Commercial starship lifeboat requirements

[Whipsnade]

The Marooned/Marooned Alone double adventure makes mention of a lifeboat...

True, but that lifeboat falls into that very special "Lifeboats, Reasons For" category atpollard mentioned earlier in the thread:

I agree ... subject to the caveat that this is a game that is often used to replicate books and movies ... a lone hero or a couple plucky droids fleeing in an escape pod is a staple of space opera, so there may be a meta-game reason to have them.

The lifeboats are there for the purposes of the plot alone. The lifeboat even conveniently explodes after delivering the players to the planet neatly removing itself from the stage.

 

[rancke]

The lifeboats are there for the purposes of the plot alone. The lifeboat even conveniently explodes after delivering the players to the planet neatly removing itself from the stage.

Regardless of the meta-reason for its existence, the lifeboat still has a in-setting existence.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Regardless of the meta-reason for its existence, the lifeboat still has a in-setting existence.


Hans

Yes, as an excellent example of why you should check with your starport's Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau branch before buying your tickets. :rofl:

 

[Carlobrand]

An interesting feature in GURPS is that there appear to be two different varieties of lifeboat: one for trips to locations where help is unavailable and you may have to wait till they post your ship missing and send someone to investigate - that one equipped with low berths - and the other intended for more populated destinations where the idea is to get the heck off the ship with the expectation that someone's going to be coming to your rescue pretty quickly.

I don't have the main GURPS Traveller book, so I don't know the specifications of that first one. In GURPS Far Trader, that second one's a 10 dT craft that can take 72 passengers (!) on 6 "passenger couches," which I imagine is a glorified bench. Must get pretty warm in there.

In MegaTrav, the smallest craft capable of mounting maneuver drives comes in at 20 dT. So, you could design a vehicle for the role, but the smallest craft proper that can serve in that capacity is some variation on the launch. Since the launch already starts with fairly minimal drives, power plant, fuel, etc., It can serve in the lifeboat capacity with minimal modification - replace the passenger and cargo compartments with 5 ELBs. Alternately, you can do the GURPS short-term lifeboat thing: MegaTrav ship design assigns life support by volume of space, not by number of people using it, so you could conceivably crowd folk into a regular launch like riders on a subway to get them off the ship in extremis. I think you can crowd 73 people in there that way for 8 hours or less - 147 cubic meters available space at 2 cubic meters per person. (After that it counts more as a rather slow and unpleasant way to die. )

 

[aramis]

General rule of both Naval and Space emergencies: If you need help, unless you can see land, help won't arrive in time.

The problem being any lifeboat is as likely to get lost, unless it's a full-on small craft, unless a world's in view. And if it's in view, your best bet is just to stay put and wait for rescue.

 

[Carlobrand]

General rule of both Naval and Space emergencies: If you need help, unless you can see land, help won't arrive in time.

The problem being any lifeboat is as likely to get lost, unless it's a full-on small craft, unless a world's in view. And if it's in view, your best bet is just to stay put and wait for rescue.

"In view" is not a great challenge in space, given the proper tools - some form of decent telescope and some means of knowing where to point it with accuracy. The challenge is in getting from point A to point B while maintaining human life. A grav vehicle can be designed to do it but less efficiently and with lower odds of success, and I don't think there's much if any cost savings over a launch unless the thing's rather small. If space on a ship is at a premium, you only have a few people trying to get off, and there's no expectation of help, something air/raft-sized can be designed to do the job with a reasonable chance of success, though much depends on your vector at the time the little thing leaves the ship and how far away from the world you are. I don't recall which of the books talks about how far from the world and how much thrust is lost at that distance.

Barring that, the lesser challenge is to maintain human life long enough for someone else to get from point B to point A, assuming there is someone at point B with the necessary capability. MT Errata gave us the Emergency Atmospheric Reentry Capsule (EARC), a half dT drop capsule with capacity for three, 22 hours life support and an emergency beacon for rescuers to home on it - oh, and emergency re-entry capability if launched from orbit. At that size, it can be subsumed in the 4 dT per person stateroom accommodation without causing any particular difficulty. A 6G rescue craft can cover almost 100 million kilometers in 22 hours, so retrieving them in a timely manner is not particularly challenging for any port with a 30 dT ship's boat handy.

An ELB in a little hull sized to fit it and a bit of power and fuel, that will do for a good long while - pretty much indefinitely with solar panels, assuming you're within reasonable distance of a light source.

Still, there aren't a whole lot of circumstances where it wouldn't be better to stay with the crippled ship and wait there for the help to show up.

 

[aramis]

Keep in mind: rescue craft need to crew, fire up, launch, and then find, match vectors, and recover the survivors. Probably should figure on no more than 2/3 the LS time.

Also, in sight means visual. As in, if you don't see it out the window with the Mk 1 eyeball, don't count on rescue.

An inbound ship, when abandoned, has a strong vector to be matched. If it was on a burn to a halt in orbit course, you're not matching vectors quickly.

 

[HG_B]

Keep in mind: rescue craft need to crew, fire up, launch, and then find, match vectors, and recover the survivors. Probably should figure on no more than 2/3 the LS time.

Also, in sight means visual. As in, if you don't see it out the window with the Mk 1 eyeball, don't count on rescue.

An inbound ship, when abandoned, has a strong vector to be matched. If it was on a burn to a halt in orbit course, you're not matching vectors quickly.

Not sure why being in eyeball visual range matters. An inbound ship (from 100D of a size 8 planet) for 1G has a match time for another 1G ship of ~8 hours max.

