Ah, I see what you mean, now. Yeah. I do my best to make lore make sense, but that's one I can't fix.

That's not how engineers use AI agents any more. We don't just look at what it says — we have it prove that it's doing the right thing. We just look at the proof, so we don't have to look at all the details, nor blindly believe what they AI says. We also have adversarial reviews, which are typically more thorough (but less experience-based) than human reviews.

He fired 100,000 government workers, putting many of them on government assistance for a while. That wasn't taking away people's money and prosperity?

He took political power away from millions. That's pretty much a zero-sum game right there. It's not just the wealth, it's using the wealth to influence the levers of power that control so many aspects of our lives.

Yeah, it's funny how those deluded by Trump think/pretend that they're the sane ones.

> When people like you get your way, that's how failed states happen.

No, failed states happen because of corruption. Like the USA is experiencing now.

Wait, what?! Are you completely unaware of the Russian oligarchs?

I suppose one could argue that you want the more dselicate computers behind the pilot, since then it has the greatest achievable shielding on all sides without having excessive distance from the flight controls and without becoming inaccessible if the pod that is loaded into the middle is not traversible. Similar reasoning is used in Formula 1 - delicate bits of the car (such as the fuel tank) are placed between the driver and the engine, to keep them as safe as possible without creating a burden. This would necessitate there being a step down to get to the pilot's chair. It's not a particularly good piece of "lore repair" but it's the best I can do.

Right, did you really expect Americans to elect a black woman?! We're in this situation because we have enough racists and misogynists that we're not able to elect a smart competent black woman over an exceptionally incompetent, corrupt buffoon. Anyone who says we're not a racist country is ignoring the plain facts — many would rather see the downfall of our nation than to hand over control to a black woman.

Right, sometimes it's about personal power instead of personal wealth. Corruption, either way.

The nuclear waste silos were, though.

The feet operated as vertical rockets, so I'd say the designer was thinking along the same lines you are.

The landing pads are also vertical thrusters (which is how they can skim), so you need space for the nozzle, engine, and fuel. The size of the landing pads would seem fine, given everything that needs to be in them.

I'm calculating mass in terms of filled volume. The entire mid-section of the Eagle was a mesh of girders, rather than a solid hull. Since the total space filled is 1/Nth that of a solid hull that has to be able to handle the same rotational forces, the total mass is reduced. The cross-hatch patterning is likely to be good there, as it's strong along those lines. We don't need to specifically know what the material is, or the specific mass, as long as we can use engineering techniques to figure out the percentage of material we need relative to having a solid hull.

That's true of all sci-fi, by nature. The challenge, though, is to make it as plausible as possible. The "traditional" rule (variously ascribed to Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov) was that good sci-fi was allowed to violate one law of physics (although this had to be justified and explained) but everything else shoud be as plausible as possible. S:1999, as a whole, certainly did not comply with that, but if we restrict ourselves to the Eagle, then I'd say that it would just about pass muster there.

I had kits for both an Eagle and a Hawk (which is somewhat surprising in retrospect given it only appeared in one or two episodes, IIRC). The Eagle model was a much more complex kit with far more parts than the Hawk, which was also somewhat smaller despite them both supposedly being to the same scale. Tbh, I always thought the Hawk was the cooler looking ship due to its more aggressive lines, which is probably why it was blessed with a model kit, but you can't argue with the sheer practicality & flexibility of the modular Eagle design. And its ability to survive so many crashes - usually at the hands of Alan Carter - of course!

There was also a range of diecast toys and plastic action figures for the series, I think.

Let's look at the various aspects of the Eagle design.

1. It was "designed to work in space" so wasn't designed to be aerodynamic
2. It was modular
3. Mass was kept to a minimum without compromising strength, which is precisely what you would want if your job is to carry a significant mass in space and be able to manoever without ripping apart
4. Cockpits were functional and minimal, not glamorous or more advanced than necessary to do the job

There were terrible aspects as well (nowhere to keep fuel, for example), but if you were going to design a sci-fi ship that is intended to be a simple short-range transport, then the design for the Eagle is close to perfect in a way that most sci-fi vessels really aren't.

Brian Johnson really did a superb job of actually making something LOOK like a practical workhorse.