive body. The starship is constantly propelled, thus escape velocity is irrelevant here. If it has enough thrust to lift off near a planet's surface, then it easily has enough thrust to continue moving away from that planet in space.

"If you are watching this, you are Generation Tech". I love that!

Thumbnail: how do star destroyers land Video title: how do star destroyers fly in atmosphere Me: make a choice dammit

Am I the only one who gets dissapointed Everytime I don't hear "welcome back to another episode of generation tech..my name is ALLEN"

Actually I think most Imperial Class Star Destroyers were unable to enter atmosphere specifically because they lacked repulser lifts. At least that's what I remember reading about years ago. The few we see entering atmosphere likely had to be modified quite a bit.

Him: "Check out this cruise ship for resting and relaxation." Me: Oh okay cool Him: "It also has a grenade launcher."

Me and a couple of ME students were taking about this exact thing one time. We came to the conclusion that a real world destroyer would essentially be an armored blimp. 90 percent of the ship is an helium compartment, all of which is covered by a thin but strong fabric. This fabric is the grey metallic surface of the destroyer and it’s shape is based on the need to accommodate the helium compartment. That explains why the hanger is on the bottom; keeps the large shifts in mass at the center of the craft and also acts as a counter balance for the bridge.

Do cruise ships actually have guns?!

I love it how you place the perfect starwars scenes in the perfect times

There are many pensioners who are great fans of Star Wars, as the Saga begun in 1977. Those people were young and fit in 1977, and have been holding the flame of fandom with great enthusiasm, for 44 years now. I know many Star Wars fans who are now retired; all of them teetotal, none of them has ever been on an organised cruise. Thanks for the video.

Remember, air friction only accounts for a small percentage of the heating of a craft's hull when it enters atmosphere; most of the heat is instead generated by compression. Air simply can't get out of the way fast enough, and is compressed into a smaller volume, causing it to superheat. If a deflector shield could better move it out of the way, or even simply create a buffer vacuum between the superheated air outside of the shields and the hull itself, the hull wouldn't need to deal with nearly as much of the heat stress. An ISD (or any other space ship) wouldn't actually need to reach escape velocity to leave the planet, either. It would only need to maintain headway for the first 100,000 feet or so, until it was clear of the bulk of the atmosphere, at which point it would be more or less in low orbit and able to kick in it's normal systems. Even without air resistance, one could climb away from the planet until such point that one is sufficiently outside of the gravity well; if you climbed a ladder into space, at half a mile an hour, you would eventually be able to overcome the pull of gravity just by jumping. You'd have to go quite a ways away from the planet for that to work, but powerful engines would greatly reduce that distance.

8:43 wait you didn’t get invited to join the first order?

"How do star destroyers land?" Upside down?

yes indeed the sound of the plasma shells hitting the bubble shield is the best sound ever. and probably one of my most fave scene in that one movie.

Hey Generation tech could you make a video of the the best and worsed factions and their equivalent to our world.

I actually always thought that inventing a means to get space craft in and out of the atmosphere without a massive amount of energy and resources would be crucial to our space programs. And it’s my hope that things like Star Wars will inspire future researchers and engineers to develop similar if not synonymous tech in the future!

@Generation Tech-when i saw the crashed Destroyer and Xwing on Jakku in the trailer for TFAs and REY riding past it , i fell in love with that shot.

Your helping catch up on how things work in those universes, thank you

What about aircraft carriers instead of cruise ship Edit: if these ships are armed with shields to enter a planets atmosphere to protect them , how do ODST drop pods enter atmosphere without getting vaporised even though they aren’t armed with shields

As RoS showed us again they spend a lot of energy just to combat atmosphere and that removes the shields and weapon power.

There is an easy answer to this question Yes

I clicked on this video thinking nothing. But absolutely ended up really enjoying this.