 

[aramis]

Not sure why being in eyeball visual range matters. An inbound ship (from 100D of a size 8 planet) for 1G has a match time for another 1G ship of ~8 hours max.

Because it generally means that you'll be low enough vector and close enough for response to be in range; given other traveller paradigms, you're not generally going to be making high speed passes in visual range.

Also: if there is trauma, you've generally got 1 hour to start to treat it in a med facility, or the patient dies. A low berth canonically extends this.

If you're 1 hour from stop at 1G, and have a catastrophic failure, either you impact within the hour, or a 6 G gets to you taking 15-35 min (depending upon pilot skill and location of rescue boat).

But, in normal jump operations, you're never more than visual range anyway. And if you're outside that visual range, you'd better be able to self-rescue aboard, because you're far enough that (1) help won't get there easily and (2) if you're inbound, you're going to (2a) miss the target world, or (2b) make a nifty new crater upon the target world. Plus, (3) not many people are looking that far out.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

What about rescue rockets? Judges Guild suggested one in their Spacebase. Launched from the starport and reaching speeds of 12 gs it could catch up with the ship in distress and allow the passages to disembark and await rescue in the rocket until help arrived.

 

[PFVA63]

"In view" is not a great challenge in space, given the proper tools - some form of decent telescope and some means of knowing where to point it with accuracy. The challenge is in getting from point A to point B while maintaining human life. A grav vehicle can be designed to do it but less efficiently and with lower odds of success, and I don't think there's much if any cost savings over a launch unless the thing's rather small. If space on a ship is at a premium, you only have a few people trying to get off, and there's no expectation of help, something air/raft-sized can be designed to do the job with a reasonable chance of success, though much depends on your vector at the time the little thing leaves the ship and how far away from the world you are. I don't recall which of the books talks about how far from the world and how much thrust is lost at that distance.

Barring that, the lesser challenge is to maintain human life long enough for someone else to get from point B to point A, assuming there is someone at point B with the necessary capability. MT Errata gave us the Emergency Atmospheric Reentry Capsule (EARC), a half dT drop capsule with capacity for three, 22 hours life support and an emergency beacon for rescuers to home on it - oh, and emergency re-entry capability if launched from orbit. At that size, it can be subsumed in the 4 dT per person stateroom accommodation without causing any particular difficulty. A 6G rescue craft can cover almost 100 million kilometers in 22 hours, so retrieving them in a timely manner is not particularly challenging for any port with a 30 dT ship's boat handy.

An ELB in a little hull sized to fit it and a bit of power and fuel, that will do for a good long while - pretty much indefinitely with solar panels, assuming you're within reasonable distance of a light source.

Still, there aren't a whole lot of circumstances where it wouldn't be better to stay with the crippled ship and wait there for the help to show up.

Hi,

I was thinking that maybe some potential circumstances for leaving a parent craft for a lifeboat/lifepod could include being forced off (ie the parent ship is being hijacked and you're being kicked off etc), the parent ship is/was in orbit but is now failing, leading it to begin falling from orbit, a medical/biological outbreak and/or some sort of flora/fauna let loose onboard the parent ship has led to a need to want to physically separate yourself from the threat (think "Aliens" and/or any number of episodes for various TV shows), a failed fuel skimming event where the parent ship looses power within a gas giant, a catastrophic collision event leaving the parent ship too damaged to stay onboard, an engineering failure thay might lead to the ship being flooded with fuel, battle damage and/or other such events.

As for Aramis' concerns about patient trauma I was thinking/hoping that an emergency low berth might allow for somehow stabilizing the patient until a rescue could be undertaken.

PS. On ocean going ships, other than for "drills" and such, you rarely ever use your lifeboats either, unless one of those boats is also configured for other duties (such as man overboard operations etc), and trying to stay onboard the parent ship if possible is often the best course of action but having lifeboats/rafts etc onboard is still a good idea and required by various regulations.

 

[HG_B]

But, in normal jump operations, you're never more than visual range anyway. And if you're outside that visual range, you'd better be able to self-rescue aboard, because you're far enough that (1) help won't get there easily and (2) if you're inbound, you're going to (2a) miss the target world, or (2b) make a nifty new crater upon the target world. Plus, (3) not many people are looking that far out.

1) only applies if you have a critically injured person.

2a) no big deal. If you are that close to a target world someone can match you vector.

2b) Very unlikely unless you are REALLY close already and for some reason were aiming at it rather than a geosync Up Port.

3) With an emergency beacon/radio. No one needs to be looking.

 

[Carlobrand]

Keep in mind: rescue craft need to crew, fire up, launch, and then find, match vectors, and recover the survivors. Probably should figure on no more than 2/3 the LS time.

Also, in sight means visual. As in, if you don't see it out the window with the Mk 1 eyeball, don't count on rescue.

An inbound ship, when abandoned, has a strong vector to be matched. If it was on a burn to a halt in orbit course, you're not matching vectors quickly.

Let's begin by dispensing with this 19th century "in sight" idea. Aside from unusual circumstances - swamped in a hurricane, capsizing from overloading, and suchlike - that one went out the window with the advent of radio and aircraft. Titanic lost passengers because she didn't carry enough lifeboats and the initial evacuation was poorly coordinated, not because rescue wasn't in sight. Nowadays, a Coast Guard helicopter can be over a wreck and pulling people out of the water within a couple of hours of a distress call.

