Ort Cloud/Keiper Belt Refueling

[Ran Targas]

^ This is probably another one of those jobs that the Scout service has been tasked with. Could explain the relative plethora of Suliemans running around, if each system had 1 or 2 searching for rogue comets and asteroids that could impact commercial navigation. IMTU, automated probes handle this sort of mundane activity (i.e. running jump routes looking for anomolies or hazards). X-boats could be responsible for cataloging these objects on the routes they fly. Starfarers, in general, are probably encouraged to report them as well.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
This is slightly off topic, but I have Yet Another Question For The Boffins.

It goes without saying that spotting Oort and Kuiper objects is extremely hard and that they are scattered from hell to breakfast as it were, so...

- How does the Third Imperium map 'em?
- Does the Imperium even bother to map 'em?
- Does the Imperium usually wait until said objects enter a system 'deep' enough to get 'lit up' by the system's star(s)? (Being deeper in the system makes them slightly more dangerous and those are the ones you'd want to keep a sensor on.)


Bill

Oh yes! The Imperium would map them, but in a haphazard way. These difficult to find objects would be great practice for Navy and Scout personnel to train with on sensor operations. The survey of a system's Oort Cloud and/or Kuiper Belt could also serve as punishment detail for some Navy or Scouts personnel who have broken regulations and need to place some polish on their "military bearing". The comets that come in close enough to be "lit up" by a star are also useful for training, especially EVA (just watch the movie Deep Impact for a good example) and as natural targets for live-fire exercises (either by blowing them to smitherines or by blasting certain sections to change the comet's orbital path).

Don't forget, a comet is an excellent prepackaged supply of volatiles for providing a space colony with an atmosphere. Its already in space, so it only has to be moved to the colony and processed - an activity that could be occurring simultaneously with the space colony construction.

 

[flykiller]

You could even park something very conspicuous (i.e. pirate enclave, secret research station, clandestine military outpost, etc.) out there with little concern of being accidentally stumbled upon.

so piracy is possible? the perfidious zhodani have a surveillance station over jewell? and the imperials over cronor? the vargr corsairs can lurk out-system waiting for the local navy to move off? sounds like a submarine game.

one envisions, not only the traditional jump routes star to star from in-system fuel point to in-system fuel point, but also parallel jump routes star to star from out-system fuel point to out-system fuel point. with a little preparation one could move an entire fleet on this parallel track.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by flykiller:
one envisions, not only the traditional jump routes star to star from in-system fuel point to in-system fuel point, but also parallel jump routes star to star from out-system fuel point to out-system fuel point. with a little preparation one could move an entire fleet on this parallel track.

Fly,

Yes, yes you could. And the whole history of the OTU goes off the rails.

With some heavy surveying, you could flit a battlefleet from Cipango to Trin and never risk an intercept. Yikes...

How many *really* deep space engagements do we know of? The Battle of Two Suns during the 4th Frontier War is the only one that comes to my mind.

Perhaps this yet another bit about the OTU that can't stand too much scrutiny, like 2D mapping.

Perhaps this another reason to chuck the deadly weight of a quarter century of contradictory OTU details, keep the broad brush strokes, and begin again.

Who knows?


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Thanks to everyone for their answers and input.

I've been toying with a bit of campaign 'fluff' based on the Heya Impact of 057-1122. See the TNS reports at JTAS for the details. (The TNS snippets are free, btw.) All the posts here; especially Dr. Thomas', helped me settle on a few things for MTU.

One - Most systems have Oort and Kuiper objects.

Two - Because they are far outside normal shipping lanes and pose no immediate threat on human time scales, the Imperium usually does not bother to map Oort and Kuiper objects.

Three - The Imperium does map such objects when it has a mind to; i.e. keeping the boys busy, ensuring nothing too big wanders across heavily used jump paths, occasional strategic purposes, etc.

Four - Because Oort and Kuiper objects so hard to map anyway, their use for nefarious purposes by non-governmental and non-megacorp parties is extremely limited. Simply put, a corsair, mad scientist, Whipsnade, etc. would have to stumble across one in the truly Deep Dark. This doesn't mean that it never happens, it just happens extremely rarely.

