Traveller-digest      Friday, August 27 1999      Volume 1999 : Number 1026



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Orion Drive Modules
Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1025
Re: Duplicate Fleets of The Imperium.
Re: Terraforming
Re: Starship Materials &c. [long]
Re: What size ships can land?
Re: Augustus Deo-class Fast Liner (GTL10)
Re: 101 Starships
Large merchant vessels
Re: Will the real Strephon.....
Re: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED: Traveller Character Generation System
Re: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED: Traveller Character Generation System
Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)
Re: Streamlining
Re: Experience System 

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 02:43:47 -0400
From: Michael Peters <travelleri@home.com>
Subject: Re: Orion Drive Modules

 
> > Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >>>> An interesting description of an Orion drive was in "Footfall" and then
> > one
> >>>> was shown in "Deep Impact".
> >>>
> >>>Or, for a less spectacular (non-nuclear) variant, there's the
> >>>explosive-shell craft in _King David's Spaceship_.
> >>
> >>

Possible spoilers below for King David's Space Ship

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Seems to me that theis space craft was designed based on Jules Verns
From the Earth to the Moon, which was found in the Imperial library
archive that was the target of the first part of the book. A giant
cannon launced the capsule which depended on the Imperial's kindness to
recover. The heroes had recovered a number of other alternative but they
couldn't be implemented in time with local tech (roughly 18th - 19th
century). 'Course it's been several years since I reread it, so I could
be wrong.

Mike Peters
travelleri@home.com

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 00:08:37 -0700
From: "Tom" <tbergman@brawleyonline.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1025

> > 2) Handwave a reason why they aren't used for starships.
>
> There is no really good reason I can think of, other than its not
available
>

How about the simplest one?  The material required to make the advanced
armor is simply too expensive to use on such a LARGE structure as a
starship, especially a MILITARY one (because they tend to be larger than
civilian ones...).  The resource materials are simply to scarce...  the
manufacturing processes are too lengthy and too involved to produce enough
for an entire starship in the time allotted for starship construction.
Vehicle construction however is another matter because of the SIZE
involved...  sometimes one forgets just how large starships really are...

Oriontwin
orion 0609 C36AA84-A hi- va+ vi+ so++ A633
tc+ tm+ tn t4+ tg-- ru+ he+ 3i!(+) c+ jt- st++ pi+ ta ge

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 19:43:09 +1200
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Duplicate Fleets of The Imperium.

From:           	Clifford N Linehan <cnl.rubicon@juno.com>
Date sent:      	Thu, 26 Aug 1999 00:26:15 EDT

> Does anyone know the reason why nine of the fleets are located in more
> than one subsector, with some of the locations being sectors apart.
> I am impressed by the 213th fleet being located in three seperate sectors
> at once.

In the middle Roman Empire, it was common practise to dispatch a portion
of a legion (called a vexillion) off to trouble spots rather than the entire legion.
Now on some occassions, these vexillion's did not rejoin their parent unit
and evolved into a complete new unit retaining the parent units designation.
Perhaps this is the explaination.

Another explaination is that during the Civil War different factions raised
fleets with the same designation and some of these survived. The Spinward
Campaign mentions that Imperial naval squadron maintain an existance over
time (to foster esprit de corp). Perhaps the same is true of fleets.


Andrew etc
http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/
    Listening to way too much Dave Brubeck

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 09:46:52 +0100
From: "Dr. Nik" <sharik@barrayar.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Terraforming

(Sorry for the delay on this - I had to retrieve the appropriate
reference volume from a friend and wait for my copy of First In to be
delivered. :) )

>Before 'First In', Traveller planetary generation often created
>small worlds with substantial atmospheres.
>       Could these be explained as incomplete terraforming efforts (in
>the Imperial campaign, by either the Ancients <least preferable 
>option>, the First Imperium, the Rule of Man or the 3I)?

If the Ancients did it then it can be anything you want. But as you say,
that's the least preferable option. If it's a human-instigated
terraforming program, then the situation is less clear-cut.