What that says about the Traveller TU is - well nothing, no more or less than that 19th century idea says about it. You have to judge the thing by the circumstances and available tech, and the available tech gives us very sturdy ships, automated radio beacons capable of being heard across a star system, an assortment of life support options and responders with 500,000 km range active sensors, at minimum 150 million km range passive detection equipment and 6G drives capable of getting out 10 million miles in under 8 hours. All that being said, I really don't think the firing up and launching bit is a critical handicap, least of all if they do such typical things as keeping a few rescue craft ready in orbit and keeping some of the rest with drives running and crews on standby.

Using, say, a 6G ship's boat to match course with the typical crippled 1-2G merchantman is not particularly challenging unless the merchantman's already on his deorbit run into atmosphere when disaster hits. Let's say the cripple's a 1G merchantman 800 thousand kilometers out and inbound at his highest speed, having broken down on turnaround after flying 800 thousand in from the 100-diameter limit. Merchantman's inbound at ~126 kps, takes a 6G a bit over 35 minutes to hit that speed, during which the merchantman covers 267 thousand kilometers and the rescuer covers 133,333 km. Rescuer needs to start his acceleration on the merchant's bearing when the merchant's 133thousand and some kilometers away. Let's say there's a 20-minute delay for some reason - the cripple's now ~650,000 kilometers away before the 6G can start. My best estimate says the rescuer accelerates for around 1500 seconds toward the cripple, decelerates for about another 1500 seconds to a stop on the cripple's vector and with the cripple about 133 thousand kilometers away, then accelerates on the same bearing as the cripple to intercept it after it's travelled another 267 thousand kilometers. The cripple has flown 134 thousand kilometers past the planet, the rescuer has matched course and is rescuing folk, it's been roughly an hour and 45 minutes since the distress signal was sent.

That's assuming I haven't made a math error; that first bit involved solving for a t-square-plus-t equation, and my math's a bit rusty. Of course, a faster victim requires more time for the intercept, but I think it's pretty clear we're talking no more than a few hours at most before the rescuer's alongside. Same math applies to anyone who bails from the merchantman unless they have some way of altering their vector. You may drift a few dozen klicks off over that couple hours, but you're not going to be too hard to find on sensors at that range, especially if you have some sort of locater beacon of your own.

Farther out, things get bad. Rescuing someone who's outbound for the gas giant when trouble hits could be a matter of many days for an interception. Still, finding and intercepting someone lit up like a little radio star is mostly an exercise in math; trouble only really starts if that emergency beacon and his transponder go black. (In which case he's likely been hit by pirates.)

 

[aramis]

What about rescue rockets? Judges Guild suggested one in their Spacebase. Launched from the starport and reaching speeds of 12 gs it could catch up with the ship in distress and allow the passages to disembark and await rescue in the rocket until help arrived.

Still has to match course and vector. It does that faster, but still has to do so.

 

[Carlobrand]

What about rescue rockets? Judges Guild suggested one in their Spacebase. Launched from the starport and reaching speeds of 12 gs it could catch up with the ship in distress and allow the passages to disembark and await rescue in the rocket until help arrived.

Still has to match course and vector. It does that faster, but still has to do so.

I don't see a lot of practical difference between awaiting rescue in a depleted rocket and awaiting rescue in an unpowered lifeboat launched from the crippled ship, other than that you're saving the ship operator some money for not having to carry that lifeboat. A rocket from the starport might be an idea for a universe where passenger shipping was such a marginal affair - or the life support equipment so bulky - that the cost or space of a lifeboat made the business unprofitable. In a more typical Traveller universe, you're better off putting the rocket on the ship so it still has the delta-vee to do something once everyone's aboard.

Been doing some research. Emergency options include:

Marker Bouy: TL variable. A radio beacon capable of generating a signal heard across a system's a rather pricey bit of equipment at Cr150,000. In addition, it can be just as important to learn why a ship failed as to rescue the survivors, and if you're bailing because the ship's drive won't shut down or because damaged controls leave the ship unable to avoid an imminent crash, then a strong signal device can help rescuers find the unlucky castaways. The Marker Bouy consists of one system-range radio beacon, a small flight data recorder for recording details of the ship's performance and crew's conversations in the hours leading up to the emergency, a solar array to power the set, and a booster to take it away from whatever disaster awaits the ship. The marker bouy data recorder also records details at the time of lifeboat launches and automated transmissions from the lifeboats detailing their maneuvers after launch, permitting lifeboats to be tracked from the point of the bouy.

Personal Rescue Enclosure, aka Rescue Ball (NASA): TL7, cost unknown. A 0.86-meter sphere made from spacesuit material - urethane inner enclosure, kevlar middle layer, white outer thermal protective cover - with an umbilical to attach to an external life support source and a 1-hour internal O2 supply and CO2 scrubber. A small "window" permits a limited view of external conditions. The ball is intended to allow the occupant to shelter in the event of a depressurization, supported by air from the ship. The small size and internal O2 supply allow the occupant to be moved by rescuers from ship to ship when evacuating a stricken ship; the ball has a pair of handles to aid handling.

(In my TU, they're standard emergency equipment - a couple in each stateroom, a few in the lounge, etc. They're stowed in the ceiling and pop down in the event of a depressurization alarm, with an umbilicus allowing them to be supplied from ship's air and a 1-hour internal O2 supply. In addition to the O2 supply, they contain a small intercom unit wired through the umbilicus so they can speak to and be spoken to by the crew, a small pamphlet describing how to handle a vacuum emergency, a small first aid kit including a single dose of a liquid sedative and a single dose of liquid fast drug, which effectively extends the survival period in the ball by a factor of 60. Crew are supposed to enter the affected compartments and move the occupied balls to a functioning compartment, but in extremis the balls can keep the occupant alive for 2-3 days on ship's air or for 2 1/2 days on a fast-drug dose.)

