Life pods for space ships

[Captain Brann]

Hull 2dt. cost 250,000cr
small 3x3x3 cube.
has 4 emercency low births in it stacked 2x2.
You slide into a birth and once they are all ready eject the pod. It then powers up and freezes its occupants in the births.
Uses a small solar panel on the outside hull to power the births a nd send out a distress beacon.

I thought that this was missing from space ship design. Using rescue pods is no good in space as they only last a few hours. This seems to be a better idea, ships should carry 1 per 4 staterooms.


Let me know what you think.
Chris

 

[BP]

I have designs using cryoberths (faster - great for injured - 1 wk internal power).

Cold sleep should not be immediately triggered (but automated when needed) - the first purpose of a lifeboat is to get away from the 'sinking' ship. There are risks when reviving (Core pg 142), that can be avoided when help is readily at hand.

Heat shielding and atmo landing provisions (chutes/glides/gravitics) are appropriate for orbital and streamlined passenger ships.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

The design having only a couple of hours fuel and life support is because the vast majority of ships are going to emerge from Jump within 100D of a mainworld. Travel to 100D, even at 1g only takes a few hours, hence the low endurance.

For ships that go exploring or away from the mainworld, I like your design much better.

 

[phavoc]

Having recently been on a cruise, I was curious about the lifeboats that the ships are equipped with. I did some digging around and found that the standard is the lifeboats must have fuel sufficient to go for 24hrs at full speed (a whopping 6 knots!), and that for every passenger on board they have 3 days worth of food and water. Plus medical supplies (though I don't know exactly what is stored).

So I would think a lifepod would have the ability to keep its occupants alive for a number of days at least. Probably they wouldn't be equipped with low berths, but maybe some dosages of slow drugs to keep people just barely functioning so that they are alive but using much less food, air and water. You could have two classes - lifepods, which are designed to float in space waiting for help, and escape pods which are capable of landing on a planetary body.

The thing to remember is that you never know where the ship is going to have an emergency, so you try to pack what you can into the space available. Rikki is correct, it would only take about 6hrs at 1G to reach the distance it takes to jump from Earth's orbit, but if there is a delay in getting to the ship in distress, or say there are no ships available to rescue them in the alloted few hours, then the short duration of the life support could cause them to die.

Travel on the frontier also might call for a much more extended duration/capable lifeboat, since help may be a very long time coming.

 

[andrew boulton]

In space, the best lifeboat is nearly always the ship itself.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Perhaps airline life rafts would be a better analogy for spaceships than ocean vessels.

Planes have a much tighter restriction on space which might fit the starship idea better.

Aircraft liferafts do not stock food (a few energy bars is about it). There is some water and a first aid kit, but basically, it is shelter and wait for help. Although they all have some kind of signalling device.

People can go for several days without food, but need water and air. So the priority should be:

1. Air
2. Heat/Cooling
3. Water
4. Food

I agree that the Slow Drug would be more efficient (cheaper) and take up a lot less room than Cryoberths.

 

[rust]

I agree that the Slow Drug would be more efficient (cheaper) and take up a lot less room than Cryoberths.

In my settings I do not use Slow Drug (seems like a magic potion to me)
and Cryoberths (I doubt the plausibility of the technology), but more com-
mon medical drugs and procedures instead: The passenger is sedated and
put into a kind of artificial coma, which seems sufficient for a short trip of
one or two weeks or an emergency situation like on a lifeboat.

 

[CosmicGamer]

I hope I don't derail the OP too much by asking rust to describe how he handles the biological needs? (like nutrition, breathing and waste)

 

[rust]

I hope I don't derail the OP too much by asking rust to describe how he handles the biological needs? (like nutrition, breathing and waste)

Think of something like an automated intensive care unit, a bit like an
autodoc, but without the equipment for complex diagnostics and thera-
py, only with the parts needed to keep the person alive.

The device could for example include an algae tank to produce oxygen,
water and nutrition could be handled by an intravenous system, and self
cleaning frictionless materials could make it easy to remove the wastes
with a kind of suction system.

The person would require only a minimum of oxygen, water and nutrients,
the body of the person would not have to undergo any severe stress and
the risk of death upon "resurrection", the entire device could be much less
expensive than a cryoberth (it would have about the price of a high tech
hospital bed), and since no cooling would be required, it would probably
need less power.

