
-------- TML Message #1825 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1825
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 01:52:39 -0500
From: Mark Gellis <f3w@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Subject: Thoughts on Fusion, Transmutation, FTL, Future

[I edited the subject line of this message to be more meaningful, and
re-sent it from the request to the list address -- Say, I always liked
the term "Superluminal" more than "Faster than Light"... sounds
sophisticated.  Maybe I'll set up a TML filter to enforce different
vocabulary, like translating all TML messages into Vargr :-) -- James]

A few thoughts...

On fusing hydrogen...I'm not sure we need an exotic process as much as
we need a LOT of heat and pressure, which advanced technology might be
able to provide.  Why develop this when you've got lots of deuterium
(one percent of one percent of the UNIVERSE is deuterium)?  Because 
hydrogen is 73 percent of the universe.  

(I could be wrong on this, but I don't think the sun does much more
than provide a LOT of heat and pressure to get is hydrogen to fuse...
I vaguely remember hearing somewhere that this is a very slow process
compared to other fusion reactions and that might be why it would be
less than profitable.)

By the way, does anyone know anything about what would be involved
with designing a fusion transmutation plant?  The idea is simple...if
you have a lot of hydrogen, but very little silicon or aluminum, or
anything else under the element 26 line, and you have practical fusion
power, you should be able to simply fuse the stuff up until you have
what you want.  Okay, okay, I know it has got to be a LOT more com-
plicated than that.  That's what I'm asking...what would be involved
in this kind of operation?  Could it be done in the first place (it
sounds like it should work, but there may be some aspect of physics
that I don't know about that would make it impractical or even
impossible)?

As for the speed of light stuff...

I don't really care much for game purposes.  I just assume that we
manage to find a way around the speed of light limit (I actually do
not use Jump Drives, but assume that spacecraft can transfer between
solar systems using Stargates, like the ones in 2001, and it is an
instantaneous deal; I find this more plausible, although I'm sure
people will disagree with me on this).

Of course, if it really does bother you, but you want to run an
sf game, and use something like the Traveller system, I will recommend    
an alternative scenario.  I'm using something like it as the background
for the sf I write, which I fear is trash, but you might see the novel
in 1992 or 1993 if I ever get it finished and if anyone is silly enough
to buy the damn thing.  Build on the following assumptions and see
what you get...

1) Faster than light travel is impossible.
2) Slower than light travel up to 1% the speed of light is easy with
  spacecraft using fusion drives (and much faster ships, usually used
  for interstellar colonization, can be built using matter-antimatter
  or laser-propelled lightsails, but this is a more complicated
  process)
3) Space industrialization becomes common.  People discover that it
  is not difficult to built million-person habitats massing 75 billion
  tons (more or less) from common materials found in asteroids and
  the moons of major planets.  In addition, these habitats are roomy
  and pleasant (if necessary, they could support a lot more people than
  just one million), being cylinder habitats about 10 km. by 40 km.
4) It takes about one trillion tons of raw materials to build a 75-
  billion ton, million-person habitat.  
5) The available mass in the asteroid belt of an average solar system
  is about two quintillion tons (2 x 10 to the 18th power).  Far more
  mass is available from any large moon.  Silicon, common in these bodies,
  can be used for solar panels (the mass listed includes panels that
  will provide sunlight and one megawatt per person out to the orbit of
  Saturn, or an equivilent), so you do not even have to use up hydrogen
  for fusion power.
6) It may take about nine hundred years for a colonial population of
  one million to expand in a virgin solar system until its population,
  now in the billions, can send out its own colonies.  Colony ships
  are built for speed, and can cross 10 light years in only one century.
  Thus, the rate of expansion for humanity is one percent the speed
  of light...ten light years every ten centuries.

7) If we do not meet nonhumans in space, we can make our own through
  genetic engineering, uplifting of nonsophont species, etc.  (See 
  Bruce Sterling and David Brin for interesting ideas.)

8) Fusion driven spacecraft can cross a solar system in weeks, meaning
  that a solar system starts to resemble the world in the days of sailing
  ships in terms of how quickly people can move from one habitat to
  another.  The cometary halo becomes the haven of all kinds of craziness
  because no one can patrol an area that extends out to a light year or
  more when your best ships can only move at a tenth of the speed of
  light, or maybe a little faster.  (And there are more than a trillion
  cometary nuclei...tons and tons and tons of raw materials, including
  hydrogen for fusion power...in a cometary halo.)

9) There are more than one million solar systems within a five hundred
 lightyear radius (which might be reached by colony ships in fifty
 thousand years) of Sol system.

Think about what human society and humanity might be like in fifty
thousand years if all this is true.  In particular, keep in mind that
even if you are limited to one solar system (except when you want to
start a new campaign by sending your players off to a new system in
suspended animation) that one solar system, if you really develop its
possibilities, is a pretty big place.  Enjoy.