>       I recall that Leonard Erickson noted in a discussion on
>gravitic construction a month or two ago that a body the size and
>mass of Earth's moon *could* support an Earth standard atmosphere
>for a couple of million years or so, time enough for humanity to
>florish and eventually become extinct on the world.
>       The tech level scales in 'First In' are the first that I've
>seen that make limited Vilani or ROM terraforming possible (much more
>likely than the 'traditional' sequences).
>
>TTL    First In                        MT
>8      crude ecoremediation            early weather control*
>9      limited terraforming (slight change to atmo/hydro?)
>12     ecosystem reconstruction        'major terraforming'**
>14     ecopoiesis [biosphere construction]
>15     'radical terraforming'          'complex terraforming'
>
>* common to both scales
>** refined weather control tech common to both scales
>
>       Given that the First Imperium lasted for over 10 millenia, I
>would have thought that population and resource pressures [only a
>small fraction of the matter and energy of a solar system is
>exploitable at TTLs 9-11] may have been sufficient for the Ziru Sirka
>to try limited terraforming, or build large artificial habitats on or
>around otherwise hostile worlds (especially those systems on jump
>mains, given the jump-2 limit).

Certainly feasible, but 10,000 years is still a relatively short time for
a terraforming (or vlandoforming :) ) to bear fruit.

This assumes a complete terraforming project. Large artificial habitats
are quite acceptable within the timescale and, if large enough, would
also only lose their atmospheres over periods of tens of thousands of
years.

>       The ROM only lasted a few centuries. In the early days of the
>Terran expansion into space, some experimentation with terraforming
>or ecological engineering must have occurred ; but the incentive to
>do so was probably less than that of the ZS. 
>       [This ignores the crash programs in the Interstellar Wars 
>period where bolt holes were being constructed to preserve the
>proto-Solomani in the event of the Terran Confederation being
>'steamrollered' by the First Imperium.]

Even a crash program on a relatively compatible world like Mars would
take >300 years to provide an atmosphere such as that shown on Babylon 5,
and the economic cost would be prohibitive, particulaly if the homesystem
if trying to fight a major interstellar war at the time. (One of my
personal niggles about Mars in B5.)

>       In the 3I era, worlds low in population but high in TL and
>starport rating could be 'construction' sites, or worlds that
>became marginal during the Long Night that were being 'eco-remediated'
>with TTL 13-15 techniques.
>       Comments?

Absolutely. Although you don't actually need TLs to be that high. We
could start terraforming Mars now if we were willing to throw enough
money at it.

If anyone wants to get a really detailed description of the technologies
involved then I recommend that you get a copy of 'Terraforming' by Martyn
Fogg. A warning though - this is the definitive university/college level
text with plenty of graphs and equations in it. If that doesn't bother
you, then it's a fascinating read. For something a bit lighter, try
Robert Zubrin's 'The Case For Mars'.

Nik
- --------------------------------------------------------------
     Nik Whitehead C885587-B S zh++ as+ da+ kk-- A 224
sharik@barrayar.demon.co.uk    http://www.barrayar.demon.co.uk
           Having the moral high ground is good.
   Having the moral high ground and a meson gun is better.

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 04:27:37 -0600
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Re: Starship Materials &c. [long]

As some of you know, I'm the guilty party responsible for GT: Starships.
I'll try to address some of your concerns here. Most of whatever tweaking
is required will take place on the Pyramid playtest board, however, because
it involves proprietary material belonging to SJ Games.

>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 21:25:18 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca>
>Subject: Starship Materials
>
>John Buston raised a good point: there's a contradiction between the GT
>rulebook sidebar that says you can use different materials from GURPS
>Vehicles when designing ships, and the fact that all GT ships published to
>date have just used the standard 'expensive metal' option.
>
>Practically, I think this is because most of the ship designers just used
>the standard system, possibly designing a few more modules, without
>examining the hulls.

The draft design material that was made available to designers of ships for
GT: Imperial Navy (which I am _not_ writing, though I am helping with
design questions) included variant hull armors.

A quick poll of the designs submitted shows that none of them used other
than standard (i.e., expensive metal) hull armor, though there was some
fiddling with frame strength. More on this below.

>OTOH, assuming that John is correct that you can get an extra G
>acceleration (or more armour) by using advanced materials (and his numbers
>look correct to me), that begs the question: what is the game reason that
>all the published military ships don't use advanced materials?

There is still a fundamental misunderstanding here: "advanced" is not a
/type/ of material in VE2, it is a description of relative /quality/ of
materials at a given TL.