Exiting a ship in a rescue ball would require outside assistance. Remaining in space in one, as opposed to using it as an improvised vac suit to cross to another ship, isn't advised but is possible with adequate external support. One could for example come upon a lifeboat with several rescue balls tethered to external umbilical connection ports to provide for support in excess of the lifeboat's internal capacity. Think of it as the vacuum equivalent of a life vest, poor souls hanging onto the sides of the inflated raft: help better get here soon.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/reseball.htm

Survival Bubble (MegaTrav Imperial Encyclopedia): TL9, Cr 600. A 2-meter plastic sphere with alternating opaque and clear panels for external view. It has a 2 hour internal O2 supply (and presumably a scrubber). Like the PRE, the survival bubble's intended to provide a quick refuge against vacuum conditions. The survival bubble's tall enough to allow the occupant to stand upright or move independently by walking on the inner surface; doors are likely to be a problem. The size of the Survival Bubble allows it to be used as an airlock of sorts for persons in a rescue ball: the rescue ball is put in the bubble along with whatever gear the occupant needs - or a second person if needed - and the bubble inflated to allow the rescue ball occupant to safely exit the ball and retrieve the gear. It can also serve as an impromptu retreat for vac-suited individuals, allowing them a place to remove helmets to eat, for example. It's more comfortable for the floating-in-space role but a bit bulky for inside ships. (In my TU, the survival bubble also has an umbilicus that allows it to be attached to an external life support source for longer-term occupancy, a built-in glove extension that allows the occupant to insert his arm to manipulate objects outside the bubble - for example, to attach or detach the umbilicus - a small 5 km range radio, and a med kit as above.)

Vac Suit (CT Book 1 & 3, MT Imperial Encyclopedia): TL8, Cr10,000 (CT Book 3); or TL9+, Cr7000-9000 + cost of life support (IE). The standard vac suit, with a 6-hour O2 supply, communicator and "other basic survival appurtenances" (CT Book 1) or a separately purchased Portable Life Support System providing 4 to 48 hours life support (IE: Cr3000-8000); mention of an "air supply recycler" implies a potential for longer duration if external power is available, though this is of little value if some means of providing water for the occupant is not also available. Lots better than a rescue ball or survival bubble, you can navigate hallways and doors to get out and can manipulate things, but it's slow getting into one: the prepared crewman might have a vac suit near at hand in a deflated survival bubble so he can find shelter quickly in an emergency and then have time to don his vac suit. Addition of a Long Range Thruster Pack (IE: TL12, Cr14,000) gives the occupant the ability to travel at 2G for up to 48 hours. With the LRTP, basically a life raft with a motor for those with sufficient skills. A Grav Belt (TL12, Cr100,000) is also a way to get around, lasts longer but with less thrust; also, keep in mind that thrust gets cut in half outside of 10 diameters.

Emergency Atmospheric Reentry Capsule/EARC (Consolidated MT Errata 2.2: Imperial Encyclopedia): TL13, 22,000 a half dT drop capsule with capacity for three, 22 hours life support, an emergency supply kit, an emergency beacon and emergency re-entry capability if launched from orbit.

Life Raft (ATU, MT Referee Manual design): basically an Emergency Low Berth with a solar panel to power it, an automated radio beacon and a booster to get it away from the ship. Specifics depend on the design.

Air/Raft (CT Book 3, MT Imperial Encyclopedia): TL8, Cr600,000 (CT Book 3); or TL9-15, cost variable (IE). Lacks life support but can provide transport for vac-suited occupants at about 1.1G in space. The CT air/raft runs 10 weeks. Performance and cost varies with tech level in IE. At TL9, a Cr227,000 battery-powered model can be designed that will provide service for a little under 3 1/2 hours. At TL10, a Cr237,000 model can be designed with fuel cells that require their own O2 supply; it's limited to about 7 days in space. At TL15, the IE Cr275,000 model has a little fusion plant and can run 60 days continuously. Standard seating is 4, but there are ways to make use of the cargo capacity to tow others along in space,

Enclosed Air/Raft (MT Imperial Encyclopedia): TL15, Cr389,000. Like the Air/Raft but with an enclosed cab and life support system. Presumably the life support will maintain occupants for as long as the vehicle has power, but water and food are the occupants' problem.

Grav Carrier (CT Book 3, MT Imperial Encyclopedia): TL8, Cr1,000,000 (CT Book 3); or TL15, MCr14.44 (!). Pretty much as with the Enclosed Air/Raft but larger - 14 passengers in CT, 8 passengers in MT plus about 2 dTons of space if you have to crowd it - and more expensive, expensive enough that a launch is usually a better bet. However, if it's what you got when the ship fails, it's what you use.

Launch (CT Book 2, MT Imperial Encyclopedia): TL8, Cr1,000,000 (CT Book 3); or TL15, MCr9.08. 13 tons available in CT (2 crew plus up to 26 passengers), 20 passengers in MT plus many more if you crowd her, and a 1G drive to tak you where you need to go.

 

[aramis]

The use of lifeboats generally means multiple rescues - and if you have full-up small craft, it's usually better to take them and go.

If you're relying upon smaller stuff, scattering means less chance of being picked up before the air runs out.

