Redesign Star Wars

[PR19_Kit]

I've watched a lot of Submarine movies and when I went through The Pearl Harbour Avenger (USS Bowfin) at Pearl I couldn't believe how they had lied to me.  It was so small inside!

I've been on her as well  What struck me was that when I showed an ex RN submariner the interior shots on returning home he commented on "how much room the crew had had" 

I went on-board HMS Onyx a couple of times while she was a museum ship at Birkenhead (Oberon class so post-war diesel-electric, but similar to wartime conditions). Yep - scary as **** for this mild claustrophobe. NOTHING could persuade me to go to war in something like that....

You can go aboard HMS Alliance at the Navy's Submarine Museum at Gosport too, and that's incredibly cramped too.

The entrance is through a hatch they've cut in the starboard bow, and you have to duck, no matter how short you are. The guide said to me 'It may be an idea to remove your hat sir, or it may get knocked off. Er, on second thoughts you better keep it on, then you're less likely to bash your head!' 

[Mossie]

Hmmm - okay it wasn't much like the ship in the book, but the only real criticism I've seen of it from a practical point of view is the solar panels: who needs 'em when you've got a nuclear plant? I suppose 'backup' is the answer to that one...

It was the interior that bothered me.  Cavernous and uncluttered, huge windows and a crew rest area that a five star hotel would be envious of. Very reminiscent of 2001 which still seems to dictate the style of more serious sci-fi.  I hoped to see tight spaces, taped up cables and kit stuffed in lockers.

[Weaver]

Hmmm - okay it wasn't much like the ship in the book, but the only real criticism I've seen of it from a practical point of view is the solar panels: who needs 'em when you've got a nuclear plant? I suppose 'backup' is the answer to that one...

It was the interior that bothered me.  Cavernous and uncluttered, huge windows and a crew rest area that a five star hotel would be envious of. Very reminiscent of 2001 which still seems to dictate the style of more serious sci-fi.  I hoped to see tight spaces, taped up cables and kit stuffed in lockers.

The windows in the spin hab did seem a bit OTT, but then again, remember that people spend years cooped up on this thing, rather than just a few days to the Moon and back: the windows and the space may be a deliberate and neccessary 'investment' in the crew's sanity, rather than a 'luxury'.

[kitnut617]

Hmmm - okay it wasn't much like the ship in the book, but the only real criticism I've seen of it from a practical point of view is the solar panels: who needs 'em when you've got a nuclear plant? I suppose 'backup' is the answer to that one...

It was the interior that bothered me.  Cavernous and uncluttered, huge windows and a crew rest area that a five star hotel would be envious of. Very reminiscent of 2001 which still seems to dictate the style of more serious sci-fi.  I hoped to see tight spaces, taped up cables and kit stuffed in lockers.

The windows in the spin hab did seem a bit OTT, but then again, remember that people spend years cooped up on this thing, rather than just a few days to the Moon and back: the windows and the space may be a deliberate and neccessary 'investment' in the crew's sanity, rather than a 'luxury'.

Some of your comments really made me chuckle guys  ---- I was just reading about the "new" exoplanets that are in the news right now. Only 73 light years away they say. So I went looking to see how long it would take to get there, well couldn't find a proper conversion, but there was something for 40 light years ---- only takes 137,000 years to get there  ----- you'd need something really massive to travel for that length of time, something like a death star only four or five times bigger

[Weaver]

Hmmm - okay it wasn't much like the ship in the book, but the only real criticism I've seen of it from a practical point of view is the solar panels: who needs 'em when you've got a nuclear plant? I suppose 'backup' is the answer to that one...

It was the interior that bothered me.  Cavernous and uncluttered, huge windows and a crew rest area that a five star hotel would be envious of. Very reminiscent of 2001 which still seems to dictate the style of more serious sci-fi.  I hoped to see tight spaces, taped up cables and kit stuffed in lockers.

The windows in the spin hab did seem a bit OTT, but then again, remember that people spend years cooped up on this thing, rather than just a few days to the Moon and back: the windows and the space may be a deliberate and neccessary 'investment' in the crew's sanity, rather than a 'luxury'.