Here is a partial reprint of a reply I sent to this list on 9 July, on a
similar question (Re: Armour Limits):

>That's not quite what's going on in VE2. "Advanced laminate" isn't a
material, it's a relative quality and a construction method. Materials are
introduced as "advanced", then become "expensive" one TL higher, "standard"
the TL after that, and "cheap" three TL's after introduction. It is true,
however, that new materials are always being introduced to fill the
"advanced" category.
>
>This is an extract from the rough draft of GT: Starships. It is based on
some descriptive text about armor that was in GURPS Vehicles, 1st Ed, but
was cut from 2d Ed (probably to save space). This is the raw GURPS version
and [still] has not been compared or converted to Traveller terminology, so
don't tell me there is no "bonded superdense" -- I know that.
>
>				TL
>ARMOR				ADV	EXP	STD	CHEAP 	WEIGHT
>
>Mild Steel			5	6	7	8	0.5
>Steel or Aluminum		6	7	8	9	0.4
>Titanium or Boron		7	8	9	10	0.25
>Durasteel			8	9	10	11	0.15
>Improved Durasteel		9	10	11	12	0.1
>"Nanocrystal"		10	11	12	13	0.06
>Improved Nanocrystal 	11	12	13	--	0.04
>Hyperdense 			12	13	--	--	0.025
>
>Cost (Cr/lb)			20	6	2	1
>
>Tech Level: The TL shown on the table is the TL at which each type of
armor is considered Advanced, Expensive, Standard, or Cheap, respectively.
>
>Weight: Multiply the figure in the table by total surface area and desired
DR to get total weight of armor.
>
>Cost: Multiply cost factor for material and TL by total weight to get cost.


Robert again:

>I can see three choices here:
>
>1) Errata the GT sidebar that allows advanced materials (ie. prohibit them).

At this point, I will probably eliminate the "hyperdense" entry from the
table and simply ignore laminates and composites for starship hulls. This
has the effect of capping hull armor at "improved nanocrystal", which at
TL12 is "expensive". It leaves the question of whether laminates and
composites are appropriate in GT up to the individual GM -- I don't think
they are, but I don't want to tie the GM's hands with an explicit ruling.

The designers of GT:IN ships knew this, at least in its preliminary form,
and (so far as I know -- Juliean? Tom?) purposely avoided TL12 advanced
materials.

>2) Handwave a reason why they aren't used for starships.

Actually, the cheaper armors are more the problem here -- why aren't they
used for freighters and such? For this, I am including the following handwave:

"Jump Grid: Starship hull armor, and the hull armor of non-starships
designed to be carried externally by starships, automatically includes a
jump grid (if desired) if constructed of Expensive or Advanced materials."

Jump grids were introduced by Marc Miller in JTAS#24, so I'm not creating
canon here. The idea that jump grids are made of /lanthanum/, however, is a
DGP artifact (in SOM); Mr. Miller's article specifies that lanthanum is
used in the construction of the "jump coils". 

I have "jump grids" as a separate component that can be added to cheaper
hulls (at additional cost and trouble), and will include no-grid designs as
an option and variant.

This, by the bye, is the difference between Class A and B (GT Class V and
IV) shipyards IMO: Class A/V shipyards can produce hulls with jump grids,
Class B/IV cannot. This makes importing jump drives from elsewhere more
problematic.

>3) Redesign existing military ships to use advanced materials.

Not going to happen -- SJ Games will handwave like the dickens rather than
implement an erratum that requires widespread changes in published material.

There _has_ been a recent, global (i.e., GURPS-wide) change in high-energy
(>1 Tj) energy weapons to make them less powerful, specifically as a result
of concerns that they were unbalanced against armor -- you can thank
Anthony Jackson for that one.

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 04:40:16 -0600
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Re: What size ships can land?

>Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 12:01:58 +1000
>From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
>Subject: What size ships can land?
>
>This may have been asked already, but is G:Starships going to define the
>max tonnage that can enter atmosphere?

Probably not -- streamlining (or lack thereof) is the question, not size
per se. I'm keeping an eye on the "unstreamlined ships in atmosphere"
debate, to see if there is a concensus resolution.

>Or land?

Maybe. Truth be told, I hadn't considered it before in quite those terms.
GT: Starports may contain some standard landing pads I designed; those did
take the structural strength of the pad and the ground pressure of the
landing gear into account. John M. Ford (the author) is fond of landing
cradles, so those will almost certainly appear.

I'll take a look at ground pressure as a function of size and the standard
landing gear, and see if I can't come up with a simple table. Be fun to
know that a Scout can land on soft dirt, but the Kinunir that landed next
to her is going to get stuck, eh?

