Gateworld Virtual Fleet 4.0 - Discussion thread

[thekillman]

Wikipedia is not a recognized reference site by many major institutions primarily because it is user edited and is not peer reviewed. if you are in college getting your degree you should know this

oh hey let's look around. This is an internet forum where i talk to strangers about stuff i love. it's not ****ing college. In the time you took to write your ****ty, insulting reply you could've booted up google or opened a geology book and found the ****ing answer yourself.

Be happy i'm actually prepared to reply to you. You're the one who didn't know why there's no stealth in space. Don't preach me.


Because i have completionism OCD:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/r.../10_heat.shtml
There. Since you obviously never had any training to handle data proper. Wikipedia has this cool citation feature where they put a neat scribble, like [1] behind any claim they make. Click that. It gives you the link where they got this from. Click the link. I think the people of the Berkeley University of California are a more credible source than wikipedia, right?

Wikipedia is not a recognized reference site

Oh you know everything about citations? Clearly you don't. Next time answer your own stupid questions.

[Cmdr. Setsuna F. Seyei]

First of all you shouldn't get so testy when someone disagrees with you all I said is that I would rather have something other than Wikipedia due to its unreliability. And considering the fact that I am about to graduate at the top of my class as an Electronics Engineer I do know how to handle data and unreliable data is the same as no data at all.

P.S. For you to get upset about something as simple as someone asking for a more reliable reference shows how immature you are.

[StargateWatcher]

[QUOTE=thekillman;14222042]
I think the people of the Berkeley University of California are a more credible source than wikipedia, right?
QUOTE]

Even though we have had occasional disagreements oin the past, I, not surprisingly, agree with you on this one. Firstly, it's a university, and secondly, one of the world's greatest universities by academic teaching material and researching for new discoveries (there are at least 9 Nobel Laureates who've taught there). My mother also went there, so of course I think well of UC-Berkeley.

However, I'm not getting involved in this semantics argument on either of your sides.

[thekillman]

if you are in college getting your degree you should know this

This is not "simply asking for a more reliable reference". It's being rude.

I think that's all there is to say. Maybe you should read your posts and rethink how you came across to me.

[thekillman]

Gormagon, i just wanted to point out that there's no need to invent a new area of science to deal with zero g. There are three ways (or more if i'm missing any) to deal with the effects of zero g. i'll resist the temptation to call it Nullo. the effects of reading Ender's Game are wearing off slowly ;D.

The three ways are:
*reducing the symptoms
*changing the environment
*removing the source.

Translated, this means:

Reducing the symptions
The human body is adapted to gravity. It's not just there to fight, but it's also used as a signal by the body. E.g. it tells bones and muscles how strong they should be, and how hard your heart should pump. Without gravity, the body is re-adjusting to a new situation. With medication, it may be possible to slow down this adjustment. It's not for the long term, but it may slow down the effects enough to make staying a few months in space, easy.

The effects suggest actual atrophy, or programmed cell death. In a natural condition, AFAIK, if the body is stronger than it needs to be (like, working out for a few months and then stopping the regime), the body simply doesn't regenerate the cells as fast. With atropy, we're talking percentages per month.

If a human wants to be in space perpetually it may not be a problem. Nobody's tried that. But it's suggested that for instance Birth is impossible in space. There will be ferry jobs where people move cargo to space, stay there a while and then return. Anti-atrophy drugs would come in handy. Without it, nobody would undertake missions longer than a year if they intend on returning to gravity. Half a year requires two years of recuperation for bone loss while it may never fully recover. Longer than that means astronauts come back with a severe dysfunction.

Changing the environment
This is where artificial gravity comes in. There is only one way to make artificial gravity: Acceleration. This can both be rotary or in a direction. A ship accelerating at ~10m/s^2 will simulate gravity. A rotating ring with a Normal acceleration of 10m/s^2 will simulate gravity. I'm saying 10, but in reality it's in the neighborhood of 9.81m/s^2. It varies per location on earth tho.

A rotation has the advantage that, even though the actual rotary speed may be constant (and thus there is no angular acceleration), the (absolute) direction of the normal force changes constantly. So, there is a constant outer force. The simplest model for a rotating habitat is a ring that rotates in it's entirety. The disadvantages are docking and course corrections. Any approaching ship would not just have to match the direction but also the rotation.

More complex models of spacecraft may overcome this with multiple rotary rings in counter rotation. This should also reduce the difficulty of maneuvering. However, the complexity comes from the interaction between the ring and the rest of the craft. E.g. how to properly run fuel lines etc. A craft with artificial gravity would simply be more complex to design and operate and maintain.


The ideal

The ideal would be a combination between anti-atrophy drugs and artificial gravity. permanent habitats would require it, while anyone on a parttime space mission could take the drug.

removing the source
This can be interpreted two ways. The first interpretation i already mentioned: people stay in space forever. They'll be weaker, but it will also be less of a problem. They won't be able to reproduce in space. There may be even worse effects. I don't know.

The second interpretation; the invention of the Spacer. That is, a human genetically modified to live in space. The ideal template would be a small human, making somebody of asian descent a likely candidate. Smaller means less mass and volume. Mass is expensive in space so a small-space adapted human would be ideal. It would also mean that Spacers would be the exclusive candidate for long-term space missions which would probably not sit well with an established astronaut community.

