the delphic expanse

I posted this over at TriS too but maybe there's some others here who could help out:

I've got a short action story that's been niggling at my brain for months now but I'm hesitant to commit it to bits and bytes because I'm not certain if the physics of it all isn't just pure fantasy. :-/ Unfortunately it's not something that I could simply get away with a bit of classic technobabble or even be vague about. It's front-and-center in the story and makes all the difference to the tension and the drama. Are there any knowledgeable types out there who could help me out with this?

Without giving away too much of the story itself here's the ideas that I'm struggling with:

1) Conservation of momentum.
Let's say that you have a small craft - I'm picturing something like a two person space version of a F22 Raptor - where movement is still created by thrust from fuel or rockets and not space-warping engines.

(a) What happens if you can no longer produce any thrust in any direction? Wouldn't the vehicle keep moving since there's no gravity or friction to slow it down?

(b) What if you still had one operational rocket that was stuck at a slight angle? Would it allow you to eventually move the vehicle around in a 180 degree arc so you were pointing in the opposite direction? Wouldn't each additional burst of energy to move in the right direction increase your speed because you don't have something opposing it?


2) "Energy shields" and human bodies.
Usually when we see energy shields used in combat in Trek, they encompass a large ship and seem to absorb the energy of photonic weapons while causing unshielded physical weapons like torpedoes break apart upon impact. Everyone inside the ship is protected (for the most part) from the kinetic energy of the impacts.

(a) What if the energy shield is around something smaller (like the aforementioned space version of a Raptor) and that smaller vehicle impacts a larger object that doesn't have shields? Would the smaller ship's shields be able to absorb enough of the kinetic energy of the impact to keep the people inside alive? (In a car wreck at high speeds, people die even if they don't get thrown through a window or some such because the internal organs keep trying to move forward when the rest of the body comes to that sudden stop. That can do things like rip an aorta from the heart, etc.)

(b) What would it look like? Would the smaller ship bounce back?

(c) What would it feel like? Can I plausibly say that a body in motion via a vehicle at high speeds that comes to a sudden and abrupt stop will survive because "the shields absorbed the energy" of the impact? Or is this an eye-rolling kind of fictional situation?

(d) Would any of this change if the larger object also had shields?

Opinions? I really want the physics of this one to be plausible.

I'm no physicist, but from what I understand:

(a) What happens if you can no longer produce any thrust in any direction? Wouldn't the vehicle keep moving since there's no gravity or friction to slow it down?

If there is no friction, no nearby gravitational and other fields, no energy emitted from a nearby star - the craft would keep moving. However, even the slightest emission of energy from the craft could affect this in one way or another.

Think about it this way, Shuttlepod One is incorrect. The Shuttle would not cool down in that situation, despite being in the vacuum of space. It would heat up because all of the energy from the life support equipment/computers/bodies would not dissipate. Assuming that some kind of vent system didn't exist as part of life support, and in that case, one could assume that the system would keep some of the heat to keep the inhabitants warm.

(b) What if you still had one operational rocket that was stuck at a slight angle? Would it allow you to eventually move the vehicle around in a 180 degree arc so you were pointing in the opposite direction? Wouldn't each additional burst of energy to move in the right direction increase your speed because you don't have something opposing it?

I think, yes, if you just had one rocket, you would theoretically create both spin and motion.

2) "Energy shields" and human bodies.

I think there's an easy trek work around for this one. If the craft has inertial dampeners, they would protect the humans from any negative effects of shielding, as you describe them. And we know that in the ENT era small craft had inertial dampeners from Terra Prime.

Memory Alpha's Entry on Inertial Dampeners