>For the record, my (simplified) take is:
...
>     - most craft that can land are 5000-6000 tons or less (which is why I
>made Beowulf Down's largest landing pad a 6000 ton pad).

FWIW, CT makes a couple of reference to 1,000 dtons as the largest ship
that _does_ land, whether anything bigger _can_ land or not. Since there
are canonical 5,000-dton streamlined freighters, however, I designed a
large pad to suppport 5,000-dtons.

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:46:28 +0100
From: Phil Kitching <postmark.design@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Augustus Deo-class Fast Liner (GTL10)

At 21:24 26/08/1999 -0400, Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca> wrote:

>In 998 Deepak Rao, the notorious terrorist, was captured when he attempted
>to hijack the Australis Deo. Although observers expected a lengthy trial,
>Rao unexpected pleaded guilty, calling himself a "very bad man who should
>be locked away until he can behave himself." While Confederation
>counter-terrorist experts were astonished, the passengers and crew of the
>Australis Deo were unsurprised. "Even my young niece told him that," said
>Hengabar Spofulam. 

in 998?

8-)

>"It is no surprise that he realized it himself." Further details of the
>incident, including how untrained civilians overpowered the ex-commando,
>have been classified a state secret by Solomani Security.

Was the repair bill also classified?

Phil Kitching
- --
  http://www.btinternet.com/~salvo/
  Postmark Design Bureau, Emerging Technologies Division.
 "Microwaving half-baked ideas from across the Galaxy"

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 03:14:20 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: 101 Starships

From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: 101 Starships

>Well, I'm flattered :)  I just looked at the info on the Majesta, and I
>pretty much agree with the author, It's the Mega-ships that are the
>lifeblood of the Imperium.  Although I've never seen an explicit reference,
>I've always assumed that most "real" freight traffic happens on ships in
>the 50kdt-500kdt range.  A reference in "Fighting Ships" seems to indicate
>that 1,000kdt is the largest military vessel ever, and civilian ships that
>big don't exist.  Hence, I figure these monsters top out at 500kdt...


    I have to agree.  Why else do you think I came up with the Tender-Rider
idea for a ship with a high jump rating?  The Mega-Ship will service the
mains, but what about outside the mains?  You will need something with legs,
& still a high cargo capacity, & this idea gives it to you.

Legate Legion
ICQ # 8973001
legate@futureone.com
http://www.futureone.com/~legate/index.htm

"A man may fight for many things; his country, his principles, his friends,
the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd
mudwrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock, and a stack of
French porn." - Edmund Blackadder

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 04:58:21 -0600
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Large merchant vessels

>Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 00:11:32 -0400
>From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
>Subject: Re: 101 Starships
>
>Although I've never seen an explicit reference, 
>I've always assumed that most "real" freight traffic happens on ships in 
>the 50kdt-500kdt range.  A reference in "Fighting Ships" seems to indicate 
>that 1,000kdt is the largest military vessel ever, and civilian ships that 
>big don't exist.  Hence, I figure these monsters top out at 500kdt...

"[L]arge scale trade calls for large scale ships to carry it out. Such
trading ships are generally huge bulk carriers with displacements in the
multi-kiloton range." Traders and Gunboats, p. 18.

Fighting ships mentions "10,000 or 20,000-ton bulk [cargo] carriers" (p.
25), but says that "commercial ships of [50,000 dtons] are unknown in the
Spinward Marches" in 1101-1107 (p. 44). Whether they exist later, or closer
to the core, is a matter for speculation.

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 12:02:15 +0100
From: Mark Watson <markw@antares.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Will the real Strephon.....

>Given that GDW is no more, and GT is off in a non-rebellion
>universe, and Marc has no plans to come back to the rebellion any
>time soon why don't all the folks that liked the universe that HT
>was creating make it so?  Get together and create the framework for
>the universe you wanted to play in. 

I'd be interested in having such a discussion, but from seeing similar things
happen on other mailing lists (eg 2300AD) I don't think we should delude
ourselves that we'll get anything other than a (very good) discussion out of
it, and probably about as many timelines as there would be participants.

I'd be keener still to see whoever picks up T5 and beyond recognise the warmth
of feeling behind HT as a viable setting and take it forward as the/an official
timeline.