-------- TML Message #1826 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1826
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 14:39:35 -0500
From: "T. L. Hayes" <al646@cleveland.freenet.edu>
Subject: More on Fusion



Metlay says:
>...
>premise that the Sun runs on "ordinary hydrogen" is correct, but you've
>failed to realize what "ordinary hydrogen" IS. It's mostly protium, but
>there's a plenty large enough trace percentage of deuterium and tritium
>in it to let a deuteron+deuteron=alpha+gammas reaction take place. The

I am not a nuclear physicist but an astrophysicist and as such should
point out that deuterium+deuterium is not a primary reaction in the sun.
The level of deuterium is kept depleted by interactions with hydrogen
(protons) forming helium-3 (+gamma).  In low temp stars this is the end
product of fusion.  In slightly higher temp stars He-3 + He-3 -> He-4 + 2H
also occurs however note that NONE of these reactions release neutrons like
the D+D reaction!  At about 2E7 K a whole slew of additional reactions
become possible all still falling under the title of p-p chain nuclear
fusion.  None of those release neutrons either.

Here on Earth the D+D and D+T reactions are used because they are better
reactions for fusion technology at our TL and we can use whatever material
we like (as opposed to what is available).  And you are right they DO give
off neutrons.

Perhaps a better fuel choice at the TL of Traveller would be D+p which is
fairly easy to do but has a relatively low energy yield (about the same
as D+D and about 1/3 D+T) or Li-7 + p or B-8 + positron both of which
have large energy yields (3-4 time D+p).  Bear in mind these numbers are
for conditions *inside* a star ie high temp, high pressure, high density,
plasma reactions.  Needless to say, ground (ship) based reactors will
work differently but not that differently.  Think of the breakthroughs
in EM containment fields or laser ignition systems.  And, hey, let's not
rule out various forms of cold fusion!

Robert P Poole says:
>neutrinos.  If the physics is right, then detectible neutrinos should be
>converted to undetectible types with greater and greater probability as the
>distance from the source increases.  This should probably play a role in the
>TDR rules, just to put a limitation on the range of neutrino scanners that is
>"realistic.")

Two things: First we detected neutrinos from 1987a (the supernova) from
distances much larger then the ranges given for the neutrino detectors in
Traveller (of course there were a hell of a lot of neutrinos coming out
of 1987a).   Second the detection technology will have improved greatly by
that TL (they not running around with large vats of cleaning fluid after
all) so more of the neutrinos that are detectable will be detected.

A different issue (referencing both of the above) if you choose the 
"correct" fusion chain then you can use reactions that do not emit neutrinos
thus rendering your power plants "invisible" to neutrino detectors!  Which
brings up a different point - if Traveller says that neutrino detectors
can detect power plants (because of the fusion presumably) then they must
be using reactions that give off neutrinos rendering our arguments mute
unless we want to remove the utility of neutrino detectors from the game
(which I don't).  That is the use of the neutrino detectors isn't it?

Points to Ponder

TLH

- - --
T.L.Hayes                  |
MIT/Lincoln Laboratory     |
Lexington, MA              |

-------- TML Message #1827 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1827
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 13:58:42 CST
From: Chuck McKnight - Law <mcknight@tusun2.mcs.utulsa.edu>
Subject: Computer Assisted Traveller

Hi All,

I've been busy porting a lot of the *nix traveller software to MSDOS and 
would be VERY interested in writing/porting additional software for
Traveller/MegaTraveller.  If there is an organized project, could someone
kick me a note in the mail?

Chuck McKnight
mcknight@tusun2.mcs.utulsa.edu

-------- TML Message #1828 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1828
Date:    Tue, 20 Nov 90 16:17 EST
From: PHB100@psuvm.psu.edu
Subject: Gravitational shield?

>TML nightly     Mon Nov 19 20:32:42 PST 1990    Volume 12 : Issue 5
>
>Jim Cheetham says...
>
>They developed a gravitational field effect that generated (I think)
>several thousand Gs on it's surface - the first time it was tried
>
>When the system became portable, they started using it for fighters,
>as a marvellous way of stopping laser and mass weapons (yes, photons

Gravity for stopping lasers?  This would work for missles, maybe, via tidal
effects, but not lasers.  The G-field would provide a doppler shift to the
shorter wavelengths, *INCREASING* the destructive energy applied to your hull.
This is exactly the opposite of what you want.

Unless I'm all wet, of course <drip, drip, drip>  ;+)

- - -------

Disclaimer:  This is me.  Do I sound like anyone else?

