[Space] Steampunk Firefly Idea

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

From what I remember of the relevant Transhuman Space playtests (and a few other sources) the radiation of Jupiter's magnetosphere is much less of an issue than appears to be assumed here.

It's al mid to low energy charged particles and in terms of Gurps radiation rules it multiplies PF by 20. Any probable ship hull (and perhaps especially something steampunkish made of iron or steel) should be able to stop those particles.

Likewise any atmosphere reaching Earth-like levels of breathability will stop such particles as well. The surface of some of the real world Galileans is dangerous to humans in thin-skinned suits or vehicles is because there is no significant atmosphere.

To that, you could also add that humans evolved in a high radiation environment may have adapted a resistance to that radiation (see the theory of radiation hormesis).

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

To that, you could also add that humans evolved in a high radiation environment may have adapted a resistance to that radiation (see the theory of radiation hormesis).

That would then suggest that leaving the radiation zone would cause large increases in disease and ill health not at all obvious to the punkers.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That would then suggest that leaving the radiation zone would cause large increases in disease and ill health not at all obvious to the punkers.

I'm not sure what you mean.
1) Leaving their native radiation zone would expose them to higher levels of radiation that they would be unprepared for, as radiation sickness is outside their realm of experience?
- But I expect their innate Radiation Resistance advantage would still be of benefit.

2) Entering a zero radiation zone would be detrimental to their health?
- As the Wikipedia page says, this hasn't even been studied yet, so I'm not sure why there'd be "large increases in disease."

[tshiggins]

I like the notion of the mag sails to move ships around the system. It's evokes an exoticism that loans itself well to a steampunk feel. The vessels really are "spaceships" and not" spacecraft," and nautical terminology could slop over nicely.

See the book, The Wreck of the River of Stars for an example of how this might work. That's fairly hard science fiction, and even though Flynn isn't a great writer, it could be a useful resource for this sort of thing.

http://www.amazon.com/Wreck-River-St.../dp/0765334194

If we break down spaceship motion, it falls into four broad categories:
1. Launch from the surface of a planet, and/or break orbit.
2. Transfer from one orbit to another.
3. Maneuver to dock with space facilities.
4. Land on a planet.

Of the four, only the first needs a huge amount of energy expended, and it has to burn that energy in a short period of time.

Orbital transfers can take more time, and docking maneuvers had better go slowly or somebody's gonna get killed (or, at least, terribly upset). Neither requires a huge expenditure of energy all at once.

Landing is a unique situation, in that while it definitely qualifies as "energetic," any landing on a sizable planet with atmosphere means little of that energy actually needs to be in the spaceship. Atmosphere braking is pretty exciting, but it works really well and we have a lot of experience with it, by now.

Landing on massive planet with no atmosphere is a whole 'nother kettle of fish, and I'd think you'd just use specialized shuttle craft, for that, and all it a day.

So, to have a merchant vessel similar to the Firefly-class (and others seen during the program), you need a burst of energy to launch, the ability to transfer at will from one orbit to another, maneuver delicately and land without shaking things up, too much.

And all of that needs to take up no more than about a third of the total mass and volume of the spaceship.

We're definitely in hand-wavey territory, here. May as well go all in, and work to make it internally consistent, even if the underlying assumptions rank as Sheer Fantasy.

Given that this is Steampunk Firefly, I'd turn to Victorian science fiction for space travel ideas.

The number one most useful notion appears in First Men on the Moon by H.G. Wells.

In that book, Wells invents (whole-cloth) unobtanium known as cavorite, which has the incredibly useful ability to shield mass from the effects of gravity from a single direction. A spherical vessel of glass and steel, with "windows or blinds" made of cavorite, can be steered through interplanetary space.

I'd change that around, some, and harden it up a bit. I'd say cavorite blocks Higgs bosons from interacting with matter, but only if the cavorite has a powerful electrical charge. So, the way a space craft launches or breaks orbit is to suddenly discharge capacitors into the cavorite sheathing, which negates gravity's affect on the mass of the spaceship temporarily. This appears as a bright golden burst.