The ISD wouldn't need to actually achieve escape velocity to leave the atmosphere any more than a space elevator would. Modern rockets do, because they can't carry enough fuel to push themselves skyward at slower speeds; if they don't make orbit before their fuel runs out, they'll fall back to the ground. An ISD's fusion reactor doesn't need to worry about running out of juice like that - though hovering in the lower atmosphere of an Earth-like planet is apparently about all the ISD's gravity control, inertial dampening, and repulsorlift systems can handle when running flat-out. True, the ISD would have to either achieve escape velocity at some point or remain in orbit forever, but my understanding was the ship would slowly muscle its way out of the atmosphere, red-lining its engines and gravity manipulation systems until orbit, and wait to shift into higher gears until after it had already gotten into space.

Let's just say that the ships land the same way the ship from Wall E does.

The humor of this channel is one of the main reason I subbed!

5:09, Definitely one of the coolest sounds ever

COOLEST NOISE

do the most powerful and most realistic starfighters in sci fi

“Welcome to another epishode of generation tech”

"Your lack of impulsors do not concern me, Chief engineer. Perhaps you can explain this to the Emperor when he arrives." This solved the problem.

Episode idea: a tribute to Ben Burt by citing the sources of all those iconic sw sound effects.

Gently. They fly into the atmosphere gently.

To create Real life Star destroyers just say „I don’t have a fleet of Star destroyers” and hold up an uno reverse card to yourself. Therefore, your words will be reversed and since you said you do not have Star destroyers, you will now have them. Now go ahead and make Ol’Palpy happy

It’s called “Movie Magic”

Hey, great video, love the math! I think you miscalculated things slightly when using the escape velocity (around 10 minutes in). The escape velocity is the velocity you need to reach in order to escape a system's gravity *assuming you don't accelerate more*. You can escape the earth's gravity going well below the escape velocity, as long as you are constantly generating new thrust upwards. So the star destroyer doesn't actually have to reduce earth's gravity as much.

You and Metanerds Lore are the only reason I’m still sane

Where the sound of artillery rounds off the shield was cool, I submit that the coolest sound in Star Wars is the seismic charges launched out of _Slave I_

Ok what he's saying about the ship seems real. 3:06 HUH?

I am very surprised that Forbes used a cruise ship for comparison. I would think that a Ford class aircraft carrier would be a better analog.

The star destroyer can fly in atmosphere for the same reason, there is sound in space battle.

Point to make. Star Destroyers do not need the heat resistance to enter an atmosphere. With the same technology it used to hover over a planet. it can simply make a slow controlled decent to the planet surface. Making references to the shuttle or capsule does not apply. The same applies to the exiting of the ship. Since the ship is basically weightless while hovering. What ever thrust it uses will be enough to leave the plant in the same slow and controlled manner. The Ship would still weightless through the entire process till it leaves the gravity well.

Actually a really good question that I don’t think has ever been explained in the series.

Did you ever do a deep dive into the pod racing league? Did it ever get referenced after Episode 1? Are there any characters that used to be pod racers, besides Vader Boi?

11 minutes when all you needed to say was "perfected anti-gravity technology". A staple concept of science fiction.

“Both of which could do damage to a ship”-hey-o! 😂

I’m surprised by how many times I lol’d! I thought this would be bland engineering but this is great. New sub

Lol. "At least we didn't before the battle of Jakku"

Anyone else notice the shield generators on the cruise ship?

5:09 I agree! I make a point of trying to use my shield as a heavy in battlefront 2 when I can just to hear that!

I get the impression after reading many Starwars novels that ships don't enter a planet's gravity well at orbital velocities simply because they don't need to reach orbital velocities to stay above a planet. In Revenge of the Sith the opening space battle depicts ships at a lower altitude than the I.S.S and yet they're not orbiting the planet. That indicates that ships and the technology depicted in the Starwars universe can isolate themselves from a planetary body's gravitational field. In other words they don't need to do 'de-orbit' burns or even need to hit 17,500mph to get into orbit.

He said the engines are perpendicular to Earth's surface, think he meant parallel

The way you pronounce things makes my head explode.

The trade fed Naboo tank scene was one of the best of those prequels just for canonfire and shield hit sound effects alone. The Episode III space battle and ETA flying was also similarly cool

Fun fact, on reentry the heat isn't due to friction of the air against the hull, it's due to the rapid compression of the air in front of the ship. Thinking about it another way, the amount of kinetic energy involved in a large ship moving at speeds multiple times the speed of a bullet has to go somewhere, that energy is transferred into the air which is absorbing the impact, in the form of heat.