Paul Baughman          PHB100@psuvm.bitnet

-------- TML Message #1829 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1829
Subject: software, neutrinos, FTL
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 01:02:17 EST
From: Robert P Poole <tarquin@athena.mit.edu>

I have been in contact with the archivist for TDR.  I have agreed to handle all
software submissions.  Send your sourcecode to me at tarquin@athena.mit.edu --
ASCII sourcecode only, please, no uuencoded binaries.  I am interested in
software for system generation, character generation, starship design, etc.

About neutrinos:  Yeah, so we detected neutrinos from a distant supernova.  But
think about how much energy that supernova generated.  It goes without saying
that even though a supernova is distant, it also puts out a lot more neutrinos
in a few seconds than most starts put out in many, many years.

As I recall, the neutrino detectors in Traveller are there for detecting enemy
ships in combat, the idea being that you can home in on the fusion plant of the
enemy ship which is bound to produce neutrinos.

It seems to me that these neutrino detectors are probably going to be sensitive
to the flavor of the neutrino, i.e., whether it is a mu-neutrino or an electron
neutrino, and will either react or not depending.  With flavor mixing falling
out of theoretical quantum mechanics, we could be seeing a significant decrease
in detection at distances on the order of 1 AU.

About FTL:  I've heard the argument before that "if it ain't in this universe,
we can't know what laws apply to it."  The SR reverse time travel result falls
out of the discontinuity which permits superluminal propagation.  I am pretty
sure of my sources.  Apparently, the method has nothing to do with it, it's
strictly the fact that there is a propagation from point A to point B faster
than a photon could do it that gives the time travel result.

Note I am not talking about wormholes, which are weird animals.  But it is also
a "known fact" that causality can be violated inside wormholes.  So, the only
question I have is, who wants to get the electrons stripped of his atoms first?
:-)

Robert P. Poole                       tarquin@athena.mit.edu
46 Massachusetts Avenue               MIT Course VIII
311B Bexley Hall                      "We make Idols of our concepts, but
Cambridge, MA  02139                   wisdom is born of wonder."
                                         -- St. Gregory the Illuminator

-------- TML Message #1830 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1830
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 10:14 EDT
From: METLAY@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Subject: PBEM MAIL FIX-- UTMOST URGENCY!


To any and all PBEMers: 

One of the people who may or may not be on your mailing list is an 
observer with no character of his own, named Eric Sergienko. If you 
have this name on your list, REMOVE IT until further notice. I have
just fielded a very angry letter from a Navy sysadmin at Eric's old
site: I have no details, but his address has stopped working and he's
now considered a "nonexistent" user. Eric, if you read this, contact
your sysadmin or netmgr at once and resolve the problem; you will have
to follow game turns via the TML along with everyone else until things
are straightened out and the ruffled feathers are smoothed on all sides.

Sorry for the bandwidth, folx, but this is faster than a distribution.

metlay

-------- TML Message #1831 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1831
Date:     Wed, 21 Nov 90 10:58:22 EST
From: "Robert S. Dean" <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  Astrophysics and Hydrogen

Since I am not any sort of physicist, I'll go ahead and ask one more stupid
question.  I see by my CRC that deuterium makes up 0.15% (or was it 0.015%)
of hydrogen on Earth.  Is there any reason to believe that this represents
a universal distributrion of the stuff?  I realize full well that I am not
going to find a gas giant with a pure deuterium atmosphere, but what about one
with twice the universal average?  What limits would be reasonable?  

I saw a note in some book review recently where the reviewer thought that 
identifying objects' planets of origin by the isotope ratios of various
elements was a nifty idea.  He apparently hadn't read some of the things I have;
such as the proceedings of a 1970 conference on metallurgy applied to ancient
numismatics, where it is noted that it is apparently quite feasible to identify
which mines silver came from by the distribution of the isotopes of the trace
amounts of lead remaining after refining.  Of course, if you melt down lead
from several different mines in one lump, you can no longer identify it that
way.  (So if you needed an untraceable object, all you would need to do would
be to combine raw materials from two or three places.)

Rob Dean


-------- TML Message #1832 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1832
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 09:01:01 PST
From: Vote For NoneOfTheAbove Write In Candidate 21-Nov-1990 1141 <baranski@meridn.enet.dec.COM>
Subject: Not All Fusion is Created Equal

According to all these Fusion reactions that people are posting, not all Fusion
is created equal.  

All these different Fusion reactions are *real* interesting, and it would be
nice to have someone summarize them as library data, but I don't think it's
necessary to get into this detail in TDR RULES.  As far as the rules go, we can
just pick a fusion reaction which fits nicely as the reaction commonly used in
TDR, and allow powerplant TL differences to indicate the different fusion
techniques, and perhaps pick different fusion reactions for different TLs.

