08-04-2020, 06:31 AM | #31 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
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All that said, I see nothing wrong with positing a hard-science future with weaker-than-expected computer technology. Even if you’re wrong, it’s unlikely to be the most important thing you “mess up,” because the future isn’t exactly easy to predict.
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GURPS Overhaul |
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08-04-2020, 07:56 AM | #32 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
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The radiation rules are tricky but if all the time was spent in ships this well protected you could go about 3 and 1/2 years without rolling for radiation sickness. You could double that by taking Antirad (the version in Bio-tech) which would give PF 2 (not divided by cosmic rays) to add on. After you do start rollling, if you have HT people half of them get sick and 2% of them get very sick and in a couple of years some of them die from cancer (technically the Terninally Ill disad). A setting with mature TL9 Bio-tech can cure cancer and reset the radiation count but both are quite expensive and require hospital facilities (this is in the Gene Therapy section of Bio-tech). TL10 brings you abetter version of Antirad and portable cancer and radiation cures for half the TL9 price. The big thing though is the ability to genetically engineer parahumans who have Regeneration(Radiation Only) 4pts. With that Ad you cna ignore thwe cosmic radiation stuff. You still can't go into Jupiter's inner radiation belt but you might be able to colonize Ganymede and Callisto. So I'd make your setting TL10 in Bio-tech (at least) and your Belters and peopel further out be parahumans with space adaptations.
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Fred Brackin |
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08-04-2020, 08:08 AM | #33 | |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
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In addition, you need large spacecraft to have effective spin gravity and you need a diversity of capabilities and relationships among the crew to allow for successful missions. When sending people beyond the Earth-Luna system, you will probably need a minimum people of 40 individuals, just to cover enough bases, and that would not really allow for long term relationship stability. You would need around 400 people for a mission of longer than a year, as that gives a properly selected crew psychological stability. In the case of the SM+14 spaceship, you can design a spacecraft capable of transporting 2,000 passengers and 100,000 tons of cargo for ~$20 billion. With High Automation, it would require a crew of 1,000, and it would be capable of in-situ resource exploitation, allowing it to refuel within about a month. It could get to Saturn in two years, spend six months in Saturn orbit for refueling, spend two years traveling to Earth, and spend six months in Earth orbit before repeating the process. While it would effectively end up costing $200,000 per ton of cargo delivered to Saturn orbit, when you include capital repayment and other costs, it is probably a lot more cost effective than any other design. |
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08-04-2020, 11:32 AM | #34 |
Join Date: Dec 2013
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
I, personally, am not sure if the "soft wall" theory is the correct one; the choice made is a stylistic one. I have fond memories of books set in a near-future colonized solar system. :)
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08-04-2020, 12:06 PM | #35 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
A lot of them were probably using the assumption of TL7 space colonization, so TL9 by 2200 AD might not have seemed all that unreasonable. With sufficient investment, you can reach Mars with TL7 technology (we did it in real life), it just takes a really long time. The point still stands that bigger is almost always better when it comes to manned spaceships, as larger spaceships provide more radiation shielding and higher spin gravity.
By TL9, fusion rockets allow people to go anywhere in the Sol System without Hohmann transfers, which cut transportation times greatly. In the case of going to Saturn, it quarters the time required. If you are going to Uranus or Neptune, it cuts the time even more, as the Hohmann transfers take 21 years for Uranus and 42 years for Neptune (contemporary probes do not use Hohmann transfers for such missions, as the technology just does not have the lifespan). Of course, in situ resource utilization is a requirement, as is total life support, as the missions are otherwise too long for humans. If you wanted a Neptune colony mission, the costs would probably be $400,000 per ton of cargo, since the ship will likely not return soon enough for a route to be economical. Now, you could have the colony give the crew the spaceship in lieu of salaries, in which the crew probably transforms it into a clan ship. If there was a major puah, with one such ship produced every year for a century, you could have a hundred clan ships traveling through the Sol System, going from Earth to Neptune every fourteen years. As long as the clans make enough to survive, I doubt that will care much about the economic viability of the model. Similar clans could work the Earth-Main Belt, Earth-Jupiter Trojan, Earth-Saturn, and Earth-Uranus routes (Earth-Mars is too close for such spaceships to remain independent). After a century, every clan ship would have its own customs and traditions, though they would likely marry outsiders to prevent inbreeding. |
08-04-2020, 12:08 PM | #36 | |||
Join Date: Dec 2013
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
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According to the quick spreadsheet I wrote for reaction drive travel, it's 21 days from Earth to Mars, and 89 days from Earth to Ceres/the Inner Belt, spending 38 mps on acceleration and deceleration. If it spends only 19 mps (edit: on acceleration or deceleration; 38 mps total for the round-trip), it can make a round trip to and from Earth and Mars at 53 days, or a round trip to and from Earth and Ceres at 190 days. That makes it less than optimal on attack, since 190 days is plenty of time to concentrate defensive force. * It needs a refuelling station at the end, or to only spend 19 mps on acceleration and deceleration, total. This could be fixed with a robofactory of some sort... Quote:
Although most of the Earth-Mars Alliance ships would be built in space, the Belters just have a lot more space rocks to play with. Last edited by Say, it isn't that bad!; 08-04-2020 at 12:26 PM. |
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08-04-2020, 12:15 PM | #37 | |||
Join Date: Dec 2013
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
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08-04-2020, 12:24 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Dec 2013
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
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I think I will have Belters start making their own ships perhaps about 40? years in. That's enough for an entire generation to grow up with no memories of Earth, wonder why they don't build their own ships, learn the skills necessary to build their own ships, and then build the facilities to do so. |
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08-04-2020, 12:25 PM | #39 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
Well, some of that has to do with scale. Mass requirements for mass shielding vary with surface area, mass requirement for electromagnetic shielding (applies to both magnetic shields and electrostatic shields) vary with diameter, so electromagnetic shielding wins for sufficiently large scale vessels and habitats.
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08-04-2020, 01:19 PM | #40 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: In which I post about a TL9 solar system
Any idea on where that break point would lie? It would make for some nice setting background depending on the rarity of the large ships.
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solar system, space, tl9 |
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