Nyrath
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Posts posted by Nyrath
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Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?
More to the point' date=' the concept of Coruscant as single city encompassing the entire planet was .... borrowed ... from Trantor. This is because Isaac Asimov first wrote about Trantor in 1942.[/quote']http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trantor#Inspired_by_Trantor
There have been some serious attempts to illustrate a planet like Trantor in the Star Wars films by George Lucas, the first being Coruscant (which was in some early sources called "Jhantor", in homage to Trantor). -
Re: Fiction resources for Solar HERO.
In this case' date=' "transhuman" is being used incorrectly. There is no transhumanism in the GURPS book, just very high technology[/quote']
D'OH!! { slaps forehead }Ignore what I said. I was thinking about GURPS: Terradyne, not GURPS: Transhuman.
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Re: Orion Drive space battleship
The problem is that we don't need to launch 8 million tons of anything into orbit nearly enough to embrace the downside risks, and this just isn't a process that scales down.That's frustrating, too. Maybe someday we will have a plan that requires launch a city into orbit. But we don't now, and we certainly didn't 50 years ago.
You might have noticed that there is a shortage of clean energy on planet Earth.
A series of space based solar power stations could be the solution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power#Dealing_with_launch_costs
A single 4 gigawatt SPS would require about 80,000 metric tons to be boosted into orbit. The super Orion could send up 100 of these in one launch. Since each 4 GW SPS is the output of a largish nuclear reactor, one would need lots of SPS to meet the power needs of the planet.
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Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?
The margin of safety could be provided by the fact that Trantor did in fact have native food production ability in the form of the infamous "yeast vats".Used to have yeast vats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trantor#Food_production
In Prelude to Foundation (1989), Asimov indicates that this was not always so: originally, most of Trantor's basic food needs were fulfilled by Trantor's "vast microorganism farms.". Yeast vats and algae farms produced basic nutrients, which were then processed with artificial flavors into palatable food. The subterranean farms, however, depended entirely on care provided by tik-toks (lesser robots), and their destruction following an abortive uprising (chronicled in Foundation's Fear) left the Imperial capital largely dependent upon food brought from other worlds. Hindsight observers might recognize that it is was therefore the tik-tok uprising, perhaps more than any other single event, that set the stage for Trantor's sack and the final collapse of the Galactic Empire. Foundation's Edge mentions algae growing on Trantor, which is called a totally inadequate source of food, so it is possible some of the later Emperors attempted to rectify the situation with limited success. -
Re: Orion Drive space battleship
Well, the basic problem is that using chemical rockets as heavy lift vehicles makes as much sense as filling a public swimming pool with an eyedropper. Chemical rockets are far too weak.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ay.html
The biggest chemical booster contemplated is Sea Dragon, which can lift 550 metric tons.
A nuclear gas core booster could boost 1,000 metric tons. A nuclear planetary Orion could boost 3,000 metric tons. And a super Orion could boost 8,000,000 metric tons.
Better solutions are much more expensive, space elevators and related items. They need lots of infrastructure, and will take a long time to construct.
A basic space elevator could lift 2,000 metric tons/year. An advanced space elevator could lift 6,000 metric tons/year. A small Lofstrom loop could lift 40,000 metric tons/year. A Bifrost Bridge laser launcher could lift 175,200 metric tons/year. And a large Lofstrom loop could lift 6,000,000 metric tons/year.
Of course, space elevators and Lofstrom loops are pathetically vulnerable to terrorist attack.
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Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?
How many ships' date=' of what size, were unloaded at Trantor each day, or hour? How long did that unloading take? Was the unloading done at orbital transfer stations, or on the surface?[/quote']Well, let's fiddle with some numbers.
Trantor at its height had a population of 45 billion people. The requirement is 2.3 kg of food per man per day. Multiplying it out, Trantor requires about 1x10^11 kilograms of food a day.
A supertanker has a DWT of about 550,000 DWT, which is about 5x10^8 kg.
So to supply Trantor, you'd need to have 200 of these space supertankers to arrive every day, minimum. And unload them.
Reading the novels, I can make a WAG that it would take about 2 days to travel from one of the 20 agro worlds to Trantor. If I haven't overlooked anything, this would mean you'd need 800 supertankers total, to ensure a constant daily arrival of 200 supertankers. This is 40 supertankers per agro world.
This is a bare minimum, just-in-time arrangement. You'd want to have several times this, as a safety reserve. This will allow Trantor to stockpile extra food.
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Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?
Matter of scale. It's rare to find science fiction with an actual sense of scale.True.
If one wants a sense of scale about a galactic empire go here
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ac.html#terminology
and scroll down to "From "Galactic Empires" by Dr. Robert A. Freitas Jr."
It notes that to the Galactic Emperor, planetary governors are "the rabble."
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Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?
Matter of scale. It's rare to find science fiction with an actual sense of scale.There are orders of magnitude in scale and complexity and vulnerability between feeding NYC from across the US, and feeding a world of 60 billion from across galaxy.
Depends on the assumptions. In Niven and Pournelle's THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, the circumstances are such that feeding even a small colony using food transport starships is flatly impossible. But this assumes that there are only a few thousand starships in all of human space.