Thanks again to all.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[flykiller]

Perhaps this another reason to chuck the deadly weight of a quarter century of contradictory OTU details, keep the broad brush strokes, and begin again.

hate to be all celtic about it but, its pretentions at being hard-science-based notwithstanding, traveller is just an rpg and is best thought of that way. if we want realism we'll have to invent a whole new game and call it ... I don't know, NASA or something. and then reinvent it every year.

the rarity of the objects seems the best "80% solution" fix.

 

[RandyT0001]

Next couple of questions:

What method(s) could be used to extract the hydrogen for refueling?

This first one I have a possible partial answer. It seems to me that one would use UV (or higher spectrum EM) to heat up the methane and ammonia from the object (their melting point is lower than water IIRC). The UV light, at a high enough intensity (probably above the boiling point of said compounds though), would also break the molecular bonds on those compounds freeing the hydrogen. Depending on if the methane is liquid or gaseous one then uses the refueling hose (assumed to be part of streamlining components) dipped in the liquid or skims the gaseous cloud like as is done on GG's. Maybe this idea is way out in left field (about 30 AU's or so). Comments?

For each method devised, how much time would it take to extract the hydrogen (assume per 1000 dtons of fuel required)?

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by flykiller: hate to be all celtic about it but, its pretentions at being hard-science-based notwithstanding, traveller is just an rpg and is best thought of that way.

Fly,

I'm celtic too. And nordic! What a mix...

Yes, Traveller is just a RPG and, yes, you can overboard with reality. I don't even think NASA would want to play NASA - The RPG.

However, there comes a time when you must bow to some scientific facts. Traveller's astronomy is a quarter century out of date. Do we try and incorporate those changes or do we just give up? I don't know the answer.

A 'Colonize Mars' game penned in the 1890s would have given that world a breathable atmosphere (and would have told us Venus was one giant swamp). Such a game now would belong to a certain genre; the S1889 niche, and that's the niche Traveller is moving towards as its science is made further and further irrelevent.

the rarity of the objects seems the best "80% solution" fix.

Yes it is. As always, our solution breaks down at the extremes and the extremes are usually where the players want to be.

I don't have an answer. I'd just like us all to be aware of the problem.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Randy,

As to methods, a fellow on the TML came up with a 'mosquito rig' several years back.

The vessel deploys a drill/heat probe on a extended boom, the probe then drills/heats its way into the body in question, while slurping up the slush/liquids produced. The slurry goes to the purifier and - presto - your tanks are full again. Time to jump away.

IIRC, he had a rough FF&S1 take on it plus a few WAGs on how fast it could operate. (Suffice it to say, it filled the tanks faster than the fuel purifier could refine the contents.)

The nice part here was that the vessel needn't contact the 'ice-teroid' surface.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Randy Tyler:

For each method devised, how much time would it take to extract the hydrogen (assume per 1000 dtons of fuel required)?

About 3000 man-hours.

Beltstrike ruled that a properly equipped person could mine 2 tons of asteroidal material per 6 hour watch. This is what I use IMTU and it works out fairly well, making ice asteroid refueling possible but much more time-consuming then gas giant skimming or using a starport.

The 3000 man-hours comes from 1000 tons / 2tons per 6 hours. This would probably be an all-hands effort with 12 hour on and 12 hour off shifts. Or at least that is how I would run it, YMMV.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Actually, I just had an odd thought. Say that you have a community of isolationists, they have set up a settlement in the local Oort Cloud / Kuiper Belt. The settlement makes its money by participating in a "Comet Watch" that surveys and mapping the area. Part of the payment for this data is the agreement for either the Imperium or the local mainworld to maintain their independance and isolation.

I also wonder about how difficult it would be to detect a deep space body that is mostly water and carbon dioxide ice. I may be talking out of my ass here because of my limited experience (I used to build the radio control systems for bomb-disposal robots); but since water reflects UHF, VHF, and S-band radio waves pretty effectively - why wouldn't a mountain sized body of ice act like a good radar or active EMS reflector?

 

[flykiller]

As to methods, a fellow on the TML came up with a 'mosquito rig' several years back.

that was me.

never attached any numbers to it though, just expressed the general concept and operation. maybe someone else did the numbers.

