Grounding Asteroids

[Gadrin]

I'm trying to flesh out Drellesarr in Reaver's Deep a bit and
thought about how the original settlers took this backwater
planet and made it into a habitable place (well as habitable
as can be with it's stats)

Drellesarr System Information - B310550A
----------------------------------------
Starport         B    B - Good Quality Installation. 
Refined fuel is available, as is annual maintenance overhaul. 
A shipyard capable of building non-starships is present.

Size             3    3000 miles (4800 km). 
Atmosphere       1    Trace. 
Hydrographics    0    No free standing water. 
Population       5    Hundreds of thousands. 
Government       5    Feudal Technocracy. 
Law Level        0    No laws affecting weapons possession or ownership. 
Tech Level       A    Average Imperial.

Anyway, back to the question... Do you think the inhabitants of
Drellesarr over the centuries could have the wherewithal to do some
relatively minor (in my eyes) terraforming to add things like spots of
water or creating small pockets of artficial mountains/hills to make
other settlement areas...

Or do you think it would strictly be just a "run and hide" mentality
where the Reavers would simply park their ships and keep quiet ?

Obviously by the above stats it is a somewhat thriving place and I have
some basic ideas for what I would do to reflect the above description.

What tech level do you feel would be appropriate to ground asteroids ?
What would it do to a place like Drellesarr which has no atmo or water
anyhow ? It's small so I wondering how long for the dust to settle

It's a Feudal Technocracy now, but I assume at one point it was
somewhat balkanized due to whoever was around and could keep
the others in line. More than likely the most powerful would decide to
do something as radical as this and the others would be unlikely to
stop it, especially if they weren't told about it.

I'm trying to get the feel of:

What Tech Level it would require ?
What sort of numbers (meaning participants) ?
What sorts of characters (belters, pilots, engineers, scientists) ?
What sort credits ?

I could see dreaming up a Reaver's Tale where they go kidnap the
appropriate people to help them do this...:nonono: Might fit the place's
history.

Maybe a nice Landgrab-style anecdote for the place.

>

 

[Merxiless]

All of this is using Grand Survey by Digest Group, one of my well-worn "Bibles" for making Traveller planets. It might not be 100% science, but I like it a lot.

The text suggests a Population digit greater than 8, and a tech base of at least digit 9+, with a slight chance of using tech 5-8 to do it.

Hydrographic terraforming is going to add up to about 4% max, but your siz 3, and atmo 1 if it's a hot place makes me think this isn't going to last, or it will be ice, if it's cold.

You didn't give or I missed any kind of estimates of orbit or base mean surface temperature.

What you have:
B310550-A

Suggests:

Grand Survey suggests this was all done in the past, not for the future, but I figure it's your game.

Roll below the number on 2D for a potential change by category.

Terrain (Ref's call, suggests a few hexes): 10 or less
Hydrosphere (+/- 5%): 6 or less
Albedo (+/- 0.05): 7 or less
Greenhouse (Up to 10% Change): 6 or less
Atmosphere (One class of Change): 4 or less

This tells me, if it was my place, it's a dirt rock, probably a relatively young mining colony, the surface has been strip-mined, the people live in moderate tech domes or underground havens, they might have dropped some ice asteroids in there to make something that might one day be called atmosphere, just to add some protection vs. micrometeorites.

Good luck with it.

 

[Gadrin]

Just picked up Grand Survey recently, haven't read it.

However that's not what I want.

How much of a "production" is it to ground an asteroid on a planet ?

Massive undertaking ? (takes 1000s of people, billions of credits)

Not as hard as you think (a typical Interstellar community can do it).

One of the 3rd Imperium Fanzines had a section on it (Issue #1 p15).
Even on how to speed up rotation of the world.

Of course that crater in Arizona is massive for a relatively small rock
making the collision.

What does that do to an essential "dust ball" world ? How long for
the dust to settle ?

I'm wondering if a small group of settlers/founders/colonists can
drop a few rocks from orbit, to make an area, such as artifical
hills, etc, so that it will serve them in the future.

Not terraform the entire place.

>

 

[wnourse1]

Depends on what you mean by 'ground'. If you mean make it hit your planet, trivial - we could probably do it now or in the relatively near future. If you want to hit a specific area at a specified velocity, more complicated but still relatively easy, particularly at TL A - or any level that's got Thruster Plates and CG technology - simply strap on a maneuver drive and piloting gear and off you go.

I've always figured that's what Belters are up to anyway

 

[Gadrin]

That was my first thought.

I was looking over the R-Deep timeline and notice that the
place was "colonized" about ~-2300 years pre-3rd Imperium,
conquered once about ~-900 or so and is still around.
Really not much there at the time. I assumed most found
a cozy place to hide and that was that. Over the years
some fusion tunnelling might provide an underground, etc.

I was thinking that some enterprising fellow could bring
down an asteroid _someplace_ (it might not matter where
on that dust ball) and then "customize" the left-overs and
call it home.

I'm also wondering what sort of impact that event would
have on the planet as a whole ? Given it's currently ~11xx
3i in the supplement, I'm thinking something done around
~ -700 to +200 or so was feasable and any sort of planetary
impact (massive dust curtains frex) would be all behind it.

Or is that too charitable ? Or too clumsy ? Could it be done
easier than I'm thinking ?o:

>

 

[Icosahedron]

As wnourse1 says, it depends on the size of your asteroid. The cheapest way would be for the colonists to hire in a tug. That could be any TL. If you have a tug comprising drives and essential accommodation it could move an asteroid of up to a million dtons (by LBB5), and land it softly anywhere you want it. No more dust than landing a million ton planetoid ship.