In a Resuce bubble, odds are you're dead if you're tossed... the capture time coupled with the 15+ minutes to get the ready crew launched from the station, and another hour to get course matched to the ship, and then the docking maneuvers to catch the balls...

Remember: tractor beams are TL 16 (MTRM 95)... you have to carfeully match to each rescue ball, and then not slam the ball into a wall while capturing it.

And there is a canon rescue ball... 2 hours of Oxygen. Maybe a another 20 minutes if you got in with pressure already. Cr150. Also has some radiation shielding (but not much). (MTIE).

The canonical Shelter Bubble is 2m, has 2 hours of air for one person, and probably could have another 4-5 hours if filled with room air at start. Cr600. Not intended for space; it's intended for dirtside use.

Pressure Tents are also canon - Cr2000, no airlock, 2 persons, unspecified duration. (I've checked CT, MT, TNE, T4 cores...) Safe to assume they're be survivable - but the radiation protection is minimal.

A vacuum shelter tent, if it is used for a group, actually improves the odds - because it's less scatter. Fewer people to grab, fewer captures to make. If you have to rescue ball people to get them out, put them into a vacuum tent.

Things which make you bail from the ship without a powered small craft basically amount to: radioactive cargo leak, air scrubber broken, heating/cooling failure, or panic. And the best chance of survival in 3 of the 4 is to simply have the guy with the vacc suit set up a pressure tent in the commons or bay, load you into it while awaiting assistance, if he can't put you into a small craft.

Anything else likely has either already killed you, or is less dangerous than the risks of radiation and microbody impact. In a busy system, putting a rescue ball out the door is asking for them to be opened to vacuum, as orbital debris will be an issue.

If you can see the planet, odds are the ships dirtside can get to you before that two hours of LS in a rescue bubble or survival bubble runs out. If they can't, it's not a rescue bubble any more, it's a body bag.

And 6G's for 1.75 hours... 1,190,700km... the 75 diameter point for earth. Assuming there's a 5-min rescue launch on the deck, that leaves 5m to clear the station and 5min to dock to the ball.

The canon rescue ball isn't worth beans in most emergencies - it's only particularly useful if it's got an external connection, or for crew to transfer you off through damaged sections in vacuum. NASA's isn't better.

As for it being a bad measure for real world, tell that to the guys lost overboard in the Bering sea, or the guys whose boat burned while crabbing. The ones in view of shore often survive a fire by ramming the shore, THEN abandoning. One crew, they turned it on, full, and hung over the gunwhales in survival suits. That was in the 80's. They guys with fires at sea generally either self-rescue, or they die. Even with EPIRBS, and clear weather, yellow boats on blue water, it's a crapshoot.

 

[Carlobrand]

The use of lifeboats generally means multiple rescues...

You mean multiple trips, or multiple folk on the lifeboat?

If you're relying upon smaller stuff, scattering means less chance of being picked up before the air runs out.

Pretty much. Having to abandon ship in the first place is unusual, as we've discussed. Having to abandon ship in something that wasn't intended for more than a few hours in space, that's desperation. You could tether yourselves together to deal with scattering, assuming some crewman in a vac suit with some means of propulsion, you can adopt various strategies to extend air supply like having extra tanks available or using Fast Drug, but let's face it: you're still in a really, really bad way. Look on the bright side: the stars are very pretty tonight.

Survival rate in life jackets wasn't exactly high either before the advent of helicopters. If there wasn't someone there to rescue you, survivors tended to drift apart and were awful hard to spot. U.S.S. Indianapolis went down quick with little time to launch lifeboats: of 880 survivors, most ended up in the water, some without life jackets, and 559 died over the next four days - many of shark attacks - before they were found and rescued. Of course, no sharks in space - different dangers.

In a Resuce bubble, odds are you're dead if you're tossed... the capture time coupled with the 15+ minutes to get the ready crew launched from the station, and another hour to get course matched to the ship, and then the docking maneuvers to catch the balls...

Remember: tractor beams are TL 16 (MTRM 95)... you have to carfeully match to each rescue ball, and then not slam the ball into a wall while capturing it.

...[various other deficits with the rescue ball]...

The canon rescue ball isn't worth beans in most emergencies - it's only particularly useful if it's got an external connection, or for crew to transfer you off through damaged sections in vacuum. NASA's isn't better.

In my version of things, the rescue ball is a cheap in-ship alternative to buying Cr10,000 space suits for passengers to use if the ship had to depressurize for combat or lost pressure in an accident. Also useful for transferring between ships, as NASA originally intended; in that role, they're only a little more risky than a vac suit. Taking them outside for more than a quick ship-to-ship crossing is a case of desperate improvisation, in which case, as I said, it's possible with external support: for example, the crew out there in vac suits with a rescue ball buddying off the vac suit's O2 supply, or you hook one up to an external port in an overcrowded liferaft (which of course then can't move). Or, make sure they're dosed with Fast. This isn't Plan A - this is the last-ditch effort of the kind of owner who has a 23-seat lifeboat with only 4 emergency kits and barely enough fuel for a landing. And, yes, some of those poor people are going to die rather unpleasantly, unless they opt to die quickly. :devil:

But, it's an option, however desperate, so it went on the list.

As for recovery, I'd expect the first thing a rescuer would do would be to get out there and make sure people don't die while they're conducting the rescue: put men in vac suits and have them go out on backpack thrusters with spare O2 bottles. The second thing would be to have a better plan than trying to take in each and every ball by maneuvering the boat.

And there is a canon rescue ball...

