copy pasta from OZ (awaiting reorganization)

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copy pasta from OZ (awaiting reorganization)

Post by Destructionator »

1) The focus of military stuff on this website in general, and mainly, why I spend so much time here on my own discussions of it, despite war not really being a big part of my actual universe at all.
2) Write up some actual posts about more non-military stuff. I have a government layout and history document I am working on here that I must remember to finish and post.
Warning: once I get into government policies, my own political views are probably going to shine through (one reason why I generally stick to technical discussions. I've made political messages before here, but this will probably bring it to a whole new level.)
3) Maybe a general essay on exactly that: seeing an author's own political views and biases through his writing, and the pros and cons of trying to avoid it.
4) Following #1 again, write a little about how hard scientific exploration might not be the most exciting of things, perhaps discussing my author-insert's very own 5 year interstellar exploration mission.

http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/SPBI1GH.HTM

The Reverend Prez on Richard Dawkins' explanation: "Well then, science is bullshit."



An explanation on the silliness above, starting at the top.

First off, you see that Earth entertainers are going to jump on it. Some will be serious, and some won't be, but none will get much right. Leslie's team that made first contact didn't let a lot of details about their home go public; they were intentionally vague when talking about themselves. Human imagination filled in the gaps, expanding on what they do know, and not everyone did that the same way.

This led to a variety of weird things going on. Above, I showed three things: 1) they assumed they all were weird, given the first contact team's poor grasp of human body language and English. (Which quickly improved in the time they were there, but remained awkward, forced, and often, exaggerated.) 2) That they just must be sexually repressed and looking for release, given what little they know about their mating cycles and culture (and of course, a complete and utter failure to understand what this means). Saying they are sexually repressed actually isn't that far from the truth, but what humans misunderstand is that A'millians simply don't care, and even if they did, human females are icky.

THEY DON'T WANT SPACE COOTIES!

And finally, #3: in a lot of these views, almost everyone overestimated the power of the A'millian kingdom. They assumed that since they came in starships that they must have a vast civilization with powerful war machines that would make humanity weep with envy before being effortlessly quashed.

The fact that an emperor, assuming that title wasn't a translation error, came to visit little old them set people into two camps: one was that their civilization was so vast and humanity so insignificant that vassal emperors (insignificant compared to the real emperor!) could be sent with a small force to make contact.

The other side is that their civilization is small enough and humanity special enough that they did warrant attention from a big wig (which is pretty accurate, but they couldn't prove it).


But assuming they were huge made better entertainment, and thus, the misconception spread and soon started reinforcing itself.




Next off is part of the religious interpretation. When introduced with new information, people tended to to one of two things: 1) ignore it or 2) claim that it reinforces their existing world view.

The "made in God's image", said by three major religions, is an example of them quickly putting this to their advantage. Evolution couldn't possibly account for people from another planet looking so remarkably similar, but something must, right? So it seems perfectly reasonably to the religious groups to say that the common design inspiration is God; they were right all along. A lot of people bought into this.

Part ignoring it and part reinforcing a world view is represented by the section claiming it is all a government conspiracy. The guy who wrote that was probably a tinfoil nut before the first contact, and used this new material to his advantage. Again, it is partially true, giving some accurate facts, but a little twisting is done to make it fit into his framework of reality.

The Dawkins thing is showing that there are of course people who don't buy the religious explanation and are looking for better answers. The position they'd probably take is calling it coincidence.

And a lot of people aren't happy with that. Some turn to God, some try out convergent evolution (but they are a little too similar for that...), some go to more wild speculation like seed dna brought in to both planets by asteroids or something. But they don't have enough information to draw any concreate solutions.... which will eventually lead to wanting to find more information, opening the door for events that become the First Interstellar War.


The Voyager reference is because first contact time (the A'millians went home after the contact in about 1996; Voyager would be on the air at that time, and IIRC Threshold actually aired in 1996, so my dig at it isn't completely random) was right there, and writers for existing franchises weren't above sticking in references to the real life aliens in their shows either. (Though, like everyone else, they failed to get it quite right too.)



Finally, A'millia circa AW 2100 vs Hell as shown in Stuart, et. al.'s Armageddon. How would this go? Well, the culture shock the baldricks encountered in the fic would be largely absent from this confrontation - both would conduct war in a similar way: take your army to show off and talk surrender before even starting to fight.

(This method of warfare makes a comeback in later day space war too. Space war in the modern era is basically he with more ships wins, nearly every time. So instead of throwing your stuff away, just showboat a big force and surrender when you see that force coming.)

