Low tech ships

[Ulsyus]

Or, they could be on a vacation in a remote desert location, prospecting for radium or uranium and during a dust storm miss seeing the ominous government signs... Rescued by not-nice people, wake up to an offer they can't refuse (guinea pigs of one sort or another).

It's a good idea, but the authorities would be best to pursue this mainly if the project was considered too dangerous for them to send up a trained pilot & engineer & such. Even then, the program would have to be automatic, and the powers-that-be insistent on using human subjects rather an a dog or monkey or rethevari or such.

You're toaking real junta-level stuff here though: think Chile and Argentina in teh 1970's, or East Germany!

 

[Silverhawk]

Ranke,

Check out Heinlein's junior novels, especially the one about some boys who build a spaceship with their uncle. (NAZIs on the MOON!!!)

The book was Rocket Ship Galileo a particular favorite of mine as a kid.

 

[Carlobrand]

It's a dog's life

It's a good idea, but the authorities would be best to pursue this mainly if the project was considered too dangerous for them to send up a trained pilot & engineer & such. Even then, the program would have to be automatic, and the powers-that-be insistent on using human subjects rather an a dog or monkey or rethevari or such. ...

Legend has it that when the Soviets sent their first dog into space, the Soviet premier of the time, Krushchev, demanded a human pilot. He also wanted the launch performed in time for the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. That gave the designers only a month to prepare a capsule for the launch, and the reentry-capable capsule they were designing at the time wouldn't be ready until a month after the target date - and was designed to take a dog up. After some carefully worded discussion (Krushchev was more reasonable than Stalin had been, but it was still a perilous matter to tell a premier that you could not do what he wanted) Krushchev agreed reluctantly to accept a dog instead, on what would be planned as a one-way trip. They would remotely euthanize the dog in orbit before the life support ran out and avoid the question of re-entry altogether.

As things turned out, there was a failure in the cooling system during launch and the dog died in orbit from hyperthermia 7 hours after launch rather than surviving the planned 6 days. Since the dog was going to be euthanized anyway, it was not difficult to cover up the failure.

 

[Brian Smaller]

Yeah, but King David's spaceship is unable to return to the surface and nearly kills the pilot going up. Would have if the Imperials hadn't saved her.


Hans

But if I remember correctly she only had to go up. All the world had to do was demonstrate that they could launch a craft into space to get admission into the empire as a member world (2nd class or something like that) rather than as a colony administered by Imperial bureaucrats.

 

[robject]

But if I remember correctly she only had to go up. All the world had to do was demonstrate that they could launch a craft into space to get admission into the empire as a member world (2nd class or something like that) rather than as a colony administered by Imperial bureaucrats.

That's true, but Hans' concept, which I originally linked to King David's Space Ship, is capable of potentially returning its crew to the surface alive. I had omitted that fact.

 

[Jame]

In game, I presume. CT Book 3 tech charts say "non-starships" appear at TL7 and jump drives appear at TL9. Air/rafts and G-carriers appear at TL8, as does fusion power, which makes it easier both to get into orbit and get from planet to planet. High guard offers a TL7 maneuver drive and fusion plant, so interplanetary's pretty straightforward then, and jump drives are the same as in the Book 3 tech chart.

Then there's MegaTrav, where fusion, maneuver drives and gravitics aren't available until TL9 but the Hard Times supplement offers some interesting lower tech ways to get to orbit, but getting out of orbit and to another planet is the devil.

Don't know about the other formats.

I would go with this, though I'd modify previous posters' statements like so:

A TL 5 society could build a low- to mid-orbit vehicle that can do a few orbits with a short life support duration and high fuel requirements.
A TL 6 society could build a high-orbit or Lunar-range module with a moderate LS duration and only potentially lower fuel requirements, tho' with the right science fuel requirements could be lowered.
A TL 7 society can make an interplanetary, Earth-to-Jupiter range LS vessel with pretty good fuel duration (i.e. ion engines or nuclear fuel), but you'd have to overcome the environmentalists to use nuclear fuel - if made or presented the right way it's an option.
TL 8 societies are usually able to make cheap fuel or primitive gravitics and can potentially colonize most planets in-system.