Some of your comments really made me chuckle guys  ---- I was just reading about the "new" exoplanets that are in the news right now. Only 73 light years away they say. So I went looking to see how long it would take to get there, well couldn't find a proper conversion, but there was something for 40 light years ---- only takes 137,000 years to get there  ----- you'd need something really massive to travel for that length of time, something like a death star only four or five times bigger

Fair comment, but the ship we're talking about, Hermes in the The Martian, 'only' shuttles between Earth and Mars, using low-powered ion thrusters running constantly. I just rechecked the book, and it's not as bad as I stated above: 124 days there and 124 days back, plus a 31 days surface mission. Still a long time for six people to have no company except each other while being further from the rest of humanity than anyone else has ever benn though.

[kerick]

Hmmm - okay it wasn't much like the ship in the book, but the only real criticism I've seen of it from a practical point of view is the solar panels: who needs 'em when you've got a nuclear plant? I suppose 'backup' is the answer to that one...

It was the interior that bothered me.  Cavernous and uncluttered, huge windows and a crew rest area that a five star hotel would be envious of. Very reminiscent of 2001 which still seems to dictate the style of more serious sci-fi.  I hoped to see tight spaces, taped up cables and kit stuffed in lockers.

The windows in the spin hab did seem a bit OTT, but then again, remember that people spend years cooped up on this thing, rather than just a few days to the Moon and back: the windows and the space may be a deliberate and neccessary 'investment' in the crew's sanity, rather than a 'luxury'.

Some of your comments really made me chuckle guys  ---- I was just reading about the "new" exoplanets that are in the news right now. Only 73 light years away they say. So I went looking to see how long it would take to get there, well couldn't find a proper conversion, but there was something for 40 light years ---- only takes 137,000 years to get there  ----- you'd need something really massive to travel for that length of time, something like a death star only four or five times bigger

There was a book called rendezvous with Rama that described generation ships from an alien race that pass very close to earth. Basically giant tubes rotating to produce artificial gravity with a whole civilization packed inside.

[Mossie]

Hmmm - okay it wasn't much like the ship in the book, but the only real criticism I've seen of it from a practical point of view is the solar panels: who needs 'em when you've got a nuclear plant? I suppose 'backup' is the answer to that one...

It was the interior that bothered me.  Cavernous and uncluttered, huge windows and a crew rest area that a five star hotel would be envious of. Very reminiscent of 2001 which still seems to dictate the style of more serious sci-fi.  I hoped to see tight spaces, taped up cables and kit stuffed in lockers.

The windows in the spin hab did seem a bit OTT, but then again, remember that people spend years cooped up on this thing, rather than just a few days to the Moon and back: the windows and the space may be a deliberate and neccessary 'investment' in the crew's sanity, rather than a 'luxury'.

Some of your comments really made me chuckle guys  ---- I was just reading about the "new" exoplanets that are in the news right now. Only 73 light years away they say. So I went looking to see how long it would take to get there, well couldn't find a proper conversion, but there was something for 40 light years ---- only takes 137,000 years to get there  ----- you'd need something really massive to travel for that length of time, something like a death star only four or five times bigger

Fair comment, but the ship we're talking about, Hermes in the The Martian, 'only' shuttles between Earth and Mars, using low-powered ion thrusters running constantly. I just rechecked the book, and it's not as bad as I stated above: 124 days there and 124 days back, plus a 31 days surface mission. Still a long time for six people to have no company except each other while being further from the rest of humanity than anyone else has ever benn though.

Yeah, the ISS was my benchmark.  Also submarines, that are even more cramped. A real ship would be the minimum size it could be to cut down on weight and cost.  The ISS's have module was cancelled when it was found astronauts had got on quite well hooking their sleeping bags anywhere they could find space.

Slight aside, a few weeks ago I was talking to a girl who'd worked with ISS astronauts at Johnson Space Center, She said the ramshackle nature extends there too, things regularly break down and take ages to get fixed. IT systems are antiquated.
Cockroaches infested the phlebotomy lab she was working in.  Not quite the popular image of NASA!

[PR19_Kit]

IT systems are antiquated.

Aren't mission critical IT systems always antiquated?

