Re: (1899) Minimum Structural Strength

Rob Dean discusses comparing structural strength of modern and Traveller
spacefaring vehicles... I'd like to make a few comments.

Current vehicles are very, very fragile.  As are current airplanes.  Given the
amount of use (and type of use) they are subjected to, a better comparason
would be with a naval ship than with a Space Shuttle.  A naval ship run
aground in port simply waits for better tide to get off; were a space shuttle
to land off-field, it would be a $2 billion sculpture.  I can't imagine
that Traveller ships, indended for in excess of twenty years of nearly c
continuous use, would be built anything but very, very strongly.

Also, problems such as atmospheric re-entry heating have to be taken into
account... without extensive cooling or insulation, all sorts of problems
occur with thin-skinned vehicles.

Besides, if anyone bothers to figure out gas giant skimming loads and such,
i suspect they're going to be um Huge.  [Believe me; one real-world project
I'm working on is a spacecraft that aerobrakes at Jupiter... 8-) ]

- - -george william herbert
[email removed]