And I can have an adventure about a secret research station working on a
neutrinoless reactor!

Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 07:58:01 -0500
From: "T. L. Hayes" <al646@cleveland.freenet.edu>
Subject: (1823) Massive Embarrassment (Blush Blush, Glow Glow)

"Point is - Hydrogen is VERY abundant, the easiest to fuse, and yields the
best energy returns why use anything else?"

Well, I don't know anything about fusion physics, so I'm speaking from
ignorance.  I'm assuming that there might be other fusion reactions which might
have advantages other then generic H.

But then, metlay is saying helium-3 is a more efficient reaction, and you're
saying hydrogen gives more energy???  which is it?

As far as FTL causing causual problems...  I just don't see it, and don't care
about it in game.

I always wondered what refined and unrefined fuel meant.  I never did
understand how you could have fusion reactors, some of which operated on
unrefined fuel,and some which operated on refined fuel.  For that matter, I've
always given my ships refineries or unrefined fuel reactors.  I guess the
current discussion indicates that refined fuel is D, and unrefined is H???

Jim Baranski
Norwich CT

-------- TML Message #1833 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1833
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 16:18:38 -0500
From: "T. L. Hayes" <al646@cleveland.freenet.edu>
Subject: Combat! (or lack thereof)



So what does everyone think of the MT combat system?  I haven't used it much
(I am only now setting up a group of semi-regular players) but it looks...
cumbersome.  Is it?  The part that looks awkward is the interupts.  You have
two groups the playes and the NPC's:  P1 wants to move 4 squares N1 interupts
P1 and P2 interupts N1 so P2 goes then N1 goes then P1 moves another square
and the whole thing starts over!  I am doing this right aren't I?  Is this
system as messy to use as it looks?

I like the concept of the interupt that is being able to shoot at someone
who is ducking from cover to cover.  This is a fault in games that have 
everyone move then everyone shoots.  What if we used a system something like
Twilight:2000.  Everyone acts on their dex rank (dex/3 round up).  On dex
rank 5 all the fives go - move or shoot on rank 4 the fours and the fives go
and so on till one where everyone goes.  There is a list of possible actions
that you can do during a dex rank and everything in a dex rank occurs at
the same time.  Weapons may need a rate of fire (ie 1/dex rank or 1/2 dex
ranks or 2/dex rank etc).  If one side has surprise then only that side gets
to go.  If you do the same thing every dex rank (declare at the beginning-
no changes during the round) then you go every dex rank regardless of your
dex rank rating.  This would allow "slow" character to lay down cover or
suppressing fire for faster characters by firing every dex rank.

If this sound interesting AND if MT combat is really as messy as it looks
would anyone be interested in seeing a complete and compatible write up
of this system?  I think it should be easy to take from Twilight.  The games
are similar in some ways.  In fact 2ed. Twilight uses a task system that
appears to be similar to MT but I'm not sure as I don't have a copy of 2ed.
only 1ed.  Can anyone with a copy of 2ed Twilight comment on that as well?

Combat is the part of the game that I like the best.  I would like to find
a good, "realistic" (careful-my definition of realistic may vary from 
yours :-) ), and yet quick and easy combat system to use.  One that doesn't
bog down play with tons of charts and tables and dice rolls but still adds
some realism (like hit location).  I also find it difficult to go from
hand-to-hand to melee to gun fire with one system.  Does anyone else have
this problem?

If you don't think the Twilight combat system is a good idea I am open to
suggestions.

TLH

Sorry about the ramblings - Pre-Turkey Day fatigue

PS HAPPY THANKSGIVING, Y'ALL!!!

- - --
T.L.Hayes                  |
MIT/Lincoln Laboratory     |
Lexington, MA              |

-------- TML Message #1834 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1834
Subject: Re: Fusion
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 17:08:16 +0000
From: Tim Day <tday@ps.ucl.ac.uk>

The quoted bits are all taken (without permission) from ``Nuclear Fusion'' 
by Keishiro Niu (pub. CUP)...

``
         1          4
        4 H +2e   =  He + 27.05 Mev
         1          2                   (with a 7% mass decrease)

  The sun continuously shines because of this nuclear fusion.  However
from a small power station on earth (by contrast to the giant sun) the
fusion energy released cannot be obtained because of the very low reaction
rate.''

This reaction has a slow rate (10e-24 of the ``cross-section'' of the
Deuterium-Deuterium reaction) because of the small chance of a colliding
proton decaying into a neutron + positron + neutrino.   But maybe Traveller
fuel plants could use this reaction with the aid of a nuclear damper in decay
rate increase mode ?

Keishiro then goes on to describe three ``generations'' of fusion reaction
(each requiring higher temperatures).

