[Space] Steampunk Firefly Idea

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Propjock

Agree. GURPS Steampunk also mentions space travel in the form of ether/reactionless drives.

Also, the apes of TL7 space travel is the Saturn 5 rocket. That's just 3 men and a minimal amount of supplies. hardly colonization stuff.

Lower gravity on the world launching the thing will only go so far. That probably has less effect on the Delta-V required than you might hope for.

One the other end, a breathable atmosphere and higher than lunar gravity does seriously mess with the design of what you're replacing the Lunar module with.

I'd say almost be definition technology that enabled colonization in this scenario would have to be TL9 if there's no superscience involved.

So you want superscience. The Skylark of Space is probably the most accessible source of in-period technobabble but there were other stories of Emergent Superscience from the TL6. Verne might just miss the right dates but H.G. Wells is in the first third of it. Edgar Rice Burroughs was just a little later.

[scc]

I've built surface to orbit spaceplane, 23.2 tons cargo, 64.5 tons Hydrogran-Oxygen fuel, $51,600 to refuel, interface rates of $2,224.137931 per ton, or under $1.20 per pound, or $2.40 after putting in a generous allowance for other costs, very cheap. Trans-Lunar shipping costs are probably about the same, so a shipper being charged $5 per pound and charging $10 per pound is probably the prices for moving goods

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by scc

I've built surface to orbit spaceplane, 23.2 tons cargo, 64.5 tons Hydrogran-Oxygen fuel, $51,600 to refuel, interface rates of $2,224.137931 per ton, or under $1.20 per pound, or $2.40 after putting in a generous allowance for other costs, very cheap. Trans-Lunar shipping costs are probably about the same, so a shipper being charged $5 per pound and charging $10 per pound is probably the prices for moving goods

How do the astronauts get _back_ from the new moon they visit?. There is very unlikely to be a long, smooth runway for any spaceplane you brought up in pieces and attached to a trans-lunar tug.

So no safe landing an no take-off afterwards.

[scc]

Swap out one of the cargo holds for a soft landing system? But the point I'm aiming for will probably be 50 years AFTER the establishment of the first trans-lunar colony, making it a moot issue for the most part

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by scc

Swap out one of the cargo holds for a soft landing system? But the point I'm aiming for will probably be 50 years AFTER the establishment of the first trans-lunar colony, making it a moot issue for the most part

<shrug> Okay, we won't look at the rocket engineer behind the curtain. I just wanted to point out that you didn't really have viable colonization ability at a hard science TL7.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

<shrug> Okay, we won't look at the rocket engineer behind the curtain. I just wanted to point out that you didn't really have viable colonization ability at a hard science TL7.

What exactly is the problem as you see it then?

[Anaraxes]

Somehow the phrase "hard science TL7" got into a thread titled "Steampunk Firefly".

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by scc

What exactly is the problem as you see it then?

TL7 space flight technology culminates in the Saturn 5. The Shuttle was designed at TL7 but didn't fly until tL8 and was continually modified at TL8. Neither of them (or anything real at TL7) would allow you to colonize even out Moon (and even if it had a breathable atmosphere).

Also for your early missions you need a VTOL launch and land that can alnd with a full fuel load or somehow make its' own fuel with a Spaceships Refinery module. That's not tL7 (or even 8) either.

This was why I recommended superscience. Steampunk tends to be full of the stuff starting with the power plant of captain Nemo's Nautilus.

[Daigoro]

I don't know how far you've progressed with history or anything, but this is what I might do with the idea.

I'd have conjunctions, perhaps with the help of an uninhabitable intermediary moon, that make transfer between the inhabited moon and one of the other moons easier, but only occurring every few decades. This allows for the occasional wave of lower tech colonisation events to have happened in the past, by the setting's mad scientists, religious cults, or now-defunct superpowers (think of Portugal today).

The setting's modern tech allows freer transport between the worlds and so they are just coming to grips with the secret settlements and power bases that were established decades or even centuries ago.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Lower gravity on the world launching the thing will only go so far. That probably has less effect on the Delta-V required than you might hope for.

Really? I'm surprised at this. It's been my impression that if, e.g., Earth's gravity had been just 5% lower, getting up into orbit would have been much easier. Still requiring a 3-stage rocket, probably, but much cheaper, and with much less of having to stretch TL7 engineering to its absolute limits.