Subj:	TRAVELLER digest 277
Date:	95-05-06 19:22:57 EDT
From:	traveller@mpgn.com
To:	traveller@mpgn.com

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			    TRAVELLER Digest 277

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: Realistic Thrusters
	by George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
  2) R: Sensors in space combat
	by adou01@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Andrew Richard  Doull)
  3) Announcement of a German language sf world design list
	by Stefan Matthias Aust <sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de>
  4) Saturn V plans - correction
	by Mark Clark <markc@brahms.udel.edu>
  5) Survival in Vacuum
	by Mark Clark <markc@brahms.udel.edu>
  6) Re: R: Sensors in space combat
	by merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
  7) Traveller info           
	by bednarz@gate.maloka.waw.pl (Michal Bednarz)

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

Date: Fri, 05 May 1995 16:14:24 -0700
From: George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Realistic Thrusters
Message-ID: <199505052315.AA25699@mail.crl.com>


>WRONG!! The shuttle is only 66.7% fuel tank and it can hit orbit
>Under FFS it would have to be 1000% fuel tank to hit orbit. The FFS
>thruster rules are broken. Feel free to prove me wrong though, post a
>Tech 7 design that can hit orbit (with annotations) under The realistic
>thrusters rules from a size 8 world under 1g and I'll eat this post.

The shuttle is a lot more than 2/3 fuel tank; the orbiter + ET
combo has a dry mass of about 112 tonnes (32 tonnes tanks, 80 orbiter).
Fuel mass (LOX + LH2) is around 800 tonnes.  Payload is around 26
tonnes maximum.  And you're ignoring the solid boosters.

If anything, FF&S underestimates the difficulty in building things
which get to orbit.  delta V = g * Isp * ln(Mr) hurts a lot.
Real rockets get Isp in the 280 (Shuttle SRBs, many lower stage
engines) to 450 (Shuttle's main LOX/LH2 engines) range.  FF&S rockets
get ISP much much better than this.

-george william herbert
Retro Aerospace
gherbert@crl.com



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

Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 14:25:51 +1200
From: adou01@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Andrew Richard  Doull)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: R: Sensors in space combat
Message-ID: <199505060225.OAA30268@cs26.cs.auckland.ac.nz>

I'd just like to add my two cents worth to the discussion on sensors.  For a
long while I disliked the sensing task system in Brilliant lances because it
lacked variety in small vessel combat.  Assuming both ships were eqipped with
folding passive sensor arrays, and have the same TL, the task difficulty mods
broke down the following way:
			Target Ship Using
Sensing Ship Using	Passive		Active
Passive			+0 Diff mods	-1 Diff mods
Active			-1 Diff mods	+0 Diff mods
ie there is no circumstance under which it is disadvantageous to use active
sensors over passive sensors, assuming the other ship is equally likely
to use passive or active sensors.
My solution:
I implemented the following rule:  If a ship uses G-Turns or active sensors,
it loses the advantage of Stealth or EMM.
This makes sense (no pun intended) to me.  The emissions from hot plasma
exhaust and active sensors are far harder to conceal using stealth-based
technologies over the ranges in which space combat occurs.  It has the effect
of making a decision to go active or use thrust much more important.
If anyone wants, I could include the full sensor rules I use, which redefine
sensing in terms of signatures, an idea I borrowed from 2300AD.  The above
rule change is the only deviation from actual Traveller: The New Era official
material, but the rules do clarify how ships are detected.
 
Oh. I have set up a whole lot of other information on a homepage at my
university but access has temporarily been removed due to problems caused
by another student's actions.
 
I'll mail the URL address at a later date when access is renewed.
 
A.D.Venturer (aka Andrew Doull).

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

Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 14:49:45 +0200
From: Stefan Matthias Aust <sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM, xboat@MPGN.COM
Subject: Announcement of a German language sf world design list
Message-ID: <9505061249.AA17682@donald>

Two weeks ago I've set up a mailing list for discussion about and
creation of a (somewhat traveller like) alternative SF universe.  It
is an experiment and I don't know whether or what results we'll
archive.  We agreed about an universe that follows classic SF
literature (like Liven or Assimov) and that is somewhat more peaceful
than the war-ridden 3rd Imperium or the Reformation Coalition.

I would like to announce this list also at this international
traveller mailing list and we'll welcome anybody interested in the
matter.  However, I'm afraid, for most of you we'll use a foreign
language, German.  So everyone, who is still interested can subcribe
to

majordomo@tierzucht.uni-kiel.de on the list "sfrpg" or "sfrpg-digest"
putting "subscribe <listname> <address>" in the body of the mail.

bye.
--
Stefan Matthias Aust //                                 Never for Ever

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

Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 15:04:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Clark <markc@brahms.udel.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Saturn V plans - correction
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.950506145557.16918A-100000@brahms.udel.edu>

Just to show I'm as willing as anyone to document it when I'm wrong, 
here's the straight skiny on the Saturn V plans.  I'll stick by my 
assertion that many of the working drawings were destroyed, since I got 
that from historians who worked with Saturn V engineers, but this 
material from the sci.space.tech FAQ shows destruction was not complete. 

