Traveller-digest    Wednesday, October 20 1999    Volume 1999 : Number 1235



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Vargr pic
RE: Amorphous Aliens
Advanced computers in space (was Happy Birthday, Galileo)
Re: Amorphous Aliens
Re Space Opera
"new" critter 
Re: Space Opera?
Re: Happy Birthday, Galileo!
Re: "new" critter 
Re: Happy Birthday, Galileo!
Re: PBeM TCS Islands Campaign
Re: Great Task Debate
Re: Cannon, Background, Etc
Bodily waste disposal
Re: "new" critter [OT]
Re: GTL9 5 dTon Shuttle
Re: Important: The Kinunir Warrant!
Re: Re Traveller and the modern era
Re: Happy Birthday, Galileo!

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 12:46:23 +0200
From: Volker Greimann <volker@greimann.de>
Subject: Re: Vargr pic

At 19:22 19.10.99 -0800, you wrote:

>I used to read the translated versions back in the 70s. I think they
>got up into the 200s before sales got too low.
I meant the most recent issue.
PR is still going strong in germany, and will reach its 2000th issue this
December.
Therell be a big con (Perry Rhodan Worldcon 2000) in December to celebrate
this event...
Volker
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Volker A. Greimann --- http://www.greimann.de --- volker@greimann.de

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

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 10:33:17 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: RE: Amorphous Aliens

Dear Folks -

Peez said:
>I designed a Traveller
>T2-like robot, made up of subunits ranging in size from
>(relatively) simple nanites up to energy cell units
>5 cm across.

OK, when can we see it?!!
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 21:20:06 -0400
From: Doug Sinclair <dns@interlog.com>
Subject: Advanced computers in space (was Happy Birthday, Galileo)

> There's a *reason* the processor is so dumb. There was exactly *one*
> attempt to use a "modern" CPU in a satellite. One of the OSCAR
> satellites (satellites built by and for amateur radio operators). 

> It was a disaster. In spite of their best efforts to shield it,
> radiation was flipping bits in the CPU often enough to make it useless
> much of the time. And waht "modern" chip was this? An 8086. 

I'm sorry, but that just isn't so.  The AMSAT microsattellites launched
in 1990 used V40 processors -- basically 80186 clones.  One of them has
been running for five years since its last reset.  This says a lot for
the radiation tolerance of the CPU, and of the stability of its
operating system (SCOS).  No windows here!

Off the top of my head, some other "modern" processors currently on
orbit:
Space Shuttle remote manipulator system (robot arm) joint control
electronics: 80186
Space Shuttle payload general support computer (IBM thinkpad): 486
Radarsat: 80386
Hubble Space Telescope: 80386
UoSAT-12: 80386 and 80387
Cassini: RAD 6000

There are a bunch of modern processors that are currently being
integrated into spacecraft for launch in the next 12 months.  I'm afraid
I'm not allowed to give program names for these:
URK-32 (rad-hard sparc station)
Motorola DSP56000 series
Power PC
StrongARM

Doug Sinclair
Spacecraft Engineer

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 19:22:37 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@GLJA.com>
Subject: Re: Amorphous Aliens

david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au wrote:
> 
> Peez said:
> >I designed a Traveller
> >T2-like robot, made up of subunits ranging in size from
> >(relatively) simple nanites up to energy cell units
> >5 cm across.
> 
> OK, when can we see it?!!

Actually, I did a similar thing, more as a way to scare the bejeesus out
of my players when they figured out what it was. The nanites were the
size of a grain of sand, all identical.

I didn't have any game rules for designing the thing, so I just winged
it. If anyone wants my "specs" I'd be happy to share 'em.

It did lead to two classic scenes, both occurring in the engineering
room of the ship the PCs used. 

The first was when one of the PCs stumbled across the dead body of the
engineer, about a minute after conversing with that same engineer in
another part of the ship. The T1000 had mimicked the person he had just
killed, but nobody realized it at the time.

The second was when they were in combat with their "engineer", who had
just taken an ACR blast to the midsection. I had the T1000 do the famous
finger-waggling scene out of T2 (you know the one), and then everyone
suddenly realized they were in a world of trouble.

