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Subject:   Traveller-digest V1996 #291
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Traveller-digest            Friday, 26 July 1996        Volume 1996 : Number 291

(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

         1. Nuclear Airplane
         2. Re: Nuclear Airplane
         3. Re: Nuclear Airplane
         4. Re: Nuclear Airplane
         5. Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #289
         6. Re: Traveller 1965
         7. Re[2]: FF&S2:Station Design

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

From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 96 22:39:06 -0600
Subject: Nuclear Airplane

On 07/25/96 at 07:08 PM,  "David J. Golden" <goldendj@usa.net> said:

>>Don't forget the NUCLEAR airplane!

>        Not so sure about that. The Air Force once actually had a project to
>build a nuclear powered cruise missile! Big problem was the radioactive
>exhaust it spewed out over your own country ... 

Not the same kind of thing, David.  The airplane prototype was to be a prop,
I think.  The reactor would have produced electricity to turn the props.  I
don't think there was any radioactive exhaust involved in the airplane
project.

>...and what if it accidentally crashed? 

Depends!  Reactor containers can take a lot without breaking
open..depending on design.  Shoot!  The risk or environmental
effects of crashes for a nuclear airplane wouldn't be any worse than for the
nuclear rockets favored in TNE.  <g>

Personally, I like the idea of the microwave or laser airplane.  It gets it's
power from orbiting stations and either converts it to electricity or uses it
as heat to power heat engines.  

You know if you have a big power source in GEO (solar power satellite for
instance), you can get ships into orbit *much* cheaper.  The SPS beams energy
as microwaves (most likely) to the orbital insersion vehicle where it is used
to heat the reaction gas...which could be air for part of the launch.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------




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

From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@usa.net>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 23:06:59 -0600
Subject: Re: Nuclear Airplane

At 10:39 pm 7/25/96 -0600, eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch) wrote:
>On 07/25/96 at 07:08 PM,  "David J. Golden" <goldendj@usa.net> said:
>
>>>Don't forget the NUCLEAR airplane!
>
>>        Not so sure about that. The Air Force once actually had a project to
>>build a nuclear powered cruise missile! Big problem was the radioactive
>>exhaust it spewed out over your own country ... 
>
>Not the same kind of thing, David.  The airplane prototype was to be a prop,
>I think.  The reactor would have produced electricity to turn the props.  I
>don't think there was any radioactive exhaust involved in the airplane
>project.

        Ah! That's better...
>
>>...and what if it accidentally crashed? 
>
>Depends!  Reactor containers can take a lot without breaking
>open..depending on design.  

        Yep, and for the prop the container could be much better protected.
But a nuclear powered ramjet ...

>Shoot!  The risk or environmental
>effects of crashes for a nuclear airplane wouldn't be any worse than for the
>nuclear rockets favored in TNE.  <g>

        Ships in TNE don't crash .... do they?

>You know if you have a big power source in GEO (solar power satellite for
>instance), you can get ships into orbit *much* cheaper.  The SPS beams energy
>as microwaves (most likely) to the orbital insersion vehicle where it is used
>to heat the reaction gas...which could be air for part of the launch.

        Funny you should mention that ... my senior design project lo these
many years ago was developing a space-based-laser-powered Orbital Transfer
Vehicle for NASA, to go from LEO to GEO ...
- --________________________________________________________________
   Dave Golden                           PGP Public Key available 
   goldendj@usa.net     http://www.usa.net/~goldendj/default.html

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine


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

From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 96 00:57:45 -0600
Subject: Re: Nuclear Airplane

On 07/25/96 at 11:06 PM,  "David J. Golden" <goldendj@usa.net> said:

>        Funny you should mention that ... my senior design project lo these
>many years ago was developing a space-based-laser-powered Orbital Transfer
>Vehicle for NASA, to go from LEO to GEO ...

Oh!  You're *that* David Golden! <g>

You didn't get that published somewhere did you?  I remember seeing something
like that in some journal years ago.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------




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

From: Bri <bri@teleport.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 23:32:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Airplane

On Thu, 25 Jul 1996, Eris Reddoch wrote:

> You know if you have a big power source in GEO (solar power satellite for
> instance), you can get ships into orbit *much* cheaper.  The SPS beams energy
> as microwaves (most likely) to the orbital insersion vehicle where it is used
> to heat the reaction gas...which could be air for part of the launch.
 Yes, just don't miss and hit one of those trillion credit arcos....