What the ... ... I missed it! What the heck is a rescue ball doing under, "Ball, Rescue", while the survival bubble's under "Survival Bubble"?

Pressure Tents are also canon - Cr2000, no airlock, 2 persons, unspecified duration. (I've checked CT, MT, TNE, T4 cores...) Safe to assume they're be survivable - but the radiation protection is minimal.

I thought about that but didn't figure it as part of the emergency equipment. Rescue balls work well inside to keep them alive while you transfer them to a pressurized part of the ship, or in extremis to keep them alive in the ship while help gets out to you. Taking them outside means the ship really wasn't prepared for the situation; I didn't see that kind spending extra on a Plan-B when he cut budget for Plan-A, least of all when they aren't much safer than the ball and can't be moved easily - you'd have to inflate them outside and then get people inside by rescue ball anyway. Also, no data on how they handle life support. Tether the balls together if you're worried about drift.

...Things which make you bail from the ship without a powered small craft basically amount to: radioactive cargo leak, air scrubber broken, heating/cooling failure, or panic. And the best chance of survival in 3 of the 4 is to simply have the guy with the vacc suit set up a pressure tent in the commons or bay, load you into it while awaiting assistance, if he can't put you into a small craft.

1) I'm not clear how sheltering aboard in a pressure tent is a defense against a radiation leak. 2-3) I wouldn't design a ship's life support with one critical failure point: each distinct bulkhead-defined section would have an independent system, and moving to the functioning section while the damaged section is under repair should cover most situations. But, that's me; my wife says I display an excess of caution. I'm probably a victim of childhood toilet training.

...As for it being a bad measure for real world, tell that to the guys lost overboard in the Bering sea, or the guys whose boat burned while crabbing. The ones in view of shore often survive a fire by ramming the shore, THEN abandoning. ...

Be glad to.

On the modern front: technology is a handy thing to have. I understand they have water-activated mobile locators that crewmen can carry; they start signalling if someone falls in the water so the closest ship can home in and find the poor soul using GPS. I understand there's also protective clothing crews can wear nowadays to extend their survival time in cold water. As for your hapless crab boat - well, if he's out of sight of land, good thing he's got a radio and life vests so he can evacuate to water with some hope of rescue, isn't it?

But, as I said, one judges by the prevailing tools and circumstances, not by the past. There are certain unavoidable difficulties involved in getting from orbit to ground that aren't going to be faced by someone swimming for shore; ramming a world in your free trader is not generally considered survivable, much less an advisable method of dealing with a fire; and I sincerely hope the quality of firefighting equipment on a Traveller starship in vacuum are superior to those of a crab boat.

We humans are tool users extraordinaire. Faced with a problem - like, say, finding ourselves in need of rescue while out of sight of land - we start trying to figure out tools to address it. Problems don't tend to stay problems. Of course, then our tools expand our capabilities and we find new problems to solve.

My thought is rescue balls for inside the ship - unless you're on a really lousy ship and there just isn't an alternative when they tell you that you gotta get off. Key crewmen - pilot, chief engineer, medic - wearing body pressure suits with a helmet close at hand - is there a collapsible model they could keep on their hip or back? Maybe survival bubbles in the engineering space and bridge for other crew, 'cause it allows a quick retreat with enough room for someone to go fetch a vac suit and put it in there for you to change into. A survival bubble in the E-kit 'cause, if there IS no other pressurized spot on the ship, it's a cheap and handy place to pull people out of those balls briefly so they can get food or other necessities - that pressure tent idea works well for that too, but some merchants are cheap. EARCs 'cause you can say they're part of the cost and space of the staterooms, 1 for each 3 passengers, without having to fiddle with canon designs. Marker Bouy. Boats for ships that are doing something other than running from inhabited world to inhabited world, 'cause 22 hours just ain't gonna do it for them. Other stuff is more an if-you-got-it-and-don't-have-better kind of thing: the scout for example is just gonna have to make do with his vac suit and his air raft.

 

[aramis]

You mean multiple trips, or multiple folk on the lifeboat?



Pretty much. Having to abandon ship in the first place is unusual, as we've discussed. Having to abandon ship in something that wasn't intended for more than a few hours in space, that's desperation. You could tether yourselves together to deal with scattering, assuming some crewman in a vac suit with some means of propulsion, you can adopt various strategies to extend air supply like having extra tanks available or using Fast Drug, but let's face it: you're still in a really, really bad way. Look on the bright side: the stars are very pretty tonight.

Survival rate in life jackets wasn't exactly high either before the advent of helicopters. If there wasn't someone there to rescue you, survivors tended to drift apart and were awful hard to spot. U.S.S. Indianapolis went down quick with little time to launch lifeboats: of 880 survivors, most ended up in the water, some without life jackets, and 559 died over the next four days - many of shark attacks - before they were found and rescued. Of course, no sharks in space - different dangers.



In my version of things, the rescue ball is a cheap in-ship alternative to buying Cr10,000 space suits for passengers to use if the ship had to depressurize for combat or lost pressure in an accident. Also useful for transferring between ships, as NASA originally intended; in that role, they're only a little more risky than a vac suit. Taking them outside for more than a quick ship-to-ship crossing is a case of desperate improvisation, in which case, as I said, it's possible with external support: for example, the crew out there in vac suits with a rescue ball buddying off the vac suit's O2 supply, or you hook one up to an external port in an overcrowded liferaft (which of course then can't move). Or, make sure they're dosed with Fast. This isn't Plan A - this is the last-ditch effort of the kind of owner who has a 23-seat lifeboat with only 4 emergency kits and barely enough fuel for a landing. And, yes, some of those poor people are going to die rather unpleasantly, unless they opt to die quickly. :devil:

But, it's an option, however desperate, so it went on the list.