Later on, though, they actually got the T1000 to join their side, which
made for some interesting adventures.

Yeah, I know it was a blatant ripoff, but it was fun as hell.
- -- 
Erwin Fritz
Gilbert Laustsen Jung Associates Ltd.
http://www.glja.com

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 21:54:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Space Opera

>> Basicly you had to have "grand sweep" (ie worrying about whole
>> civilizations, not mere worlds), larger than life characters, and
>> ususally escalating superweapon vs superweapon duels between the good
>> guys and the bad guys.
>>
>> Star Wars is the only *modern* Space Opera I can think of.
>
>Star Trek DS9?
>  Grand Sweep - Check
>  Larger than life Characters - Check
>  Escalating superweapon duels - Check
>(actual, I'd call it Space Soap Opera, but thats just me)
>
Sten Series by Cole and Bunch... all the above in spades

VorKosigan series by Bujold: Sure, the imperium's only 3 systems, but man
what a main character: Larger and Smaller than life, escallating
superpolitics, the occasional superweapons, and very clear good and evil
(For the latter, see Jackson's Whole)

William F. Hostman  |  "Smith & Wesson: THe original Point and Click
interface!"
Aramis 0602 C55A364-C S kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge-
533
Mailto:aramis@gci.net http://home.gci.net/~aramis http://www.alaska.net/~mhaa
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis	ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn- t4-- tt+ to- tg-- ru+ ge 3i+ c+ jt-() au+ st- ls
pi+() ta+ he+(-) kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 18:03:14 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: "new" critter 

Listening to the news, I hear that they've found an *intact* wooly
mammoth in Siberia. Frozen solid. And they are talking about cloning. 

It should be fairly simple. just insert mammoth DNA into an elephant
ovum, implant the ovum in a female elephant, and in a year or so,
you'll have a baby mammoth.

Of course, they've still got the problem of the DNA being from an
adult, and thus limited in the number of divisions before old age sets
in. That's what's happening to Dolly.

Still, we'll lick it eventually. And maybe mammoth meat may be as
common as buffalo in the future. 

Traveller scenarios? Beside background stuff like herds of mammoths on
Terra or other planets, you have the possibility of being hired to ship
a *live* mammoth. 

Or, going farther afield, have a similar discovery on some planet. A
member of a long extinct species is found frozen or otherwise preserved
in some remote area with a *lousy* climate. The task is to extract the
critter intact, and transport it to lab facilities without damaging it.

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

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 18:21:58 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Space Opera?

In mail you write:

> From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
> Subject: Re: Space Opera?
>
>
> From:           shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
> Date sent:      Tue, 19 Oct 1999 23:48:09 PST
>
>> In mail you write:
>
>> Actually, the original definition was fairly clear. It included the
>> Lensman series, the Skylark series, Campbell's later Arcot, Morey &
>> Wade stories, etc.
>
>> Basicly you had to have "grand sweep" (ie worrying about whole
>> civilizations, not mere worlds), larger than life characters, and
>> ususally escalating superweapon vs superweapon duels between the good
>> guys and the bad guys.
>>
>> Star Wars is the only *modern* Space Opera I can think of.
>
> Star Trek DS9?
>   Grand Sweep - Check
>   Larger than life Characters - Check
>   Escalating superweapon duels - Check
> (actual, I'd call it Space Soap Opera, but thats just me)

Sorry, but the characters *aren't* sufficiently larger than life. And
there's nothing even *close* to a "real" superweapon.

> *  *  *
>
> Babylon 5?
>     Grand Sweep:  Check.
>     Larger than Life Character:  Check.
>     Super Weapons:  Check
>     Super Powers:  Check
>     Bringing People back from Death:  Check

Well, it's still kinda toned down from the Lensman stories it's more or
less descended from.

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

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 22:08:10 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Happy Birthday, Galileo!