1st Generation:
``      2    3     4     1 
         D +  T =   He +  n   + 17.6MeV
        1    1     2     0
has the greatest possibility of being utilised.''

``The half life of T is 12 years so none exists naturally.''
But it can be synthesised as an intermediate stage of
        6    2     4
         Li + D = 2 He + 22.4 MeV
        3    1     2

[Lithium has never been mentioned in conjunction with trav plants, so scratch
this one].

2nd generation:
``Hydrogen found on earth includes Deuterium in the mass ratio of 1:5000''

                   3     1
                    He + n + 3.27MeV
                   2     0
        2    2  
         D +  D =     OR [with about even probability]
        1    1
                   3    1
                    T  + H  + 4.03MeV
                   1    1

``An oilcan full of heavy water will supply enough energy to run a car for a
lifetime if the car has a fusion engine.''

Yup !  Looks like Trav fusion engines are massively inefficient.
This reaction also outputs neutron radiation and the evil radioactive hydrogen
isotope tritium: half life 12 years, diffuses through anything, gets into
water, organic compounds, YOU!

3rd generation reactions:
``
        1    11       4
         H +   B  =  3 He + 8.7MeV
        1     5       2

        1     6       3    4
         H +   Li =    He + He + 4.0MeV
        1     3       2     2
''
Nice because it outputs nothing but helium (but requires Lithium and/or
Boron again, so forget this one for Trav).


Effieciency of Trav power plants
- - ---------------------------------
The prescence of neutrino detectors in MegaTrav, and the fact that 1 ton of
gas giant atmosphere from your refuelling shuttle can be refined
into 1 ton of fuel, not just 0.2kg of Deuterium, is strong evidence that the
proton-proton reaction is somehow used in Trav power plants.
The reactor will probably incorporate sort of weak-interaction rate
increaser (a nuclear damper related device or other handwaving).

1MeV = 1.6e-13 Joules

Avogadro's Number: 6e23 per mole

          1 2
1 Mole of  H  weighs 0.002kg
          1

          1 2
1 Mole of  H  releases 0.5 * 6*10^23 * 27.05*1.6*10^-13 = 1.3*10^12 J
          1            

          1 2
1 Ton of   H  releases 1000/0.002 * above = 6.6*10^17 J
          1

Striker
- - -------
  A TL15 fusion plant outputs 6MW, using 1.5l/hour fuel.
  1l fuel weighs 0.07kg = 7*10^-5 tons.
  Energy out (according to book) = 6*10^6 * 3600             = 2.2*10^10 J
  Energy out if 100% efficient   = 1.5 * 7*10^-5 * 6.6*10^17 = 6.9*10^13 J
  => Efficiency 0.032%    (about 0.01% at TL9).

MegaTraveller
- - -------------
  A (large enough) TL15 reactor outputs 18MW using 9l/hour.
  This is 3 times as much as a Striker reactor, but needs 6 times as much fuel
  => Efficiency 0.016%

TL16 plants are marginally better.  And then at TL17 antimatter plants appear
(Hmm... wonder why there aren't many TL17 planets around :^)

If Trav plants were using the D-D reaction, they would be 7.4 times
more efficient... about 0.25%.

You can think of any number of excuses for poor inefficiency.  Just how
do you extract useable energy from a fusion reactor anyway ?  Apparently it is
somehow theoretically possible to extract electric current directly; this would
be so useful you might not be too bothered about efficiency.
Current power stations need huge amounts of cooling water.  Can you radiate
off waste heat fast enough from a small starship ?  Possibly the vast majority
of the fuel (99.984%) is just vented off as cooling.

It's a shame there isn't a bit more variety in Trav fusion plants over the 
tech levels, especially considering that low tech chemical fuel power plants
about double in efficiency every two tech levels.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  Tim Day        tday@uk.ac.ucl.ps     | If I knew how starship drives really
  Department of Insanity and Surveying | worked, I'd be writing to the patent
  UCL, Gower St., London  WC1E 6BT     | office, not the Traveller mailing list
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

PS Orca's original 0.0000002% was based on H-H fusion being 4*10^6 times better
than it really is due to c being wrong, and the calculated energy release
should have been per 4 moles of H, which corrects it to  0.8% efficiency.
Where did you get the amount of fuel used from ?  Are maneuver drives more
efficient than power plants ?

-------- TML Message #1835 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1835
From: Jim Cheetham <jim@oasis.icl.stc.co.uk>
Subject: Gravitational effects
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 90 8:26:19 GMT

> Paul Baughman writes ...
>
>Gravity for stopping lasers?  This would work for missles, maybe, via tidal
>effects, but not lasers.  The G-field would provide a doppler shift to the

Well, perhaps everything isn't exactly real-world scientific (like, let's
not get into physics flaming!) but you remember the Einstein experiment
that involved watching the sun eclipse a star, and they proved that gravity
had an effect on photons ... well ... the idea here is just to stop the
laser hitting properly - anything that deflects it by even a small amount
is good, as lasers have to hit parallel to a surface to do the most
damage.