 "Whoops"

bri <bri@teleport.com>


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

From: a.s.lilly@nortel.co.uk (Andy Lilly)
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 09:33:06 +0100
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #289

Re: Ken Whitman's message about the launch of the new Traveller:

>>Check out the next issue of Shadis magazine for a review.

Alternatively, a significant part of the new Traveller rules have already
been reviewed in the last BITS newsletter. It may not now be 100% accurate
as it was written from an early draft and when proof-reading a later version
I noticed some bits seemed to have been left out, but hopefully IG have put
these back in... The review is at a preliminary BITS web page at:
http://www.wlihe.ac.uk/~Ward/bits.html (thanks Steven!)

Plus both Valkyrie and Arcane magazine in the UK are awaiting review copies
from IG; however, I believe they are close to their print deadlines so I
hope Ken gets the stuff to them soon! Arcane's even borrowed my Traveller
rules to photograph for their article. Hope the pictures come out ok!

Plus the next issue of the Traveller Chronicle should be announcing what I
believe will be the first official Milieu 0 supplement produced outside IG -
a rather good adventure entitled "The Long Way Home" from the CORE Traveller
writers group in association with Sword of the Knight publications.

Andy Lilly
Coordinating BITS (British Isles Traveller Support)


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

From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <gpvll@hk.super.net>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 16:51:02 +0800 (HKT)
Subject: Re: Traveller 1965

Eris Reddoch wrote:

>
>From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
>Date: Thu, 25 Jul 96 01:44:59 -0600
>Subject: Re: Traveller: Terra 1965
>
>On 07/25/96 at 10:42 AM,  Roderick Darroch Elliott <gpvll@hk.super.net> said:
>
>>It'd involve recycling Traveller's rule system into a homebrew setting; as
>>you put it, a TL-7 society reaching out into space... namely, that of earth
>>circa 1955-1975 or so!
>
>There are several interesting possibilites here!

        Well, obviously, I thought so too :).  


>
>>        I figure on an alternate history based on the Niven story where
>>William Proxmire has a time machine built so he can go back, inject Lt. R.A.
>>Heinlein with an antibiotic so he isn't health-discharged out of the U.S.
>>Navy, and doesn't go on to write SF that'll in part inspire the U.S. space
>>program.  Proxmire returns from his time trip to find that Admiral Heinlein
>>actually managed to get the U.S. space program much farther along much
>>earlier..:) 
>
><Snirk!> I feel about Proxmire and Mondale the way many people feel about
>McCarthy and Nixon.
>


        I didn't know that Mondale was anti-space.  Proxmire's reputation
seems to have travelled wider...


>>        Regardless of method, for whatever reason (maybe the Nazi long-range
>>V-weapons were a raving success and New York got blitzed, thereby scaring a
>>lot of people) both the East and West have put a lot more money into space a
>>lot earlier, perhaps with space stations by 1950, and the Moon by 1955.  In
>>this world Korea never happened, and neither did the Indochinese/Vietnamese
>>conflict; all the energy is going into space.
>
>More realistic would be stations by the mid 50's and the Moon by 60. As for
>Korea...unless you have the entire peninsula under communist control, I
>suspect it *would* happen.  Indochina had been having revolts before WWII,
>and after the war they were *bound* to rebel, the only way *not* to have that
>conflict would be if the French did the smart thing and gracefully bowed out.

        The reason for the accellerated timetable was to get the people
bopping around in spaceships while there were still fins on cars and beehive
hairdos on women :).  As for l'Indochine, well I imagine that not pouring
money into colonial wars is a good way of funding your space program... for
both sides of the equation... so we get a Commie Korea and Vietnam.  Good:
it'd just heighten the paranoia, as if Commie orbiting nukes wouldn't be
enough :).


>
>>        So: it's 1965 or so... the Cold War is in full swing; President
>>Eisenhower has just been reelected for his sixth term <g>...
>
>Are you Canadian?  <G> It would have been Ike's 4th or 5th, at best.
>Roosevelt's last term went up to '48, and if Ike was elected then instead of
>Truman then he could have been re-elected in 52, 56, 60, & 64 and he'd be in
>his 5th term.  But Ike wasn't back from Europe and retired in time for the 48
>race, so it would likely be that he didn't run until 52.