The cavorite need not cover the entire vessel, only the part that faces the planetary mass from which one needs to escape. So, a hemispherical section is enough, as long as the circumference of the hemisphere at the widest point is enough to block the rest of the vessel from the planetary mass.

A spacecraft either rests on legs or in a cradle with the cavorite boost section pointed at the planet. The legs get drawn in and the apertures covered by cavorite shutters so has to have an unbroken hemisphere. The capacitors discharge, the cavorite flashes bright gold, and ship zips away from the mass at the speed of the planetary rotation, at that point.

The burst only lasts long enough for the ship to reach geosynchronous orbit, at best (that's the regulatory standard, which old ships may not quite meet...) but that's all that's needed, anyway.

Once the ship reaches the stable orbit, the maneuvering pilot hands the helm to the sailing master, and he has the crew deploy the mag sail. (In small vessels, the pilot and the sailing master may be the same guy. In a really small vessel, the master and commander of the vessel may fill both roles, himself -- and he takes catnaps and drinks a lot of really strong tea or coffee, for the duration of the trip.)

Under the guidance of the sailing master, the ship breaks orbit and travels to the destination. Along the way, the steam turbine (fueled by powdered coal on older ships, kerosene on newer ships, and Nautilus-style radium engines for military vessels and those commanded by science-pirates) recharges the capacitors, and provides power to life support, the Babbage engine, and other vital systems. The smoke is vented out into space, of course, through telescoping smokestacks that extend out past the edge of the cavorite sheathing during interplanetary flight, so as to limit the buildup of soot on the hull. The vessel will also need sizable O2 tanks, just to keep the fuel burning (one reason the military vessels prefer radium engines, despite the hazards -- less mass for O2 means more for armor).

Once the ship gets close, the sailing master hands the helm back to the maneuver pilot, and he steers the ship to its final destination.

If the destination is a micro-gravity facility, the pilot just uses maneuvering thrusters. Compressed air is fine. If an atmospheric landing is necessary, he uses a combination of aerobraking and a burst of compressed steam to land the ship. Again, the cavorite shutters must be withdrawn from the nozzles of the steam thrusters.

Of course, a maneuvering pilot with "leaf-on-the-wind" levels of skill can play games with the cavorite burst, assuming the capacitors have a sufficient charge. While in orbit, he might be able to trigger a burst with only part of the sheathed section pointed at the mass, combined with the steam nozzles and the maneuvering thrusters, and produce tactically useful spins, gyrations and weird-ass deltas of all sorts.

All of these bits and parts mean a lot can go wrong on older ships. ("What was that?") But, hey. A hard-working crew needs something to spend their money on, right?

So, what do you think? Patently ridiculous, or silly fun?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

...
2) Entering a zero radiation zone would be detrimental to their health?
- As the Wikipedia page says, this hasn't even been studied yet, so I'm not sure why there'd be "large increases in disease."

If we benefit/need a little more, and they benefit/need a lot more, why wouldn't a commensurate change in radiation have a commensurate change in disease?
Extremophiles don't just survive in extreme environements, they evolve to need them.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

To that, you could also add that humans evolved in a high radiation environment may have adapted a resistance to that radiation (see the theory of radiation hormesis).

Nah, you "adapt" to high radiation by successfully reproducing yourself and possibly even dying of old age before the radiation kills you. this is why the Chernobyl exclusion zone is a fine habitat for small rodents.

Hormesis may stimulate some systems in the short run but radiation sickness and/or cancer will get anything with a lifespan like a human.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Nah, you "adapt" to high radiation by successfully reproducing yourself and possibly even dying of old age before the radiation kills you. this is why the Chernobyl exclusion zone is a fine habitat for small rodents.

Hormesis may stimulate some systems in the short run but radiation sickness and/or cancer will get anything with a lifespan like a human.