At 03:20 PM 10/20/99 -0700, you wrote:
>I seem to recall that one of the recent Mars probes has a hardened
>Motorola PowerPC chip...sure hope it wasn't the one they just
planted :-(

	I'm almost 99.9% positive the lander actually used a Rad6000. I know
for a fact it used the VxWorks commercial RTOS (realtime operating
system). Likewise, I believe DS-1 used a fairly modern 32-bit CPU,
possibly another R6K.

- -- "Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may
   be watching" 
   -- H. L. Mencken

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 22:10:21 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: "new" critter 

At 06:03 PM 10/20/99 PST, you wrote:
>Listening to the news, I hear that they've found an *intact* wooly
>mammoth in Siberia. Frozen solid. And they are talking about
cloning. 
>
>It should be fairly simple. just insert mammoth DNA into an elephant
>ovum, implant the ovum in a female elephant, and in a year or so,
>you'll have a baby mammoth.
>
>Of course, they've still got the problem of the DNA being from an
>adult, and thus limited in the number of divisions before old age
sets
>in. That's what's happening to Dolly.

	So you do it often enough to get one each viable male and female,
who make it to sexual maturity, and work on "natural" progeny,
probably via artificial insemination and elephant host-mothers until
you get enough offspring you can try the standard way.

- -- "Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may
   be watching" 
   -- H. L. Mencken

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 21:17:26 -0500
From: "William Barnett-Lewis" <wlewis@mailbag.com>
Subject: Re: Happy Birthday, Galileo!

SPLURK?!? Please tell me where I can buy this book!

William



> Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 17:26:51 -0600
> From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
> Subject: Re: Happy Birthday, Galileo!
>
> At 06:44 PM 10/19/99 PST, you wrote:
>>In mail you write:
>>I'm not sure what the latest "space rated" CPU is, but at that time
> it
>>was the RCA 1802 (same chip used in the *ancient* "ELF" computer
>>training kits from the 70s).
>
>  My copy of SMAD* is at work, but it lists some. The only one I
> recall off the top of my head is the Rad6000--a rad-hardened, space
> rated version of IBM's R/6000 processor; 32-bit running at (IIRC)
> 33MHz. I know there are several other 32-bit CPUs currently being
> offered or in works (even rumors of somebody trying to port the
> Pentium to a more resistant technology).
>
> *SMAD: Space Mission Analysis and Design. Kind of an overview of
> *everything* you need to know for spacecraft design; helpful for a
> single engineer to do quick'n'dirty Back Of The Envelope sizing and
> feasibility estimates.
>
> - -- "Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may
>    be watching"
>    -- H. L. Mencken
>
> ------------------------------
>


- --
Live without fear; your Creator loves you     | William Barnett-Lewis
as a mother. Go in peace to follow the good   | mailto://wlewis@mailbag.com
road and may God's blessing be with           |
you always.                                   |
St. Claire                                    |

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 21:08:05 -0500 (CDT)
From: Cynthia Higginbotham <cyhiggin@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: PBeM TCS Islands Campaign

> on 10/20/99 4:33 AM, Cynthia Higginbotham at cyhiggin@pipeline.com wrote:
> 
> > Keep posting about this, and I'll finally be motivated to
> > put the designs and chronicles from Steve's PBeM TCS Islands campaign
> > of a few years back on my web page.  (Yes, I've mentioned this before,
> 
> I'd really like to see that!
> -- 
>                                  Ken Hagler

Including my comments about the Neubayern Fighter Design Bureau?
My, you are a glutton for punishment! ;-)

				--Cynthia (New Home)

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 20:32:29 -0600
From: cos 90 <cos90@powersurfr.com>
Subject: Re: Great Task Debate

>Hee!  I suspect you might get some argument that the point of RPGs
>is for the *GM* to "tell a story."  Whether I agree or not, I'm not
>going to argue with you about it, just mention that there is a
>*long* standing debate between dramatists vs simulationists.  And
>IMO, each side is right for their own games.

Reminds me of an argument that raged within the pages of a game-oriented
APA (Amateur Press Association -- a form of fan communication that existed
before the Usenet, the Web, and mailing lists such as this one), between
two RPG players with radically different views on RPG play:

One saw RPGs as a chance to role-play, to dramatize a character and get
into various situations interacting with other characters.

