Iris valves

[Icosahedron]

Hey man, to me, every Traveller ship looks like the Nostromo:

Check out an iris valve to upper and lower decks:

Be cool!

Yep, that illustrates my point nicely. Every time you come down that corridor to go anywhere other than 'up', you've gotta walk round that damn ladder. Fine for the first few times, maybe, but in the confines of a ship, sooner or later someone's gonna book a felling axe out of the Locker...

And there's absolutely nothing to prevent that ladder and hatch being located against the wall a few metres behind. Out of the way.

 

[Icosahedron]

...I know I've read a description of an iris valve fucntioning in some sci-fi story. Maybe Golden-Age? But I just can't quite peg it. Starship Troopers? This is bugging me now :nonono:

It's a Heinlein one. The description is mentioned here on another iris valves thread - the one with Andrew's pictures IIRC. Something about 'the door dilated'.

 

[Icosahedron]

I've not read ST, but don't the suits have iris valve closures in the limbs that close, severing the limb and retaining suit integrity if a limb gets shot?

Yeesh, even a TL8 suit would perform the function with an inflating tourniquet ring rather than an iris valve. Effects might be similar if the patient wasn't removed from vacuum within the hour, though.

 

[Theophilus]

And lets not forget the Iris Valve in Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, opens up on top of the Falcon so they can save Luke as he hangs from cloud city.

 

[Gadrin]

Yep, that illustrates my point nicely. Every time you come down that corridor to go anywhere other than 'up', you've gotta walk round that damn ladder. Fine for the first few times, maybe, but in the confines of a ship, sooner or later someone's gonna book a felling axe out of the Locker...

And there's absolutely nothing to prevent that ladder and hatch being located against the wall a few metres behind. Out of the way.

or if they're round (both top and bottom) they might be able to rotate, depending on the "cool factor" involved in the setting. Locks on the rotations once you get it to where you want it of course. Get rid of the huge round bunker on the bottom of that picture so you're not tripping over it half the time. If the ladder could be removed/disassembled as well, might be another space-saver.

Probably some sort of "position indicator" of where the ladder is rotated to currently -- or other if it's been removed -- so the people up top aren't constantly being surprised and can "see" with a glance.





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[Gadrin]

And lets not forget the Iris Valve in Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, opens up on top of the Falcon so they can save Luke as he hangs from cloud city.

Does that one have an elevator feature too ? I've forgotten. o:

 

[jawillroy]

My memory tells me that Lando sort of glides up through the valve, so I think yes to the elevator.

Either that, or special shoes.

 

[Ishmael]

I've not read ST, but don't the suits have iris valve closures in the limbs that close, severing the limb and retaining suit integrity if a limb gets shot?

I think you're referring to "Forever War" by J. Haldeman <sp?>
iris valves at joints can seal the suit and amputate the blown limb in one shot...while drugs are injected of course

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I think you're referring to "Forever War" by J. Haldeman <sp?>
iris valves at joints can seal the suit and amputate the blown limb in one shot...while drugs are injected of course

Also, the Posleen stories by John Ringo have the same things in the combat suits.

 

[Gadrin]

I think you're referring to "Forever War" by J. Haldeman <sp?>
iris valves at joints can seal the suit and amputate the blown limb in one shot...while drugs are injected of course

Black Knight...Brits in space...:rofl:

 

[Gadrin]

Famille Spofulam has just re-released the H-9 model spacesuit after several
customers were accidentally beheaded by the H-8 model, dubbed by the public
as the "Henry the VIII" model.

"The suit's sensor circuitry has been re-done along with the monitoring
software to provide help to the vic...er user. The current model no longer
has a neck ring."



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[far-trader]

Famille Spofulam has just re-released the H-9 model spacesuit after several
customers were accidentally beheaded by the H-8 model, dubbed by the public
as the "Henry the VIII" model.

"The suit's sensor circuitry has been re-done along with the monitoring
software to provide help to the vic...er user. The current model no longer
has a neck ring."



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It wouldn't have been a problem if they'd implemented the rest of the design and made the helmet a Nanny Bag* like I suggested.

* from Schlock Mercenary, a Nanny Bag (iirc) is a head sized soft bag that contains a colony of nanites and if someone is killed and a full Nanny Bed (or whatever) isn't handy you can still save them by popping their (intact) head in a Nanny Bag to keep the brain alive until you can get them regenerated. Or something like that.