As for recovery, I'd expect the first thing a rescuer would do would be to get out there and make sure people don't die while they're conducting the rescue: put men in vac suits and have them go out on backpack thrusters with spare O2 bottles. The second thing would be to have a better plan than trying to take in each and every ball by maneuvering the boat.



What the ... ... I missed it! What the heck is a rescue ball doing under, "Ball, Rescue", while the survival bubble's under "Survival Bubble"?



I thought about that but didn't figure it as part of the emergency equipment. Rescue balls work well inside to keep them alive while you transfer them to a pressurized part of the ship, or in extremis to keep them alive in the ship while help gets out to you. Taking them outside means the ship really wasn't prepared for the situation; I didn't see that kind spending extra on a Plan-B when he cut budget for Plan-A, least of all when they aren't much safer than the ball and can't be moved easily - you'd have to inflate them outside and then get people inside by rescue ball anyway. Also, no data on how they handle life support. Tether the balls together if you're worried about drift.



1) I'm not clear how sheltering aboard in a pressure tent is a defense against a radiation leak. 2-3) I wouldn't design a ship's life support with one critical failure point: each distinct bulkhead-defined section would have an independent system, and moving to the functioning section while the damaged section is under repair should cover most situations. But, that's me; my wife says I display an excess of caution. I'm probably a victim of childhood toilet training.



Be glad to.

On the modern front: technology is a handy thing to have. I understand they have water-activated mobile locators that crewmen can carry; they start signalling if someone falls in the water so the closest ship can home in and find the poor soul using GPS. I understand there's also protective clothing crews can wear nowadays to extend their survival time in cold water. As for your hapless crab boat - well, if he's out of sight of land, good thing he's got a radio and life vests so he can evacuate to water with some hope of rescue, isn't it?

But, as I said, one judges by the prevailing tools and circumstances, not by the past. There are certain unavoidable difficulties involved in getting from orbit to ground that aren't going to be faced by someone swimming for shore; ramming a world in your free trader is not generally considered survivable, much less an advisable method of dealing with a fire; and I sincerely hope the quality of firefighting equipment on a Traveller starship in vacuum are superior to those of a crab boat.

We humans are tool users extraordinaire. Faced with a problem - like, say, finding ourselves in need of rescue while out of sight of land - we start trying to figure out tools to address it. Problems don't tend to stay problems. Of course, then our tools expand our capabilities and we find new problems to solve.

My thought is rescue balls for inside the ship - unless you're on a really lousy ship and there just isn't an alternative when they tell you that you gotta get off. Key crewmen - pilot, chief engineer, medic - wearing body pressure suits with a helmet close at hand - is there a collapsible model they could keep on their hip or back? Maybe survival bubbles in the engineering space and bridge for other crew, 'cause it allows a quick retreat with enough room for someone to go fetch a vac suit and put it in there for you to change into. A survival bubble in the E-kit 'cause, if there IS no other pressurized spot on the ship, it's a cheap and handy place to pull people out of those balls briefly so they can get food or other necessities - that pressure tent idea works well for that too, but some merchants are cheap. EARCs 'cause you can say they're part of the cost and space of the staterooms, 1 for each 3 passengers, without having to fiddle with canon designs. Marker Bouy. Boats for ships that are doing something other than running from inhabited world to inhabited world, 'cause 22 hours just ain't gonna do it for them. Other stuff is more an if-you-got-it-and-don't-have-better kind of thing: the scout for example is just gonna have to make do with his vac suit and his air raft.

Having the radio was no help - they burned to the waterline before help could arrive - another crabber arrived in time to fish dead men from the water, despite survival suits, floatation gear, and plenty of training. The Coasties arrived a few minutes after that, and took the recovered bodies back to shore.

If they'd been in view of land, they'd have been able to crash toward shore... but that's not where the crab is.

The Survival suit makes a 3 minute survival into a 20 minute survival. Not enough - abandoning ship in the Bering is merely choosing HOW you die.

Crabbers are about the most dangerous job within the United States... because there's nowhere to go when things go wrong. Crabbers die every year, almost every season, despite the best safety gear and plenty of practice in it.

As for the rescue balls and survival bubbles - they're worthless i for abandoning ship - because every bubble overboard is 5 minutes recovery maneuver time lost, and they only have 2 hours LS, maybe 2.5. Its choosing HOW you die. The Pressure Tent is a far superior tool for survival. The bubbles just allow the guy with the vacc suit to get you in. Put 4 guys inside, and you've probably got a couple days, and it's still only 5min to grab it.

In a fire aboard, everyone hops in bubbles or suits, and the compartments affected get vented. Then everyone gets moved to unaffected areas, and unbubbled. Self-Rescue.

In a Power Plant Failure - you don't abandon. You just move everyone in from the hull , and pump as much oxygen as you can into the central compartments, once the Emergency Power is gone. You use bubbles and pressure tents for thermal properties. You hope someone noticed your call. Otherwise, you eventually get found, dead of thermal injury, starvation, or suffocation, depending upon circumstances. But you've got days of darkness to await your fate. Bubbles on the outside are choosing to die in 3 hours alone.

Power Plant Hit? It kills the engineers, loses containment, and stops. See previous.