Now, it's unlikely that "the" spacer would be developed in one go. Initial spacers may be little more than a human that doesn't suffer from a handful of those space defects, until eventually the holy grail -birth in space- becomes possible. The problem will be that corporations will likely fund the Spacer program, and it will cause an entanglement of priorities. That is, it's not necessarily so that the corporations will be Evil. But a corporation exists in a state where tens, to hundreds to thousands of forces act upon and some of them are mutually exclusive. Ensuring there's money may seem like greed, but if there's no money to keep a Habitat in the air, it's game over for everyone on board. Space is ruled by harsh equations that have no morality or contempt. If a station can hold 20 people, it can hold 20 people and not 21. If there's an economic crisis, it may be more human to purposefully end one station and kill people than potentially cause all your habs to shut down due to bankruptcy.


In the end, you can make a story as you see fit. I just want to point out that there are more routes, and that the more fantasy elements you include, the more holes may appear in a story. Better to avoid magitech.

[immhotep]

Wow just logged on for the first time in ages and the major development in fleet worlds seems to be a debate about the reliability of wikipedia. I am sad.

[thekillman]

Wow just logged on for the first time in ages and the major development in fleet worlds seems to be a debate about the reliability of wikipedia. I am sad.

that's a bit of an exaggeration now, tep. There's been quite some talk on gormagon's semi-hardcore idea.

I must say that nowadays, i'm torn between hard sci fi and high(?) fantasy. I love LOTR, The Hobbit, the marvel movies (yes that's fantasy) harry potter etc. However, i like the act of worldbuilding more than i do coming up with stories. I am even considering figuring out a way to marry high fantasy to hardcore scifi. If that's at all possible.

I've also been watching all six Star Wars movies and read the Legacy comics. I can't help but be bothered by the whole "dark side of the force is inherently evil" deal. Emotions are human. Deal with them, rather than block them out. No wonder the dark side is so alluring.

[Gormagon]

Well the thing is he really wanted Inertial dampeners and I don't blame him, to make sublight travel easier.

Is there an easy chart or something that you know of that allows people to see things like acceleration compared to the inertial stress for ships and people, for example, 'how long to Mars' without turning your crew into pancakes?

[Cmdr. Setsuna F. Seyei]

This is not "simply asking for a more reliable reference". It's being rude.

I think that's all there is to say. Maybe you should read your posts and rethink how you came across to me.

No its not rude, its stating a simple fact. If you are going to reference something about real world facts make sure that your source is a reliable one.

[thekillman]

Well the thing is he really wanted Inertial dampeners and I don't blame him, to make sublight travel easier.

Is there an easy chart or something that you know of that allows people to see things like acceleration compared to the inertial stress for ships and people, for example, 'how long to Mars' without turning your crew into pancakes?

The short answer is:

3G and 10G.

3G is roughly the maximum acceleration a human body can endure for long periods.
10G is roughly the pass-out limit for short acceleration bursts (measured in tenths of seconds to a second -roughly-).


In case cmdr. needs a source:

Here

for example, 'how long to Mars' without turning your crew into pancakes?

This is slightly more complex to answer. Well, it has a simple and a difficult answer.

There are many ways to get from planet to planet, but there are two extreme cases that matter: Brachistochrone and Hohmann transfers.

Bachistochrone is the case of pointing your ship to a planet, accelerating half the way and decelerating the other half. Important to note is that this is a minimum time, maximum cost transit. It's easy, but the spaceship you need requires quite the engine power (and it's way, WAY out of current capability).

Hohmann is the exact opposite and relies on planetary alignments for a minimum cost, maximum transit time transfer. This can only happen during a transfer window, where the planets are aligned such that a (relatively) tiny amount of thrust can nudge your ship from one orbit to the other. To get an idea, the earth-mars transfer window occurs every 2 years, 1.6 months.

For an easy reference, this probably will work:

Mission Table

[Cmdr. Setsuna F. Seyei]

In case cmdr. needs a source:

Here

Thanx for the ref. Not really needed but most appreciated.

[Gormagon]

I'm short on time so I have to be brief, can energy from the sun be used to generate antimatter? How plausible is an energy collection/antimatter production center on Mercury as compared to say...Jupiter?

[thekillman]

I'm short on time so I have to be brief, can energy from the sun be used to generate antimatter? How plausible is an energy collection/antimatter production center on Mercury as compared to say...Jupiter?

Surprisingly likely. With plenty of power (and requiring quite an industry and maintenance) one could build massive solar farms and hundreds of particle smashers to produce antimatter. It would require a post-scarcity, Neumann -capable society tho.


While current smashers produce atrociously little amat per smash ( i recall the efficiency to be in the order of 10^-9), it's because they're not made for that specific purpose. 10^- 2 , 10^-4 (a rough scale depending on exact technological advances) efficiencies are possible. However, the theoretical max will always be 50%.


AMAT can be harvested from the upper atmosphere too. Not nearly enough to have pure amat power but for amat catalyzed (well strictly not the correct term) fusion it could work. basically cosmic rays create antimatter (This is the ultra-brief version).

[Gormagon]

How plausible is a 500 M.W x ray laser? What are realistic DEW yields and Kinetic speeds for mass?

[thekillman]

How plausible is a 500 M.W x ray laser? What are realistic DEW yields and Kinetic speeds for mass?

Power rating is not really a good way to define a laser. E.g. the National Ignition Facility uses a 500 terawatt laser. It only fires for a few pico seconds. This sounds like insane firepower. However, P=W/t (power = work /time) and since tera is 10^12 and pico is 10^-12, it's essentially a 500 joule burst. (comparable to the world record men's discus throw, for comparison.)

Such devices put such strain on the laser optics that they can fire only a couple of times per day (depending on the device, sometimes per hour). On the other hand, a 500 megawatt laser firing for 1 million picoseconds (1 nanosecond) would achieve the same total energy. etc etc etc.


The problem with lasers and just about any weapon in space is heat, not power. Orbital speeds are in the order of kilometer per second. And if your spaceship can reach it, a missile certainly can