11-15-2018, 09:10 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
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Historically, even vaguely reliable solid rocket motors are very late TL6 or more likely early TL7. Also historically controllable gliders are early to mid TL6 and it doesn't hurt if your name is 'Wright". Before Orville and Wilbur and even for a little while after no one else knew what they were doing in the control department. If you wonder I'm fairly sure that Santos-Dumont had the Luck advantage.
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Fred Brackin |
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11-15-2018, 09:12 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
There's an actual rocket pack in Steam-tech. Wear asbestos trousers and have an Extra Life handy.
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Fred Brackin |
11-15-2018, 11:46 AM | #13 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: U.K.
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
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-- Phil Masters My Home Page. My Self-Publications: On Warehouse 23 and On DriveThruRPG. |
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11-15-2018, 11:58 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
The way you shut off a shuttle SRB in an emergency was to blow the top cap off so you had thrust in both directions. Never actually used.
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11-15-2018, 12:37 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
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It's also possible to build solid fuel engines with controllable variable thrust. Varying the nozzle throat area can give you around a factor of 10 variation in the thrust. There's also a technique for modifying the fuel burn rate by pressing a catalytic grating (a "heat knife") against it. That plus varying the nozzle area can give you 100:1 thrust ratio. I suppose those sorts of ideas haven't gotten as much attention or development as they might, because it's so much easier to control thrust with a liquid-fueled rocket. And of course if we're talking TL4, we're stretching things even to get the rocket pack to fly, without introducing even higher tech chemistry and manufacturing precision. But there's some grounds for technobabble for your genius Gadgeteer if you want it. |
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11-15-2018, 01:05 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
The Wright's advantage wasn't in overwhelming genius though intuiting that they needed to invent the wind tunnel first was very sharp. The advantage was focussed in the area of controlability. The Europeans had better engines but their control surfaces were primitive.
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Fred Brackin |
11-15-2018, 01:15 PM | #17 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
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11-15-2018, 01:17 PM | #18 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
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11-15-2018, 04:34 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
Both chemcial rockets and gliders were TL 4 inventions but nether were very advanced in that time period. Most gliders were small models that were difficult to translate to larger sizes due to weight of materials and gunpowder rockets were a bit unstable. Later we worked out engineering principals that let gliders support weight better and with more stability and stabilizers that made rockets burn more evenly but for nearly a century those advances were made with the same technology, it was just a matter of refinement. It could be possible for someone who is just extraordinarily bright with a lot of time to experiment could have made weak but stabilized rockets and lightweight stable gliders that weren't gigantic. without modern engineering concepts like compressed jets or lightweight materials like aluminum primitive jet gliders would just barely have enough power to get a man aloft and would probably only give you about 10 seconds of thrust. Gliders would be man-portable but delicate and bulky, like carrying around a giant dragon kite broken down.
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11-15-2018, 05:36 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Are TL4 'Rocket-Pack's Possible?
Personally I figure that someone with access to bamboo and a lot of silk might be able to make a working glider, those materials are noticeably lighter the wood and cloth that they would normally have been made out of.
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