Good source for NASA equipment?

Anders · 04-14-2016, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It would really work a lot better to take the magic to go to the Moon rather than going to the Moon to get the magic. High Mana isn't worth all that much more than normal Mana anyway. It's nice as an environment for recharging powerstones and using self-powered Items but it doesn't look like gold rush stuff to me.

Depends on what the mana level of Earth is. Default is Low Mana, and that's -5 to all magic.

ericthered · 04-14-2016, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anders

Depends on what the mana level of Earth is. Default is Low Mana, and that's -5 to all magic.

Or its normal mana but no one on earth has magery --- the point is that the only place you can cast magic is the moon. If you can grant immortality there, billions of dollars of private money get sent into the sky.

The point about funding may be reasonable. But so much of the moon program was research rather than reproduced results...

PTTG · 04-14-2016, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anders

Depends on what the mana level of Earth is. Default is Low Mana, and that's -5 to all magic.

Earth is Low Mana and the Moon is either High or Very High. Anyone can do magic on the moon, and that's the only way to effectively experiment with magic since all Mages are 16 or younger circa 1985.

Most working rituals are old religious ones that haven't been reformed or modified (or modified little) since Earth last had Low mana ~1000 years ago. Many of these rituals were "blessings" to protect against sickness, and those that still work cure diseases that are otherwise very hard to treat.

Thaumurgic Lunar Technicians -- space wizards -- are still developing the field, but they've made some headway. They can't work on a subatomic level (but everyone expects that elemental alchemy such as turning lead into gold will be achieved soon).

They have made great strides in nano-scale manufacturing of materials larger than atoms, though. About a year ago they started selling thaumic capacitors that are atomically-thin layered gold and insulator -- really at the beginning of a magitech revolution -- but it can only happen on the moon.

Additionally, the Soviets are still a threat. There's a "flux tube" of mana between Luna and Earth, it's at LEAST Very High Mana, although it's little-understood. The Soviets have a permanent station in L1, where it's occasionally immersed in the mana flow.

Yeah, Fiat science! is not effective, but in this case, it's still enough money to build a LOT of Saturn 5s, and a much more developed Space Shuttle program as well.

Fred Brackin · 04-14-2016, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PTTG

Earth is Low Mana and the Moon is either High or Very High. Anyone can do magic on the moon, and that's the only way to effectively experiment with magic since all Mages are 16 or younger circa 1985.

Sorry, but anyone can do a _little_ bit of magic in High Mana. It doesn't void any Magery prereqs. The list of spells without such things is shorter than you might think. A lot of "light the candle" stuff and not so much "Immortality is Mine!".

dcarson · 04-15-2016, 05:37 AM

Sea Dragon that Truax designed might be one. He designed it to launch massive payloads and to be low cost because most of the parts are so large that normal shipyard tolerances are good enough. The rocket would have been able to carry a payload of up to 550 metric tons into low Earth orbit. The big problem was that there wasn't a need to carry that much on a regular basis.

ericthered · 04-15-2016, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Sorry, but anyone can do a _little_ bit of magic in High Mana. It doesn't void any Magery prereqs. The list of spells without such things is shorter than you might think. A lot of "light the candle" stuff and not so much "Immortality is Mine!".

Ok, but lets not let rules get in the way of the setting. This is gurps: the rules are subservient to the setting, not the other way around.

The sea dragon costs look too low. If they are possible, why aren't we using them now? I'm getting numbers that say 10,000 $ per kg is cheap for space. The article says the sea dragon could do that in $600. Is it all about bulk savings? or about theory vs practice?

SRoach · 04-15-2016, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericthered

Ok, but lets not let rules get in the way of the setting. This is gurps: the rules are subservient to the setting, not the other way around.

The sea dragon costs look too low. If they are possible, why aren't we using them now? I'm getting numbers that say 10,000 $ per kg is cheap for space. The article says the sea dragon could do that in $600. Is it all about bulk savings? or about theory vs practice?

How about inflation? By my own observation, the half-life of the dollar is about 20 years, (if this were radiation, that'd be lethal.) 1962 was better than 50 years ago, and on the other side of an energy crisis. Just going off the $600 figure...~$2,400 in 2002, ~$4,800 in 2022.
Or I could just google it. Dollartimes.com's inflation calculator says $4,730 today for $600 in 1962.
Still only half of the current estimates.
Supposedly, the rest is in economies of scale, or failures to predict some other factor.

RyanW · 04-15-2016, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SRoach

How about inflation? By my own observation, the half-life of the dollar is about 20 years, (if this were radiation, that'd be lethal.)

But what does it decay into? Does the Fed have to dispose of depleted currencium?

johndallman · 04-15-2016, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericthered

The sea dragon costs look too low. If they are possible, why aren't we using them now?

Apart from the other reasons that have been pointed out, Sea Dragon relied on a single-chamber first stage engine with more than 50 times the thrust of the Saturn V's F-1. The F-1 is still the most powerful single-chamber engine ever built and took several years to debug. The Sea Dragon engine ... may not be practical.

Gnaskar · 04-15-2016, 09:22 AM

The bottom of this page has some models of how the Saturn V might have evolved over time, given enough funding and a need for heavier payloads. The end results of this evolution would have boosted (no pun intended) the Saturn V's payload to LEO by about 50% (to over 200 tons), and increased its translunar capacities even more (thanks to a NERVA upper stage). As a rough back of the envelope estimate, it could probably place about 20 tons on the lunar surface.

04-15-2016, 05:37 AM	#5
dcarson Join Date: Mar 2008	Re: Good source for NASA equipment? Sea Dragon that Truax designed might be one. He designed it to launch massive payloads and to be low cost because most of the parts are so large that normal shipyard tolerances are good enough. The rocket would have been able to carry a payload of up to 550 metric tons into low Earth orbit. The big problem was that there wasn't a need to carry that much on a regular basis.

04-15-2016, 09:22 AM	#10
Gnaskar Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Good source for NASA equipment? The bottom of this page has some models of how the Saturn V might have evolved over time, given enough funding and a need for heavier payloads. The end results of this evolution would have boosted (no pun intended) the Saturn V's payload to LEO by about 50% (to over 200 tons), and increased its translunar capacities even more (thanks to a NERVA upper stage). As a rough back of the envelope estimate, it could probably place about 20 tons on the lunar surface.