Hot or cold?

[The Shaman]

The characters in our game are currently visiting a planet with a very slow rotation, resulting in high temperatures in the vicinity of 500 kelvin at the hottest part of the 869 hour-long local day, and dropping to below 100 kelvin at night.

Clearly this is a world to test both man and machine, particularly the HVAC crew.

As I was reading over my notes before bed last night, a question popped into my head: which extreme is preferable from the standpoint of establishing permanent settlements? Given Traveller's technical assumptions about the availability of fusion power, et cetera, with all else equal, which would be preferable for colonization: a hot world, or a cold one?

 

[Malenfant]

Well in a sane universe nobody would establish any large settlements on such a world.

But I think the solution is to build the settlement underground. I think below a certain depth (a few dozen metres?) the rock is pretty uniform in temperature despite the surface extremes, because rock's a terrible conductor of heat. So the uppermost few metres of bedrock would be alternately hot and cold, but below that it'd mostly be cool (ie more like normal earth temperatures). So build the settlement underground and you can just not care about the surface conditions at all.

You may have a problem radiating excess heat generated by the settlement though during the day time, but at night you can stick up radiator fins out of the ground at least.

 

[The Shaman]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
But I think the solution is to build the settlement underground.

Obviously. That wasn't my question, however.

Let me rephrase: all else being equal, if you had to choose between a baked rockball or an icy rockball, which extreme is more tolerable?

I don't personally think it makes much of a difference, but I'm curious if others might have a preference, and why.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Cold, I'd say. It's easier to deal with.

 

[flykiller]

heat flows from high to low temperature. can't get rid of heat unless there's some place to put it, but with cheap power cold may always be overcome. I'd say cold is preferable.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by The Shaman:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Malenfant:
But I think the solution is to build the settlement underground.

Obviously. That wasn't my question, however.

Let me rephrase: all else being equal, if you had to choose between a baked rockball or an icy rockball, which extreme is more tolerable?

I don't personally think it makes much of a difference, but I'm curious if others might have a preference, and why. </font>[/QUOTE]Well, practically speaking, underground would be best (because all else is usually not equal

). In this case, you're alternating between bakingly hot and frigidly cold, so what works for one extreme won't work for the other.

But if you're just asking which is better for its own sake, then I'd say it that cold is probably a bit better.

They both have problems - if the planet is hot and you're crazy enough to build on the surface then you have heat removal problems and need materials that can withstand exposure to high temperatures for long periods of time. It'd be a big problem for EVA too because a guy would just cook in his spacesuit unless you came up with some fancy (and probably bulky) refrigeration system that probably only lasted an hour or so.

If the planet is cold then the heat removal problems go away but then you need to cold-resistant materials, and if the surface is actually icy instead of rocky and made of more volatile ices than water ice then you might have issues where the surface is melted by vehicles and even heat leaking out of spacesuits. But if it's rocky then cold is better than roasting.

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi !

Guess I would choose the icy one, too.
Traveller tech provides enough technology to get along with lower temps. All you need is energy to generate the needed amount of heat and energy is not a problem anymore in Traveller.
And, in contrast to upper temp limit, there is a pretty defined lower limit for temperatur. If you get along with that temp in space, then you get along with any other extreme low temperatures.

As Mal said, heat is perhaps more problematic. Chemical reactions are faster, environment becomes more aggressive, the overall energy content of the environment is considerably larger.

Regards,

TE

 

[The Shaman]

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
Traveller tech provides enough technology to get along with lower temps.

Wouldn't the tech for handling high temperatures improve as well, I wonder?

 

[Malenfant]

Depends if high-tech magically allows you to ignore the laws of thermodynamics...

A lot of times people just armwave and say "ah, they'll figure it out" or "the Ancients could do it!" but I think some things are going to be practically impossible to do no matter what (this may or may not be one of them). One example is that of moving planets around - you'd need another mass that is on a similar or larger scale to even be able to affect a world's orbit, and if you're putting something that massive that close to it then you're going to end up wrecking both bodies.

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
One example is that of moving planets around - you'd need another mass that is on a similar or larger scale to even be able to affect a world's orbit, and if you're putting something that massive that close to it then you're going to end up wrecking both bodies.

Slightly off topic, but what about a small force acting over a large time to increase or decrease the planet's velocity - then let natural orbital mechanics handle the rest.

Back on topic: It is ironic that in space, the temperature may be cold, but the vacuum is such a good insulator that space stations need to WORK at removing excess heat (current tech). Heating a cold space/object is fundamentally more efficient than cooling a hot object/space. A cold world will probably remain easier to settle. At the extreme end of hot, you would be building a city in lava.

 

[The Shaman]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Depends if high-tech magically allows you to ignore the laws of thermodynamics...

I was thinking more along the lines of advances in materials sciences and related technologies.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
A lot of times people just armwave and say "ah, they'll figure it out" or "the Ancients could do it!" but I think some things are going to be practically impossible to do no matter what (this may or may not be one of them).

I highlighted the relevant portion of your post.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
One example is that of moving planets around - you'd need another mass that is on a similar or larger scale to even be able to affect a world's orbit, and if you're putting something that massive that close to it then you're going to end up wrecking both bodies.

Sounds like an interesting topic for another thread, but really has nothing to do with this one.

 

[Malenfant]

I'm a bit rusty on this side of physics, but vacuum isn't an insulator - it's actually fantastic at removing heat by radiation but just sucky at conduction and convection (because there's nothing there to conduct into or material to to convect around).

You don't really need to 'work' to remove heat at all - you just have a radiator that has the hot stuff going through it (either heated directly or having hot water going through pipes) and a lot of surface area to radiate the heat away into space and that cools things down. Though for best results the radiator itself has to be in the shade so it's not itself being heated by the sun.

