Revealing mistake: In the deflector dish scene when Worf chops the Borg's arm off with his mek'leth, the blade obviously doesn't even touch the Borg. (01:09:45)
Revealing mistake: Outside Engineering when Data twists the neck of one of the Borg, one of his sleeves comes up and you can see where the make-up on Brent Spiner's arm ends.
Character mistake: When Picard is explaining the Enterprise to Lily he states that it has 24 decks. Yet earlier on, a crewman had reported to Worf that the Borg had taken over "decks 26 up to 11".
William Riker: Someone once said, "Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make its own judgment."
Zefram Cochrane: That's rhetorical nonsense! Who said that?
William Riker: You did! Ten years from now.
Question: How did the Phoenix land on Earth after the warp display for the Vulcans? It looked like a non-reusable rocket to me.
Answer: While the main fuselage was a re-purposed intercontinental ballistic missile, and they separated from the ascent stage of the rocket, the payload section housed two deployable prototype warp nacelles capable of achieving lightspeed. Beyond that, the payload also contained the prototype warp core (which was powered by matter/antimatter annihilation), the warp core coolant, elaborate magnetic-containment systems, and probably even impulse drive and landing thrusters (It kind of goes without saying that thruster and impulse technology would have existed before warp technology). There was no space left over in the payload section for conventional rocket propellant, and Zefram Cochrane's enormously-expensive and one-of-a-kind warp components would not be expendable; so he must have devised a way to safely bring the Phoenix down for re-use. Since the Phoenix's return and landing were never addressed in the film, my assumption is that the payload section was powered entirely by the warp core, including its impulse drive and landing thrusters.
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: It was never shown or explained how they landed, so any answer would be a guess. This is set in the future (mid-21st Century), so there could have been new rocket technology.
raywest ★