I'd say no. In his "Known Space" series, Niven has humans using fusion drives long before the reactionless drive is captured from the Kzinti. He described Belter "singleships" - which are little more than a tiny life support cabin clinging to a tube which contains/controls the fusion reaction - as using a "pinch" of fissionable materials to "light" their fusion drives.
Hard Space Redux
- Thread starter Golan2072
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I'd say no. In his "Known Space" series, Niven has humans using fusion drives long before the reactionless drive is captured from the Kzinti. He described Belter "singleships" - which are little more than a tiny life support cabin clinging to a tube which contains/controls the fusion reaction - as using a "pinch" of fissionable materials to "light" their fusion drives.
I do like this idea - MGT1/CE-style fission reactors connected to fusion-torch engines. No clean "Micro-Fusion/Fusion+" unlike the OTU, Outer Veil, or These Stars Are Ours!
Thank Larry Niven.
Yup. I remember thinking that Niven's version of fusion was much like real world thermonuclear weapons in that both need a fission "trigger". IIRC, Niven's books also mentioned "crystaliron" in reference to the singleship's "combustion tube".
Do you think, considering this setting is "harder" than say Outer Veil or OTU or These Stars Are Ours!, that something like Fusion+ might not even be possible for humanity there to make?
Maybe the tech would never be there because even the Antediluvian stuff they're digging through used something else, maybe more realistic but still fantastic to humanity's eyes?
Maybe the tech would never be there because even the Antediluvian stuff they're digging through used something else, maybe more realistic but still fantastic to humanity's eyes?
It might be possible, but a long way into the future. I don't think there is any law of physic preventing small-scale, controlled nuclear fusion, but engineering it would require great advances in several fields.
I'm yet to decide what the Antediluvians used; I'm not sure it is something easily understood by 22nd century Human physics theory.
Or maybe they use something considered mind-boggling dangerous to 22nd century Humanity and the strange physics is more about "how the hell could they control it!?"
For human ships in your setting, what kind of accelerations are possible?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Working fusion power plants that actually contribute to the electricity supply of a national grid are still several decades away, if the technology can be made to work. If you want a hard sci fi setting then having city scale fusion power plants is possible, having fusion power plants that fit on a ship is not, nor is the pseudoscience handwavium of fusion+
A fusion rocket may be possible using magnetic constriction and magnetic fields to direct the fusing plasma, but you will need a fission power plant to provide the energy to power the magnets and initiate the partial fusion. I'm not even convinced you will need to achieve fusion, there is definitely a mechanism whereby hydrogen plasma can be heated to millions of degrees involving magnetism - the Sun's corona is proof of that.
A fusion rocket may be possible using magnetic constriction and magnetic fields to direct the fusing plasma, but you will need a fission power plant to provide the energy to power the magnets and initiate the partial fusion. I'm not even convinced you will need to achieve fusion, there is definitely a mechanism whereby hydrogen plasma can be heated to millions of degrees involving magnetism - the Sun's corona is proof of that.
I'm getting close to "several" decades old and it's been several decades away for most of my life!
I do like the "black box" nature of their artifacts, ala Roadside Picnic. Not something that can be reverse-engineered, but it still may be used and manipulated without understanding its inner workings.
Torchships, i.e. most starships and fast interplanetary craft, use fusion torches and can have constant acceleration/deceleration at 1-G or even above. This requires 10% of ship "tonnage" in hydrogen fuel/propellant per G, up to 6-G, for 100 hours of thrust. Above 1-G, of course, this requires protective measures for the crew, from acceleration couches and pharmaceutical cocktail for short durations to Even Horizon-style G-Tanks for long acceleration above 1-G. Civilian ships rarely go above 1-G; the military uses higher acceleration in combat and when travelling in an emergency requiring faster arrival. The main downside of torches is that their exhaust is monstrously destructive, so such ships can't land anywhere and have to switch to secondary rockets (ion? chemical? plasma?) when doing fine maneuvers such as docking.