        Well, whatever.  I do know that a constitutional amendment would
have been required, but that ties very nicely in with the slightly Orwellian
mood that I'd be trying to create.  This of course means that the Kennedys
would have to be worked in somehow.  Hmmm....

>
>>..the U.S. and Russia are both racing to explore the inner solar system
with craft based on
>>the 1950's hypothetical designs that Leonard mentioned.  The Army, the Navy,
>>the Air Force, a (very different) NASA, and the Marines all have their own
>>space programs,
>
>Not the Marines! <g>  Marines ride on Navy ships.

        But your Marines do have their own air arm and their own amphibious
landing vessels, no?  I figured that in my alternate history, the Air Force
would have responsibility for aerospace fighters, orbiting nukes, and
generally the earth-space side of things, with the Army actually competing
with them for the funding and role (remember, I'm gunning for a darkish
kitschy future here; interservice intrigue in the corridors of power in
Washington could actually make for some interesting adventures :)).  The
Navy would be running the big, nuclear-powered interplanetary ships, and the
Marines would be handling the drop troop role; orbit-to-ground craft and so
forth...


>
>>...a Cold War inter-service political development mirrored on
>>the other side of the Iron Curtain.  The British, French, and Chinese, not
>>to be outdone, likewise have their own space programs.  Ties and lapels are
>>narrow, men still wear brush cuts under their fedoras, and have barbeques
>>for their families out in the suburbs Sunday afternoons after church.  Cars
>>still have fins, and juvenile delinquency is still a problem.  
>
>>Technicians out in Area 51 are busily reverse engineering a flying
>>saucer and "debriefing" its crew.
>
><Double Snirk!>

        Thruster plates :)!  Actually, having the Gray Aliens and Men in
Black bopping around behind the scenes would a) draw yet another US
pop-culture conspiracy theory oddity into the game and b) provide for some
shadowy adversaries/plot devices...  Imagine what happens when the CIA finds
out the Russkies actually have a saucer too, for example :).

>
>>Ian Fleming is churning out James Bond novels and Northrop flying
>>wings patrol the skies of America.  
>
>Don't forget the NUCLEAR airplane!  <g> Very buildable and it could have
>remained aloft for months on end, with small craft shuttling passengers,
>cargo and crew up and down as the ship continues to fly its route.

        Exactly the sort of thing that I was thinking about!

>
>>Senator McCarthy and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee are
>>still terrorizing Washington
>
>Actually, McCarthy was a short lived phenominon.  We'd have lost interest,
>and he'd have lost power pretty quickly, especially if we'd started looking
>upward and outward.
>

        Naw; I'd want a fairly dark (albeit rather funky) future and having
McCarthy still loose about the place could only darken it :).


>>For a more sinister note, the civil rights movement never happened,
>>the South is still segregated, and the Klan is strong.
>
>Nope.  The Klan wasn't powerful in the American South since the
>early 1920's.  It existed on the fringes, behind closed doors, and was a
>continuing embarassment to most folks down here.  The crackers in the Klan
>were what folks up north thought everybody was like down South, not true. 
>Shoot, the rest of the country actually thought Gomer Pile and the Beverly
>Hillbillies were realistic images of Southerners too.  <g>


        Dark future, dude... Dark future...  This is just one way of making
it a whole hell of a lot darker.  More nasty organisations runing around can
only make the setting deeper...

>
>The Civil Rights Movement was going to happen, and with Ike in
>office it was going to succeed.  He and the Republicans were really more
>likely to have pushed things through than the Democrates.  It would have
>taken a different form and had a different pace, but it was going to happen. 
>OTOH, the South of the middle 60's was still *very* segregated in the real
>world...so was the North, the Midwest, and the West.

        So the HUAC suddenly gets the impression that Martin Luther King is
secretly working for the Commies... wham; whole thing gets shut down.  Dark
future...  Not that I'm trying to use it as a mantra or anything though :).
I figure that in this world the '60's would never happen, although that
doesn't jibe with a dark future <g>. 


>
>>I think that this would be really, really fun.  
>
>I do to! 
>
>>I'm almost tempted to give it a shot.
>
>Do it pbem and I'll play! <g>
>

        Honestly, I doubt that I'd have time anytime soon; school kicks in
this fall.  I am tempted to do some work on it though...  It'd make for a
nice spare-time project.