Mark
PS: I agree with your comments on TNE, that was one of my (many) objections to
it, for all that the Regency Sourcebook was excellent.
- --
Mark Watson, markw@antares.demon.co.uk

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 06:13:15 -0500
From: Alex Ingram <ingram@airmail.net>
Subject: Re: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED: Traveller Character Generation System

Alex Ingram wrote:

> Sorry for the long pause but I've been busy trying to put many different things
> into digital format so I can provide you with some of my latest work. I'm sending
> you my revised skills list and hopefully within the next two weeks I'll have my
> skills descriptions finished. Yes with my view on Attribute DMs.
>
> I've done more work in the past several weeks than in the past three years.
> I hope you'll appreciate it Michael. I got your list and found it similar to
> mine but I'm not sure if I want to do any more modification on my list. I did
> like the way you handles some of the performance and agronomy skills.
>
> I'm also near completion for my Advanced Naval Character Generation module which
> I'll send you. I was unsure if you have modified any of the existing chargen
> system and if so in which way. Was any of my previous ideals helpful and in what
> ways.
>
> I would like to know if you've been keeping up with the Grups Traveller system.
> I recently went out and purchased everything available so far and think much of
> it's a major advancement. I'm seriously thinking of using some of the system in
> my game universe. Far Trader is great!
>
> Just curious, exactly where are you in Australia and what do you do with the
> military? I spend two R&Rs in Australia while in Vietnam years ago. I'm retired
> military. I spend a week in both Sidney and Melborne. back in 1968. Gotta go.
> Please respond.
>
> Alex Ingram
> Dallas, Texas
>
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                         Name: SkillsList.PDF
>    SkillsList.PDF       Type: Portable Document Format (application/pdf)
>                     Encoding: base64

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 06:16:01 -0500
From: Alex Ingram <ingram@airmail.net>
Subject: Re: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED: Traveller Character Generation System

Alex Ingram wrote:

> Sorry for the long pause but I've been busy trying to put many different things
> into digital format so I can provide you with some of my latest work. I'm
> sending you my revised skills list and hopefully within the next two weeks I'll
> have my skills descriptions finished. Yes with my view on Attribute DMs.
>
> I've done more work in the past several weeks than in the past three years.
> I hope you'll appreciate it Michael. I got your list and found it similar to
> mine but I'm not sure if I want to do any more modification on my list. I did
> like the way you handles some of the performance and agronomy skills.
>
> I'm also near completion for my Advanced Naval Character Generation module which
> I'll send you. I was unsure if you have modified any of the existing chargen
> system and if so in which way. Was any of my previous ideals helpful and in what
> ways.
>
> I would like to know if you've been keeping up with the Grups Traveller system.
> I recently went out and purchased everything available so far and think much of
> it's a major advancement. I'm seriously thinking of using some of the system in
> my game universe. Far Trader is great!
>
> Just curious, exactly where are you in Australia and what do you do with the
> military? I spend two R&Rs in Australia while in Vietnam years ago. I'm retired
> military. I spend a week in both Sidney and Melborne. back in 1968. Gotta go.
> Please respond.
>
> Alex Ingram
> Dallas, Texas
>
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                         Name: SkillsList.PDF
>    SkillsList.PDF       Type: Portable Document Format (application/pdf)
>                     Encoding: base64

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 22:50:56 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)

In mail you write:

> At 12:32 AM 8/26/99 -0800, you wrote:
>>But see my notes above. Spaceships are not and *will not* be braced for
>>that sort of strong side force, simply because it *can't* occur in
>>normal operation (or even in most "emergency" situations).
>
> But there doesn't have to be a strong *side* force.  After all, all the 
> forces acting on the ship will add up to one force vector and one torque 
> vector (yes, that's a bit oversimplified.  But I think it's close 
> enough...).  You use the main drive to cancel the overall force vector, and 
> the attitude jets to counter the torque.  So again, it comes down to: how 
> strong are those jets.

Ah! I see your problem.

The jets and main drive are *countering* the forces. That's far, FAR
different than *neutralizing* them.

If the wind forces are trying to accelerate the ship in direction X,
and the jets cancel that, you've got *two* force vectors applied to the
ship. And at *different* points. The ship is braced for forces applied
*at* the the thrusters and at the main drive. It's *not* braced for the
wind forces that sum to a vector someplace inbetween.

Having the *motions* resulting from forces cancelled isn't the same as
cancelling the *stresses* induced by those forces. The "push" on
various parts of the hull isn't being allowed to turn the ship, but
it's still there. 

Consider a "box" attached to a pivot (the CG). It's got panels braced
so that you can push on them to turn it. 