It does seem like a good rule of thumb that radiation tolerance goes down as rate of aging goes down. Grasses are hardy, while trees die at the drop of a rad.
Then again, don't forget that even humans have quite interesting radiation healing abilities. Those with xeroderma pigmentosum lack much of this suffering burns from even tiny amounts of UV and usually get skin cancer by age 10.

Really creepy are those single celled critters that can reform functional cells out of pieces fragmented from radiation damage like a family of T 1000.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

In that book, Wells invents (whole-cloth) unobtanium known as cavorite, which has the incredibly useful ability to shield mass from the effects of gravity from a single direction. A spherical vessel of glass and steel, with "windows or blinds" made of cavorite, can be steered through interplanetary space.

I'd change that around, some, and harden it up a bit. I'd say cavorite blocks Higgs bosons from interacting with matter, but only if the cavorite has a powerful electrical charge. So, the way a space craft launches or breaks orbit is to suddenly discharge capacitors into the cavorite sheathing, which negates gravity's affect on the mass of the spaceship temporarily.

So the ship's velocity is imparted by the moon's rotation at take-off? This means equatorial launch sites are favoured, and that aerodynamics would be important. Also, exact time of launch would be important, but you could disengage the cavorite and go into orbit until you're on the target vector. However, why don't they just use gravity to navigate to their destination? It would be more powerful than low thrust magsails. Perhaps the cavorite is extremely energy intensive and can only be used for short durations, but then what advantage does it have over rockets?

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

If we benefit/need a little more, and they benefit/need a lot more, why wouldn't a commensurate change in radiation have a commensurate change in disease?
Extremophiles don't just survive in extreme environements, they evolve to need them.

So similar to how lack of exposure to sunlight causes rickets, bowel cancer and Seasonal Affective Disorder? Possible, but I don't see GURPS paying much attention to those things. What kinds of disease would you envision? And as some people are suggesting these moons would be bathed in radiation, no-radiation zones would only be low likelihood hazards.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Nah, you "adapt" to high radiation by successfully reproducing yourself and possibly even dying of old age before the radiation kills you. this is why the Chernobyl exclusion zone is a fine habitat for small rodents.

Hormesis may stimulate some systems in the short run but radiation sickness and/or cancer will get anything with a lifespan like a human.

I presume we're talking about the home moon of this human race, which evolved here over millions of years and have now reached a TL for space travel. That's why I said "evolved", not "raised". The link with radiation hormesis is just to show that there are mechanisms for dealing with high radiation levels and possible precedents in human populations. And the Wikipedia link is indeed suggesting that at certain exposures of radiation there is lower than expected rates of radiation sickness and cancer, not just in the "short run".

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

So the ship's velocity is imparted by the moon's rotation at take-off? This means equatorial launch sites are favoured, and that aerodynamics would be important. Also, exact time of launch would be important, but you could disengage the cavorite and go into orbit until you're on the target vector. However, why don't they just use gravity to navigate to their destination? It would be more powerful than low thrust magsails. Perhaps the cavorite is extremely energy intensive and can only be used for short durations, but then what advantage does it have over rockets?

(SNIP)

Oh, you could certainly just use the cavorite to do it that way, and Wells' book, that's what they did. If the cavorite sheathing goes on shutters or flaps the pilot can manipulate finely, and doesn't require any sort of extra energy to work, then the ship can careen around the solar system like a pin-ball.

Basically, it's a reactionless drive that requires no energy input, and that's about as hand-wavey as it gets.

I was just trying to evoke a certain feel by introducing and energy requirement in such a way as to limit cavorite's utility enough to make mag-sails an attractive option. Rule of Cool, and all. :)

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I was just trying to evoke a certain feel by introducing and energy requirement in such a way as to limit cavorite's utility enough to make mag-sails an attractive option. Rule of Cool, and all. :)

Would limiting its efficiency do the job? Perhaps a fraction of the gravity still gets through, so you still need something else to provide thrust. Or it generates a spherical field, so there's no directionality to the contragrav effect.