The projects take so long to reach full development that the IT hardware and software is always out of date as they're 'developing' much faster than the rest of the job. [The word 'developing' is used here in its widest possible sense....]

My last employers NEVER used M$'s latest OS on our customer systems just because it was the 'latest and greatest', and therefore hadn't been proven well enough.

[zenrat]

... I was just reading about the "new" exoplanets that are in the news right now. Only 73 light years away they say. So I went looking to see how long it would take to get there, well couldn't find a proper conversion, but there was something for 40 light years ---- only takes 137,000 years to get there  ----- you'd need something really massive to travel for that length of time, something like a death star only four or five times bigger

Or something faster.  At warp 5 you could cover 73 light years in about 15 weeks.   

[kitnut617]

... I was just reading about the "new" exoplanets that are in the news right now. Only 73 light years away they say. So I went looking to see how long it would take to get there, well couldn't find a proper conversion, but there was something for 40 light years ---- only takes 137,000 years to get there  ----- you'd need something really massive to travel for that length of time, something like a death star only four or five times bigger

Or something faster.  At warp 5 you could cover 73 light years in about 15 weeks.   

Yes, but until someone proves you can go faster than light ------ and also invent artificial gravity, I don't see humans going anywhere serious in the solar system, let alone travelling to another.  We don't float around very well do we ----

[Weaver]

Here's a difference in character between the inside of something like the ISS and a spin-habitat ship/station though:

On the ISS they have zero-G everywhere, so they can, very efficiently, pack stuff on the 'floor', 'walls' and 'ceiling' because you move around the station by floating in the middle of those surfaces. However on a spin habitat, the whole point is that you have a more or less conventional floor, that you have to walk on, and on which you can't put things that you don't want to tread on, and an equally conventional ceiling, where you can't put things that you don't want to fall on you. Also, the entire point of a spin hab is to provide space for conventional living, which includes walking around and exercising, so cluttering it with storage kinda defeats the object.

IIRC, Hermes' supplies arrive in resupply modules which dock to the spine of the ship, so moving bulk cargo 'downwards' from there into the spin hab is going to be a pointless PITA. Better to stow it in the zero-G spine and only take it to the spin-hab if and when you need it to be there.

[kitnut617]

Has it been proven that a spin habitat works like artificial gravity ?  I can't remember anything being tested like that ---

I think a very big opportunity was missed during the Space Shuttle flights, 135 of them. The external tanks were all destroyed during the launch and I had thought they could have been utilized better.

It seems other people had the same thought, found lots of these concepts on the internet.

[kitnut617]

Can you imagine if Elon Musk got really ambitious, build a really super size tank big enough to group nine (or more) Falcon Heavies around it ---- you could have a decent size spin habitat that way fairly quickly  -----

[Weaver]

Has it been proven that a spin habitat works like artificial gravity ?  I can't remember anything being tested like that ---

I think a very big opportunity was missed during the Space Shuttle flights, 135 of them. The external tanks were all destroyed during the launch and I had thought they could have been utilized better.

It seems other people had the same thought, found lots of these concepts on the internet.

Well it doesn't need to be proven as such: the physics are pretty straight-forward. There's a bit more of a debate about how big and slow it needs to be to avoid nausea due to coriolis effect. It seems like later research is actually more optimistic than earlier work though.

The problem with the ETs was that they wern't designed to be used like that, and converting them on-orbit would have entailed multiple very fiddly spacewalks with the astronauts doing some serious cutting in zero-G to geth through six bulkhead from one end to the other. On the other hand of course, they could have been designed to be reused like that, with easily removeable bulkheads and hatches in the inner tanks, but that would certainly have made them much heavier and more expensive, and probably more prone to leaks as well. The Shuttle's OMS would have had to burn a lot more fuel to circularise the orbit with the ET still attached too.

Lots about the pros and cons of using straight tubes to build rings here: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/artificialgrav.php

[Weaver]

Can you imagine if Elon Musk got really ambitious, build a really super size tank big enough to group nine (or more) Falcon Heavies around it ---- you could have a decent size spin habitat that way fairly quickly  -----

Have you seen his BFR? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFR_%28rocket%29#Starship_prototypes

One thing you can't criticise him for is lack of ambition...