Problems with deckplans (again... maybe)
- Thread starter zero
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I think the idea is that with all voids in a body filled with incompressible liquid. This is suppose to allow for greater pressures and accelerations to be handled.
"Acceleration protection by liquid immersion is limited by the differential density of body tissues and immersion fluid, limiting the utility of this method to about 15 to 20 G."
Guyton, Arthur C. (1986). Textbook of Medical Physiology, 7th Ed., Aviation, Space, and Deep Sea Diving Physiology. W.B. Saunders Company. p. 533.
... continued from wikipedia ...
"Extending acceleration protection beyond 20 G requires filling the lungs with fluid of density similar to water. An astronaut totally immersed in liquid, with liquid inside all body cavities, will feel little effect from extreme G forces because the forces on a liquid are distributed equally, and in all directions simultaneously. However effects will be felt because of density differences between different body tissues, so an upper acceleration limit still exists."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing
However.....
There would still be problems concerning the different densities of fluids and body tissues. And the extra effort in pumping blood, etc.
http://yarchive.net/med/liquid_breathe.html
But this is science fiction, and who knows? Maybe ongoing research can make it practical after all.
So I'll just give my hi-G fighter pilots cyborg-like hydraulic disconnects to allow for external pumping of blood complete with nutrients and oxygenation and CO2/waste removal with external machinery. This way, 'liquid breathing' is not really used so much as lungs and other voids inside the body are liquid-filled.
Direct neural interfaces/jacks can get control over external machinery/equipment and also help prevent sensory deprivation.
Here is some game related stuff for Traveller ( older editions )
http://freelancetraveller.com/features/science/gravity.html
"Acceleration protection by liquid immersion is limited by the differential density of body tissues and immersion fluid, limiting the utility of this method to about 15 to 20 G."
Guyton, Arthur C. (1986). Textbook of Medical Physiology, 7th Ed., Aviation, Space, and Deep Sea Diving Physiology. W.B. Saunders Company. p. 533.
... continued from wikipedia ...
"Extending acceleration protection beyond 20 G requires filling the lungs with fluid of density similar to water. An astronaut totally immersed in liquid, with liquid inside all body cavities, will feel little effect from extreme G forces because the forces on a liquid are distributed equally, and in all directions simultaneously. However effects will be felt because of density differences between different body tissues, so an upper acceleration limit still exists."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing
However.....
There would still be problems concerning the different densities of fluids and body tissues. And the extra effort in pumping blood, etc.
http://yarchive.net/med/liquid_breathe.html
But this is science fiction, and who knows? Maybe ongoing research can make it practical after all.
So I'll just give my hi-G fighter pilots cyborg-like hydraulic disconnects to allow for external pumping of blood complete with nutrients and oxygenation and CO2/waste removal with external machinery. This way, 'liquid breathing' is not really used so much as lungs and other voids inside the body are liquid-filled.
Direct neural interfaces/jacks can get control over external machinery/equipment and also help prevent sensory deprivation.
Here is some game related stuff for Traveller ( older editions )
http://freelancetraveller.com/features/science/gravity.html
The fluid is turned into a more solid gel before the accel/deccel if that helps the hard scifi any.
Also, about the filling in voids in the body, as the person is in a coma-like state anyway, I get reminded of LCL from the Evangelion franchise. (Evangelion 1.11 and 2.22 is out on dvd and bluray)
For those not in the know, as Evangelion pilots are in sealed, pressurised entry plugs for piloting, the plug is filled with a fluid called LCL that once flooded in the pilot's lungs, oxygenates their blood directly.
[Evangelion spoilers] LCL is actually the drained blood from Lilith, the 2nd Angel and mother of all mankind and Eva 01 [Evangelion spoilers end]
Its not hard scifi, but Cstars is supposed to be Lovecraftian, so some kind of oxygenating fluid created in some unholy way (if the proposed theory is not possible in RL) is a pretty ok piece of unobtanium or handwavium.
Also, about the filling in voids in the body, as the person is in a coma-like state anyway, I get reminded of LCL from the Evangelion franchise. (Evangelion 1.11 and 2.22 is out on dvd and bluray)
For those not in the know, as Evangelion pilots are in sealed, pressurised entry plugs for piloting, the plug is filled with a fluid called LCL that once flooded in the pilot's lungs, oxygenates their blood directly.
