Hi
Hi,
A couple things that might be worth considering are:
Additionally, just for reference, I was able to locate a text book on aircraft design and found a couple rules of thumb to go along with the stuff I posted previously on ship structural weights. In this book, entitled "Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach", it suggest that for a modern general aviation craft the weight of the fuselage might be on the order of about 1.4 lb/sq ft of surface area (or about 0.64 t/1000 sq ft in GT:IW terms). Additionally, this book suggests that for a modern fighter a good estimate might be 4.8 lb/sq ft (2.2 t/1000 sq ft), and for a modern bomber or transport plane 5.0 lb/sq ft (2.3 t /1000 sq ft). So the 1.5 t/1000 sq ft value for basic unarmored space craft structure @ TL9 is about 2.34 times the weight of modern general aviation craft fuselage weight or about 68% the weight of modern fighter craft fuselage weight.
Anyway, just some additional data and stuff.
Regards
PF
Hi,
A couple things that might be worth considering are:
- The GT:IW Earth reaches what they call TL9 in about 2050, TL10 in about 2120 to 2130, and TL11 in about 2230 to 2240, so even the TL9 discussed in the GT:IW book is still about 30+ years from now.
- In general terms because Traveller allows for ships up to 6G's constant accelleration this kind of implies that there is probably some form of inertial damping inherent in ship design because people aren't really built for such operations (especially not in a shirt sleeve work environment that alot of the artwork seems to imply) so the impact of acceleration on a ship's structure in a Traveller setting may not be as great as it might 1st appear
- Currently in the real world, people are already working on things like self-healing composites http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/1331/title/Scientists_develop_self-healing_composites & http://www.bristol.ac.uk/composites/bioinspired.pdf as such in the future settings considered in Traveller even more advanced concepts might be in use easpecially to deal with issues like micro-meteorites, etc
Additionally, just for reference, I was able to locate a text book on aircraft design and found a couple rules of thumb to go along with the stuff I posted previously on ship structural weights. In this book, entitled "Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach", it suggest that for a modern general aviation craft the weight of the fuselage might be on the order of about 1.4 lb/sq ft of surface area (or about 0.64 t/1000 sq ft in GT:IW terms). Additionally, this book suggests that for a modern fighter a good estimate might be 4.8 lb/sq ft (2.2 t/1000 sq ft), and for a modern bomber or transport plane 5.0 lb/sq ft (2.3 t /1000 sq ft). So the 1.5 t/1000 sq ft value for basic unarmored space craft structure @ TL9 is about 2.34 times the weight of modern general aviation craft fuselage weight or about 68% the weight of modern fighter craft fuselage weight.
Anyway, just some additional data and stuff.
Regards
PF