A'millian technology is obviously way ahead of the bronze age, but without pressure to develop better war tools, their technology simply hasn't been applied to that field - they build rockets for going to the moon and nuclear reactors to power their ships, but the thought of building a nuclear reactor that purposefully goes supercritical on demand and sticking it at the end of those rockets and lobbing them somewhere simply never occurred to them; they have no need to think of things like that.

Similarly, they built a huge electromagnetic coilgun to launch stuff into space, but miniaturizing it into a handgun? No need to think of that - if they think of fighting, they think of swords and possibly pikes.

(Though at this point, for the first contact, they did build two warships, which obviously don't use swords, but are instead equipped with coilguns and chemically powered kinetic kill missiles. But this is due to technical requirements - swordfighting is impossible in space, so they had to think of something to fill the niche. But, since swords do work on the ground, no need to apply it there.)

Their swords are good stuff, made of high quality steel, but they are still swords. An A'millian taking his sword against a huge baldrick with a trident - not likely to be pretty.

Then you have the numbers. The Royal Knight Service had a force of about 9,000 at this time, most of which serve non-combat jobs (from domestic peacekeeping to barracks upkeep (gardening!)). A demonic army of hundreds of thousands would pwn them.

This, A'millia vs Abigor: the demon army shows themselves, the demon Duke walks out to meet with the A'millian king, who promptly surrenders. That or the demon army just starts eating. It isn't much of a contest.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Re: copy pasta from OZ (awaiting reorganization)

Post by Destructionator »

In my universe, there are only three (nay, two now) inhabited planets, two of which had people develop on them, and the other one is the only true interstellar colony world I have had so far. Most everyone lives in space, in large artificial habitats.

You might ask why I didn't have them take their warp drive to the stars and look for other Earth like planets, or why I didn't have them terraform Mars or moons or anything like that. I explained this in my blog article: Space Colonies I.

I also touched upon it again in my first post here.

Here comes the summary.

Earth like worlds that are just right are rare. You need the right kind of star, the right kind of planet, and the right point in that planet's development cycle. Remember Earth didn't have an oxygen atmosphere for a long time in its history.

But, if you do find one, would you take it? Getting up and down out of gravity is hard. All your people and equipment would have to come in from space. You just climbed out one one gravity well, why are you going back down into another one, when you can just stay above?

There is one Earth like planet colonized in my universe, discovered by probes and colony started by people who wanted to give it a try leaving the system - it was there and they wanted to have it. Its development was planet and space stuff at the same time.


Terraformed planets are even worse. Not only is getting them just right harder (need to find one good enough as it is), it takes centuries to adapt it to you and huge cost. Then when it is done, you are still at the bottom of a gravity well on an imperfect world. And terraforming the whole thing means you must do it all, whether you use it or not.

Terraforming is a silly sci-fi idea that doesn't make any sense at all when you think about it. If you can terraform, you can definitely make orbital colonies that are better in every way.


Then comes orbital habitats. You build them as you need them, at a great fraction of the mass of a planet, but same number of people supported. You can dial up any gravity and day length you want. You can have any weather you want, or none at all. You can have any seasons you want. It can be very large to very small. Transport among them is very easy - no gravity to fight. They can go anywhere you want - close to home, or far away. They have cheap, clean, unlimited energy from the sun - no need to worry about other sources. They can have raw materials easily available by robots mining planets or asteroids being diverted. Or they can go to the asteroids.

Orbital colonies are superior in every way to terraformed planets, and superior in many ways to Earths, and matches Earth in other ways. It is logical that if you expand to space, orbital colonies are the way most would go. Though, if another Earth is found, it is tempting, but offers disadvantages in energy, weather, and gravity, meaning you would probably just stay in space.

The only thing that gives them competition is using Earth more and more efficiently, but then you will start to run into resource problems without the vast supplies of space before long, and most the technology for advanced Earth concepts, such as huge greenhouses with 24 hour sunlight or arcologies, require higher technology and some shared from the space plan anyway.


The most common material used for people's houses in space is probably going to be aluminium.

The element is common on the moon and in the asteroids, and it is plenty strong enough for a house; indeed, the habitats themselves will most likely be made out of aluminum.

In smaller habitats, terracing the houses may be common, but some might choose to keep the curve on their floor. It will look curved, but it won't feel curved, since the direction of 'gravity' changes with it.

There will be wood in space habitats, but locking up carbon in a house is a waste - volatiles will be compartively rare, so keeping them in the life cycle will be preferable if possible.