 

[graden1]

IMTU, I ruled that ships emerging from jump space emitted rather large amounts of energy. How large? Let's say a significant fraction of the energy used to enter jump space is conserved, and gets emitted when the ship exits jump space. The signature will be detectable over distances of many AU's, although there will be a light-speed lag.

By now you can see where this is going--using jump drive in the outer system (IMTU, at least) will tip off the locals that something is going on out there, which makes long-term covert operations somewhat difficult. If someone knows you're out there, and they look hard enough, they'll eventually find you.

 

[Ran Targas]

^ That would be a significant detail to address.

 

[aramis]

That detail is canonical, too. Jump flash is mentioned in SSOM and in RSB.

It explains why the oort cloud isn't a free zone. Also, you can read the jump entry flash, and reverse engineer it (Regency Sourcebook). You can also determine empire/race of construction by jump grid patterns. Soo....

You could jump in/out, and play mouse; the oort cloud is several Light days in some cases, and at least double digit light hours minimum... some out-system relay sats with large (REALLY BIG, say 20ton+) omni sensor drones can route info to closer units, like the couple patrol boats out there...

Finding a snowball to refuel from can take days; possibly quite a few.

Oh, and the use of a patrol boat against a Zho Fleet:
reverse engineer the jump, follow their plot, and broadcast upon arrival: "Signature before Us is Hostile!"

Mal: how aligned to the ecliptic is the Oort and Kuiper structure?

 

[RandyT0001]

The Keiper Belt in our system is about 30-35 AU's from the sun (IIRC). At 6G it will take about a week to travel there or you could take a week to jump there. The Ort Cloud is even further out. Other systems would probably have the Belt and Cloud at different distances from it's star. The jump flash might be visible to the mainworld / defensive force but it will take time to intercept the outer system invaders. The sheer size of the Belt and especially the Cloud makes it impractical to patrol with ships (hundreds, maybe thousands, would be needed).

At these distances (30+ AU's) I doubt that the grid pattern could be determined, so who is jumping into the outer system remains an unknown. (I don't have RSB so I don't know how far away the pattern can be determined.)

I think that if an enemy is planning to use the Ort Cloud for refueling they would send scouts to find the objects before the invasion, probably many years in advance. Since the objects are (probably) 30+ AU's out their orbital period will be long, on the order of hundred plus years. Several successive scout missions could determine the exact orbit of some of the larger objects (a few km's) for future refueling use.

JMO

 

[graden1]

IIRC, the Kuiper belt is roughly aligned with the ecliptic, although I'm not 100% certain of that. The Oort cloud, however, isn't. As its name implies it's not confined to a narrow range of orbits like a "belt"; the cometary orbits have no relationship to the ecliptic. They effectively form a widely dispersed sphere which extends hundreds, maybe thousands of AU's from the system primary. This is truly a vast volume of space. Mr. Tyler's estimate of "thousands" of ships required to patrol the Oort cloud may be a few orders of magnitude short. Anybody got a few spare von Neumann machines?

Regarding jump flash; as I understand it, this signature is considerably larger than that of most starships cruising sublight, let alone running silently. In most cases, a ship jumping into the Oort cloud will arrive a long way (several AU's, barring plain bad luck) from any hostile sensors. While the jump flash is detectable over many AU's, actual ship detection requires shorter ranges. It will be many minutes, possibly a few hours, before the jump flash is detected, and there are several ways for the intruder vessel to take advantage of this.

1) Arrive with a high sub-light vector, and run silent.
2) Accelerate to a high vector before being detected, then run silent.
3) Arrive close to a fuel source, refuel and jump before local forces can respond.

Option 1 works well, unless the locals analyze the jump flash well enough to guess the intruder's vector. Is this even possible? (My PC's keep hitting DC50's!) Option 2 prevents that scenario, but if there's a local ship close enough to see the intruder maneuver, he's better off running silent. Option 3 is tricky--the intruder needs to refuel fast, and the locals will see the jump flash when the intruder leaves, so repeated use of the same refueling source by the intruder means the locals will eventually find it.

