Thought so! Good job Riley, make her figure it out. Should
of thought it yourself my dear! Maybe add Cissy to the card
too, Alex will love it!
The down-side to unsupported combat, resources. Oldest
trick in the book for land war, cut the supply lines, sooner
or later the enemy will run out of everything. Not that the
core had anything to do with it, but attacking a lone
scout/courier far from home is pretty much the same thing.
I doubt the Sparrow could be much help, other than to
guard their ship while their drone brings up mass. That’ll be
like sending a quad-copter 5 miles to get a quart(liter) of gas
over and over… Not idea.
It makes sense, if you need water or something like that planet-side
and you don’t want to risk crashing on a strange planet, to have
automated drones to drop down, collect what they can, and return.
Not much at a trip, and who knows how much each trip or many
drones they have.
Fetching fuel from planet-side this way probably wouldn’t work with
conventional propulsion though (I’ve been through this a bunch of
times, …)
They’re orbiting some moon, currently? Probably one without an
atmosphere? If it had one, they wouldn’t need much feel for landing
– some slight adjustments to make them touch the atmosphere, then
carefully use it to break. Probably-adjusting a few times once
they’re slow enough to get deeper into it.
A small planetary body doesn’t have the gravity to
support an atmosphere, and a handful of small drones
don’t use the mass of a scout ship. Say a drone
can collect 20-25 liters of water, but uses 8 liters
to fly there and back, there’s still a gain, just will
take some time to gain enough to land the ship
safely. We have no clue to the logistics of fusion
engines so I’m guessing here.
I’m thinking the Sparrow could dump their fresh
water supply, fly down and collect sea water, fly
back up and transfer it to the P’teran ship, that
way they can both land and replenish both stores
and do some repairs.
The problem we’re having is RL rockets need many
thousands of liters of fuel to lift off or land while
fusion engines need far, far less to launch/land.
Downside of those engines is they spew radiation
along with the thrust so until we solve that issue
in RL, we’ll be a long way off from being able to use
any type of reactor engines on Earth.
If I stuck with technology that we know today is possible, there would be no story.
Just assume that the other species have advanced beyond today’s limits.
It wouldn’t have taken long – just look at how far we’ve come in the last hundred
years or so.
After all, almost all of the non-gravity advanced tech that the Empire has they
copied from more advances societies.
Oh sure, if this was about RL, there wouldn’t be much story.
Most people like to compare mostly to how close to RL it is to
stories like these. Granted, there is always some that like
to use RL facts to pick apart a story line, but in cases like
Sci-Fi movies or TV, it’s more of a “pay attention to me” than
anything. I tend to ignore that and draw my own conclusions.
I don’t put much stock in professional critics as well, they are
dead wrong so often in the Sci-Fi genre. MCU proved that!
Ion engines are pretty easy to make but they can barely make a paper
airplane to fly, Fusion reaction produces a huge amount of energy and
radiation making it ideal in a vacuum but deadly on an inhabited planet.
I made an Ion engine out of guitar string and a neon transformer, but
it wasn’t strong enough to do anything but blow funny-smelling air. Made
a desk fan out of it until I forgot and got zapped by brushing against the
wires… OWeCH! Ok I don’t need coffee anymore… (panting and checking pulse)
Thanks for the laugh!
My biggest problem in writing is avoiding the Deus Ex Machina trap
that even the most popular authors fall into.
John Ringo is famous for it.
Get your hero into a situation that is impossible for him to survive,
but then:
“Oh, I forgot to mention this earlier, but he just happens to have a
(previously unmentioned) special device or skill that is perfect for
getting him out of this mess!”
I figure they carry them for just such occasions as this. In the
days of sail, ships would patrol for long periods. It was common
to go ashore to islands to replenish water and other supplies.
If the patrol area included developed areas they could put into
a port and purchase supplies. Large ships have always carried
auxiliary craft. I just figured they carried auxiliary craft to
replenish supplies of reaction mass. Planetary rings and icy moons
should be common in star systems and would provide both reaction
mass and base stocks for food synthesizers.