Transport between habitats is easy. Electromagnetic launchers can send traffic around for very low cost - electricity is cheap in a space habitat. So people can get around easily.

Even without electromag transport, stationary lasers at the source and destination can give excellent performance for civil transportation.

The benefits of electromag transport is not limited to space. The same principles can be used on the planet to cheaply and quickly power trains. Getting across the continent could be done in a high speed electromag powered train in just one day, for an energy cost of only a few dollars - much the electricity can be recovered at the end of the trip. (remember in the magic thread where I said lateral translation takes no net energy. With electromagnetic transport, this could realistically mean the only energy used to get across country is a small amount lost in inefficiencies in the transformation process).

Even fossil fuel burning cars could still be used. With the cheap energy available through nuclear or solar power, CO2 can be pulled out of the atmosphere and reformed back into gasoline, causing a cycle with no net gain of greenhouse gases. However, as time goes on, transitioning away from gasoline powered cars will be preferable. Advances in electric vehicles may eventually render gasoline cars obsolete.


Back to space, the most common size and exact locations of the habitats is still up in the air; I need to think about it more.

Inside some habitats, a person may be able to easily walk or bike everywhere. In the bigger ones, public transit, such as electromag trains, can be used very cheaply. (Hell, if you take an elevator up the habitat, you can simply fly to where you want to be. Human powered flight is a very real possibility in space colonies, since your weight decreases as you go higher). Gas powered cars, even with a cycle, would not be preferable in colonies, since pollution will not dissipate as much as on a planet. Thus, electric cars would be more likely, and should have no trouble going the distance with some advances - even the large colonies wouldn't be more than about 60 miles from any point to any other point.

The idea that space colonizers will live in isolation is simply not true with the superior plan of orbital habitats. Though, if they wanted to, they could (which led to a proliferation of small "city states" from AW 2600 through to the present).


Something that we don't often think about, except when bad things happen, are firefighters. How might fires be fought in the future?

First off, a quick note: a fire on a space colony isn't going to be much worse than a fire here on Earth. These colonies are large, and their air is in a self cleaning cycle, with partial pressures of gasses similar to the terrestrial atmosphere. Nitrogen in the atmosphere serves a very important biological function (not to us directly, but to plants and bacteria), and also serves to suppress the rapid spread of a fire that would happen in a pure oxygen environment.

Future fire trucks would likely be similar to what we have today, of course with the associated advancements in automobiles and engines the future will bring. Even on a space colony, where personal vehicles may not be necessary, there will still likely be emergency vehicles, including fire trucks, since they need to get to a place fast, and may need the flexibility.

Drenching water on a fire will still be a viable way to control it, as will foam for things like gas fires. On a space colony though, there will likely be fewer home fires than we know today. A reason for this is they are more likely to be made out of aluminum than things like wood, and aluminum doesn't burn as easily. Inside, there will be lesser need for fuels, like gasoline, since energy can be provided with other means, like abundant electricity. However, in a home, there will still be a great many things that can burn, and outside, there will be grass, trees, etc, all of which may catch fire and will require response.

The equipment for the individual firefighter will continue to advance. New materials will be developed that are even more heat resistant than what we have today. Infrared scanners will get much cheaper (especially so in space, as all space ships will be wanting an infrared scanner, since that is how to see other ships best), and as thus will likely be universally available, allowing firefighters to gather more information and find victims more easily.

In addition to the traditional methods, on space colonies, the internal plumbing may be employed. In smaller habitats, there is likely to be a sprinkler system that can produce artificial rain (on larger habitats, rain can form naturally). If a fire starts, the habitat control can start a rain storm to help put it out.

Also, getting higher will be easier in a habitat, since the apparant gravity decreases the higher you go. The effect of this will probably be minimal, however, to the task at hand, but it might give another unrelated job to the firefighters - rescuing people and animals who went too high and didn't know how to get back to the ground.


Watching some random television show today reminded me of how important gravity is in sports. Specifically, I saw some people playing a game of basketball, where of course you arc the ball into the hoop.

In a space society, there is no reason to believe they will limit themselves to sports like we know (though, they will surely still be around) - they can take advantage of freefall for whole new things, or adaptations on old classics.

In freefall, vector movement is king. There is no gravity to arc the ball (but omg what if there were magnetic fields to toss things up, oh that sounds awesome, I'll so need to write computer simulations of these...), so without any forces, the ball thrown, and the players, will all move in straight lines.