Cat and mouse, ad infinitum....

XO

 

[Whipsnade]

Jump flash is an oddity that has never been fully resolved. Like that is anything new for Traveller!

CT never mentioned it.

MT did however. It appeared first, as far as I know, in DGP's SOM for MT. That book also came down in overwhelmingly favor of a hull grid as an important part of the jump drive. SOM talked about how different races used different style grids; a gratuitious and ill thought out piece of chrome IMHO. SOM even spoke about how damage to the grid could effect a vessel's attempt to jump while, strangely enough, hull hits in MT ship combat did nothing to effect a vessel's jump performance.

I happen to like SOM. I just don't think it is the last word - or even a self-consistent word - on the matter of Traveller starships.

Jump flash later appeared in TNE. IIRC, this is when it was suggested that IF you were close enough to a DEPARTING vessel and had the right kinds of sensors, you COULD hazard a guess as to the vessel's destination. There was nothing in TNE that I am aware of that suggesting that you could analyse a jump flash from a multi-AU distance and determine where the vessel came FROM. The only information gleaned in that case was that something had arrived.

Jump flash is mentioned in GURPS:Traveller too, several times in fact. A sidebar in GT:First In depicts an IISS 'spook' mission entering a system well beyond the Zho border for a little eavesdropping. The ship plots her exit close enough to a distant gas giant in the hopes that the gas giant's own EMS noise will mask the vessel's jump flash.

So, there you have it. Four versions and four different stories. Anything else is an IMTU thing.

IMTU, jump flash exists. IMTU, you can hazard a guess about destinations if you're close enough to a jump entry flash (although usually a vessel's normal space vector and which bodies' jump masks it's entry point is avoiding will give you the same info.) IMTU, you can even spot multi-AU distant jump flashes if you are looking for them.

That's the kicker. IMTU, jump flashes aren't a poor man's gamma ray burst, they aren't even up to the usual SOS, Mayday, or Signal GK strengths. They're out there, but jump flashes also just one EMS noise out of an universe of EMS noises. To fully cover an entire Oort Cloud from the inner system, you'll need lots of sensors and lots of processing power. Those are things that won't be in every system and won't be fully on-line all the time.

That's MTU. YM may and YTU should V.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Ran Targas]

^ Begrudgingly, I must agree with Larsen

Guys (and gals, as it may be), 1) the area of space we are talking about is immense (I mean, look, there are whole planets still hiding out there!) and 2) the level of background noise is a significant factor.

Unless the signature is very distinct (say producing some extremely exotic subatomic particle shower or specific high energy EM wavelength), detecting jumpflash at a distance would probably very difficult. In this case, I would also assume that discerning jump flash from other random energy spikes would probably require specialized and dedicated sensors (i.e. military or quasi-military). The odd radio astronomer may get lucky but most likely a ship exiting J-space would not be detected at all above the din of pulsars, quasars, blackholes, gamma bursters, novae, supernovae, Jovian lightning, etc.

Reacting to the arrival of a ship in the outer reaches of a star system would require the dedication of significant time and resources, perhaps beyond those available for a system government/military who has other problems closer to home. Knowing pirates or slavers are out there is a lot different than doing something about it. The USSR knew there were US ballastic missile subs operating off their coasts but sure couldn't do much about it.

 

[graden1]

I think Larsen and Ran are right, for the most part. I say "for the most part" because of the nature of the OTU: most systems are underpopulated, behind the tech curve, or both.

High population systems with a TL of 9 or better might be able to seed the outer system with enough sensor drones to make a difference. At higher TL's, their presence in deep space could be increased, in terms of greater sensor range, better automation, etc. This assumes that the locals have the resources, and a good reason to bother doing it, strategically.

High tech systems, TL 14 or better, even with moderate population levels, may very well have sensors good enough to see a jump flash anywhere in the system. Not likely they can do anything about it....

But that's just the local system defense forces. What about the Imperial Navy and the IISS? They've got vast resources and TL-15 ships and equipment. I would think that, for a few strategically important systems, the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud would be worth monitoring, if not patrolling. Most likely these would be systems along sensitive borders, naval installations, and a few interdicted systems.

XO