No matter what you'd need the right population and industrial base.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

I was just passing by and...

I read this thread earlier today and thought it was interesting. I let my overheated subconscious work on it for a bit...and I remembered something I came across during internet research earlier this week (random web surfing).

A Wikipedia article listed progressions for technical progress in te development of aircraft. Their original list had 10 steps, which for some silly reason I did not save, but folded into another list that I developed independently for another bit of background.

Here is my revised list, which may give readers some food for thought:

PRIMITIVE 20% -- Technology concept formulated, Validated in lab, PROTOTYPE CONSTRUCTION
EARLY 50% -- FIRST MASS PRODUCTION FOR Model 1
ADVANCED 80% -- FIRST REMODEL, Model-2, design proven
STANDARD 100% -- BY THE BOOK, Model-3, Mass production

EDIT: My mind would not let me go back to my other task without finding the source information -- and I was successful! It is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_propulsion

There is an extensive chart of spacecraft propulsion methods and a rating, called the "technology readiness level" as a quick guide. The essentials are listed below:

2:Technology concept formulated
3:Validated proof-of-concept
4:Component validated in lab
5:Component validated in vacuum
6rototype demoed on ground
7rototype demoed in space
8:Flight qualified
9:Flight proven

I am itching to fold this into the discussion, but I just do not ave time right now. Perhaps some other intrepid traveller will...?

 

[Timerover51]

I think that most are still thinking of Earth-normal conditions.

Consider a satellite of a large gas giant, roughly size 5 or 6 with a thin but breathable atmosphere, and a large number of other satellites to the gas giant. Smaller planet, less gravitation pull and lower escape and orbital velocities, at least for the satellite. Thinner atmosphere, less atmospheric drag to overcome. Put the two together and a much easier time to get into space. Properly staged smokeless powder rockets might be enough to do it.

Also, do not assume that everyone is going to follow a set progress to get to space. I can remember in the early 1960s, when it looked like the Russians would beat us to the Moon that there were quite a few sci-fi stories about short-cutting a lot of steps to get there.

 

[aramis]

The Aviation Industry, and the NASA process as well (it grows out of the CAA, as does the FAA), is based upon a massively over-funded, "rigorous science" approach.

Much of the early progress, however, wasn't anything of the sort. The wrights had proven concepts (toy gliders go back to Egypt, and horseless carriages were 30+ years old), and tinkered and tweaked until it worked.

Solid Rocketry, likewise, was tinkered with until it worked right... killing not a few subjects of the Chi'in Empire (and later, the English, attempting to reverse engineer those same secrets)

So it really is not a given that spaceflight's going to be rigorously done. Especially on worlds with low gravity, worlds like those Timerover noted... because on such world, rigor isn't needed to find a viable solution to get to orbit. Lower quality fuels will do, and less of them

 

[rancke]

Consider a satellite of a large gas giant, roughly size 5 or 6 with a thin but breathable atmosphere, and a large number of other satellites to the gas giant. Smaller planet, less gravitation pull and lower escape and orbital velocities, at least for the satellite. Thinner atmosphere, less atmospheric drag to overcome. Put the two together and a much easier time to get into space. Properly staged smokeless powder rockets might be enough to do it.

That's a good idea. I do want the world for my campaign to be Earth-like, but it can be a size or two smaller and have thin atmosphere without ruling that out.


Hans

 

[Ulsyus]

So it really is not a given that spaceflight's going to be rigorously done. Especially on worlds with low gravity, worlds like those Timerover noted... because on such world, rigor isn't needed to find a viable solution to get to orbit. Lower quality fuels will do, and less of them

Plus a lower-tech world which has bought the plans for spacecraft offworld and reverse-engineered their own early production equipment has a number of different means to get their side of a space race happening much faster than on Terra

 

[Murphy]

The space project was funded by a government that had incontrovertible evidence of recent visits by offworlders, and one faction of the offworlders was secretly feeding knowledge to a local scientist who had achieved the reputation of being a major genius due to that knowledge.