In a basketball game, you might try to get 'vertically' aligned with the hoop (no need to limit to two dimensions now), and just throw it in, but also consider the potential for bouncing off a differently shaped backboard, or even the walls.

A backboard might curve up above the hoop, so you can shoot for it, and bounce down to score. Of course, the third dimension also opens up a whole new possibility, that a curved backboard would pretty much close off.

Also, it is not just the shooting. Dribbling the ball will be harder in some sense, since you don't have gravity to help carry it down; the player must supply more force to get it to bounce, and if he moves too far away from a wall, he will have farther to go before it rebounds to him, letting the other team get at the ball more easily. This might lead to more passes, or keeping closer to a wall as he moves (which might be a good idea anyway, since to change direction, he will need a wall to kick off of, unless there are some other things on the court to use (though, that raises safety questions too)).

And the other players all needing to move this way too will all lead to a pretty interesting game. I find basketball (and most sports, in fact) in real life to be abysmally boring to watch, but freefall basketball would be fun, for a while. I'd watch it at least once. And the magnet ball concept I touched on above is really interesting - attraction and repulsion from certain parts of the wall and in the field would make things interesting, even with weak magnets.


Ford Prefect wrote: Freefall basketball (Basketfall?). That would be definitely awesome. I'm reminded of Blitzball from Final Fantasy X which was a three-dimensional sport. That was awesome.


This page is a physics professor talking about spin created artificial gravity, and he brings up some interesting facts that I have only mildly thought about:

http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw18.html

His description of the elevator ride is pretty cool: it would feel like your elevator car flips 180 degrees through the trip.

Most these effects can be minimized by making the space station much bigger, but still, none of this can be ignored, and I'll have to put in much more thought about it, probably in the form of a blog post later.



Got this link from Atomic Rockets:
http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/SexxxInSpace.htm

It is discussion how the act of sex in space might be performed; a pretty interesting read.


Ford Prefect wrote: That was a pretty interesting read. It also sounds like it would generate a whole lot of fun; having to push from different parts of the room in order to meet into the middle would be great for a laugh.

Yeah it would. And being together in the middle is convenient when finished, as you can push off each other to get back to the walls.

Freefall just sounds like it would be a blast, other than space sickness and nasal congestion which could ruin it short term and eventually, the pooling of more liquids (possibly causing headaches), the stretching out of the spine, and the weakening of bones and muscles that could ruin it long term. But there would surely be a period of pure awesome in the middle.

If I were insanely rich, I sure as hell would put almost all of it into building a Bernal sphere in orbit. Normal gravity in the middle, freefall at top and middle, with a whole batch of gravity options in between. It would just be too much fun.



It would be awesome to build something like the A'millian low orbit station too. This has multiple sections: spacecraft docking, a somewhat large torus for a wee bit of gravity, a bunch of zero-g labs, and one zero-g bubble: a somewhat large (I envision it at being about 30 feet diameter sphere) bubble that is empty. On the outside is two layers of transparent material (maybe even plain glass) with water in the middle.

You can see in almost all directions through it, and the water layer offers some radiation protection while in there. The room is entirely empty though. A shield on the outside would black a direct view of the sun from ever getting in, since that would mess everything up.

But imagine that. You're in low orbit, so one direction is the planet, one of course is the door back into the rest of the station, and in that direction, you would also see the station spinning, and its solar panels sticking out and stuff, but all the other directions: just space.

And 14,000 cubic feet of open space to play in freefall!

The inside of it would be a blast too: imagine how fast you could run in a 1/6 g torus if a path was cleared all the way around. Oh man, if only there was room to jump in there too!

But it is supposed to be primarily a scientific research station (though it also doubles as the waypoint between space and the planet - it is where the space launcher shoots its capsules); there is only so much just for fun stuff that could be built before some bean-counter would wonder where all his tax dollars ended up. :P


Ford Prefect wrote: You know, that set-up is similar to the construction of Mother Nest in Alastair Reynold's Redemption Ark. It had three interlocking rings with different spin-gravities, and a zero-g sphere at the centre which was filled with trees. I thought that was great.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Re: copy pasta from OZ (awaiting reorganization)

Post by Destructionator »

FTL Communications
The ol' noggin has been pondering up a few ways to have some FTL comm without breaking my like of a lack of it in general. Here is what I've gotten so far:

There are two ways to achieve FTL communication: the simple way of having a courier with warp drive zip back and forth carrying the message, or a more advanced and subtle way, discovered some time in the AW 3200's (or so; I'm not attached to the timeline yet) that lets tiny messages be sent.

