Subj:	TRAVELLER digest 274
Date:	95-05-03 19:36:47 EDT
From:	traveller@mpgn.com
To:	traveller@mpgn.com

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			    TRAVELLER Digest 274

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Sneaks & Geeks, And those wacky K'Kree
	by djohnson@frame.com (Dane Johnson)
  2) Re: TRAVELLER digest 273
	by Bri <bri@teleport.com>
  3) RE(2) NASA Data and stuff
	by "KMCCARTHY" <KMCCARTHY@QMGATE.OSC.HQ.NASA.GOV>
  4) Re: Comments on Aliens Book
	by bonn0015@flipper.itlabs.umn.edu (STEVEN M BONNEVILLE)
  5) FF&S design issues: "real" drives
	by Arthur Green <ARTHUR@cclana.ucd.ie>
  6) Gas Giant of Regina?
	by Alvin Plummer <alvin.plummer@sheridanc.on.ca>

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 02 May 1995 17:09:07 -0700
From: djohnson@frame.com (Dane Johnson)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Sneaks & Geeks, And those wacky K'Kree
Message-ID: <9505030010.AA07827@fmcuro>


I'm afraid my reading of the TML has been a tad spotty recently, but
considering the amount of Hiver-Ithklur discussion I'm surprised that I
haven't seen anybody mention the God-awful Santa Claus -- and I use the term
loosely -- 'joke' involving the founder of the Ithklur philosophy.  Did
nobody else notice, or have I just missed the other references?

Concering the K'Kree eating fallen Ithklur during the K'Kree/Hiver war:
Someone mentioned that even here on Earth herbivors <sp?> will eat meat
under certain, unrare, conditions.  Using this as a "justification" of the
K'Kree's activity has, to me, two difficulties:

1/ As I recall (and I could be wrong, not having the module with me at
work), the K'Kree started to eat Ithklur when the Ithklur began eating
K'Kree, sort of as a "retaliation".  For my conception of the K'Kree, this
would be a wholly unthinkable motivation, mostly because historically this
sort of Barbarism was met with a wholesale genocide of the offending party
by the K'Kree.

2/ Unless I've missed an episode of Nova, most Earth herbivors *aren't*
sentient, star-faring species with stable, complex cultures spanning
hundreds of light-years and the social and technological evolution that
implies.  I can imagine *some* modern K'Kree turning to meat to sustain
themselves under extreme crisis conditions, like those faced by the Donner
party.  However, while this might work for an isolated individual forced to
keep himself alive, it doesn't seem "logical" for an intact K'Kree family or
military unit.  There would be too much peer reinforcement to keep them from
actually "doing the deed" alone.

It seems to me that the most likely situation was that a) Rations were
almost completely gone, b) all local flora was utterly indegestable by
K'Kree, and c) the troop's Leader felt that the only hope for winning the
war was to keep his unit(s) alive.  Under those situations I can see a
K'Kree leader ordering his troops to eat meat to keep them alive.  I can't
see very many K'Kree leaders doing this, however.  I also don't see very
many K'Kree soldiers going along with the order unless they, too, saw the
"necessity" of surviving and there were absolutely no alternatives.  That
is, they must have considered their continued survival to be an issue of
Galaxy-shattering importance.  They would have felt that the future
existance of the K'Kree as a species was at stake to take such a step.

If the above suppositions are close to accurate, I can only assume that the
Steppelord of the 2000 Worlds and the K'Kree on the street must think of the
Hiver-K'Kree war as the most desperate military conflict of their entire
existance and of the Hivers as the most Evil of species.  If the K'Kree have
a Devil, it has  six legs.  I shudder to think what preparations the K'Kree
have made since the war.  A big asteroid at high velocity fixed with a Jump
Drive and aimed at the Hiver homeworld(s) comes to mind... :)

<Shrug>

Dane


------------------------------

Date: Tue, 2 May 1995 23:23:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bri <bri@teleport.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TRAVELLER digest 273
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950502232124.25113A-100000@kelly.teleport.com>

 Yes, i've always wonderd what exactley is the black curtin myself.
  It could be many things i guess. A Wasteland, a virus empire, several 
waring factions, paradise or whatever.
 if anyone has any info on it, comment would be appriciated.
 i think it could make for a even better adventure that the K'kree ;)
[btw. thanks for the info on them to all who replied. answerd alot]

bri


------------------------------

Date: 3 May 1995 08:39:21 -0500
From: "KMCCARTHY" <KMCCARTHY@QMGATE.OSC.HQ.NASA.GOV>
To: "New TML Broadcast" <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Subject: RE(2) NASA Data and stuff
Message-ID: <n1412632046.58248@QMGATE.OSC.HQ.NASA.GOV>

                       Subject:                               Time:7:45 AM
  OFFICE MEMO          RE(2) NASA Data and stuff              Date:5/3/95

I missed this first post:
>> containing all the data & blueprints needed to build a Saturn V, but they
>> no longer have a machine that can read them.

