How could Porkins eject?

He didn't have on an oxygen mask.

 

Quoted from another thread.

 

C'mon, it's Porkins we're talking about...just imagine the lung capacity!

Seriously though, him ejecting was a fairly stupid suggestion anyway. So he "ejects" and presumably falls safely to the surface of the Death Star--which the Rebels are there to blow up! He'll be space dust one way or another.

 

They could have come back around and tractor beamed his rear before they blew up the station.

 

It's obvious that there is a breathable atmosphere inside the Death Star but what you don't really get from the movie is that this same breathable atmosphere surrounds the outside of the Death Star like a natural planet and that's why the docking bay in which the Millennium Falcon was grappled into doesn't have a door or whatever.

This atmosphere is generated and held together by a magnetic field and in "Star Wars" the rebel pilot are passing through the edge of the Death Star's atmosphere and the vacuum of space when Red Leader tells them to switch their shields to double front.

If you understand that then it makes sense why Biggs tell Porkins to eject right before Porkins bites down.


I don't know where that idea comes from but it isn't very feasible. Surely they'd need to replenish the atmosphere every time the Death Star moved, unless they could also keep it in place whilst the station went into hyperspace. Having an atmosphere outside the DS also seems a bit pointless considering no one actually goes out on the surface.

The docking bays don't have doors because there's a force field over the entrance. That's why there's a big glowing bit around the edge. The stormtroopers that stand outside the bay as the Falcon enters are wearing special space suits. That's also why the DS announcer says that the bay has to be cleared before the Falcon enters - because they have to turn off the force field and thus the bay will be open to space until the ship is inside (?Clear Bay 327. We are opening the magnetic field?). They then order that all shields are closed after the Falcon is in (?Close all outboard shields?). It's the same principle as the bay that Anakin and Obi-Wan land in aboard the Invisible Hand in ROTS. Anakin takes out the shield which causes the air inside to escape, along with some droids. The big emergency door then slams into place to seal off the bay.

X-wings have an ejection system. Presumably a pilot could eject and then live even in space or Biggs wouldn't have suggested it.

 

Isn't there some sort of life support in the orange flight suits that he could live off for a while? I remember reading that in the EU or something....

 

There was a couple instances in the EU where Luke sealed up his flight suit and got out of the X-Wing in space. I know they did it in one of the Thrawn trilogy novels (don't remember which one).

 

the cockpit of the fighter could also eject like a mini space pod with manual thrusters to allow minimal movement. It doesn't really make sense for a ship to be able to eject a pilot in space without the ability to move, he would just float there until the oxygen in his suit ran out. At least with small thrusters he could try and get to a larger ship.....

 

It was the difference between certain death by not ejecting and probable death by ejecting.

 

I think it's more a knee-jerk reaction to eject. I think the fact he was in space went out the window.

 

I really don't think Porkins needed to eject. You know, i'm not 100 percent sure, but i'd think that he would die .

 

or for once we could assume the people in the movies aren't complete idiots and have, in fact, despite no faceless sealed helmets, relatively safe measures to eject into space and be retrieved from there - though I'd not be entirely disinclined to consider the possibility of admitting that the latter may or may not be inconvenienced by the detonation of the moon-sized battle station a few hundred meters under Porkins' fat ass.

 

This is what I always assumed - that the whole cockpit would eject.

 

Good question...I've wondered about that for a while. I think it was on odd suggestion that he eject. Where would he go? How would the others be able to "pick him up"? Suppose one of the Tie fighters tried to shoot him down? Unless there was more to the movie that got cut from that scene or more dialogue that was cut to make the comment make sense.

 

I always thought maybe the X-wing had some kind of pod that was made around the cockpit...I figured that would work....

 

Porkins was too busy eating anyway.
[image=http://www.goingfaster.com/darkthoughts/kfcporkins.jpg]

 

Maybe "ejecting" doesn't mean ejecting just his exposed body--maybe the cockpit detaches as a self-contained escape pod capable of surviving in space.

 

But seriously, who is going to save him if he did eject? All the other fighters were busy dodging the turbolasers, and TIE fighters. And who's to say one of those turbolasers wouldn't have shot him out of the sky?

 

In the same sense, in an aerial dogfight over the skies of enemy territory in our world, what good does ejecting do? The good it does is that becoming a POW is preferable to exploding in an airplane.

But speaking practically, I gather the Empire has a no-tolerance policy for the rebels, so I'm sure any captives would be jailed for life or executed. The plea to eject is probably just a reflex action without careful thought for the environment or situation.

 

Wouldn't building a big escape pod thingy into the body of a starfighter just mean more parts that could malfunction or get damaged when the ship gets hit? If you had a space suit there's a good chance that it'll still work if part of your ship got blown up. If half your X-wing gets shredded by turbolasers and you have to eject it's a good bet your self-contained pod will not work as advertised.

 

The in-universe answer is that there is a magnetic bubble projector in the pilot's chair that provides a breathable atmosphere for a limited time. It's similar to the principle of the docking bays you see in the films: atmosphere stays in, but ships can fly through.

 

That was shown exactly as you describe it in the Rogue Squadron comic book when Hobbie ejected.

 

Come to think of it, does anyone have a picture of the Rebel pilots that eject from their ships in the X-wing Alliance game? Do they have a sealed helmet?

 

Or maybe by ejecting Biggs actually means that Porkins should pull up, and get his X-Wing to alter course.

 

His name was Jek Porkins, the guy yelled at him "Jek!" not "Eject!"