First, the simple way: it works by collecting a batch of info, then doing one trip, and sending it all at once. Small, fully automated ships sit on the Alderson point, receiving transmissions meant for the other location, and then warp to the other system and retransmit them in big batches. A small fleet of these ships making regular trips can keep the two systems in somewhat constant communication, but there is always a lag of at least several hours, since it must wait for the ship to actually leave (and warp jumps, even at the Point, wreak havoc on the drive - warp drives are maintenance intensive, so avoiding using them is good - much less expensive.)


But, a different way was discovered by human researchers some time later. Changes in a warp coil's rotation rate causes a slight drop in electrical resistance of other warp coils nearby. The drop of it is proportional to the change in angular velocity in the sending coil and inversely proportional to the fourth power of the distance between them.

Since warp coils are very weak, applying a great torque to them would destroy them. This means the best possible change is weak, and given how quickly it drops off with distance (believed to actually be related to gravity rather than plain distance, but same general result), it was first thought that building a useful communication device was impossible.

But, then they got the idea to try it across Alderson points, figuring that the 'warp distance' between them was very small, even if the real space distance was very big. And an experiment proved this to be correct - slight changes in a small warp coil showed a corresponding drop in resistance on the other side of the point.


This showed great potential. If a machine could take in signals and torque a series of tiny warp coils over an Alderson point, it could send real time signals across to a different solar system.

There were a few problems though:

1) Station keeping for the devices. A pretty straightforward engineering problem that existing technology could address.

2) Maintenance. Jerking the warp coil repeatidly to send the signal would deform it with time, requiring constant replacement, and limiting bandwidth.

3) Heat. The receiving coils would need a small, constant voltage on them to detect the resistance drop. The tiny current going through it would heat the sensitive coil, possibly deforming it. Again, existing technology should be able to solve this.

4) Detecting the signal with the appropriate detectors. Across the whole Alderson point (which is actually a pretty large volume, not a point like its name implies), the 'warp distance' is negligible in most case - it is very close to zero. This means there will be great cross interference on both sides if there are several senders. This again limits bandwidth.

5) Interference from warp ships crossing the point would be pretty overwhelming to the system. Bubble shields cause some stoppage, but not full stoppage to the technology. There are two ways to solve this: only operate the system when warp ships aren't passing at the time, or set up the system to operate at some remote alderson point, possibly jumping through several systems. The latter has more light speed lag and higher maintenance if something breaks, but avoids interference from other travel entirely.

So, the devices themselves were built with small warp coils on highly precise rotating hardware and simple radio transceivers to translate the messages being sent across. The magnitude and frequency of the jerks means a single coil could send basically an analog signal. Several coils would be at the points of higest separation across the Alderson point, controlled by a central computer linked to them by laser communication. A set would send a regular signal to ensure synchronization.

Even though the system would work, the bandwidth limit was never fully removed. The end result is thus:

Real time FTL communication (in practice a few seconds lag due to light speed between the alderson points and the sender and receiver) was possible, but only small amounts of constant data. This lends itself to compressed, small packages specially encoded by the controller to be sent. Text messages are very common across the system - to use a modern day example, it is kinda like IM over dial up.

Much better bandwidth at the cost of much higher latency is still possible through the old system of an automatic comm ship. This is like the postal service delivering DVDs: slow, but can pack huge amounts of data in each trip (and this data is transferred to the comm ship by high bandwidth lasers and radio). (Sending physical objects of course requires a normal cargo ship with warp drive.)


[Out of universe, this new thing was added so the Royal Capital on A'millia could have faster, more constant communication with the rest of the Empire around Koreallia without requiring the Sovereign to constantly have to jump systems to talk to their people. It also has the side effect of making interstellar missions not be so entirely on their own, but still easily cut off. Between A'millia and Koreallia, the system is pretty vast, allowing audio transmissions with a few seconds lag to go both ways, and of course, lots of text transmissions. This means the sovereign can have nicer chats and stay kept up with text news feeds relating to ruling the country. Helps remove a anti-reason for them to stay on their homeworld and keep the job. But, since it is so low bandwidth, it doesn't replace the old system, so no real time TV and such.

The electrical resistance reasoning is something I did that I think doesn't poop on physics, too much. At least not more than you would expect from anything involving FTL in the first place.

More discussions on the full implications may come later, but this is about the bulk of it.]