I can only imagine the amount of research in order to make these videos. Thank you Generation Tech for these informative and entertaining videos.

Weight is irrelevant when you can bend gravity around you.

It's not friction that causes heat production during atmospheric entry. It's compression.

I love that this is a pro Imperial channel.

I mean, wouldn't be the terminal velocity be meaningless for the Star Destroyer, as it could basically float over the planet like the city? And if it would wanted to accelerate out of atmosphere?

You know how it does all this? Easy! IT"S FICTION!!!

Quality work guys

Very cool video, thanks!! :) Just one thing, you don't need escape velocity to escape a planets gravitational field. It's defined as the velocity which will let an object escape without further acceleration. But as long as you have enough fuel you can leave at any speed you like, if you can consistently provide more than 1g of thrust (or the alien planets equivalent of 1g)

Duh! The same way Cloud City stays aloft. Next question.

How does it survive entering an atmosphere? By slowing down before it enters the atmosphere.. Duh. If a ship enters the atmosphere at 1 kph, there would be no heating. Ships with anti-gravity would be design to withstand twice the amount of force (not pressure) that the anti-gravity it can generate. It would also be design to withstand twice the force its engines can generate. Since the axis of thrust of the engines is at right angles to the axis of thrust of the anti-gravity, it has to be reinforced in two directions. Which adds to its weight. That's why ships that do not hover on their main engines is a dumb design. Spaceship do not encounter gravity when the enter atmosphere. Gravity is infinity. They have to deal with gravity when they slow own from orbital speed regardless of whether they are in an atmosphere or not. Escape velocity is irrelevant when a ship can maintain acceleration indefinitely. A ship can leave atmosphere and a planet at 1 kph provided it can accelerate against gravity the whole time. If the star destroyer used repulsor tech to hover over Jedha, its force would squash the city. That's the difference between anti-grav and repulsors. Anti-grav pushes directly against gravity. Repulsors push against whatever they encounter first, which in this case is the city.

I love how the Thumbnail and the text are two different things.

@2:32 LMAOOO ROFLLL DUUUDE I LAUGHED SSSOOOO HARD MAN , MUCH LOVE BRO THAT WAS A GREAT ONE.

How would the Death Star land

Somalian Pirate: I am the captain now

If anyone has read the early canon when the SW Universe was just starting, offhand I remember it was noted near the end of the Clone Wars the Victory Class Star Destroyer was the last capital ship known to be able to enter planetary atmosphere. The Imperial class when it was introduced was not capable. As to when they changed things saying a star destroyer could enter atmosphere, i'm not certain.

Loved the vid! I suggest next time maybe put the numbers of calculated sizes and speeds and such on the screen when saying them. I think it would help me and other visualize the data. Lol 👌🏻

Wow how doesn’t this guy know the difference between perpendicular and parallel. The engines were parallel not perpendicular

Most star Wars lore including all the roll playing games say imperial class star destroyers can't go into atmosphere. The Victory class is the largest that could. R1 was stupid for including the star destroyer in the atmosphere and that moment should be ignored. In closing ISDs can't go in to atmosphere and it is dumb to think anything that big could.

As soon as gen tech started talking about how heavy it was and asked that question the only answer I had was “Heavy. It’s really freaking heavy.”

"Jack wouldn't have been stuck in limbo for all these years" Hahaha 😂

Dude just enjoy the movie. You know this is fiction right.

This is such a bad video. From messing up the math in the mass to talking about friction, which isn’t an issue when you’re just floating there. The only real question is how does it stay in orbit without gravity pulling it down? The video literally could of been less than 10 seconds long, you said it yourself. “We‘re not exactly sure how these things work, but they’re basically able to create a bubble where everything within it was shielded from the effects of gravity.” There we go, and then maybe speculate on what this means and how it works, not add in a bunch of bullshit that truly has no relevance.

Gear down, full flaps, speed brake armed, butterize.

The ONLY reason modern day space ships heat so much when re-entering is because to orbit you have to be going at massive speeds. If you can hover, then there's no need to enter atmo at high speed.