[Evangelion spoilers] LCL is actually the drained blood from Lilith, the 2nd Angel and mother of all mankind and Eva 01 [Evangelion spoilers end]
Its not hard scifi, but Cstars is supposed to be Lovecraftian, so some kind of oxygenating fluid created in some unholy way (if the proposed theory is not possible in RL) is a pretty ok piece of unobtanium or handwavium.
A fluid that fills your lungs and oxygenates your blood directly exists, or at least it does in theory.
The problem is that eventually, acceleration will squish you. If you're in gel, you will be moved backwards then go squish against the rear wall, because you are denser than the gel. If the gel is denser than you, you go squish against the gel instead.
None of these are good are they
(Of course, going squish is an exaggeration... but it makes my point)
The problem is that eventually, acceleration will squish you. If you're in gel, you will be moved backwards then go squish against the rear wall, because you are denser than the gel. If the gel is denser than you, you go squish against the gel instead.
None of these are good are they
(Of course, going squish is an exaggeration... but it makes my point)
liquid breathing and hi-G 'gel' cushioning, etc. is not any less hard than the usual ubiquitous safe small cheap fusion reactors, eh?
Besides, with hard versions of the game, with reaction mass based thrusters, such hi accelerations just won't exist except for short bursts anyways.
Besides, with hard versions of the game, with reaction mass based thrusters, such hi accelerations just won't exist except for short bursts anyways.
Almost every science fiction idea concerning the human body is ratherIshmael said:
"soft", simply because our knowledge of human biology as well as our
ability to gain more knowledge through experiments are very limited.
For example, liquid breathing originally looked like a very good idea,
but later on most projects of that kind ran into the problem that the al-
veoli of the human lung tend to collapse under pressure from any fluid
more dense than water (and even water can damage them badly), so
the liquid breathing fluid could permanently damage the lungs and per-
haps even kill the person. I suspect that this reduced the number of vo-
lunteers for liquid breathing experiments considerably.
Or think of the first patient to undergo supposedly safe adenoviral gene-
tic therapy. Everything looked excellent on paper, but still he died, al-
most certainly because we were wrong once more when we thought we
knew what we were doing.
Ok, so going on these comments, perhaps a gel with the same density as a person maintained by some kind of mass measuring system within the couch? Also, just what the gel is constructed from is not named, it could feasibly be something not very nice, that the new rpg, The Void, might clarify in the future.
Also the Transit Acceleration may not be a smooth transition, but some bursts, it does accel/deccel for days on end, so measured bursts might be more realistic than the T-Drive (which powers itself from special replacable coils independant from the P-plant) constantly surging energy through the ship.
As for Liquid breathing, could a liquid with very little density, less than water, exist?
Also the Transit Acceleration may not be a smooth transition, but some bursts, it does accel/deccel for days on end, so measured bursts might be more realistic than the T-Drive (which powers itself from special replacable coils independant from the P-plant) constantly surging energy through the ship.
As for Liquid breathing, could a liquid with very little density, less than water, exist?
You would end up with your organs being squished against your bones... High G acceleration for a long time is not fun for soft squishy peoples
Yes, easily. Any liquid that floats on water is less dense such as Oil, or alcohol. But filling a persons lungs with those is not normally a good thing
Not any liquid useful for liquid breathing, because you would either ha-zero said:
ve to cool it to keep it from evaporating, with the cold damaging the
tissue, or to keep it under pressure to keep it liquid, which would again
carry the risk to cause "secondary drowning" and similar problems.
The real problem is that you would need a liquid able to transport com-
paratively huge amounts of both oxygen and carbon dioxide. What we
have currently is sufficient for a patient in a deep coma, but far from
sufficient for a physically active person. Those working on the problem
propose to use a kind of pump to get the liquid through the lungs at a
higher speed, in order to move more oxygen in and especially carbon
dioxide out, but this runs into the problem mentioned above, the risk of
"secondary drowning" and thelike because of a damage to the alveoli
caused by the increased pressure.
In short, apart from some very few medical applications, liquid breathing
is off the table for common use, and extremely unlikely to ever return.
Human lungs are just not designed for it.
barnest2 said:
How bout these then; I had a neighbor who became a good friend that remembers reading about the Wright bros flight, in a Belfast newspaper, when he was an adult. And, I used to listen to stories from a relative who was actually born in the back of a covered wagon while they were traveling to Western Missouri to start a farm...