There are four ways to get into orbit that I have used in this universe:

1) Single stage to orbit rockets. These have a rather high fuel and production cost, and rather low cargo cost, but are reusable and pretty fast to get up there. Starship shuttle craft are SSTO rockets.

2) Disposable rockets (both single and multi stage). Expensive to keep producing them, since they aren't reusable, but some designs have a pretty good cargo capacity and economies of scale / mass production can help with the price.

3) Mass drivers. Huge coil guns basically that launch a payload into space using electricity to power magnets. There is one of these on A'millia. They launch pretty quickly and have many reusable parts and a moderate cargo capacity. Big initial cost, low marginal cost for its operation.

4) Space elevators. A big ribbon goes up into orbit, and a payload climbs up the ribbon, powered by electricity. Very slow going up: takes about a week to get to GEO, and moderate cargo capacity (~13 tons). Big initial cost, moderate marginal costs (it must be continually repaired and positioned due to micrometeor impacts). There are two on Koreallia.

I need to get to bed, but I'll go into more detail at some point tomorrow or over the weekend.





Single stage craft.

There are a few kinds of single stage planet / space transport craft I want to talk about:

1) One way rocket from ground/sea to orbit.
2) One way capsule from orbit to ground/sea.
3) Two way rocket that needs a runway or sea for an airplane like takeoff / landing.
4) Two way rocket that does not need a runway and uses jets for a vertical takeoff / landing.


1) A one way rocket to orbit would usually be multi-staged, but there are some designs to do it in one stage. The Sea Dragon proposed to NASA in the 1960's could have had one or two stages.

In my universe, two or three stage disposable rockets are usually preferred to single stage, to reduce costs.

A one way rocket would be used for sending up large amounts of cargo at once. One way rockets are used to establish early space infrastructure. Once it is up, space usually provides mostly for itself, so a smaller, reusable system is generally used instead.

2) One way going down would usually be the final stage of some other system: it might be a ship launched up on a multi staged rocket or by a mass driver. It might also be something that was constructed in space for quick transit down to a planet, either to stay there, or to be brought back up later by another vehicle.

In my universe, one way to Earth ships are sent down regularly on A'millia: they are sent up by the terrestrial mass driver on that world, and land relatively unpowered in the sea.

3) Space planes. These would take off either from a runway or from the ocean (most likely a special runway), go up to space, do their work, then glide back down and land like an airplane, all as one part.

Some designs can carry about a dozen tons of cargo (based on the real life Skylon), and others are designed to carry only people (I intend to design this one myself, based on the Skylon, but smaller, and will post mine when it is done).

Since it needs a runway to take off and land, it is only useful on developed worlds. On Koreallia, if you don't want to take the cheap space elevator up or down (since it is a week long ride!), you may take a passenger space plane instead.

I am not sure if they can land with full tanks or not, so if one is coming from space (such as from a starship's shuttle bay), it might go down empty and fuel up on the ground.

4) Vertical landers. Based on the real life design of the Shuttle SERV of the 1970's. The real life design would carry cargo only, a pretty large amount, then reenter and use jets for a soft landing.

I intend to try and work on that design to create one that might carry cargo or people up and down from a planet without infrastructure already set up. My idea for a people one would be a cross between this idea and the Apollo LEM - relatively small, but capable of going up then down, or down then up to an orbiting ship. These would be shuttles on space explorer ships, and may even work as military dropships. Again, I'll post my design when it is complete.


http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/searagon.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/skylon.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shueserv.htm
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Re: copy pasta from OZ (awaiting reorganization)

Post by Destructionator »

Here is the first one:
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The first warship designed for the new Starfleet division of HM's Knights was a small, simple ship, but it was also all that was needed at the time.

Design work started the year of Starfleet's formation. AW 2223, and the first vessel was launched in AW 2229, called the ASV Vulture, SC-100. The name was a reference by the designers that they felt this vessel was no good attacking anything that wasn't already practically dead already.

During the first interstellar war of AW 2284, three SC-01s were His Majesty's fighting force in space, however, since there were no other powers in the known universe with any spacefleet at all, even this was considered by some to be excessive.

One SC-01, the ASV Falcon, SC 102, was lost in AW 2285, but not to enemy fire - it suffered a serious warp drive malfunction, stranding the ship and its crew for two weeks. They were successfully rescued, but the ship was abandoned.

No other SC-01s in our service were ever lost, and none ever saw battle.