I bet you might get a lot of mileage out of GURPS: Atomic Horror for such a campaign.

 

[rancke]

I bet you might get a lot of mileage out of GURPS: Atomic Horror for such a campaign.

Thank you for that idea. I hadn't thought about that, but I will have a look through my copy to see what I can find.


Hans

 

[wbyrd]

Plus a lower-tech world which has bought the plans for spacecraft offworld and reverse-engineered their own early production equipment has a number of different means to get their side of a space race happening much faster than on Terra

Recently i was watching a documentary on several B-29s that Russia seized during world war two. They decided to copy them and build their own...the result was Russia spending as much time, money, and effort to reverse engineer the B-29 as Boeing spent to develop it in the first place. the problems they ran into was that their own industries lacked key methods o working with the metals needed to build a copy of the B-29..they had to engineer their own basic industrial capacity before they could copy an existing vehicle.

and that was a device at their own tech level..... It seems that to reverse engineer a device you have to have the basic industry, and engineering skills to manufacture components....so By the time russia could copy the B-29 they had developed the technology to design and build their own aircraft...including the Tu-95 "Bear" Bomber. which was a locally designed improvement on the Tu-4 which was a copy of a B-29.

Long story short, it seems that reverse engineering has the effect of forcing local industry to improve to a point where once the copy can be made, a local design can be engineered and produced...

So if a civilization recovered a jump drive, and studied it to the point they could repair and operate one...they can build their own....meaning they advance in tech level..at least in a very limited field.

 

[rancke]

Plus a lower-tech world which has bought the plans for spacecraft offworld and reverse-engineered their own early production equipment has a number of different means to get their side of a space race happening much faster than on Terra

That won't work on the world for my tentative campaign; it has been under interdict for many centuries. No overt contact with the outside universe. And the people who are secretly helping the natives have to make it look like independently made local inventions.


Hans

 

[Ulsyus]

For interstellar travel, the possibility exists at TL 6, with Experimental Jump Drives. The size and cost of Jump-2 drives, they will have a performance of Jump-1, and be one of a kind, custom, hand-made things. In other words, not enough of these to be useful, and certainly not reliable or safe. TL 7 and TL 8 are slightly better, with maybe a dozen of them in the hands of various labs or super-wealthy patrons.

I just re-read this and had a vision of the guy putting it together. He's a neighbour of another guy in a lab coat who's sewing together body parts and looking for a brain in a jar that no-one's going to notice has gone missing...

That won't work on the world for my tentative campaign; it has been under interdict for many centuries. No overt contact with the outside universe. And the people who are secretly helping the natives have to make it look like independently made local inventions.

Hans

But the whole reverse-engineering process, if kept quiet enough, could produce the advances needed to build the equipment. How aggressive is the interdiction?

 

[rancke]

But the whole reverse-engineering process, if kept quiet enough, could produce the advances needed to build the equipment. How aggressive is the interdiction?

Not very aggressive. The Academy has been getting more and more moribund¹ for 300 years. But I don't think it has to be to prevent people from smuggling in interstellar ships.

¹ Or is that one of those terms that can't be graduated? Either an organization is moribund or it isn't? Anyway, it has become less and less active for 300 years.​

The problem for the secret helper faction is that if they just give the natives the blueprints for a spaceship, the observers will wonder where they got it from. It has to appear to be local invention.


Hans

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

it might be worth looking into the "Empire Form the Ashes" series by David Weber, which is A) available free online form the publishers here*, along with a lot of other good SF, and B) deals with a secret spacefaring culture hiding on earth and not being detected.


*I'm recommend downloading the "mission of honor" CD file, as it also has almost all the excellent Honourverse books in it, which are well worth the time to read.

 

[rancke]

it might be worth looking into the "Empire Form the Ashes" series by David Weber, which is A) available free online form the publishers here*, along with a lot of other good SF, and B) deals with a secret spacefaring culture hiding on earth and not being detected.

Yes, I've gotten some notions from it. Background is quite different, but there are relevant details.


Hans