[Spaceships] TL10 Space RV

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

I want to throw together a relatively low-cost craft, for a wealthy biont to get from Earth to orbiting the other planets, as they see fit. (And to land on Titan, and anywhere under 0.1G surface gravity.) I'm a little nervous about pushing at the edges of Spaceships' simplifying assumptions, since I don't know where they start breaking; has anyone got any details on that? For example, is it really feasible to launch a craft with wings and a 0.1G drive from Earth's surface? (SS1 p39 says that it would take 2 hours 36 minutes.)

If you've got a reaction-less drive, a power source that doesn't run out, and you can make it to the extreme upper atmosphere? you probably can get into orbit, and once in orbit the size of the acceleration doesn't matter.


I think your bird can fly, but not strongly. The power to weight ratio on a jet liner is about 0.3, and you've got a third of that.



I've got some concerns about the play between air resistance, lift, velocity, and heating. You need to be in atmosphere to generate lift until you reach orbital velocity. atmosphere is going to slow you down as long as you're in it, and eventually create massive heating around your ship, not to mention drag. You can reduce drag by flying higher, but that also reduces your lift.