Basically, the shields throw such a huge spanner in the works that if
they don't totally negate incoming weapons, they at least screw up the
aiming, detonation and so on ...

(Mind you, that's AOK for 1/2 man fighters, but how do they protect
 the Leviathan ships ? They're several kilometers long ... Hmmm ...)

        _____               ____  _               _   _  
       (__ __) o  ______   (  __)( )_  ___  ___ _( )_( )_  ___   ______
      (____)  (_)(_)()(_)  (____)(_)_)(__=)(__=) (_)_(_)_)(___)_(_)()(_)
Jim Cheetham, jim@oasis.icl.stc.co.uk, BRA01 0344 424842 x3121 (ITD 763 3121)
              *********************** - as from December 1990 onwards,
              use jim@oasis.icl.co.uk due to corporate restructuring.
    #include <std/disclaimer.h> /* To keep the company lawyer happy */

-------- TML Message #1836 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1836
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 17:37:33 -0500
From: wrgate.wr.tek.com!tnc!m0068@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Open question for TML

From: m0068@tnc.UUCP (Stephen D Smith)
Subject: Open question to the TML
Organization: personal mailbox at The Next Challenge
 
I've been passing along the TML to Scott Kellogg, so he's been
seeing your responses to my recient posting of his ship designs.
(Albeit with a time lagg.) Well he's been busy again and I have
about 58k worth of them. Scott has been running his own campaign
and has dropped our characters down on a planet that is essentially
in the middle of World War II, at least as far as technology is
concerned. After taking a fighter in the ship's bow, (the tail is
still sticking out of the hole right now!), I get the feeling we'll
be here for a while. In this new bunch of designs Scott has re-
created some of the craft of WWII TL's.
 
My question to the TML, (considering the problems from my last
massive posting of Scott's stuff), is does anyone mind/object?
Here's a listing and brief description of what I've got waiting;
 
****************************************************************
 
Ballistic Missile Sub TL8 "Typhoon" Class "Red October" subclass
     Meant to simulate either the book or movie version.
 
Attack Submarine TL8 "Alfa" Class
     "Alfa" class attack sub is featured in 'The Hunt for Red
     October'
 
Heavy Cruiser TL 15 "Atlantic" Class
     "Atlantic" class heavy cruiser typical of the Imperium
 
System Defence Drone TL 15 "Watcher" Class
     Used by Imperial Navy and Scout forces the 'Watcher' series
     is usually deployed from an Air/Raft bay. Four 'Watcher's can
     be stored in a bay. With its fuel scoops it can spend up to
     a year inside a gas giant's atmosphere or submerged in an
     ocean before requireing maintenance.
 
Reconaissance Drone TL 15 "Lurker" Class
     A TL 15 smart weapon. The 'Lurker' is used primarily by
     Imperial ground forces. The Army and Marines use it for
     patrols, guard duty, harrassment raids as well as systematic
     search and destroy missions. 
 
Patrol Submarine TL6 "Gato" Class
     This is the Fleet Type sub from the Pacific theater of WWII.
     Don't you hate it when players drop in on your nice little low
     tech planet and proceed to loot, kill and maim and you don't
     have anything to throw at them?  Just wait till they try to
     refuel...
 
Dreadnaught TL 15, "Kokirrak" Class
     "The 'Kokirrak' class dreadnaught is one of the more common
     classes of capitol ships in service in the Spinward Marches;
 
Attack Submarine TL8 "Los Angeles" Class
     The US Navy's big attack sub. It is the early version, before
     the fitting of 12 verticle launch tubes for Tomahawk missiles.
 
Fleet Escort TL 15 "P.F. Sloan" Class
     "The 'P.F. Sloan' Class fleet escort is intended for routine
     fleet security and support.
 
Dreadnaught TL 15, "Plankwell" Class
     "Plankwell" class dreadnaught a more specialized ship than
     the multi-task oriented 'Tigress' class. Lacking the extensive
     troop complement and the large fighter screen, the "Plankwell"
     fulfills a more traditional battleship role, as the center of
     a fleet of supporting ships.
 
Darrian Fixed Wing Air/Raft TL13 "Saab" Class
     The 'Saab' is renouned as the safest air/raft in operation.
 
Fast Cutter TL 15 "Sparrow" Class
     The 'Sparrow' class cutter is designed for use as an auxillury
     by warships.
 