The ship has a sphere on the front, which is the pressurized crew area. Extending back from this is a cube on the back of a boom, containing the engines / reactors. Off this boom are four massive fuel tanks, that double as radiation shielding for the crew from the engine and can work against solar flares, if properly aligned. Off the sphere is communications and sensor equipment, and the weapon systems.

The sphere is connected to the rest of the ship by two structs with explosive bolts. If needed, the crew sphere can blast apart from the rest of the ship and act as a lifeboat; it has maneuvering thrusters, capacitors, and batteries, which can keep it alive for a few days on its own, hopefully long enough for a rescue ship to arrive.

The only armament are the scatter shot kinetic kill missiles, of which it carries three, and two magnetic gun turret that fires small iron balls, about one inch in diameter. It carries 10,000 rounds total.

Only the sphere was easily accessible by the crew; everything else was monitored remotely, and repaired by EVA if needed.

Dimensions:
Total length: 51 meters
Sphere diameter: 15 meters
Sphere volume: 1800 cubic meters

Fuel capacity: 9500 cubic meters
Primary fuel: liquid hydrogen - 660 tons
Capable of using almost anything if needed.

Mass (full): 2660 metric tonnes
Mass (tanks empty): 2000 metric tons
Propellant mass: 660 metric tons

Engines:
TRITON x2
General:
-Mass: 25 tons
-Power requirement: N/A (engines are generators)
-Waste heat: Self contained radiators
-Mass / propellant ratio: 1.33
Normal mode:
-Specific impulse: 900 seconds
-Thrust: 135 kilonewtons
-Acceleration (fully loaded): 0.05 m / s^2 (5 milli-gees)
-delta-v capacity: 2.6 km / s
LANTR mode:
-Specific impulse: 600 seconds
-Thrust: 405 kilonewtons
-Acceleration (fully loaded): 0.15 m / s^2 (16 milli-gees)
-delta-v capacity: 1.7 km / s
Note that LANTR mode uses LOX in addition to LH2 - the ship carries less LOX, but it isn't needed as often. Also, in normal mode, other fuel may be substituted for LH2, but other fuels offer less thrust and Isp. Only LOX+LH2 can be used safely in LANTR mode.

Mk III FTL Assembly
Mass: 80 tons
Jump range (long): 15 ly
Jump range (short): +150 MJ. -280 MJ (given in total change in gravitational energy during jump) (enough for short tac jumps in orbit; not much more)

The Mk III is not detachable, and runs off electrical power from the external reactor.

Power plant:
Method: Nuclear fission (part of engine)
Fuel: uranium
Output: 400 kWe (max)
Batteries:
Mass: 5 tons
Energy storage: 6 GJ
Power output: 400 KWe
Charge time: 9 hours (continually charging if reactor running)
Can take over for reactor for 5 hours full power

Capacitors:
Energy density: 5 Wh / kg
Power density: 2 kWe / kg
Mass: 10 tons
Energy storage: 200 MJ
Max power output: 20 MWe
Full charge time: 1000 seconds (17 minutes)

Also can take over for power plant for about 10 minutes on their own.

Heat radiators:
Built into engine; no additional radiators are required.

Weapon systems:
Magnetic guns x2
-Damage type: kinetic
-Projectile material: iron, 2 cm spheres, 0.26 kg / round
-Total ammo: 10,000 rounds
-Max energy per shot: 20 MJ
-Max muzzle velocity: 8.7 km / s
-Computer controlled turret capable of 180 degree movement about the yaw axis and 360 degrees about the pitch axis with precision servos.

Missiles x3
-Guidance system: remote (from mothership)
-Damage type: kinetic - fragmentation impacts target at high speed
-Drive type: chemical, 300 second Isp
-Structural mass: 200 kg
-Propellant mass: 1200 kg
-Delta-v capacity: 5.9 km / s
-Acceleration: > 100 m / s^2
-Maximum damaging energy (assuming stationary launch point and target): 7 GJ (1.7 tons of TNT)

Missiles are also capable of descending into an atmosphere; magnetic gun rounds would burn up, but the missile can survive.


Armor:
The sphere has 50 cm of a aluminum / steel mixture all around it, which acts as battle armor and radiation shielding. The fuel tanks and warp drive have 10 cm of similarly made armor. The STL engine / reactor system is not armoured.

Shields:
None; The Holtzmann-Langston effect was not yet discovered during this series' operational lifetime.

Endurance:
The SC-01 was designed to be operated independently for a period no longer than 90 days.


