Here's a possible reason why the minimum ship armor should
be 40 instead of 8 as Robert Dean came up with after glancing
at how LDEF did in five years in orbit.
In the Traveller universe, space is dirtier. There are
a lot of ships moving around. There is debris from past
battles. You didn't think all that sand you threw out
to protect yourself from lasers just disappeared? There's
bound to be lots of paint, metal, sand, and on and on
floating around just waiting to punch a hole in your hull.
True, your chances of running into a grain of sand or chunk
of metal are still remote, but the probability will be higher
(esp. if you consider a spacecraft lifetime of 50+ years)
and the average damage from a collision will be greater due
to larger particle size. Minimum design standards would
reflect this.
- - --
John H. Kim
[email removed]
[email removed]