Heavy Fighter TL 15 "Talon" Class
     The 'Talon' class fighter is commonly carried aboard heavy
     carriers and other naval vessels.  Occasionally, a ship which
     does not ordinarily carry fighters will substitute a 'Talon'
     for one of its launches. 
 
Light Tanker TL11 "Cow" Class
     The 'Cow' class tankers were concieved as a supplement to
     'Wolf' operations.  A 'Cow' can easily support two 'Wolves'.
     More often it is called upon to support more by making
     multiple fuel runs.
 
Tanker TL11 7-11 Series
     In order to use the heavy firepower of the 'Wolf' carriers,
     they travel in large numbers. Fleets of one hundred to one
     thousand 'Wolves' are common. These fleets are supported by
     large numbers of '7-11' series tankers.
 
Light Intruder TL 15 "Fox" Class
     The 'Thunder Fox' class light intruder is the Imperial Navy's
     equivalent of the attack sub.
 
Light Intruder TL 15 "Thunder" Class
     Fuctions as squadron coordinator and houses the squadron's
     black globe.
 
Dreadnaught TL 15, "Tigress" Class
     Although some older battleships of greater displacement remain
     in service, the 'Tigress' class dreadnaught is the largest
     line-of-battle vessel currently in service with the Imperial
     Navy in the Spinward Marches.
 
****************************************************************
 
Is there interest for these designs? Unless I get a lot of
objections I'll wait three days and post Scott's stuff in small
amounts to keep from swamping the list again. 
 
          Stephen D Smith   USENET: m0068@tnc.UUCP
                            BIX: sdsmith

- - --Name = STEPHEN SMITH  Mailbox # = 68

-------- TML Message #1837 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1837
Subject: PBEM Question from Kelly
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 9:10:34 PST
From: Richard Johnson <richard@agora.UUCP>


I got this Saturday morning, and thought I'd share it with all of us --
looks interesting.


: I'm trying to get a few facts about the Alcyon.
: First, if anyone knows the formula for the volume of a tetrahedron, please
;   send me the dimension(s) for one of 30 million cubic meters.  I need the
:   length of an edge, and would also appreciate height (from base to apex)
:   and area of a face.

: Second, I'd like a definitive answer on the small craft (not including
:   probes, etc) carried by the Alcyon.  At the moment, I have listed:

:  "Fighter" (40t; given the size and the presence of a stateroom, I'd
; 	     call this a Combat Pinnace)
:   Fuel Shuttle (95t?)
:   Command Shuttle (95t?)

- - ------------------------------
Kelly St.Clair (Nishu Neriika)
kstclair@jacobs.cs.orst.edu


For those who dont remember, the Alcyon is a jump tender, a tetrahedron
with three riders and a bridge up front.  I sure wish I remembered the
formula, but alas do not.

Other small vehicles I recall are two grav bikes, an air raft, and grav
bus, and a submersible.  There are also small craft that might be
carried by the Aurora, Paladin, and Talisman.
Richard

-------- TML Message #1838 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1838
Date: 24 Nov 90 03:56:23 EST
From: Leonard Erickson <70465.203@compuserve.COM>
Subject: Reaction drives, fusion reactors

Back in grade school and high school in the late 60s/early 70s, there
was a common poster in science classrooms that gave data on various
sorts of reaction drives.

I remember the figures for a few sorts of drives (all figures to one
significant figure)
drive			specific impulse
chemical		400 (shuttle main engines are about 420)
"nuclear heating"	800 (Heinlein's ships using "single H")
fusion			600,000
photon			30,000,000

Specific impulse is (roughly) defined as pounds of fuel per second per
pound of thrust. Or you could use kilos, or tons. (Yes, I know that we
are mixing mass units with force units, that's the way it's done)

When I first bought Traveller I checked, and found a comment that
stated that a ship running at 1g on maneuver drive would have about a
weeks fuel. I worked out the specfic impulse, and it came out very
close to 600,000. I guess they read the same chart. Note that a Saturn
V (6 million pounds thrust) would only need 10 lbs per second of fuel
if it used a fusion drive. 

This makes calculations *very* easy. And note that for a manuever
drive, the "inefficiency" is because you *have* to throw away a lot of
the fuel as reaction mass.

Also, note that the exhaust plume is *very* hot. Probably glowing in
the ultraviolet! You'd see it as this incredible purple color. And
"tailgating" isn't advised. And landing will tend to burn holes in
*anything*. 

The *basic* rocketry equations are quite simple, though you can mostly
ignore them for a fusion drive as the mass ratios become so low, that
you can ignore them for most manuevers. 

Finally, a photon drive, is nothing more than one *hell* of a laser. 
I
would be like. You could easily use it for carving *planets* into
chunks!