Crew:
10 people:
Commander
The ship's commander was in charge of all operations inside and outside the vessel.
Pilot
The pilot would execute orbits, FTL jumps, and docking maneuvers.
Astrogator
The astrogator's responsibility was to ensure the ship was where it is supposed to be and is going where it is supposed to go. He would plan the best way to get there.
Sensor technition
The sensor technition would examine computer data and determine the best search patterns to see what is around the ship.
Weapons operator
The weapons operator would be responsible for instructing the computer to fire at a location, and for the upkeep of the weapons systems.
Warp drive technition
His job is to be sure the new technology of the FTL drive operates as it is supposed to.
Engineer
Responsible for the general upkeep of all systems, focusing on the power plant and main engines.
Engineer's mate
Assistant to the engineer in all tasks.
Medic / life support expert
Keeping the crew in good shape, and ensuring the life support system if functioning properly.
Computer technition
Many systems depend on the computer to be operating properly; his job was to be sure it always was.

Not all stations were manned at all times. The computer would sound action stations if it detected anything out of the ordinary automatically, but most the time, the people were there to be sure critical moments went right - the rest of the time would just be coasting.

The crew would be transferred aboard the ship by tenders which can dock on the top side of the sphere.


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And the second one
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Here comes a quick design I had for a science ship.

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3d models of the ship, drawn to scale

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Scale drawing depicting major internal layout

Dimensions
Main body length: 55 meters
Main body width: 9 meters
Ring small diameter: 4 meters
Arm length: 19 meters
Arm width: 1 meter
Ring total radius: 36 meters
Total volume: 6540 cubic meters
Mass (full): 4600 metric tonnes
Mass (tanks empty): 2100 metric tons
Propellant mass: 2500 metric tons
Cargo capacity: 300 tons

Habitation ring
Capacity: 60 people
Rotation speed: 2 rpm
Artificial gravity: 1/6 g
Internal volume: 1400 cubic meters
Internal floor area: 670 square meters

Engines:
VASIMR x3
General:
-Mass: 30 tons
-Power requirement: 30 megawatts electric
-Waste heat: 12 megawatts
-Mass / propellant ratio: 2.2
Isp mode:
-Specific impulse: 29,000 seconds
-Thrust: 120 newtons
-Acceleration (fully loaded): 2 ¼g (2.0 x 10^-5 m/s^2)
-delta-v capacity: 227 km / s
Thrust mode:
-Specific impulse: 2,900 seconds
-Thrust: 1200 newtons
-Acceleration (fully loaded): 20 μg (2.0 x 10^-4 m/s^2)
-delta-v capacity: 23 km / s

Power plant
Method: Nuclear fission
Fuel: uranium-235, one ton
Power to mass ratio: 2 kWe/ kg
Efficiency: 30%
Mass: 20 tons
Output: 40 megawatt-electric, 90 megawatt-thermal

Heat radiators
Operating temperature: 1500K
Emissivity: .9
Unit capacity: 260 kW / m^2
Surface area: 3600 m^2
Maximum capacity: 900 MW

Life support
Water / air recycling indefinite as long as reactor is running
Power: one ton of uranium fuel is enough to run at full blast for 20 years, so basically indefinite
Food: 15 years can be carried
Conclusion: 10-15 years with 60 people without going back to port is possible

And I submitted too soon:

Also on life support: the habitation ring has 50 cm of material on all sides to act as radiation shielding for the crew and inside, there are some extra radiation bunkers where they can hide in case of solar flare or something that can deliver huge amounts of radiation in a short time.

Crew
Mission commander
Pilot
Astrogator
Medical officer (probably a doctor)
Medical technition (probably a nurse)
Nuclear engineer
Electronics engineer
Computer engineer
Life support engineer
Cook
Quartermaster
Communications technition
Damage control technition

There must be at least three people capable of doing each job (so each post can be continually manned, and backups in case someone gets hurt), and some people may be cross trained in different jobs.

I figure it will work out to about 35 crew, 25 mission specialists.

Coming soon will be a rough floor plan of the habitation ring and the non-rotating habitable area.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
Nekomata
Posts: 68
Joined: Sat Aug 16, 2008 7:23 pm
Location: Everywhere, mostly

Re: copy pasta from OZ (awaiting reorganization)

Post by Nekomata »

It's alot more realistic then anything I've done, well finished anyway. ;) You better at 3d modling then I am too. I have to post the stat block for my Type-1 now.
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"What's the differance between a light tank and a kinetic strike?"
"Whether or not the parachute deploys..." - Common joke of the Matan orbital assault forces.
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