Plus, although this is probably only important for me, it could already be
done with today's medical technology, modern intensive care units are al-
most there, while "freezing" humans seems more and more implausible
for various medical reasons.

 

[Captain Brann]

Perhaps airline life rafts would be a better analogy for spaceships than ocean vessels.

Planes have a much tighter restriction on space which might fit the starship idea better.

Aircraft liferafts do not stock food (a few energy bars is about it). There is some water and a first aid kit, but basically, it is shelter and wait for help. Although they all have some kind of signalling device.

People can go for several days without food, but need water and air. So the priority should be:

1. Air
2. Heat/Cooling
3. Water
4. Food

I agree that the Slow Drug would be more efficient (cheaper) and take up a lot less room than Cryoberths.

HI
But airline rafts are for use on water after the plane diches.
They do not need to be airtight.
They do not need to keep you alive for days. Most will be found in a few hours by air resuce.
.

 

[Captain Brann]

I thought that you would need want to keep your passengers/crew alive for as long as possible at the lowest risk.
Yes frezzing runs risks but its better than going down with the ship.
The Life pod will keep the person alive for an indefinate time which is good for a couple of reasons.
1/ more chance of resuce.
2/ good scenario optons, can find a old pod etc.

putting a panicking person into a fragile plastic bubble and expect them to self power it while waiting in the endlesness of space for rescuce seems a very good plan for a bigger disaster.

I think I would rather be in a life tube and suspended, at least I can not panic over when I am going to die.

 

[rust]

I think I would rather be in a life tube and suspended, at least I can not panic over when I am going to die.

I agree, the only difference is that I would prefer a plausible method of
suspended animation, like an artificial coma, to an implausible method,
like a cryoberth.

I am working in a medical profession, and the concept of a cryoberth is
likely to kill my suspension of disbelief outright, while an artificial coma
does make sense to me, so ...

 

[Captain Brann]

I think I would rather be in a life tube and suspended, at least I can not panic over when I am going to die.

I agree, the only difference is that I would prefer a plausible method of
suspended animation, like an artificial coma, to an implausible method,
like a cryoberth.

I am working in a medical profession, and the concept of a cryoberth is
likely to kill my suspension of disbelief outright, while an artificial coma
does make sense to me, so ...

Totally understand that, I have the same trouble with fantisty worlds as I now a lot about medivel history.
However both Traveller and D&D etc are fantisy so we need to let go sometimes to let things work.

Hard as I often find that with stuff in history.

 

[Captain Brann]

I'd go with the escape pod from GT:

0.5dton, around 3tons weight, can hold 6-9 peopleand has air for 12-48 hours for them (depending on Techlevel). The pod has a high-g/short duration drive (3-6g for an hour) and a contragrav or chute for landing. It's computer is a very limited system that is given three informations when the "Launch" button is pressed:

• Position of the carrier ship
• Position of the next habitable planet (if one exists) or shortest way out of the battle (if used in a warship)
• Course and burn vector

The concept behind this pod is as follows:

• It takes a lot to damage a Traveller ship so badly that leaving it is the better option. And most of the time that happens everyone aboard is already dead
• In the Traveller universe you are normally within 100D from a habitable planet or at least a space station. The pod can either reach that target within the limited air supply or help from the target can reach you
• Most combatants do perform rescue operations post battle (Kkree being a possible exception)

Most of the time all it needs is a cheap vehicle that can make a single landing or support you for a few hours in space. On the few occasions where that is NOT enough, you better carry an FTL capabel subcraft like the 100dton Jump Cutter from the "Modular Cutter" supplement

I do not see how you can get 6-9 people in 7cu meters.

I presume GT is Grups Traveller?

 

[rust]

I presume GT is Grups Traveller?

Yep, GT is GURPS Traveller.

 

[BP]

...I do not see how you can get 6-9 people in 7cu meters...

Remove the water! :lol:

 

[rust]

...I do not see how you can get 6-9 people in 7cu meters...

Remove the water! :lol:

Instant Survivors - you do not need to thaw them, just add water. 8)

 

[BP]

So that fits nicely with your aqua world campaign...

 

[AndrewW]

Actually no big deal. Each gets 1x0.5x2m free space. It's cosy Okay so drop that from the GT text to 3-4 people since some space for the technical stuff is needed. As an alternate you can drop two droids with this capsule.

Only if you load the plans for George Bush's secret battlestation into one of them.