Sundiving

[Mithras]

MTU needs a cool space-based sport. I've seen ideas for solar sailing and for long multi-jump treks, but these are akin to watching a year long round-the-world yacht race. And you might have given up watching by the time its over.

I'm thinking gambling with your life, danger, thrills, the chance of a horrible death and the machine built to exact tolerances, piloted by a human who is daring brave and knows no fear. Formula One in space.

Sundivers do that. In a 30-70 ton craft they all get say 12 orbits of the star and whoever gets the lowest orbit wins. Orbits are a bit like F1 laps, cycling down lower and lower. Picking your way through magnetic eddies, timing your trajectories between solar flares etc. Nerves of steel.

Of course the ships will need all the nifty add ons from High Guard: heat shielding, radiation shielding, reinforced hull etc. Big drives to pull away from the star ...

That's all I've got so far. Its a sport that can be viewed live, via close in helio-statellites and on-board cameras. It can move on, like a rally, to different 'tougher' stars for different stages in a big tournament ...

As for rules ... I don't know enough about stars, how close you can get etc. But a set of tables would be neat. And the pilot makes choices (risk/less risk) and his ship may take damage.

What'dya think?

 

[hdan]

This is a cool idea for a sport!

Some thoughts:

If you're actually in orbit around the star, you don't need big engines to pull away if you're on an elliptical orbit. You'd only use the "big blast" in your initial approach and in your final lap. I don't know for sure, but I suspect even a lowly 1G grav-thruster could do what you need.

I can see two primary variants - the single "dip" and a long series of "year laps".

The Dip:

All ships start in a statutory circular orbit of a certain size.
Each ship may fire their engines twice - once to begin the "dip", once to re-circularize at the end of the dip. Ships must meet certain requirements for thrust, such as "chemical thrusters and X tons of fuel only".
Whichever ship gets the lowest and still manages to return to a circular orbit wins.

Judge(and rescue) ships are spaced around the star at regular intervals, and maintain sensor locks on all competitors to prevent cheating.

Ships could be tuned to handle extra heat, to use the star's atmosphere for "lift" in some way, and to use solar sails to make up for atmospheric drag. Naturally they would need large levels of heat and radiation shielding.

The Year Lap:

Same setup, but ships can use their engines as much as they like. They may NOT leave the orbital plane of the race, and must always return to the the starting height every lap. Points are scored for being the lowest each lap and for being the fastest each complete a lap.

You could also have a race with "hot laps" that compete only on time to orbit so encourage racers to make the lowest possible circular orbits. But these would be very dangerous and hard to rescue contestants from, so might be the equivalent of illegal street racing.

Ships in either contest may or may not have certain design constraints, and I suspect that clever additions of solar sails and atmospheric "plasma streamlining" would be useful for the more advanced circuits, as well as sophisticated computer systems (unless outlawed!) and high levels of navigation, engineering (to keep the engines running) and piloting skill, as well as some ways to repair things on the fly.

Racers would probably practice on airless moons and gas giants to get their orbital chops and (especially with the gas giants) hone their atmospheric skills, etc.

 

[rust]

I don't know enough about stars, how close you can get etc.

In the case of our sun the corona extends to between ca. 700,000 km mi-
nimum and 2,000,000 km maximum, depending on solar activity. Within
the corona the average temperatures are up to several million Kelvin, so
no chance of a survival there.

The problem with the sundiving sport would mainly be that it would be the
equivalent of Russian Roulette. When the sensors pick up the first sign of
lethal solar activity, the pilot would have only seconds to get out of the
way of the flare (or whatever) because of the short distance between the
sun and his craft - impossible to do with the low accelerations of the Tra-
veller rules.

So the survival of the pilots would not depend on their skill, only on their
luck.

 

[hdan]

The problem with the sundiving sport would mainly be that it would be the
equivalent of Russian Roulette. When the sensors pick up the first sign of
lethal solar activity, the pilot would have only seconds to get out of the
way of the flare (or whatever) because of the short distance between the
sun and his craft - impossible to do with the low accelerations of the Tra-
veller rules.

So the survival of the pilots would not depend on their skill, only on their
luck.

Unless the ship had nuclear dampener screens and such. Also, it's plausible that future scientists might have better models of stellar behavior that allow for choosing "good weather" on certain types of star. Maybe sundiving isn't possible in every system?

 

[rust]

Maybe sundiving isn't possible in every system?

It should probably be a very stable non-variable star during the minimum
of its activity cycle, otherwise the risk could hardly be calculated, and on-
ly pilots with a strong death wish would take part.

 

[Mithras]

Yes, I'd hope that the future allows some good models of stellar behaviour.

 

[DFW]

I think that by those TL' they would have material that could take the heat. You'd have to be quick to keep from overheating the crew though.

 

[rust]

It seems this would be a case for a lot of ablative armour.

 

[Mithras]

...for some races, but what bout a trinary system where racers have to negotiate 3 stars in succession?

 

[rust]

...for some races, but what bout a trinary system where racers have to negotiate 3 stars in succession?

With Traveller drives they would need weeks to get from one star to the
next one.

 

[Mithras]

Ah true, not thought that one through ...

...for some races, but what bout a trinary system where racers have to negotiate 3 stars in succession?

With Traveller drives they would need weeks to get from one star to the
next one.

 

[locarno24]

"Sun-dive?"

"It means that this ship is going to dive into the sun. Sun...dive. It's very simple if you think about it. What did you expect if you steal Hotblack Desiato's stunt ship?"

As for rules ... I don't know enough about stars, how close you can get etc. But a set of tables would be neat. And the pilot makes choices (risk/less risk) and his ship may take damage.

Well - for game mechanics, I'd look at the Secrets of The Ancients episode Descent (I think) - that has a pilot difficulty/damage/increasing depth mechanic. Admittedly it's for pressure damage descending into a gas giant's atmosphere, but the turbulence + depth may make you die concept remains valid....

Unless the ship had nuclear dampener screens and such. Also, it's plausible that future scientists might have better models of stellar behavior that allow for choosing "good weather" on certain types of star. Maybe sundiving isn't possible in every system?

Nuclear dampeners stop fission/fusion from occuring - they don't disappear radiation that's already 'in flight'. And nor can you use a nuclear dampener on a star, even if you have one powerful enough - the Darrians tried that, didn't end so well.

Yes, I'd hope that the future allows some good models of stellar behaviour.

To be fair, that would explain why flare activity doesn't cause more disruption than it does - if a 'flare prediction' warning can be circulated to at least a jump-1 or jump-2 radius you limit the odds of some poor bugger jumping into it and ending up cooked without upping (yet further) the demands on the universal traveller super-hull....