I'm not really old though.
It's probably best to stick with G force compensating technology that exists somewhat today (since the rest of your tech is kind of leaning that way too).
Instead of trying to change the underlying basics of biology, why don't you do a rule edit that says the drive system works on burst-like basis, which requires crewmembers to remain in acceleration couches while in flight, but that the drive itself cycles from high-G to lower-G. This would still give you your speed as defined by the rules but also allow your crew to survive flights. You could even add a rule that talks about the 'beating' the human body takes, and that crews need time to recover upon arrival at their destination. So activities enroute or before that would cause them to have -DM to actions.
Instead of trying to change the underlying basics of biology, why don't you do a rule edit that says the drive system works on burst-like basis, which requires crewmembers to remain in acceleration couches while in flight, but that the drive itself cycles from high-G to lower-G. This would still give you your speed as defined by the rules but also allow your crew to survive flights. You could even add a rule that talks about the 'beating' the human body takes, and that crews need time to recover upon arrival at their destination. So activities enroute or before that would cause them to have -DM to actions.
Liquid breathing has been used for premature babies a bit.
Also U.S. Navy Seals have used it (perfluorocarbons like the old mouse in a beaker? - but the density is ~2x water, which caused fractured ribs during heavy activity IIRC)...
It would be quite techy - most believably would be using a specialized mask and 'liquid breathing unit' to handle oxygenation, gas purging, temp regulating (liquid would generally carry away heat a lot faster than air), and filtering for the lungs.
There also would be folks (most probably) who psychologically would be adverse (gag reflex must be overcome, etc.).
Also U.S. Navy Seals have used it (perfluorocarbons like the old mouse in a beaker? - but the density is ~2x water, which caused fractured ribs during heavy activity IIRC)...
It would be quite techy - most believably would be using a specialized mask and 'liquid breathing unit' to handle oxygenation, gas purging, temp regulating (liquid would generally carry away heat a lot faster than air), and filtering for the lungs.
There also would be folks (most probably) who psychologically would be adverse (gag reflex must be overcome, etc.).
I could see BP's tech in the post above working as that, in-game.
I will also keep the T-Drive having bursts of thrust, it makes more sense as its not powered by the Fusion Plant and doesnt make the people in the couches go squish, which is all I wanted
The Cstars Core is strange in that hints that the person is conscious for part of being in the Grav-couch (probably the bit where its turning to gel around them before the T-Drive kicks in and waking up before reliquidisation, just like Weir in Event Horizon 8) ), but also the devs have said in the forum that people are sedated to a coma-like level for the set amount of days (5-7), so some kind of food has to get them.
Really I should research coma-patient care, the Core says nothing about whether food is intravenous (probably), but there is a pic of a guy who has just come out of the couch with an air-mask still on his face. Otherwise he is in underwear (like in Event Horizon again).
I will also keep the T-Drive having bursts of thrust, it makes more sense as its not powered by the Fusion Plant and doesnt make the people in the couches go squish, which is all I wanted
The Cstars Core is strange in that hints that the person is conscious for part of being in the Grav-couch (probably the bit where its turning to gel around them before the T-Drive kicks in and waking up before reliquidisation, just like Weir in Event Horizon 8) ), but also the devs have said in the forum that people are sedated to a coma-like level for the set amount of days (5-7), so some kind of food has to get them.
Really I should research coma-patient care, the Core says nothing about whether food is intravenous (probably), but there is a pic of a guy who has just come out of the couch with an air-mask still on his face. Otherwise he is in underwear (like in Event Horizon again).
That reminds me of the Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick and the 'tranq' from the Alliance-Union series by C. J. Cherryh
BTW: Cherryh's books also featured Jump drives - not sure if they preceded Traveller - her earliest book being '76 I believe. They also had Rejuv... At any rate they are good reading!
BTW: Cherryh's books also featured Jump drives - not sure if they preceded Traveller - her earliest book being '76 I believe. They also had Rejuv... At any rate they are good reading!
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Re the "massive acceleration" or the transit drive.
Has there been an errata on this that I haven’t seen.
Just for curiosity I ran the numbers, then I checked the book and found what I hope is a typo. I have looked more at the tech of ship designs and the Mythos in space stuff and have to admit I did skim over the travel times.
On looking now I find problems which is why I wonder about an errata for the core rules.