 

[Gadrin]

It wouldn't have been a problem if they'd implemented the rest of the design and made the helmet a Nanny Bag* like I suggested.

* from Schlock Mercenary, a Nanny Bag (iirc) is a head sized soft bag that contains a colony of nanites and if someone is killed and a full Nanny Bed (or whatever) isn't handy you can still save them by popping their (intact) head in a Nanny Bag to keep the brain alive until you can get them regenerated. Or something like that.

Sounds like something from Transhuman Space Thank god for hard-science !

I'm glad that no one's taken what I've written seriously (so far anyhoo) the FS stuff and BITS is fairly cool, after all they seem to like T4 which gets a thumbs-up from me.


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[BlackBat242]

Traveller (CT at least) says that each deck is 3 meters high... 9.84 feet (9' 10").

As most rooms and ship spaces in reality are ~7'-8', that leaves a good 2' 4" (average ceiling of 7' 6") of inter-deck space. If you can't make a telescoping ladder that fits in that by TL 9, you are p!ss-poor engineers!

All mid-room ceiling hatches have drop-down ladders in my universe. They also have a short section (~3') that rises from the floor when the ladder deploys, to provide a hand-grip for those on (or climbing to) the upper floor.


I also have stairs (Gasp, Shock, Horror!!):

The stair is powered, with a hand-crank option for emergencies. The lower section retracts into the upper, and it swings up into the overhead. The same 3' hand-rail for the upper deck rises up when the stair is lowered.

 

[Icosahedron]

Good idea, BlackBat, I like the folding stairs, they'd be great for an emergency exit. (seriously, no sarcasm.)

However, I still maintain that a bit of forward planning at the Naval Architect stage could place all hatches out of the way, against a wall.

Regardless of folding or telescopic equipment, when that klaxon sounds you're still going to have three men queuing for the ladder while another five try to get past them.

 

[Doyle Hunt]

I personally favor a retractable ladder. One side rail is fixed, top and bottom. The rungs are hinged at both ends, and the other side rail pivots up out of the way for storage. A standard-width ladder folds up into a configuration that's similar in size to a gutter's downspout.

Check out a real-world example at

http://www.jomy.com/mini/page.html

 

[Renaissance Man]

The deck plates that generate artificial gravity in a ship can be calibrated to obviate the need for ladders in floor and ceiling mounted iris hatches. See this thread.

 

[Gadrin]

The deck plates that generate artificial gravity in a ship can be calibrated to obviate the need for ladders in floor and ceiling mounted iris hatches. See this thread.

For another futuristic, we have control over gravity setting, I have security forces within Starport annex buildings, simply walk on walls above the crowd as the gravity planer is installed there and activated by certain restrictive measures. No cloaks falling over their heads, no hold on to your hats, they simply transition as if it were an Escher art piece.


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[Doyle Hunt]

For another futuristic, we have control over gravity setting, I have security forces within Starport annex buildings, simply walk on walls above the crowd as the gravity planer is installed there and activated by certain restrictive measures. No cloaks falling over their heads, no hold on to your hats, they simply transition as if it were an Escher art piece.

Try to avoid arming them with projectile weapons, though. Ballistics in intersecting gravity fields can really thow off your aim!

The concept brings up an interesting question, though… How far above a grav plate does the field extend? It has to be far enough that a person's head and feet have to be close to the same field strength or movement gets really weird (imagine your feet being at 1G and your arms being at 0.5G, for instance). Gravity seems to obey the inverse-square law on a celestial scale, and I can't suspend my disbelief enough to think that artificial gravity would be any different. That means the field has to extend a LONG way from the grav plate to keep the whole body at close to the same field strength (say a drop of 1% at 2m range).

I can, however, believe that there would be no bleed-over at the edges of the plate (AG field is aligned exactly perpendicular to the grav plate), so I don't see an issue there.

 

[far-trader]

Personally I don't allow Escheresque AG/IC in my games. AG is constant fixed (in force and orientation) field contained by a hull. All areas are equal, always. Your choice is on or off with a cycle time of minutes. So no gravity-pong with hostiles as the balls either.

Likewise IC is a field effect contained within the hull that exactly counters every vector made by the maneuver drive. So you still feel it if you collide with something (or something hits you), only your own thrust is countered.