The other saw RPGs as some form of interactive puzzle solving -- to 
him, a character sheet represented probabilities, and an RPG game as a
session of solving puzzles and thinking through problems. 

Each, of course, thought the other was totally out of his mind -- the
second couldn't understand why the first put so much effort into coming
up with character background and personality and so on, while the first
wondered what attraction the second had to RPGs in the first place.

(I count myself in the first camp, though I was not either of the two
gamers involved in the argument.) The dramatists / simulationists dichotomy
fits the two guys rather well, I'd say...


     Glenn St-Germain  Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 
cos90@powersurfr.com  http://plaza.powersurfr.com/glenn
        "There is no longer any normal to be"
                                 -- Gary Numan

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 22:35:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re: Cannon, Background, Etc

>During the 80s, I played CT for some time, never reaching the heights
>(depths?) of involvement evidenced by some of the posters to this list.
[snip] Don't feel bad... I started in '83 or so, in a group which lacked a
copy of the rules!

> So like a piker,
>I'm wondering if there's some readily (i.e. very cheaply) accessible source
>from which I can garner at least the basics of the CT campaign background
>- -- Imperial political figures, history, etc.  The CT stuff is what I'm most
>interested in, as I stopped playing long before MT, and TNE doesn't sound
>like my cuppa.  I would appreciate any input I can get, and yes I realize
>that some people feel the whole GURPS thing is heretical etc.  =)  Thank
>you very much for your help, and I've been uniformly pleased with the
>quality of the list.
>
>Otter Driver

Otter: A good source for some overview is the MT imperial encyclopaedia,
available near me for under US$10.00 at my UFNUBS (UnFriendly Nearby Used
Book Store). it includes all the material from CT Supps 8 & 11.

Another good bit, should you be able to find it, is CT's "The Traveller
Adventure", which shows it's age, but reaffirmed my feelings of CT, and
gives a lot of (probably now superceeded) color on a number of worlds along
the Aramis Trace in the Spinward Marches. Check at www.boscos.com for the
latter. They had one on the shelf within the last month or so (they're my
FLGS). They also recently had a copy of Supplement 7 Traders and Gunboats,
with all the nice deckplans... But clean out boscos while you can... Peter
Newman no longer works there, so they prolly won't purchase any more used
CT/MT/TNE/T4 materials.

TNE's Regency Sourcebook is a good set of UPP data immediately post-CT and
also the TNE era data; it may or may not have materials you want. If you
still read UPP's, it is a good bit, and it includes a good bit of Domain of
Deneb (Spinward Marches, Reft, Corridor, and ??? sectors [drawing a blank
and too lazy to look it up...)

Definitely pick up Far Trader (for GT); I don't care for muching about with
the economics, but if you're gonna use GT, you may as well go hog wild
there. Not much background, but good trade rules and economics bits.

William F. Hostman  |  "Smith & Wesson: THe original Point and Click
interface!"
Aramis 0602 C55A364-C S kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge-
533
Mailto:aramis@gci.net http://home.gci.net/~aramis http://www.alaska.net/~mhaa
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis	ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn- t4-- tt+ to- tg-- ru+ ge 3i+ c+ jt-() au+ st- ls
pi+() ta+ he+(-) kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 22:35:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Bodily waste disposal

>This would make sense in light of the information on waste disposal.
>At least a bunk includes the volume for a toilet.
>
>Also, what are we to do with the Ship's Boat?  It carries 96 (more if
>outfitted as such) passengers for up to 24 hours!  Where are they
>gonna do their business?
>
in bags, just like apollo crews... Having had to use such measures in the
back seat of a DeHaviland DHC2 Beaver, I assure you, it can be done even in
cramped seating.

>Perhaps you should redesign those vessels and submit them to
>Chris for inclusion in Starships (or SJG for erratatizing).
>
at least add a "Relieve Bag Disposal Lock"... a 1 CuFt airlock!

