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Do spacecraft really have to endure the hazards of reentry?

Spinward Flow

Spinward Flow

SOC-14 5K
Everything that Scott Manley is talking about here makes perfect sense when you're limited to chemical reaction drives and inertial aerobraking.

As soon as gravitics technology enters the equation for engineering, the solutions CHANGE (because with gravitics you can achieve thrust without relying on the rocket equation!). 🥳

 
Spinward Flow said:
Everything that Scott Manley is talking about here makes perfect sense when you're limited to chemical reaction drives and inertial aerobraking.

As soon as gravitics technology enters the equation for engineering, the solutions CHANGE (because with gravitics you can achieve thrust without relying on the rocket equation!). 🥳
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Just the sheer amount of constant thrust stipulated by Traveller removes the need for atmospheric braking...
 
It also may be a matter of the particular gaming session in-play: How fast do you want to reach the surface? Hypersonic, Supersonic, or Subsonic/Leisurely? Even if you are powered with gravitics, if you want to get down fast, you will still encounter heating.
 
whulorigan said:
It also may be a matter of the particular gaming session in-play: How fast do you want to reach the surface? Hypersonic, Supersonic, or Subsonic/Leisurely? Even if you are powered with gravitics, if you want to get down fast, you will still encounter heating.
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No contest.
Streamlined hulls can transit from orbit to landed on a surface in less time than partially streamlined hulls can (because, better streamlining means better aerobraking).
 
I Was thinking that with grav control you can enter the atmosphere slowly and land slowly. A dispersed structure the ship will then conform to the topography of the landing area. Takeoff is problematic at that point (aborting the landing may be as well).
 
Atmosphere may be your hot little enemy especially if not streamlined, but it’s your friend for exerting velocity reduction.

I have been working out rules for the precise effects of atmosphere and impact at varying levels of velocity, but been less of a priority once I figured out just how low a threshold impact has to reach to turn the crew into jelly.

It was a useful exercise however in clarifying just how low orbit one has to be to deliver effective ortillery.

Any missile based system just can’t run up speed or risk burn up or time for planetary point defense to shoot them down. So a lot of ortillery missile volume tends to be less engine and fuel and more armor and warhead.

Mass driver type bombardment has to be more specialized low speed don’t burn up the slug, harder to PD but no light speed strikes against anything thicker then Thin.
 
Spinward Flow said:
Enough so that if your Maneuver G exceeds planetary surface G, partially streamlined ships ought to be able to enter atmosphere and land. 🤔
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The Brooklyn Bridge is partially streamlined … it resists wind loads every day … but it doesn’t fly.
How easy/hard would it be to attach grav modules to it and fly it into orbit?
I suspect, it is just not designed for the stress (just like a partially streamlined ship is not designed for the stress in CT … MT redefines the terms).

Now the question of why a cannonball and a musket ball and a baseball and all those other spheres that travel through the atmosphere are not “streamlined” is a different matter.
 
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