Mark Clark said:
>BZZZZT!  Sorry, wrong.  Most of the blueprints and data for Saturn V and
>other Apollo hardware (which were hardcopy, not computer files, by the
>way) were destroyed, officially as part of cost-saving measure, actually
>to make it impossible to go back on the decision to build the Space
>Shuttle.  Speaking as a former NASA historian, you would be surprised at
>how little documentation exists, and how hard it is to get at the stuff
>that does exist.

Every few months/years somebody brings this up.  Scraping the Saturn V was,
admittedly now, a VERY stupid decision but when you look at the NASA budget
at
the time and the PROMISED performance of the Shuttle there was no
alternative.
 NASA did not have the money to do almost ANYTHING else except to build the
Shuttle.  They didn't have the money to do science missions, let alone pay
contractors to keep the assembly lines open in case we needed the Saturn V
again.  NASA's other big program at the time, the Tracking and Data Relay
Satellite System (TDRSS), was financed with a loan from the Federal Financing
Bank.  My office, OSC, struggled for years to payoff the capital and interest
(remember the double digit inflation in the Carter years).

You can't just store blueprints for something as complicated as the 
Saturn V and 20 years later let a contract.  The parts are no longer being
made, companies are out of business.  Restarting the Saturn V would entail an
almost complete redesign even if we had a pristine copy of the blueprints."

The US has a annual budget of $1.4T.  About 1% is spent on the space program.

Change the national priorities and we could have a very different space
program today.  

PS:  NASA's budget took a $8B hit over the next 5 years recently.

Kevin Mc Carthy
(ABSOLUTELY not representing NASA or OSC)




------------------------------

Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 09:39:07 -0500
From: bonn0015@flipper.itlabs.umn.edu (STEVEN M BONNEVILLE)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Comments on Aliens Book
Message-ID: <9505031439.AA06251@bugs.itlabs.umn.edu>

Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior) wrote:

>The next 13 pages detail Hiver origins, history, and society.  There are
>three threads: the 'official' Hiver viewpoint, a sarcastic Ithklur
dissenter,

I think at least some of the "Ithklur dissenter" comments are probably
Hiver comments -- some of the comments don't have the right point-of-view
to be an Ithklur, and sound much more like a Hiver.  Check the section 
that discusses the commentary for details.  Still may be a Hiver dissenter,
of course.

  Steve Bonneville
  <bonn0015@gold.tc.umn.edu>
 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 17:27:15 +0100 (BST)
From: Arthur Green <ARTHUR@cclana.ucd.ie>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: FF&S design issues: "real" drives
Message-ID: <2B82E5B176D@cclana.ucd.ie>

Greetings -

I've been doing some work trying to design starships with FF&S. As a 
result of reading _The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye_, I've decided to 
throw out all the fancy anti-grav technology in FF&S and see what 
kind of inter- and intra-stellar transportation I end up with.

The objective is to avoid using grav technology (so no inertial 
compensators, no contra-grav lifters, no gravitic focussing for 
lasers). 

The first ship type I set out to design was a 30-ton lander,
specifically short-range craft for getting from orbit to ground and
back. The craft is supposed to be relatively environmentally
friendly, so it doesn't use serious radiation-emitting drives. For
this reason I think I want ot avoid using HEPlaR drives for the
lander. Using an AZHRAE combination air-breathing jet/ramjet/rocket,
I've found that thrust and fuel consumption are such that it can't
carry enough fuel to do anything useful. 

My questions are as follows:

  1. Has anyone tried fiddling with the thrust and fuel consumption 
     figures for any of the drives in FF&S? I recall a lot of that 
     went on in MT.

  2. In terms of radiation and general exhaust problems, what are the
     differences between HEPlaR and a fusion rocket? As far as I can 
     see, they both spew hot plasma out the back, yet no-one seems to 
     object to HEPlaR drives.

Has anyone else tried this? 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 03 May 1995 17:56:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alvin Plummer <alvin.plummer@sheridanc.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Gas Giant of Regina?
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.950503175547.3683A-100000@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>


Can someone give me the name of the gas giant that Regina orbit's?
Any other info on the Regina System would be appreciated.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alvin Plummer
"Preserve what we created, Norris, and remember what we stood for."
                               - Strephon, 179-1126

Reply to: alvin.plummer@SHERIDANC.ON.CA

------------------------------------------------------------------------------


------------------------------

End of TRAVELLER Digest 274
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