06-12-2009, 08:57 PM | #1 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Radiation shielding
What's the story with radiation shielding on ships and orbital habitats in Traveller? Solar storms, Van Allen belts, and the radiation belts of gas giants are never mentioned as a hazard (that I know of), but I seem to remember something about radiation killing crew in space combat.
Is there a canonical explanation in terms of physical or magnetic shielding? Or are cosmic radiation and radiation belts simply ignored without explicit explanation?
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
06-12-2009, 11:21 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Radiation shielding
At least according to Striker, even an "unarmored" starship has an armor rating of 40, which was 33 cm of steel equivalent as far as penetration goes. That's about 33 halving thicknesses, depending on what sort of radiation you're talking about, if the material absorbed radiation as well as steel. A ten-billionth of the incident radiation may be negligible for natural causes. And of course the material matters; maybe higher-tech spaceship hull material is better at absorbing radiation than is steel.
The meson weapons would penetrate the armor and then decay inside, so you wouldn't get protection from the hull, hence the radiation casualties. If I recall, the High Guard nukes also has a bonus for calculating casualties due to radiation, but they'd be external. Nuclear dampers (and enhancers) exist. They were only described as anti-nuke weapons, as I recall, but the same tech might be pressed into service as a radiation "shield" to reduce Bremsstrahlung in the armor. Higher tech medicine might presumably allow you to better recover from radiation exposure, thus allowing more exposure over long time intervals (as opposed to combat). I don't recall any mention of that in particular, but it could be another reason the routine exposure is neglected. |
06-13-2009, 12:00 AM | #3 | |||
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Radiation shielding
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
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06-13-2009, 01:47 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Radiation shielding
AFAIK there is no real discussion of it. VE2 had Radiation Shielding of superscience quality, presumably the OTU has something comparable or even better.
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06-13-2009, 06:46 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Yeovil. Back with Pompy crew. Going to next con on the Phil Masters list.
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Re: Radiation shielding
Radiation shielding in Traveller is what I like to call a MacGuffin Technology made from unobtanium and powered by handwavium. Like jump Drives, maneuver drives contra gravity, etc.
It is an example of an essential technology that is required to allow us to tell fascinating adventure stories. The key to using such technology is to limit the effect to just solving the first problem.
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Calum "So many GURPS 3rd Edition books that my laboratory glows with FNORD. With 4th Edition I can achieve the necessary Critical Mass ! If only they knew !" (Robotic Mechanical Laughter..) Last edited by The-Original-Lonewolf; 06-13-2009 at 07:02 AM. |
06-13-2009, 08:25 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Radiation shielding
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Cosmic and radiation belt stuff (along with solar storms) are two different sorts of beasts. Shielding against things like Jupiter's radiation belts is thoroughly doable. Transhuman Space basically ignores them except for people in vacc suits and equivalents. Very low penetration. Cosmic radiation shielding in entirely another matter. Space habitats should have the equivalent of 3 meters of lunar rock (and nothing but mass matters). That 33 cm of steel is nowhere near good enough. Transhuman Space again just heals this faster with nano than the cosmic radiation can do damage. Canon Traveller has no equivalent.
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06-13-2009, 12:22 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Radiation shielding
In itself no, but I've always figured the expense and TL of the hull implied/includes magnetic shielding specifically for this. So you're fine aboard a space ship or small craft. Not aboard a simple vehicle or in a vacc-suit for very long.
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Dan "far-trader" Burns Original material in this post may be employed for personal non-profit use with the origin noted. Any other use is subject to permission from the author. |
06-13-2009, 12:35 PM | #8 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Radiation shielding
I agree canon didn't address the question at all. We're just retrofitting explanations.
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Liquid hydrogen is also pretty good radiation shielding in this regard. Traveller ships certainly haul around vast quantities of the stuff. (We finally know why! It's flushed into jumpspace to get rid of the isotopes with induced radiation :)) Most of the deck plans put the fuel conformally along the hull, which is convenient for this bit of handwaving. There's not much to hint at magnetic or electrostatic shielding. Sandcaster sand gets carried along by gravitic tech. (Didn't Traveller 2300 ships have emag shields suspending ablative particles? But that's not really Traveller anyway.) Quote:
It occurs to me that most of the crew's time in spent in jumpspace. They're only exposed to cosmic rays during the transition to and from the 100D limit. Then they spend another week on the ground arranging for cargo (and having adventures) So the annual exposure might actually not be that high. Military vessels, on the other hand, presumably spend a lot more of their time sitting around in normal space with at least one shift of crew on board. The garrisons and patrol cruisers will have a concern. |
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06-13-2009, 12:45 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Radiation shielding
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And that 100D travel time may also be a week (or longer?) for a world in a close orbit of the larger stars. Earth itself is just outside the 100D of Sol iirc so it's not an issue for Earth, but other systems may well have long real space travel times. Whatever method is used it can't be good enough to negate weapon radiation damage on it's own. That's the job of extra armor and/or nuclear dampers.
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Dan "far-trader" Burns Original material in this post may be employed for personal non-profit use with the origin noted. Any other use is subject to permission from the author. Last edited by far_trader; 06-13-2009 at 12:50 PM. |
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06-13-2009, 02:31 PM | #10 | |||
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Meltdown, Aka Carlsbad N.M.
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Re: Radiation shielding
Hey Brett, Thought I'd chime in here being that my background is in Health Physics...
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Alpha radiation is low energy and can be blocked by paper or a layer of dead skin, and is not too penetration. Beta radiation is medium energy electrons or positrons emitted by radioactive nuclei of most any unstable form of matter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_radiation Beta radiation is penetrating and is in most cases blocked by lead, steel, water or distance. This would and should be the reason for "40 G" starship armor. The third and last form is Gamma radiation and is the most lethal and dangerous form. Gamma Radiation is high energy Electromagnetic radiation of usually sub-atomic reactions. It is this form of radiation where atomic and sub atomic meet and where energy particles can and do become waves of energy... the more energy, the more likely it is in wave form, the less likely it is a particle. and vice versa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Radiation As Wiki states Gamma sources come from many different methods, They are produced by sub-atomic particle interactions, such as electron-positron annihilation, neutral pion decay, radioactive decay, fusion, fission or inverse Compton scattering in astrophysical processes. In truth the only known forms of protections from Gamma is Time, Distance and Shielding. Time only works in space if you can isolate the source and then put distance between you and it so that it can decay. Distance works well for stationary sources, and Shielding is usable where large masses can stand between you and the source protecting you from the full strength of the source. Quote:
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Hope this helps some...
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"Faith is a state of mind that can be conditioned through self-discipline. Faith will accomplish." - Bruce Lee Last edited by Voidstar; 06-13-2009 at 02:35 PM. Reason: submitted too early |
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lead, orbital facilities, radiation, shielding, starships |
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