"Fire the retro rockets, Claudia!"
Is retro rockets really two different words? I always thought it was
one
word, like afterburners.
It can be either. Not that it really matters in this case, since
the
SDF doesn't HAVE retro-rockets. :) To move something THAT big, a simple
chemical reaction (ie, rockets) would require WAAAAAY too much mass to
be
effective... and then there's the little problem of regulating it. You
turn a rocket on, it stays on until it runs out of fuel, and it's going
full-bore the whole time.
Oookay. This part I took from ol' Jackie, who DID say the SDF-1 had retro
rockets.
It did have chemical thrusters. They were retrofitted during the
reconstruction. The engineers didn't trust the antigravity drive system
that was originally part of the SDF-1, and it turned out they were right.
During the initial lift-off sequence when the Zentraedi attacked Macross
City, the antigravity engines tore loose from the hull and went sailing off
to parts unknown. After the SDF-1 crashed back onto the launch cradles and
turned them into so much scrap metal, Gloval ordered the Bridge Bunnies to
launch using conventional booster rockets; his comment was something like
"at least we know those will work!".
Ja mata,
LarryF
http://lwf58.tripod.com