High Guard heat shielding

[Spartan159]

Can anyone tell me why heat shielding is so damn expensive?

 

[Condottiere]

No.

Would assume that advancing technology levels would make it increasingly cheaper.

Would need to compare the cost to the thermal tiles they had plastered all over the space shuttles.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Heat Shielding is much better than the tiles on the Shuttle. It allows you to approach to some unspecified distance to a star, apparently indefinitely. To do that it must contain not only insulation but also an effective way to dump heat.

 

[Condottiere]

That sort of argues that hulls tend to be composite, rather than just a slab of metal.

 

[h1ro]

Which I think is about right but Traveller has always stuck with things that sound like metal tho crystaliron could well be a diamond/carbon lattice integrated at a molecular level with steel of some kind so who knows?

Likewise, super dense could blur the lines between ceramics, polymers and metal.

Was anything written down saying what they might be?

(Edited cos my grammar sucks)

 

[Condottiere]

Tee Five composites, but in thick layers, so not quite what we're looking for.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Crystaliron is iron grown with perfect crystal structure and carefully controlled quantities of impurities for maximum toughness and hardness. Superdense armor has had its electron structure partially collapsed (as occurs to a much greater degree in white dwarf stars), increasing its density and strength. Bonded superdense armor is the same material using advanced technology to channel a small power input into the armor's internal electronic bonds, increasing its strength even more.

CT Striker

 

[Condottiere]

Our armour scale has been simplified.

Create carbon nanotubing for heat transfers.

 

[h1ro]

Crystaliron is iron grown with perfect crystal structure and carefully controlled quantities of impurities for maximum toughness and hardness. Superdense armor has had its electron structure partially collapsed (as occurs to a much greater degree in white dwarf stars), increasing its density and strength. Bonded superdense armor is the same material using advanced technology to channel a small power input into the armor's internal electronic bonds, increasing its strength even more.

CT Striker

Thanks for the history, my copies of Striker are in tatters and rarely see the light of day!

 

[locarno24]

So it's essentially Xeelee construction material?
Nice. I always assumed it was, but nice to actually see it written out somewhere.

And yes, Heat shielding is apparently rated to solar heat sources, not 'just' re-entry (which is a lot less of an issue in a gravetic drive ship anyway.

 

[Condottiere]

Most commercial ships aren't that anxious to get a tan.

Would have to know how intercontinental ballistic missiles handle it.