Oh yes, with the scale of fusion they have in Traveller, you don't
*need* transmutation. Just convert rock, asteroids, *garbage* into a
plasma. At a high (but not unreasonably so, compared with some of the
fusion reactions discussed here) temperature, *all* chemical bonds
fail. So you can run the plasma thru what amounts to a overgrown mass
spectrograph, and seperate out not just pure elements, but likely pure
*isotopes*. And after the capital costs, it'd be cheap to operate. 
Store "junk" elements as convenient compounds (like silicon dioxide) 
and use the rest. So what if gold is only a few parts per million? 
Guess how much that adds up to from even a *small* asteroid. 



-------- TML Message #1839 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1839
Date: Fri, 23 Nov 90 15:27:22 MST
From: "Nick Christenson, University of Arizona" <npc@electron.physics.arizona.edu>
Subject: Fusion and TDR.

(For reference purposes, my background is a physics grad
student specializing in stellar astrophysics.)

The fusion debate on TML has been going on for a while now and
most of the arguments have been factual, but I think many of
the posters have been presenting facts without thinking about
what they want to say.  The important question to address is:
How should powerplants work in TDR.  We can decide on what 
sort of energy efficiency we want and then figure out how the
power plants work (and fudge them to make them work out right,
this is what GDW did, but not terribly well) *or* we can figure
out how the power plants are going to work and let our game
mechanics be decided by whatever ramifications the physics has.
I favor the latter.  It's no more work and it's more realistic.
The disadvantage is that it would make TDR look less like the
familiar Traveller.  It is apparent that Metlay, Dow and some
of the others on this net have become aware that Traveller Done
Right may have very little resemblence to Traveller.  

First off, let's assume that a ship's power plant uses D+D for
its reaction.  Now we fudge fuel requirements for various things
to give space and weight figures that we like.  There are some
things that we can't fudge, though.  First, fuel skimming.  Since
about 1% (from memory) of natural Hydrogen is Deuterium, skimming
for fuel will now take 100 times longer than it used to (how long
it would take using a p+p cycle, to my knowledge, has never been
stated authoritatively.)  Note that if a majority of fuel intake
is used for reaction mass, this isn't a problem.  We could have 
power plants use p+p and then skimming is still viable.  Then we 
must have rules for "supercharging" the engine using higher 
concentrations of Deuterium.  We could also use one of the higher 
level fusion methods Metlay suggested, but that would prevent skimming 
altogether.  I think the first option is best.  In any case, we 
calculate energy conversion (and mass loss using fuel as reaction 
mass, regular Hydrogen could be used for this.)

>From the choice of power system, many things have been decided for
us.  Can neutrino detectors work?  Well, that depends on what type
of fusion reaction is used (as an occasional twist, specialized
ships might be built using a different fusion change.)  The important
thing (and this will go for computers, maneuver drives, jump drives,
screens, and weapons too!) is to decide how something will work,
figure out the consequences and if we don't like the consequences,
start over having the system work a different way.  Note that
the "committee" method is especially unsuited to this as people's
opinions on which way things work will differ.  I say since its 
Metlay is in charge he can decide.  Since he also knows what he's
doing with game mechanics and physics, he can figure out the 
consequences.  Of course this has him doing all the work, but that's
what I had said earlier.  Any serious game designer knows that
you have to do all the hard work by yourself.

Oh, as a note to the person who asked (if they had the endurance
to read this far:-), we can expect Deuterium concentrations on 
earth to be roughtly the same elsewhere in the galaxy.  Any excess
Deuterium created in the p+p process gets eaten up quickly
in a D+p reaction that has a much, much higher cross section than
p+p.  The 1% D rule can be expected to hold true just about everywhere.

Nick Christenson
npc@electron.physics.arizona.edu

-------- TML Message #1840 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1840
From: Adrian Hurt <adrian@cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk>
Subject: Gravity vs. lasers
Date: Fri, 23 Nov 90 9:51:26 GMT

Jim Cheetham <jim@oasis.icl.stc.co.uk> writes:
> 
> > Paul Baughman writes ...
> >
> >Gravity for stopping lasers?  This would work for missles, maybe, via tidal
> >effects, but not lasers.
> 
> ...					you remember the Einstein experiment
> that involved watching the sun eclipse a star, and they proved that gravity
> had an effect on photons ... well ... the idea here is just to stop the
> laser hitting properly - anything that deflects it by even a small amount
> is good, as lasers have to hit parallel to a surface to do the most
> damage.

Quick reality check here; just how strong a gravitational field do you need
to have any useful effect on an incoming laser beam?  What effect is such a
field going to have on any mass in the vicinity?

"Captain, we stopped that pirate's lasers.  We also moved the third moon of
Regina out of its orbit.  I don't think we're very welcome here any more ..."

- - -- 
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk

-------- End of TML Messages --------