William F. Hostman  |  "Smith & Wesson: THe original Point and Click
interface!"
Aramis 0602 C55A364-C S kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge-
533
Mailto:aramis@gci.net http://home.gci.net/~aramis http://www.alaska.net/~mhaa
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis	ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn- t4-- tt+ to- tg-- ru+ ge 3i+ c+ jt-() au+ st- ls
pi+() ta+ he+(-) kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 22:47:09 -0000
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: "new" critter [OT]

From: Leonard Erickson <shadow@krypton.rain.com>


>Listening to the news, I hear that they've found an *intact* wooly
>mammoth in Siberia. Frozen solid. And they are talking about cloning.


They wooly mammoth itself is really pretty old news. I remember seeing a
photo of it in my old Childcraft books. They've been talking about cloning
it for some time now. They made the decision a few weeks ago, it was a hot
topic among my friends at the diner.

I myself just sat and said, "I saw that Jurassic Park movie with Jeff
Goldblum, and he said nature finds a way! We'll all be crushed and gored by
prehistoric beasts, you'll see!"

Sorry. Ahem. I'm better now.

>It should be fairly simple. just insert mammoth DNA into an elephant
>ovum, implant the ovum in a female elephant, and in a year or so,
>you'll have a baby mammoth.


A bloodthirsty baby mammoth. Get a few of them together and they'll change
sex, reproduce, and gore and trample their way across the surface of the
earth. Whoops... I said I was better, didn't I?

>Of course, they've still got the problem of the DNA being from an
>adult, and thus limited in the number of divisions before old age sets
>in. That's what's happening to Dolly.


(Imagines Tyrell's death scene from Blade Runner... with a wooly mammoth
instead of Roy Batty)

>Still, we'll lick it eventually. And maybe mammoth meat may be as
>common as buffalo in the future.


I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this.

I hope that they manage to clone an ankylosaur. I've got a bet with a friend
of mine that ankylosaurs will have the most succulent meat of all of the
prehistoric beasties, by far. I am perhaps the only person who saw Jurassic
Park and wished that we could have Jurassic Burger.

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 22:04:31 -0500
From: "Bont" <felix@felixcafe.com>
Subject: Re: GTL9 5 dTon Shuttle

> >Also, what are we to do with the Ship's Boat?  It carries 96 (more if
> >outfitted as such) passengers for up to 24 hours!  Where are they
> >gonna do their business?
> 
> What do you think that 8.5 DT cargo bay is for?
> 
> I think there is nearly 8 cubic foot of spare space in a passenger
> module. The 8 modules added together would have enough spare space for
> a cramped airplane style toilet. The module also costs slightly more
> than I calculate it should, so you could handwave that it is already
> included.

The extra cost comes from using the Weight parameter of x1 for a 
TL9 Fusion Reactor slice for the TL10 version and a TL10 Fusion 
Reactor slice (weight and cost parameters) for the TL12 version.  

Adjusted values :
GTL10 Passenger Module : 1 dTon (- 8cf), 0.073 MCr, 0.54 sTons
GTL12 Passenger Module : 1 dTon (- 8cf), 0.072 MCr, 0.54 sTons

PS.  Thanks, John!  This was one of the modules I told you about 
that I couldn't get to jive just right.  If you hadn't told me you couldn't 
get it to work out either I wouldn't have given it another look.  What 
other ones are you experiencing difficulties with?  Let's compare 
notes.


- - - -
FELIX (Thomas L Bont)

- - Encrypt your messages!
  That way only the government knows what you wrote!

- - It is truly the wise man that knows what he doesn't!

- - With your shield or on it ... (Old Spartan Blessing)

- - Fidelitas super omnia, honore excepto

- - Help Stop Forest Fires.  Outlaw Matches.

Be sure to visit The FELIX Cafe at
     http://www.felixcafe.com/

- - - -

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 23:05:15 -0000
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Important: The Kinunir Warrant!

- -----Original Message-----
From: Jesse DeGraff <fenris@slip.net>
To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com <traveller@lists.imagiconline.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 4:57 AM
Subject: RE: Important: The Kinunir Warrant!


