Breakaway Day Challenge

[alex_greene]

Today is Breakaway Day.

On this day, 11 years ago, the Moon was brutally ripped from Earth's orbit and sent wheeling off into deep space when Nuclear Waste Disposal Area 2 blew up.

In memory of the brave men, women and female alien shapeshifters of Moonbase Alpha, I present the Breakaway Day Challenge.

Using Traveller or High Guard rules, stat up one of these:-

Have fun.

 

[hdan]

That's pretty much a standard modular cutter, right?

BTW, the Eagle is one of my favorite scifi spacecraft along with the Icarus (probably because of their obvious visual similarities to the Gemini capsule, my favorite IRL craft), though I confess I never geeked out enough to learn its proper stats.

 

[DFW]

Kind a hard to stat (I only watched the original series). Remember, the moon achieved super luminous velocity, then slowed for some reason.

 

[Blix]

Kind a hard to stat (I only watched the original series). Remember, the moon achieved super luminous velocity, then slowed for some reason.

He's asking for Eagle stats, which have nothing to do with the moon's velocity.

As hdan said, they are similar in concept to Modular Cutters in Traveller, but IMO are much cooler looking and more sensibly designed.

 

[srogerscat]

Modular cutter was exactly my thought but... size? 150 feet long or so?

 

[alex_greene]

Certainly there's no shortage of links ...

Eagle Transporter Wiki

Catacombs Model Gallery

Eagle Transporter Forum

According to one episode, the mass of an Eagle fully laden is about 328 tons, and its length is around the 20 - 30 metre mark. Considering how many of them crashland and remain remarkably intact, more or less, you can only assume that they are rather heavily armoured or have lots of hull/structure points for their mass.

 

[DFW]

wiki - "The Eagles are powered by four nuclear fusion rockets and carry fuel reserves for 48 hours of flight. Artificial gravity force fields built into the Eagle enable it to accelerate up to 15% of the speed of light, giving it a maximum range (with extra fuel reserves) of several light days"

 

[captainjack23]

wiki - "The Eagles are powered by four nuclear fusion rockets and carry fuel reserves for 48 hours of flight. Artificial gravity force fields built into the Eagle enable it to accelerate up to 15% of the speed of light, giving it a maximum range (with extra fuel reserves) of several light days"

Woooo-weeee. Dats faaaast. Someone else can crunch the numbers, but it looks like (if working from the wiki) the parameter is that its G accel needs to hit 15% Sol within 24 hours or so depending on what they mean. (half fuel to accel, flip and then decel, assuming the 48 hour fuel load). I'm guessing that this puts it way out of the envelope for the modular cutter, even if uprated to 6G. Course, the numbers may say otherwise.

Next point: while much cooler looking than the modular cutter, it doesn't seem to be able to operate in any atmosphere (greater than trace (despite what we see in the show) -not without some kind of farings being added. Its pretty clearly non-aerodynamic at any speed above the speed of sound, and probably not great below it, either. So thats a disadvantage to the eagle compared to the modular cutter.

Final point: the modular cutter always seemed to be exactly that - an eagle with atmospheric farings.

 

[captainjack23]

Got bored, found a calculator: for that performance, the eagle needs to be able to support between 105 and 110 G accelaration to hit 15%c in 24 hours.

Solving for time.

v = 90000000 meter/second = 90000000 meter/second
v0 = 0 meter/second = 0 meter/second
a = 1078 meter/second^2 = 1078 meter/second^2

________________________________________
Solution:
time (s) = 83487.940630798 second

________________________________________
Other Units:

time (s) = 0.96629560915353 day
time (s) = 23.191094619685 hour

http://www.ajdesigner.com/constantacceleration/cavelocityt.php


which is interesting in terms of the moons accelaration in the first show - assuming that the grav tech can compensate for ~ 110 G's, the fact that the moonbase personell were crushed to the floor by the initial acceleration, but survived, suggests a similar velocity velocity -although a bit less to let that one eagle with the aussie pilot still catch up. Makes the moons relativistic eventual speed a bit more believable if one assumes that the blast continued for a couple of days after the grav compensation cut back in.

Now. How many newtons to accelerate the moon at 100G's within a few seconds, and would the moon have any hope of not disintergrating *, that's a different question, and one best not answered, along with "what's with superluminal speeds needed, and how did they slow down each week".

My, that was a show. Wouldn't have survived internet fandom for a second, really. And, no, I'm not suggesting that thats a bad thing. :wink:


* Hint: No.

 

[alex_greene]

I told you it would be a challenge.

 

[captainjack23]

I told you it would be a challenge.

And you were right. Have a cookie.


:wink:

 

[rust]

My, that was a show. Wouldn't have survived internet fandom for a second, really.