In the Foundation trilogy, the galactic empire actually encompasses the entire galaxy (instead of just a segment as does the Star Wars empire). The Trantorian empire could easily support several trillion starships just to feed Trantor. IIRC Trantor had 20 agricultural worlds nearby whose entire output went to Trantor.
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Re: Fiction resources for Solar HERO.
Hmmm .....I'll admit to not having that one' date=' but Transhuman-isim doesn't really fit with Solar level campaigning does it? I suppose in some ways it could. Have to look at a few Transhumanist books and debate it.[/quote']In this case, "transhuman" is being used incorrectly. There is no transhumanism in the GURPS book, just very high technology
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Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?
I believe Lucas cited Dune as one of his biggest influences at the time. There was even a giant worm skeleton!Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought you were implying that Lucas was NOT influenced by Dune. My mistake.
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The furthest of the four, Callisto, appears to have frozen as it formed. The remaining moon, Ganymede, was a bit of a mystery. Like Callisto, it appears to be a mixture of rock and water, with a big difference: on Ganymede, the water appears to have melted, allowing the rock to sink to the core, and then froze up again. Two scientists from the Southwest Research Institute now think they know why: Ganymede was hit so hard by asteroids and comets during the solar system's early history that it underwent runaway melting.
Or billions of years ago, the inhabitants of Ganymede had a private little nuclear war. Or maybe they were bombarded into oblivion by hostile extrasolar aliens.
In both cases, deep drilling expeditions would find lots of useful paleotechnology....
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Re: Fiction resources for Solar HERO.
Planetes would also work well.Seconded. Lots of good material there.
I'd also add Alexis A. Gilliland's Rosinante series
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Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?
No more than Tatooine was borrowed from Dune.
Well, there are quite a few desert planets in SF stories and novels. But I cannot recall any 100% city encrusted planets except for Trantor.
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Re: Orion Drive space battleship
So' date=' best case scenario, sending one of these to orbit would be the equivalent of setting off 30 "standard" atmospheric tests.[/quote']I'm not sure, I'll have to check my references.
Of course with your figures it will be 3 standard atmospheric tests if it launches from the North Magnetic Pole.
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Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?
Trantor was the capital of the Galactic Empire in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Like Coruscant it supposedly had a city that encompassed the entire entire planet...at least the land parts.More to the point, the concept of Coruscant as single city encompassing the entire planet was .... borrowed ... from Trantor. This is because Isaac Asimov first wrote about Trantor in 1942.
Anybody who wants to do a decline and fall of the Galactic Empire campaign owes it to themselves to read the Foundation Trilogy.
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Re: Orion Drive space battleship
As the author says' date=' there is no such thing as a pure fusion device.[/quote']Yes. that's why the source I read said "by a factor of ten."
If it was a pure fusion device, the fallout would be reduced to zero.
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Re: Orion Drive space battleship
I've read that the amount of fallout can be reduced by a factor of 10 by using thermonuclear fusion charges instead of fission charges. In addition, the fallout can be reduced by a further factor of ten if the spacecraft is launched near the north or south magnetic poles. This prevents the Earth's magnetosphere from capturing the fallout and returning it to the surface.
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Re: 1962 Nuke Test jeopardized Apollo program
"a hundredfold." Very scientific. Surely the Sun is dumping thousands of times as many charged particles' date=' at least, into the magnetosphere every day?[/quote']No, apparently not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt#Causes
Note the comment about "Starfish"
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Re: Orion Drive space battleship
The Orion Battleship has landing boats
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=5167
Somebody noted that they reminded them of the landing boats featured in the Niven and Pournelle's novel THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE. Which you really should read if you are into space opera.
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Re: Orion Drive space battleship
Apparently' date=' a space cruiser was also considered by the USN.More details here:
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Re: Lockheed Martin HULC Exoskeleton
Personally, I'm holding out for a suit of powered armor, like they had in the novel STARSHIP TROOPERS. The novel, NOT the movie.
They were nowhere near as refined as Tony Stark's Iron Man armor, but much closer to something you'd mass produce to outfit your troops with.
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Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?
Hey' date=' that's a good point. If they're shipping in millions of tons of food, does that mean the population is producing millions of tons of crap? What do they do with it all?[/quote']Well, there is no sense in all those food transport starships going back home empty...
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Re: Orion Drive space battleship
Now' date=' assembling Orion in orbit is another matter.[/quote']Which is utterly worthless.
Orion is optimized for surface to orbit boosts.
Once you are in orbit, Orion's low exhaust velocity make it a very unattractive choice compared to the many high exhaust velocity propulsion systems (VASIMR, ion drives, etc.)
In other words: the only mission where Orion makes sense is surface to orbit boosts.
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Re: Lockheed Martin HULC Exoskeleton
Iron Man, here we come.
D'OH!! { slaps forehead }
Your Top Ten Science Fiction Writers, and then some.
in Star Hero
Posted
Re: Your Top Ten Science Fiction Writers, and then some.
Piper's SPACE VIKING and THE COSMIC COMPUTER (aka JUNKYARD PLANET) would make outstanding Star Hero campaigns