>Eris
>- -- 
>- -----------------------------------------------------------
>eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
>- -----------------------------------------------------------


Les Howie wrote:

>
>From: Les Howie <lhowie@novalis.ca>
>Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 09:45:59 -0300
>Subject: Re: Terra 1965
>
>At 02:21 AM 7/25/96 -0400, Roderick Darroch Elliott wrote:
>
>>        Leonard, you just gave me an idea for a seriously kickbutt campaign.
>>It'd involve recycling Traveller's rule system into a homebrew setting; as
>>you put it, a TL-7 society reaching out into space... namely, that of earth
>>circa 1955-1975 or so!
>
>I love it!! If you run with it, please post your designs!!
>

        Will do, if I ever get that far :).

>Les Howie
>Senior Software Developer
>NovaLIS Technologies
>Halifax NS
>lhowie@novalis.ca
>
>

John Kovalic wrote:

>
>>
>>On 07/25/96 at 10:42 AM,  Roderick Darroch Elliott <gpvll@hk.super.net> said:
>>
>>>It'd involve recycling Traveller's rule system into a homebrew setting; as
>>>you put it, a TL-7 society reaching out into space... namely, that of earth
>>>circa 1955-1975 or so!
>
>LOVE the ideas. Here's another: Elvis doesn't join the Army - he joins the
>Planetary Exploration Force. Beach movies are now set on the sands of Mars.
>Beat Poetry is performed on lunar cappuccino cafes... <g>


        YES! YES!  This is exactly the sort of twistedness that I'd want to
build into the setting...


>
>By the way...I'd seriously start tightening this and send it in as a
>proposal for SOME company. It's great and I'd hate to see someone else beat
>you to the punch.
>


        You think it'd fly?  How would one go about doing this?


>John Kovalic



Steve Deemer wrote:


>
>John Kovalic writes:
>>On 07/25/96 at 10:42 AM,  Roderick Darroch Elliott <gpvll@hk.super.net> said:
>>
>>>It'd involve recycling Traveller's rule system into a homebrew setting; as
>>>you put it, a TL-7 society reaching out into space... namely, that of earth
>>>circa 1955-1975 or so!
>>
>>LOVE the ideas. Here's another: Elvis doesn't join the Army - he joins the
>>Planetary Exploration Force. Beach movies are now set on the sands of Mars.
>>Beat Poetry is performed on lunar cappuccino cafes... <g>
>
>Get a copy of GURPS Atomic Horror. It's great at describing the '50s
>atmosphere, it has lots of background information that would be nice
>to have on hand. As far as directly applicable information for space
>adventures, it's on the B-movie level of V-2 style rockets and flying
>saucers.
>
>This would be a great adventure--I'm remembering a _Popular Science_ 
>article from the '60s detailing the old DynaSoar lifting body proposal.
>There was a painting of a U.S. Air Force DynaSoar fitted with .50 cal
>machine guns shooting a Commie spysat into junk. Coool!


        Again, that's exactly the sort of kitschy/funky'50's-60's wierdness
that I'd be gunning for; sort of a miscgenated cross between early Heinlein,
Popular Science circa 1950-1960, and George Orwell...


>
>You know, this is the world Kip from Robert Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit,
>Will Travel" must live in.
>
>Steve Deemer
>stedee@auto-trol.com

        Bingo!  As you put it, coool..:)

 

 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |                         From the desk of either                       |
 |                                                                       |
 |    Roderick Darroch Elliott                   John Stephen Wishart    |
 |                                                                       |
 |                           gpvll@hk.super.net                          |
 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+


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

From: Liam_McCauley@qsp.co.uk (Liam McCauley)
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 12:54:00 +0200
Subject: Re[2]: FF&S2:Station Design

- --- Liam"I'm from the UK and have a cool name to prove it" McCauley wrote:
[snip]
     
     Yeah, apparently Liam is a trendy name these days.  To help people 
     pronounce it I used to say "Like the footballer" (Liam Brady - Irish 
     International for those that follow one of the other football games), 
     whereas now I have to say "Like the guy from Oasis" (a popular beat 
     combo, or so I've heard).
     
     Anyway, I'm away for the next two weeks (with work, unfortunately), so 
     no dropping virus infected rocks on each other while I'm gone.
     
     Cheers,
     Liam "why have I got a name like this if I'm English" Patrick McCauley
     
     -- 
     Liam_McCauley@QSP.co.uk

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

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #291
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