Page 92 lists the transit drive as reaching 0.005% of light speed. I thought this said 0.05 when I first read it which would make it reasonable for requiring high G measures.
Since the Transit drive accelerates steadily over 7 days it would seem to produce a constant thrust, the people on board need to be in the pods for the 7 days of drive thrust for acceleration or deceleration so this seems a reasonable guess. Now for some math.
Light speed is 300,000km per second. One week is 604,800 seconds. One G is (rounded for ease of math) 10m per second.
0.05 Light speed is 15,000km/s. 15,000,000m/sec over 604,800 seconds is 25m/s constant acceleration over 1 week to achieve that speed. 25m/sec is 2.5G.
0.005 light speed is 1,500km/s. Same calculation, 2.5m/sec which is 0.25G
0.005% light speed is 15km/sec. Same calculation, you could walk there faster.
At 2.5G acceleration having reached 0.05Light it is roughly a day to the gas giants, this ignores the distance covered during the acceleration and deceleration period, the listed time of 24/36 days is too long for this speed.
At 0.25G acceleration reaching 0.005Light it is roughly a week to the gas giants, this ignores the distance covered during the acceleration and deceleration period, the listed time of 24/36 days is too long for this speed.
At 0.0025G (the listed book speed) acceleration reaching 0.00005Light it is roughly two years to the gas giants, this ignores the distance covered during the acceleration and deceleration period, the listed time of 24/36 days is too short for this speed.
So now I am puzzled. At no point is there any huge G being applied by the transit drive that would require excessive measures. At 2.5G you can manage on a foam bed for a few days, also this level of acceleration gets you there way too fast.
At one quarter G you are getting close to the times listed but its 0.25G, no reason to bother with anti G measures for something that minor.
There must be something else to cover this. The transit drive runs a short burst of higher speed but then why be in the pods for a week,perhaps it pulses once an hour at high G which makes no sense from an engineering point of view unless it needs to bleed of massive levels of waste heat and so has to fire 4-6 G for a few minutes every hour.
Has there been an errata on this that I haven’t seen.
Just for curiosity I ran the numbers, then I checked the book and found what I hope is a typo. I have looked more at the tech of ship designs and the Mythos in space stuff and have to admit I did skim over the travel times.
On looking now I find problems which is why I wonder about an errata for the core rules.
Page 92 lists the transit drive as reaching 0.005% of light speed. I thought this said 0.05 when I first read it which would make it reasonable for requiring high G measures.
Since the Transit drive accelerates steadily over 7 days it would seem to produce a constant thrust, the people on board need to be in the pods for the 7 days of drive thrust for acceleration or deceleration so this seems a reasonable guess. Now for some math.
Light speed is 300,000km per second. One week is 604,800 seconds. One G is (rounded for ease of math) 10m per second.
0.05 Light speed is 15,000km/s. 15,000,000m/sec over 604,800 seconds is 25m/s constant acceleration over 1 week to achieve that speed. 25m/sec is 2.5G.
0.005 light speed is 1,500km/s. Same calculation, 2.5m/sec which is 0.25G
0.005% light speed is 15km/sec. Same calculation, you could walk there faster.
At 2.5G acceleration having reached 0.05Light it is roughly a day to the gas giants, this ignores the distance covered during the acceleration and deceleration period, the listed time of 24/36 days is too long for this speed.
At 0.25G acceleration reaching 0.005Light it is roughly a week to the gas giants, this ignores the distance covered during the acceleration and deceleration period, the listed time of 24/36 days is too long for this speed.
At 0.0025G (the listed book speed) acceleration reaching 0.00005Light it is roughly two years to the gas giants, this ignores the distance covered during the acceleration and deceleration period, the listed time of 24/36 days is too short for this speed.
So now I am puzzled. At no point is there any huge G being applied by the transit drive that would require excessive measures. At 2.5G you can manage on a foam bed for a few days, also this level of acceleration gets you there way too fast.
At one quarter G you are getting close to the times listed but its 0.25G, no reason to bother with anti G measures for something that minor.
There must be something else to cover this. The transit drive runs a short burst of higher speed but then why be in the pods for a week,perhaps it pulses once an hour at high G which makes no sense from an engineering point of view unless it needs to bleed of massive levels of waste heat and so has to fire 4-6 G for a few minutes every hour.