Slower interplanetary craft and landers intended for airless worlds use closed-cycle gaseous core fission ("Nuclear Lightbulb") rockets. These are way safer than fusion torches, and have no radioactive exhaust. However, due to the risk of radioactive fuel dispersal upon a crash or other accident, they do not serve in atmospheres. I'll have to check out what kind of acceleration this allows, and for what duration.
Craft designed for operating in atmospheres use chemical rockets, capable of the same accelerations as real-life (i.e. early 21st century) rockets, or somewhat better with higher-tech designs.
A TSAO Reticulan invasion of Hard Space would be fun to game - plucky humanity with its torchships vs. Reticulan TL13 magneto-gravitic technology. XCOM with interstellar torchships!
Which version of XCOM? The Micropose one or the Firaxis one?
Would there be any advantages the human defenders have at the start?
Because I would hope they could reverse engineer Reticulan tech okay!
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While loooking for something entirely different, ran across this website, a community of colloborating posters creating various horror stories and anomalies that are confronted and contained by a shadowy X-files/SHADO type of organization, the SCP Foundation.
Each one I have read from hitting the random button are really good enough to be an episode or movie seed on their own. Most are Earth oriented but should be pretty easy to transplant without harm.
http://www.scp-wiki.net/
Random file selection-
http://www.scp-wiki.net/random:random-scp
Each one I have read from hitting the random button are really good enough to be an episode or movie seed on their own. Most are Earth oriented but should be pretty easy to transplant without harm.
http://www.scp-wiki.net/
Random file selection-
http://www.scp-wiki.net/random:random-scp
For the record, the nifty Ancient Artifact I came up with in a thread requesting such ("Reflective Refrigerator with a Countdown Timer") was a cross between SCP-902: The Final Countdown and SCP-699: The Mystery Box transposed into Traveller as a stasis device.
Great resource. Takes reading a few to get the hang of the format (and then there are the format-screw ones!) but they're often quite good.
Great resource. Takes reading a few to get the hang of the format (and then there are the format-screw ones!) but they're often quite good.
Sounds a bit like Niven's Kzinti v Terrans before the latter obtained FTL drives.
Both had the same premise - plucky and creative humanity vs. technologically superior alien forces. The point is reverse-engineering alien technology as fast as possible to counter their edge.Which version of XCOM? The Micropose one or the Firaxis one?
Of course, the TSAO history had an XCOM2-style resistance war leading to Terran independence...
Yeah but the reticulans don't strike me as...stupid as the kzinti.
Though hmm if Hard Space humanity does have various means of launching interplanetary craft, like laser launches or lightsails and such, I could see those being quite useful for potential defences as well.
Golan, you might find the section on colonization to be useful for your setting, especially since it doesn't have some of the handwaves other Traveller settings have?: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/stellarcolony.php
Heh I wonder how Reticulans would react to finding out about how humanity's jump drives here work.
Considering how long it takes for spacecraft here to get around, have you thought of possibly making jumps here instantaneous? Or would you say having both the long interplanetary travel times and week-long jumps works best for your setting here?
I ask this because another person for their ATU did this:
http://blog.firetree.net/2014/11/18/jump-drives/
Thank for the link! I got addicted... Very well-written.
Thanks for the link!
A good jump throw will deposit you in the target world's orbit. A mediocre throw will place you further, requiring interplanetary travel. So 7 days seems reasonable, at least when you have a good navigator/pilot.
Also, keep in mind that instantaneous jump without jump fuel required (as in Hard Space there is no need for jump fuel), means that a ship can quickly hop between systems and transmit/receive data, thus making communications very fast.
To avoid this, jump is 7 days, plus you need to "spool" your jump drive for 1D6 days before jumping again. But on the plus side, no jump fuel required! Only fusion-torch fuel.
But wouldn't the long trip times due to the reaction drives slow things down more? Or is it that you could use lasers to send a message to a waiting jump ship and when it gets to its destination, it sends out a comm laser as well?
In that case, yeah I can see why the week-long jump occurs as well.
Hmm since you mentioned a good jump can actually land a ship in orbit of a target planet, is the gravity well issue with standard 2D6/Traveller jump drives less of an issue here?
Or would a target need to get far away enough still to initiate a jump?