 

[Gadrin]

Right there's no atmo really, so it might only involve a few starship
teams (meaning people who are familiar with building starships
from asteroids). Those could be found in the subsector or sector
and brought to the world for the job.

The writeup on the world from this site:
http://librarydata.jtas.net/LibraryData/D/Drellesarr-Drexilthar.htm

(if it can be believed) offers .38Gs and trace atmo, and 3% hydrographics.

The twin suns make it hot and hotter at certain times, so being able
to provide your own mountains (or hills) -- I'm thinking in the 1200-1500
foot tall range for shade would be nice so people don't cook on their
way back and forth from landing on the surface to the port/arcology.

Building on the nightside would solve that problem though, since
vacc suits would take care of the basics. Carry lights or Nightvision
gear would be very common.

The starship teams could fusion-tunnel out an asteroid to serve as
a main annex, plus link it to and underground complex as well. You
could ground an old ship (one you picked up for free natch) bury it
combine with construction foam and have a ready-made TL-9 labyrinthe
in probably a few weeks, maybe less.

So "Murdoch's Mountain" is a "go" even for this place Just need
to spruce it up a bit and take off from there. Planetary defenses and
so-forth...

Hmmm, that .38G might be helpful in dispersing dust into the atmo
in the immediate vicinity around Murdoch's Mountain as sort of a
natural Sandcaster, obscure vision/detection gear and provide
defense again orbital lasers. Kick up a dust storm when needed
and use it as a defense. Take some testing but it might be possible
or practical. Add a few SDBs, probably 4 or 5 max and SAM sites.

I guess the system was far enough off most of the runs that it was
never considered a target; but it must have been reconned a few
times over the centuries.

2 gas giants, possibly an Oort cloud too. You could ship in Ice/water
and fuel since the inhabitants are going to need it.

>

 

[Icosahedron]

Having read the write-up you linked, I'm puzzled. Why do you need to drop asteroids on the surface?

The surface gravity is more than double that of our Moon, and in fact the gravity, planet size and atmosphere seem to describe Mars pretty closely. There are bigger mountains on Mars than there are on Earth - who said the planet was billiard-ball smooth with no shade?

The surface temperatures are not particularly oppressive either - you can get hotter than that in Nevada - and with the compulsory vacc suit, you wouldn't even notice temperature variations between 30 and 40 C.

Any tunnelling you could do in an asteroid, you could do in the native rock, so I really don't see the point of your operation.

If I were terraforming this planet, the one thing I'd want to do is raise the atmospheric pressure, particularly the Oxygen content, though I'm not sure you'd be able to with that gravity. I had a table somewhere that linked gravity to atmospheric retention, but I dunno where it is now. No doubt there's one on the net somewhere.

Your best bet would be to seed the planet with plant life that might raise the proportion of Oxygen in the atmosphere, creating a future in which you only need compressors to feed breathable air into your buildings.

Just my Cr2.

 

[aramis]

Icosahedron: said minimum molecular weight retention table is in the 2300AD director's guide.

Also, putting comets down is a quick way to introduce significant volumes of hydrates and water...
Metalic asteroids are an excellent source of iron and nickel ores, which may be somewhat hard to find on some worlds, due to the silicate crust.

 

[Gadrin]

Well that's all fine and dandy, except nature isn't always where you need it
to be.

Tidal locked means that the good real estate might be on the darkside of
things.

No atmo means a lot more problems with radiation, though the view would be
clear as a bell. The twin Red Dwarfs can flare and it might be desrable to
have some sort of shielding in a place nature may not have thought of for you.


I have pretty specific ideas about such things, hard to relate in a few
paragraphs. I also want the port/mountain to be artificial and while not an
engineering spectacular something more than just most starports you see.

I envision a terraced mountain (actually a tall hill) about ~1500 feet with
rings on one side. With no atmo each of the rings is an opening into the
mountain for bays that hold up to 400 ton ships (along with mechanisms to
open and close the bay, then pressurize each one). Then of course linking the
bays to the pressurized underground arcology. "Regular parking" is on a butte
opposite the mountain/hill and is linked via a tunnel/pipe about 400 feet off
the ground. Ships land on the butte, receive some shielding (although ships
don't really have to worry about rads) crews walk to an underground (think
any subway) enter the airlock, then can walk across the tube to the mountain
where the actual starport annex is and deal... Carrying cargo and
trading it can be unusual. Some of it can be done on nearby flat spots
or done via exchanges in orbit.

I don't really want to terraform in a major way, just make things more
comfortable for the current setup. I'm not sure if tankers bringing in ice
for melting/purification is better than landing a comet.

I don't think the locals are science-savvy enough to bother with sampling the
ground and looking for contaminants that might seep into anything they land
(like a comet). I'm guessing most things are done for expediency versus a
long-term civilization with concerns about mastering their environment, but
that's my first take on the subject.

>

 

[Icosahedron]

Aramis: Cheers, my table wasn't a Traveller one, it was from a science book, but it goes to show they're out there.

Gadrin: If you've got things planned out, that's fine, I was just offering an observation. YTU is whatever you want it to be.

Landing a comet will probably be cheaper than tankers - bulk economy. Hopefully they're science-savvy enough to land it in a depression big enough to hold the meltwater - though if not it might make an interesting plot hook for an observant PC who can't get the authorities to listen - especially if his ship is being repaired downstream...