Solar Storm? Stay aboard, because the survival bubble is not going to stop the LD50 dose you could get outside.

Fuel Leak into habitat? Either it burns, or it freezes you. Or it's not bad enough to matter. Bubbles won't change that.

 

[Carlobrand]

Having the radio was no help - they burned to the waterline before help could arrive - another crabber arrived in time to fish dead men from the water, despite survival suits, floatation gear, and plenty of training. The Coasties arrived a few minutes after that, and took the recovered bodies back to shore.

If they'd been in view of land, they'd have been able to crash toward shore... but that's not where the crab is.

The Survival suit makes a 3 minute survival into a 20 minute survival. Not enough - abandoning ship in the Bering is merely choosing HOW you die..

Such are the chances of life. I can show rescues from the planet in as little as a few hours but, as you pointed out, even an hour may be too long for an injured person. Coast Guard has made some daring rescues in circumstances where people would otherwise have certainly died - and not infrequently arrive to find they're too late or can't find the person.

As for the rescue balls and survival bubbles - they're worthless i for abandoning ship - because every bubble overboard is 5 minutes recovery maneuver time lost, and they only have 2 hours LS, maybe 2.5. Its choosing HOW you die. The Pressure Tent is a far superior tool for survival. The bubbles just allow the guy with the vacc suit to get you in. Put 4 guys inside, and you've probably got a couple days, and it's still only 5min to grab it.

I think I've made my ideas clear - twice. They're a desperation maneuver, they work only if you can get the person some outside support to extend his live support, or maybe dose him with Fast drug and reduce the flow rate on that bottle. You don't choose to acknowledge that last part, which is fine, you have your own views and we're talking about a fictional milieu, after all.

I don't happen to be of the opinion that someone who leaves his passengers without a proper lifeboat or more survivable means of escape is going to go invest in a pressure tent as an alternative. I suspect their relative superiority would be lost in the fact that the guy being expected to buy them is the same guy who's leaving his passengers with no choice but to face naked space without adequate protection from radiation and other space hazards, but that's my thought.

In a fire aboard, everyone hops in bubbles or suits, and the compartments affected get vented. Then everyone gets moved to unaffected areas, and unbubbled. Self-Rescue.

In a Power Plant Failure - you don't abandon. You just move everyone in from the hull , and pump as much oxygen as you can into the central compartments, once the Emergency Power is gone. You use bubbles and pressure tents for thermal properties. You hope someone noticed your call. Otherwise, you eventually get found, dead of thermal injury, starvation, or suffocation, depending upon circumstances. But you've got days of darkness to await your fate. Bubbles on the outside are choosing to die in 3 hours alone.

Power Plant Hit? It kills the engineers, loses containment, and stops. See previous.

Solar Storm? Stay aboard, because the survival bubble is not going to stop the LD50 dose you could get outside.

Fuel Leak into habitat? Either it burns, or it freezes you. Or it's not bad enough to matter. Bubbles won't change that.

Yup. Probably 99 times out of a hundred, you're better off sheltering aboard - which is maybe why that cheapskate owner's not investing in more effective evacuation gear. The "metal-coated plastic film" that they're talking about for rescue balls is no help against a fuel spill, but I wouldn't have gone that route if I were doing it: I'd have made the ball out of the same material used in vac suits, as NASA does. More expensive maybe, but better for space and better for these situations. That'll have to be an IMTU innovation, though.

However, I still think it's easy to call the EARCs standard equipment and let it go with that.

 

[Carlobrand]

From the MegaTrav Consolidated Errata

The Emergency Atmospheric Reentry Capsule (EARC) is a TL13 drop capsule intended for emergency evacuation of a ship. It's a half-dTon but seats 3 in cramped conditions, with battery power for 22 hours life support or to power the capsule safely for one hour through atmospheric re-entry (implying that the re-entry system uses some sort of powered motor, probably a small grav drive since the ARC on which it is based is capable of returning to orbit for pickup). The capsule sits in a 1dTon automated launcher (volume includes capsule); the capsule launches under its own power, so can launch even if the ship is unpowered, and the whole set costs Cr80,000.

The capsule contains a 50km range radio with an automated multiband distress function that can serve as a beacon for rescue ships. The ARC on which it was based also had an inertial navigation system and hand computer so the occupant could try to land the thing at a place of his choosing, and it's likely the EARC has the same thing or an automated version of that system to ensure it landed as close as possible to someplace with rescuers without landing on a building in the middle of some town, though that isn't mentioned in the description.

It has room for 0.5 kl of cargo, but maximum payload mass including passengers is 354.6 kg, and a Marooned-style survival kit masses 23 kg, so there isn't much reserve for additional cargo beyond the three passengers and 3 survival kits, maybe a few kilos for whatever they happened to grab as they dashed for the capsule.

An advantage of the EARC is its small size: you don't have to wait for the entire ship's complement to get aboard before you can launch. That makes it useful in sudden emergencies such as a loss of ship's power during re-entry. It's ability to support life for 22 hours means that it can also be used to evacuate near an inhabited world with hope that rescuers can get to you before the life support runs out. And, as I mentioned earlier, it's small size and low cost means you can integrate the unit into existing ships without having to modify existing canon, by assuming that the space and cost are part of the stateroom allowance (1 per 3 rooms).

Of course, if you're in trouble and not close to an inhabited world, the only thing it's going to do is get you down to a planet if you're in orbit, or give you 22 hours to reconcile yourself with your deity. You really want a proper boat if you expect to find yourself out past orbital space without rescuers.