>From Sci.space.tech FAQ

Contrary to popular belief, the plans and blueprints for the Saturn V
have not been lost. They are kept at Marshall Space Flight Center on
microfilm. The Federal Archives in East Point, GA also has 2900 cubic
feet of Saturn documents. Rocketdyne has in its archives dozens of
volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program. This effort was initiated
in the late '60s to document every facet of F-1 and J-2 engine
production to assist in any future re-start.

The problem in re-creating the Saturn V is not finding the drawings, it
is finding vendors who can supply mid-1960's vintage hardware (like
guidance system components), and the fact that the launch pads and VAB
have been converted to Space Shuttle use, so you have no place to launch
from.

By the time you redesign to accommodate available hardware and re-modify
the launch pads, you may as well have started from scratch with a clean
sheet design.

Other references:

    Several AIAA papers delivered in recent years discuss reviving the
    Saturn V. For example, AIAA paper 92-1546, "Launch Vehicles for the
    Space Exploration Initiative". This paper concluded that a revived
    Saturn V was actually cheaper than the NLS vehicle.

An overview of the infrastructure still available to support production
    of a 1990s Saturn V and how that vehicle might be used to support First
    Lunar Outpost missions can be found in the December 1993 issue of
    _Spaceflight_, published by the British Interplanetary Society.



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

Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 15:08:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Clark <markc@brahms.udel.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Survival in Vacuum
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.950506150455.16918B-100000@brahms.udel.edu>

Found this in the Sci.space.tech FAQ and thought folks might find it 
interesting.


HOW LONG CAN A HUMAN LIVE UNPROTECTED IN SPACE

    If you *don't* try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a
    minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. Holding your
    breath is likely to damage your lungs, something scuba divers have to
    watch out for when ascending, and you'll have eardrum trouble if your
    Eustachian tubes are badly plugged up, but theory predicts -- and animal
    experiments confirm -- that otherwise, exposure to vacuum causes no
    immediate injury. You do not explode. Your blood does not boil. You do
    not freeze. You do not instantly lose consciousness.

    Various minor problems (sunburn, possibly "the bends", certainly some
    [mild, reversible, painless] swelling of skin and underlying tissue)
    start after ten seconds or so. At some point you lose consciousness from
    lack of oxygen. Injuries accumulate. After perhaps one or two minutes,
    you're dying. The limits are not really known.

 An expanded discussion of this issue, citing several case studies, may
    be found at

        http://medlib.jsc.nasa.gov/intro/vacuum.html

    References:

    _The Effect on the Chimpanzee of Rapid Decompression to a Near Vacuum_,
    Alfred G. Koestler ed., NASA CR-329 (Nov 1965).

    _Experimental Animal Decompression to a Near Vacuum Environment_, R.W.
    Bancroft, J.E. Dunn, eds, Report SAM-TR-65-48 (June 1965), USAF School
    of Aerospace Medicine, Brooks AFB, Texas.

    _Survival Under Near-Vacuum Conditions_ in the article "Barometric
    Pressure," by C.E. Billings, Chapter 1 of _Bioastronautics Data Book_,
    Second edition, NASA SP-3006, edited by James F. Parker Jr. and Vita R.
    West, 1973.

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

Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 14:04:39 -0600 (MDT)
From: merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: R: Sensors in space combat
Message-ID: <9505062004.AA13921@Rt66.com>


Cool, Andrew, I'd love to see them (the fact that the sensor rules don't work
has long bugged me.  Do you have any ideas regarding detection from "nothing"
in a double-blind game?

-Merrick

PS-I have some sensor rules I've hashed together if you'd like to see them
(if 
you haven't already).  Let me know and I'll send them to you (don't wanna
repost
them here and waste peoples' time.

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

Date: Sat, 6 May 1995 22:54:00 +0200 (MET DST)
From: bednarz@gate.maloka.waw.pl (Michal Bednarz)
To: TRAVELLER@MPGN.COM
Subject: Traveller info           
Message-ID: <m0s7qrR-0001ZNC@gate.maloka.waw.pl>

Hi!

I'm interested in buying a SF RPG and I've been considering Traveller (or
MegaTraveller).  Could you write to me and explain the differences between
Traveller, The New Era and MegaTraveller, with a description of each?  I'd
appreciate it very much.  Thank you.

Mike

_______________________

Michal Bednarz
<bednarz@maloka.waw.pl>
_______________________
                       
---
  VbReader V1.41 



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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 277
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