Earth’s seawater can be processed to make “heavy water”
which makes the reaction mass for the fusion reactors they
experiment with these days. “Fusion drive” is what most
races used pre-empire.
I would think that tritium and deuterium would be more plentiful
on the icy moons and rings of gas giant planets. Lighter elements
seem to be more plentiful further out in a planetary system.
True, but that would require mining equipment while the
drones can just suck water up without landing. Hydrogen3 is
a better choice but again, mining. Water is made with H2+O
while H3 is built up on any solar body without an atmosphere.
Thanks Bill, I couldn’t for the life of me remember how deuterium
was spelt, and don’t ask the crazy crap spell-check and my phone’s
VOX kept coming up with heh.
Liquid water on the surface means it has an atmosphere. It’s apparently also
breathable if it’s a better place to meet than an orbital rendezvous. Back in the
day in the ttrpg Traveler you could scoop methane gas from a gas giant to
obtain useable-but-impure-and-problematic fusion fuel. Water’s better than that.
Oh sure, there’s a crap ton of dust and odd gases that would
have to be “cleaned” out before it could be used easily. TOS-ST
and Voyager both brought up point on the show as well.
Any deep space ship would need a way to refuel in the “wild”
or they’d never get very far out. A bit hard to explore new worlds
when your gas tank gets low. That’s what the “Busard collectors”
were for on any ST ship, they’d simply fly through a gas nebula
and turn on the “vacuum cleaners” no need for drones etc…
Just about any element can be found that way.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my father and I
thank you for your service.
My true regret is that they wouldn’t let me.
Even if it was only as support for you guys.
Thought so! Good job Riley, make her figure it out. Should
of thought it yourself my dear! Maybe add Cissy to the card
too, Alex will love it!
The down-side to unsupported combat, resources. Oldest
trick in the book for land war, cut the supply lines, sooner
or later the enemy will run out of everything. Not that the
core had anything to do with it, but attacking a lone
scout/courier far from home is pretty much the same thing.
I doubt the Sparrow could be much help, other than to
guard their ship while their drone brings up mass. That’ll be
like sending a quad-copter 5 miles to get a quart(liter) of gas
over and over… Not idea.
How’d they order fuel drones?
It makes sense, if you need water or something like that planet-side
and you don’t want to risk crashing on a strange planet, to have
automated drones to drop down, collect what they can, and return.
Not much at a trip, and who knows how much each trip or many
drones they have.
Hmm. Their own drones then …
Fetching fuel from planet-side this way probably wouldn’t work with
conventional propulsion though (I’ve been through this a bunch of
times, …)
They’re orbiting some moon, currently? Probably one without an
atmosphere? If it had one, they wouldn’t need much feel for landing
– some slight adjustments to make them touch the atmosphere, then
carefully use it to break. Probably-adjusting a few times once
they’re slow enough to get deeper into it.
He’s worried that they won’t be able to maintain orbit much
less land successfully.
Yes. But transporting stuff into orbit of a planet needs loads and loads of reaction mass.
Landing on something with an atmosphere should be comparably “cheap”.
If it’s a small moon, than – of course – the requirements are different.
A small planetary body doesn’t have the gravity to
support an atmosphere, and a handful of small drones
don’t use the mass of a scout ship. Say a drone
can collect 20-25 liters of water, but uses 8 liters
to fly there and back, there’s still a gain, just will
take some time to gain enough to land the ship
safely. We have no clue to the logistics of fusion
engines so I’m guessing here.
I’m thinking the Sparrow could dump their fresh
water supply, fly down and collect sea water, fly
back up and transfer it to the P’teran ship, that
way they can both land and replenish both stores
and do some repairs.
The problem we’re having is RL rockets need many
thousands of liters of fuel to lift off or land while
fusion engines need far, far less to launch/land.
Downside of those engines is they spew radiation
along with the thrust so until we solve that issue
in RL, we’ll be a long way off from being able to use
any type of reactor engines on Earth.
Hmm. Current record holder for reaction mass efficiency is probably something
like this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_1
If I understand the data correctly it used 15% of it’s mass for a “delta vee” of 4.3 km/s
Which would be “not quite enough” for something like mars.
So yeah, I would be possible.