 

[The Shaman]

Originally posted by atpollard:
At the extreme end of hot, you would be building a city in lava.

Like Mustafar?

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by The Shaman:
[QB] </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Malenfant:
Depends if high-tech magically allows you to ignore the laws of thermodynamics...

I was thinking more along the lines of advances in materials sciences and related technologies.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
A lot of times people just armwave and say "ah, they'll figure it out" or "the Ancients could do it!" but I think some things are going to be practically impossible to do no matter what (this may or may not be one of them).

I highlighted the relevant portion of your post</font>[/QUOTE]Well, you tell me how these materials and technologies could work, given that they'd have to be cooling something down in a much hotter environment.

Like I said, it's really easy to armwave and "they'll figure out a way to do it". It's more interesting and challenging though to ask "well, how the heck could they do it?", and if it turns out that they can't then that will act as a physical limit for the environments that people will be able to live in.

So think about it, and try to find a solution. What technologies do we know exist in Traveller? Would nuclear damping help? Is jump-shunting possible (where you somehow dump the excess heat into jumpspace - if that's even possible on a planetary surface)? Could any of them be applied here?

 

[flykiller]

assuming that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only changed in form, the heat energy has to either go somewhere or change its form.

1) wormhole. the heat energy is sent someplace ... else, who knows. might be a bit hard on the receiving end ....

2) something that precipitates the energy into matter. every week you open up the AC and shovel out the new dust, sort of like cleaning out a coal-fired furnace.

 

[The Shaman]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Well, you tell me how these materials and technologies could work, given that they'd have to be cooling something down in a much hotter environment.

I don't know a whole lot about materials science or cooling technologies, which is why I posed the question to the board in the hope of getting an informed response.

I already know how to wave my arms. . .

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Like I said, it's really easy to armwave and "they'll figure out a way to do it". It's more interesting and challenging though to ask "well, how the heck could they do it?". . .

Again, that's why I posed the question to the board.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
. . .and if it turns out that they can't then that will act as a physical limit for the environments that people will be able to live in.

So think about it, and try to find a solution.

I did, and a quick search turned up helium gas, perhaps with an additive like potassium aerosol.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
What technologies do we know exist in Traveller? Would nuclear damping help? Is jump-shunting possible (where you somehow dump the excess heat into jumpspace - if that's even possible on a planetary surface)? Could any of them be applied here?

Now those are reasonable questions to ask.

Nuclear dampers would seem to be an outgrowth of technology used to manage nuclear reactions, but I don't necessarily see a relationship between controlling the reaction and disposing of waste heat, other than damping the reaction to produce less power and less heat.

With respect to the slow-rotating planet I mentioned above, I've already considered this: many systems are shut down during the hottest part of the local day (about four standard days) to reduce demand (and therefore waste heat production) - this becomes the "weekend" for the miners and other workers on the planet, with work resuming when surface temperatures drop after sunset.

Shunting anything to jump space in a gravity well seems like a violation of Traveller physics.

 

[atpollard]

A high-tech Thermo-voltaic pump? Like a photo-voltaic cell and a refrigeration cycle combined, except it converts infra-red energy (heat) into electricity. Remove heat to create Power.

Even if the power were not compatible with an electric grid, perhaps it could be dumped into the zero source background energy of the universe. Like Amsterdam pumping water into the ocean to maintain dry land against the natural cycles and gravity – it is not impossible, it just requires energy input to reverse the natural cycle.

 

[Malenfant]

Shaman - Well, you've had an informed response, it just doesn't seem to appeal to you. I'd assumed that in asking the question you'd already thought about those "reasonable questions", but apparently not. If you have FF&S then you know as much about Traveller tech as anyone else on these boards possibly could, so I'd suggest having a look through there and seeing if anything leaps out that could solve the problems. But I don't know how many people here are that informed specifically about possible materials technologies and way to circumvent the laws of thermodynamics...

 

[The Shaman]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Shaman - Well, you've had an informed response, it just doesn't seem to appeal to you.

It's not that it doesn't appeal - it was just a long time coming, after multiple detours into off-topic comments that had nothing to do with either the initial post or my follow-up question.

But hey, that's life on the Intreweb, isn't it?

Originally posted by Malenfant:
If you have FF&S then you know as much about Traveller tech as anyone else on these boards possibly could, so I'd suggest having a look through there and seeing if anything leaps out that could solve the problems.

I don't, though I imagine I will end up buying it at some point.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
But I don't know how many people here are that informed specifically about possible materials technologies. . .

Neither do I, which is why I asked - in my experience gamers are a pretty diverse bunch with lots of interesting careers, educations, and hobbies besides gaming, and you never know what someone might be able to contribute until you ask them.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by The Shaman:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Malenfant:
Shaman - Well, you've had an informed response, it just doesn't seem to appeal to you.

It's not that it doesn't appeal - it was just a long time coming, after multiple detours into off-topic comments that had nothing to do with either the initial post or my follow-up question.</font>[/QUOTE]Really, because I thought I gave you one in my second post here! Heck, I gave you an answer to what you were apparently asking (a "think outside the box" one perhaps, but an answer nonetheless) in my first post, even. I realise that you're generally uninterested in anything I say, but if you just want to ignore useful information because it's not what you want to hear or because you failed to phrase the question clearly then I'd be happy to stop wasting my time responding to your questions in future.

But hey, that's life on the Intreweb, isn't it?

Well, that's true if you insist on being dismissive when someone does give you an answer...

I don't, though I imagine I will end up buying it at some point.

I'd suggest you do. It's as close to a tech bible for Traveller as you'll ever get, and it's available as a PDF on DTRPG.