Now have someone resist that turning force by pushing on an *unbraced*
portion of the box. At some point, they'll push thru the side of the
box. 

Wind force is applied over the entire surface of the ship, with the
force proportional to the area and the angle of attack (we're assuming
a "constant" wind speed here).

Thrsusters and the main drive apply force against the *framework* of the
hull. So it's braced for forces applied at those points *by* the
thrusters and the main drive. And it's braced for the inertial forces
caused by the various portions of the ship reacting against the
attempts to turn it about the CG. 

So the wind force is being applied in places the ship was never
designed to have forces applied. 

A steel beam that isn't moving because there are no significant forces
acting on it, and one that isn't moving because the torques and
impulses from the forcing affecting it "cancel" may look the same at
first glance. 

But the former is under no appreciable stress. The latter may be ready
to fail catastrophically at any moment. 

Lack of motion doesn't mean lack of stress. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 22:18:47 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Streamlining

In mail you write:

> Leonard Erickson writes:
>> 
>> Ok, try this on for size. At 20 mph, it's going to take your ship 5-10
>> hours *each way* to go from the top of the atmosphere to the ground.
>> That *alone* is expensive. 
>
> Not really.  First of all, you can probably safely go 50 mph.
> Secondly, the atmosphere gets thin fairly quickly, at 20 miles you're
> at 1% of normal atmosphere and can probably go 500 mph, at 40 miles
> you're in functionally 'trace' atmosphere and can safely move at a
> significant fraction of orbital speed.  probably go as fast as you
> want.  Call it an hour each way, and that's being careful.
 
It's nowhere *near* that simple, as a few studies on trying to "fly" to
orbit have shown. The way temp, pressure *and* density fluctuate on the
way up, you'd wind up crossing the sound barrier at some point unless
you keep your speed *really* low. 

And there's *no* way you are going to get an USL ship to make it
throught the trans-sonic region in one piece. 

Check a graph of the way the speed of sound varies from ground up to
100 miles. 

Then check out "Reynold's number". 

Re = rho*D*u/mu = D*u/nu

 Re = reynolds number
rho = density
  D = "characteristic length" (size of the ship)
  u = velocity
 mu = abosolute viscosity
 nu = kinematic viscosity

Basicly, what Reynolds numbers let you do is compare the flow
characteristics in different situations. If two different situations
have similar Reynold's numbers, then the way the fluids involved flow
around the object involved will be similar. 

This lets you compare (for example) large, fast objects in air with
small, slow objects in water. 

Due to the temp & density changes your descent will cover a *huge*
range of Reynolds numbers.

And there's going to be a need to keep slow moving ships away from fast
moving ones. So I doubt that you'd get the "preferred" short route.
That'd be for the faster ships.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 12:14:30 +0100
From: Phil Kitching <postmark.design@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Experience System 

At 23:56 25/08/1999 +0100, "Matthew Bond" <mgb@akira.swinternet.co.uk> wrote:
>>> >> Before you start making bad puns, remember that Gil Hamilton's in the
>>> middle
>>> >> of an asteroid ring right now with at least three active Zhodani ships
>>> and
>>> >> one that's acting decidedly funny nearby......
>>> >
>>> >Thing is, the 'wanker' isn't active, it's passive.
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm sorry??  Tell me that's an obscure piece of US slang, please.....<g>
>>
>>Nope.  Brit slang.  I was refering to the ship that made us go into stealth
>mode.
>>
>>Keven
>>
>
>
>I think he understood the British meaning, but hoping that it meant
>something different to Americans. Also, when used to refer to someone else,
>wanker is quite a strong derogatory term, with a bitter undertone.

I too, was hoping that it was some US slang. I don't think the BBFC
would accept it in a PG movie over here.

>If you
>simply want to convey that the said person etc is a bit odd / acting in an
>idiotic way etc, you would probably use plonker. As in "You plonker,
>Rodney!" (or nutter, or weirdo, or a myriad other terms)

I was listening to a radio programme about a group of people whose
job it is to substitute words in films to allow a TV showing or use
as an inflight movie.

From what they were saying, it is possible that "plonker" was invented
for use by that BBC comedy series to substitute for that other term,
since it has a similar sound and mouth shape.

Unfortunately, I don't have the derivation of plonker available to check
this.

Phil Kitching
- --
  http://www.btinternet.com/~salvo/
  Postmark Design Bureau, Emerging Technologies Division.
 "Microwaving half-baked ideas from across the Galaxy"

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1026
***********************************

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