(Not with current-day ion drives, of course, they’re very efficient, but extremely weak)
If I stuck with technology that we know today is possible, there would be no story.
Just assume that the other species have advanced beyond today’s limits.
It wouldn’t have taken long – just look at how far we’ve come in the last hundred
years or so.
After all, almost all of the non-gravity advanced tech that the Empire has they
copied from more advances societies.
Oh sure, if this was about RL, there wouldn’t be much story.
Most people like to compare mostly to how close to RL it is to
stories like these. Granted, there is always some that like
to use RL facts to pick apart a story line, but in cases like
Sci-Fi movies or TV, it’s more of a “pay attention to me” than
anything. I tend to ignore that and draw my own conclusions.
I don’t put much stock in professional critics as well, they are
dead wrong so often in the Sci-Fi genre. MCU proved that!
I should add we can thank Sci-Fi for things like cell phones,
microwaves, and wireless power. those were all inspired by
older Sci-Fi TV shows.
Ion engines are pretty easy to make but they can barely make a paper
airplane to fly, Fusion reaction produces a huge amount of energy and
radiation making it ideal in a vacuum but deadly on an inhabited planet.
I made an Ion engine out of guitar string and a neon transformer, but
it wasn’t strong enough to do anything but blow funny-smelling air. Made
a desk fan out of it until I forgot and got zapped by brushing against the
wires… OWeCH! Ok I don’t need coffee anymore… (panting and checking pulse)
Thanks for the laugh!
My biggest problem in writing is avoiding the Deus Ex Machina trap
that even the most popular authors fall into.
John Ringo is famous for it.
Get your hero into a situation that is impossible for him to survive,
but then:
“Oh, I forgot to mention this earlier, but he just happens to have a
(previously unmentioned) special device or skill that is perfect for
getting him out of this mess!”
I’m saying they have drones for that and their
ship isn’t fitted with grav drives yet.
Sea water makes good reaction mass I guess.
I figure they carry them for just such occasions as this. In the
days of sail, ships would patrol for long periods. It was common
to go ashore to islands to replenish water and other supplies.
If the patrol area included developed areas they could put into
a port and purchase supplies. Large ships have always carried
auxiliary craft. I just figured they carried auxiliary craft to
replenish supplies of reaction mass. Planetary rings and icy moons
should be common in star systems and would provide both reaction
mass and base stocks for food synthesizers.
Earth’s seawater can be processed to make “heavy water”
which makes the reaction mass for the fusion reactors they
experiment with these days. “Fusion drive” is what most
races used pre-empire.
I would think that tritium and deuterium would be more plentiful
on the icy moons and rings of gas giant planets. Lighter elements
seem to be more plentiful further out in a planetary system.
True, but that would require mining equipment while the
drones can just suck water up without landing. Hydrogen3 is
a better choice but again, mining. Water is made with H2+O
while H3 is built up on any solar body without an atmosphere.
Thanks Bill, I couldn’t for the life of me remember how deuterium
was spelt, and don’t ask the crazy crap spell-check and my phone’s
VOX kept coming up with heh.
Liquid water on the surface means it has an atmosphere. It’s apparently also
breathable if it’s a better place to meet than an orbital rendezvous. Back in the
day in the ttrpg Traveler you could scoop methane gas from a gas giant to
obtain useable-but-impure-and-problematic fusion fuel. Water’s better than that.
Oh sure, there’s a crap ton of dust and odd gases that would
have to be “cleaned” out before it could be used easily. TOS-ST
and Voyager both brought up point on the show as well.
Any deep space ship would need a way to refuel in the “wild”
or they’d never get very far out. A bit hard to explore new worlds
when your gas tank gets low. That’s what the “Busard collectors”
were for on any ST ship, they’d simply fly through a gas nebula
and turn on the “vacuum cleaners” no need for drones etc…
Just about any element can be found that way.
Here’s one for my fellow vets. I never knew about this.
(It’s a very short looping video.)
https://twitter.com/DannyDeraney/status/1663234994964402176
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my father and I
thank you for your service.
My true regret is that they wouldn’t let me.
Even if it was only as support for you guys.