>I sluff of for a day on answering e-mail, and Chris pulls this!  I 'bout
>choked on my beer!  Maybe I'll take an hour off of Starports tomorrow for a
>Ditzie cartoon ;)


Is that a threat or a promise? Can't wait to see it ;)

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 19:13:50 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Re Traveller and the modern era

In mail you write:

> "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net> wrote:
>
> <many excellent and IMHO true observations of Traveller snipped>
>
>>Also, no one knows just how far current trends in technology will continue.
>>Many existing technologies are still 10 years from common adoption; cost,
>>social factors, and environmental issues prevent implementation in many
>>cases (forex: Gallium Arsenide chips (environmental), <0.2 micron masking
>>techniques for semiconductors (cost), RISC based computing in the WinTel
>>world (social, due to the Microsoft near-monoply and not supporting moves
>>to non-x86 architechtures, which are incremental evolutions of a 1970's
>>base architechture)). Somehow, I doubt we'll actually hit vingean
>>singularity before we have off-world populations.
>
> You're a lot more optimistic about space settlements than I am. Given the
> state of current technology, I'm betting on us really ramping up to the
> singularity in the 2050-2060 range.  I'd be shocked if there were more
> than (at most) 10,000 people living off-world then.  A more reasonable
> estimate is likely to be between several dozen and several 100.  Our
> electronic and biological tech is vastly outdistancing our rocketry tech. 
> Direct neural interfaces are already in their early infancy (moving a
> cursor by neural control & decoding a cat's visual signals), but we're
> still using chemical rockets for 95% of space applications. 
>
> With new electronic & biotech advances coming daily, and few changes in
> space tech since the late 70s I'm betting the singularity comes a long
> time before we seriously get into space. Then again, space travel sounds
> like it would more fun for post-human beings.  I'm sure hoping I live to 
> become some weird post-human thing :)

Alas, the timelag for anyplace beyond Lunar orbit will mean that you'd
be *incredibly* isolated by posthuman standards. Consider that the
maximum lag time on earth is going to be around 400 msec. 

To geosynch orbit is about 250 msec. Relaying *via* geosynch is about
500 msec. 

To Luna, lag is about 2600 msec.

To Mars at closest approach, it's around 300,000 msec. At farthest,
it's about 1,300,000 msec.

location  lag factor
- --------  ----------
Earth	  1
Luna      6.5
Mars      750 to 3250

See why there's a problem?

In Traveller terms, Earth would be "in system" (ie less than a day away)
Luna would be J1. But mars would be clear across the Imperium (j-107 to
j-464).

"Real time" links with Luna aren't possible, but you can get cclose
enough that it's only annoying. Real time links with Mars and the rest
of the planets are simply impossible. Email only. 

The Earth network and the Mars network can exchange data, but never
truly link.

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

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

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 19:40:39 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Happy Birthday, Galileo!

In mail you write:

>>I'm not sure what the latest "space rated" CPU is, but at that time it
>>was the RCA 1802 (same chip used in the *ancient* "ELF" computer
>>training kits from the 70s).
>
> The 1750A is used by ESA, I believe. Designed by committee, and it shows.

I wonder if that's one of the "provably correct" designs the Europeans
have come up with for safety critical systems? The entire design is
convertible to a set of mathematical formulae that can (with efffort)
be proven to be correct. Thus no hidden "gotchas" like the Pentium
floating point bug. 

It's a slow way to design. And a royal pain to extend. But it
eliminates one of the nastier variables from the safety equation. 

Of course, you still have to prove that the chip as made matches the
design. Which was done for the chip(s) I'm thinking of. 

Next you have to build a bug-free assembler. Once again, this is a
doable, but manpower intensive process. And then you can go on to try
for bug-free compilers. 

Then, finally you are supposed to try to produced code that can be
verified as bug free. As far as I know, the entire process has only
been carried out for a few nuclear power plants.

But if we ever have a siginificantly *bad* computer related accident,
or if we hit a plateau in computer performance, I expect that
eventually we *will* go to such a system. And it would slow a lot of
things down. 

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

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1235
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