That does look like Paul Baxley, the stuntman from “Tribbles” that you referred to.

If you want to see Shat’s wig move arround, there is a brief shot right before the teaser ends in “The Empath”, where Kirk gets knocked out. As he falls backwards to the floor, you can see his toup’ flop up a little bit (as if it wasn’t properly attached). You’ll have to put your DVD in super slo-mo to see it.

DD

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=41&pos=350

and better still (baldness showing)
http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=41&pos=351

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=41&pos=352

Isn’t Shatner. Damn! The Holy Grail recedes!

That was one of the best posts ever. Thanks for the info!

Sounds good, but we ALL KNOW that the original effects and production people were INFALLIBLE and incapable of mistakes, so the flipping of the film of used footage for this episode should be considered “canon” and sacrosanct, an artistic decision, and untouchable by the unwashed and unhallowed hands of today’s digital effects artists, who surely don’t know as much as the creators of the show did.

Yeah, right. :)

I’m all for correcting mistakes, or money/time saving shortcuts they took while under pressure back then.

Special effects requirements of the original series’ model aside, there likely WOULD be a Starfleet rule for establishing planetary orbits. Why? Traffic.

Right now, almost all spacecraft, satellites, and space stations orbit in the same direction: towards the ‘East.’ Or, if viewed from space (and assuming that the North pole is always ‘up’): from left to right.

We do this in the 20th and 21st centuries for a simple reason: it’s cheaper. We know the Earth spins from West to East. A point on the equator moves at about 1,700 km/hour, and doesn’t move at all at the poles. . It makes sense to work with this energy boost when building to orbital speed – it’s a heck of a boost. (Which is why space shuttles are launched from Florida and not from, say, Boston: the closer you are to the equator, the more speed you have.)

Launching a spacecraft in the opposite direction, or East to West, would mean you’d have to give up that 1,700 km/h advantage. In fact, you’d have the Earth rotational speed working against you, and you’d have a 3,400 km/h deficit to overcome. Looking at the numbers, it’s safe to say that most things being sent into Earth orbit will be orbiting towards the East for the foreseeable future.

So, would Starfleet continue this convention when orbital launches are cheaper in the future?

I would say, yes, for the same reason that airplanes and jets fly at different standard altitudes depending on which direction they’re flying: a collision could really ruin your day. You’re less inclined to hit something if planes, or starships, are all headed in similar directions.

Even if a starship has no speed advantage in entering a standard orbit from one direction or another, it’s probably safe to assume that other civilizations will also take advantage of their own ‘energy boosts’ and launch their various spacecraft in West-to-East orientations. (Unless their planetary rotations are retrograde, or East-to-West.)

Let’s say a starship came visiting Earth at the same altitude as our space station, about 380 km above the Earth’s surface. A starship travelling in a West-to-East direction would see the space station moving at approximately the same speed, or 27,648 km/h, in the same direction. Relatively speaking, there would be little speed difference between them. But if the starship came in the opposite direction, East to West, then the space station would whip by them at a relative speed of 55,296 km/h — or 15 km per second. Somewhat more difficult to make contact — though the special effects could be impressive.

I’d assume that Starfleet would want to avoid embarrassing incidents of accidentally running into a planet’s satellites or space stations, and would decree that ’standard orbit’ would match a planet’s orbital direction. So, it looks like TOS had it right all along in having Enterprise orbit with her port side to the planet.

(A good site showing orbital altitudes and speeds:
http://www.freemars.org/jeff/speed/index.htm )