Side Effects of the Maneuver Drive

[Mithras]

Beltstrike, Folder 1: Loads of Adventure, p2 under 'At Alpha':

"Ships under power are not affected [by radiation from the gas giant] part of the M-drive generates a low-power screen against radiation and meteorite impact..."

Interesting! Never noticed any other reference like this before.

 

[Tellon]

lol -- sounds like a good load of crock -- lol -- and justification to build a thin hull that would otherwise not need to be maintained or get punctured .. lol

so then a manuver drive will protect one against the radiation of say -- a fusion rocket? .. or a Deadulus Drive -- or an NTR?

I dont think so .. lol

 

[Shonner]

"Ships under power are not affected [by radiation from the gas giant] part of the M-drive generates a low-power screen against radiation and meteorite impact..."

Great (or lucky) find.

 

[Mithras]

I've been trying to dig up an old post about the M drive, there were alot of theories as to how it worked ... and one poster postulated a gravity warp, that produced a plasma bubble ... and he linked to a research paper or NASA article that sketched out such a plasma field that interfered with radiation.

I wish I could find that thread. Using the warp field to create a repulsor effect is neat too, in fact I think a drive like that would have lots of 'other uses/effects'. If we could just pin down how the thing is supposed to work!

 

[Lycanorukke]

The "plasma bubble" shield looks like it is from "Plasma Radiation Shield: Concept and Applications to Space Vehicles" by Levy and French. As for how the drive works - well it boils down to pure magic really it just how the magic is disguised.

But the main catch is that while small amounts of handwaviumn (it makes the ship go) can be swallowed easily, stacking up effects (it makes the ship go, is a radiation shield, makes the coffee and give massages) can make it less palatable as scifi and more fantasy.

 

[Mithras]

That's it, thanks!

I just think that a drive that can move 600 dtons of ship through space by 'bending gravity' (if that's how you interpret it) should logically be used as a default repulsor field of some strength, used ostensibly to clear debris from the direction of travel, and in military grade ships to deflect missiles.

The plasma field - not read enough about it, but we need some handwavium to stop all that hard radiation out there, don't we

The "plasma bubble" shield looks like it is from "Plasma Radiation Shield: Concept and Applications to Space Vehicles" by Levy and French. As for how the drive works - well it boils down to pure magic really it just how the magic is disguised.

But the main catch is that while small amounts of handwaviumn (it makes the ship go) can be swallowed easily, stacking up effects (it makes the ship go, is a radiation shield, makes the coffee and give massages) can make it less palatable as scifi and more fantasy.

 

[leo knight]

In a non-scientific direction, as a kid, I was interested in UFOs. I keep imagining maneuver drive/ anti-gravity as that kind of almost magic technology. Some relatively serious theorists, who had seen UFOs, speculated on how they might work, and posited a similar effect. One report claimed that a pilot had fired at a UFO, and had seen his tracer rounds bend around it, as if deflected. Other effects of such a field would be streamlining, heat shield, and sonic boom reduction.

Here's a link full of "wierd science" speculation:

http://www.hyper.net/ufo/physics.html

 

[Whipsnade]

"Ships under power are not affected [by radiation from the gas giant] part of the M-drive generates a low-power screen against radiation and meteorite impact..."

Paul,

That's one of those Traveller bits everyone generally does their best to ignore. It's like A:1's description of Capital as controlling the only crossing in the Rift for thousands of parsecs, A:4's jump torpedoes, or DGP's explanation that hulls are made up of billions of tiny repulsors that shoo radiation away.

It's a seemingly innocuous bit of descriptive text that causes many more problems than it solves. Sadly, with over three decades of canon that was more accreted than planned, there are lots of little bits just like it.

My advice? Start whistling, walk away, and pretend you never saw it as trying to make it work will drive you mad.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Lycanorukke]

The plasma field - not read enough about it, but we need some handwavium to stop all that hard radiation out there, don't we

Ah but the catch is - what kind of radiation? You have charged particles (cosmic rays), neutron (atomics), and EM and all have different ways of being stopped.

Charged particle radiation (around GG's, solar winds, etc) can be stopped by plasma, magnetic fields and materials. However...if you stop the charged particle too quickly (hitting hull plating or a super strong field) you get bremsstrahlung (braking radiation). The faster you stop it the harder the EM radiation it releases - so if your ships hull his hit by a proton beam, the protons wont penetrate the hull but everything inside will get blasted by gamma and X-rays. So the best way to protect against charged particles is to slow them down or deflect them _slowly_.

Conversely neutrons and hard EM radiation can only be stopped by dense materials, the denser the better. But dense materials means a lot of bremsstrahlung with charged particles. So your would want to stop the charged particles first and then the EM/neutrons.

But again there is a trade off - charged particle moving along a magnetic field emit synchotron radiation - giving the same sort of effect as the auroae on Earth. So if your ship enters a charged particle field with a strong magnetic shield, the ship would light up like a christmas tree and any EM sensors/comms would be swamped with static.

Another interesting effect of magnetic fields can be seen with Io and Jupiter. Io brushes along Jupiters magnetic field as it orbits, building up a super electric charge which it 'earths' by arcing to Jupiter. So if your ship flies between a close moon and a GG expect to get hit by a multi-gigawatt lightning bolt (oops).

On Edit: See's Whipsnades post and decides to start whistling....

 

[Tellon]

My advice? Start whistling, walk away, and pretend you never saw it as trying to make it work will drive you mad.

Yup, agreed

 

[Mithras]

Mmm, so is there a canon explanation of how starships deflect radiation?? (of all types, thanks for that excellent and very understandable information Lycanrukke!).

 

[Lycanorukke]

Mmm, so is there a canon explanation of how starships deflect radiation??

I dont think so - as mentioned it is one of those things where you are asked "not to notice the man behind the curtain" (like heat dissapation, reactionless drives, and gravitics).

But I do remember an article in the old Challange magazine talking about low-tech ships (pre gravitic systems) and how they dealt with radiation concerns as they didn't have repulsors, superdense alloys, and the like. They used a multi layered hull setup.

The outer layer was a relatively 'soft' material (carbon composites, plastics, and such) which stopped soft EM radiation (UV and lower) and light charged particles. Beneath this was a 'gel layer' which soaked up slow neutrons and heavier charged particles - gels and hydrogenated plastics slow down charged particles nicely without bremsstralung problems. If done right, the gel also can be used as a 'automatic sealant', so if the hull gets a small hole the gel plugs it up as an extra bonus. The final layer was the pressure hull made of heavy materials to stop whatever was left over, as well as keep the atmosphere in.

The down side was of course that all this stuff was heavy, and without reactionless gravitic drive it was a tradeoff between shielding and weight. So they went with what we do with the ISS - moderate to light shielding on everything for normal operations, and a small heavily shielded room (the storm cellar) for emergencies (solar flares and such).

 

[boomslang]

It's a seemingly innocuous bit of descriptive text that causes many more problems than it solves

Wasn't this discussed at some length in a thread around here a few years back?

I tried searching the fora, but cannot pin it down yet...

 

[BlackBat242]

Since TL 10 is way above us, and TL 13+ truly mysterious, I just apply Clarke's Third Law to the whole mess.

Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.