Well, our contemporary counterpart had a starship destroy a supernova ...
and it was one of its less impressive missions ... :wink:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAIRlgTf7ms

 

[captainjack23]

My, that was a show. Wouldn't have survived internet fandom for a second, really.

Well, our contemporary counterpart had a starship destroy a supernova ...
and it was one of its less impressive missions ... :wink:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAIRlgTf7ms

Okay, wow !

 

[hdan]

Ok, from eyeballing what plans I could find, it really looks like the Modular Cutter is a good fit, except that you need to down-tech the ship to use chemical rockets, and the module should only be around 20t, with the rest made up of the landing pods (which I would put fuel in for the chemical m-drive).

So, 50dt TL-8 with fusion reactor and basic gravity control, but with chemical propulsion. Module is 20t, and it should carry enough fuel for 4-5G for an extended trip, which will match in spirit if not letter. The faster upgrade model can go 6G.

Yes I know the stats say fusion rockets, but they're sure not built that way. I'd give it a fusion power plant and chemical rockets. I don't have MgT:HG so I'm not in a good position to do the final design.

Give it pretty thick armor and streamlining (the fiction says it can work in an atmosphere after all).

And of course a +2DM on all piloting due to excessive awesomeness.

 

[alex_greene]

Ok, from eyeballing what plans I could find, it really looks like the Modular Cutter is a good fit, except that you need to down-tech the ship to use chemical rockets, and the module should only be around 20t, with the rest made up of the landing pods (which I would put fuel in for the chemical m-drive).

So, 50dt TL-8 with fusion reactor and basic gravity control, but with chemical propulsion. Module is 20t, and it should carry enough fuel for 4-5G for an extended trip, which will match in spirit if not letter. The faster upgrade model can go 6G.

Yes I know the stats say fusion rockets, but they're sure not built that way. I'd give it a fusion power plant and chemical rockets. I don't have MgT:HG so I'm not in a good position to do the final design.

Give it pretty thick armor and streamlining (the fiction says it can work in an atmosphere after all).

And of course a +2DM on all piloting due to excessive awesomeness.

+4 if it's that Aussie pilot or Commander Koenig.

But yeah, I'd have gone for Eagle transporters being 50-ton modular cutters myself, only with a detachable compact bridge design.

Imagine if MWM had seen Space:1999 before publishing Traveller. Would all his small craft have turned out looking like variants of Eagles?

 

[middenface]

Intriguing... I grew up with Space 1999. My latest ship has a similiar cockpit to the eagles...well sort of... - Its actually a 100t Heavy Cutter with Twin Modules or a single module variants. Very inspired by the Eagle and Thunderbird 2. (mind you its got aerofins and a turret too for the Military version)

The Eagle has a Laser too. And quite a few differing pods, boosters etc....

I'll give this a crack when I fix Alpha's Main Computer, I mean my PC..

OT: The episode 'Dragon's Domain' still gives me the willies!
And if we had no moon we'd have 10 hour days (so I've heard)

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

The 10 hour days would be if we NEVER had a moon.

Since we had the moon until Sept. 13, 1999, then we still have the same day as before. We just lost most of the tides, we only have solar tides now; too bad for surfers!

Yeah, I remember back in the good old days, when you could go around at night and the moon was up. I know you won't believe this, but sometimes, when the moon was full, you could even see your shadow on the ground!

:shock:

 

[locarno24]

If looking at the Eagle design, don't forget the Hawk - the dedicated fighter equivalent....


Anyway....if it's about 30m long, then the photos (given some highly suspect measuring and proportions) suggest it's got a beam of about 8m and a height (not including 'feet') of about 5m. Which looks about right.

That would give an internal 'box volume' of about 1200 metres cubed, which at ~ 14 metres cubed per dTon means 85.7 and a bit dTons. Call it 85 (allowing for the open truss, neck, space around engines, etc) and you have a starting point to work with.

 

[srogerscat]

Rikki Tikki traveller writes:

We just lost most of the tides, we only have solar tides now; too bad for surfers!

Heh. Too bad for everybody! Without the Lunar tides, the intertidal zones are totally f*cked. As are the deeper water and coastal creatures that feed on those creatures. How about nocturnal animals that rely on moonlight for vision and navigation? What effect will the lack on the moon have on human biorythyms, if any? With the loss of the Moon, I think Earth's Ecology took a gut shot.

For another thing, that blast on the far side of the moon implies that for some time duration the Moon was closer to the Earth on the way out of the solar system. What coasts got slammed how many times by super high tides?

 

[DFW]

Interesting article about Earth with no moon and how close the moon used to be and how Earth had 6 hour days and HUGE tides...

http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/33/33.html