>Ok, now when is such a ship going to be in zero G? Well? The only time
>you wouldn't be firing your engines is in Jump. (Actually I have never
>read anything that says you can't use your maneuver drive in jump, but
>there is no reason to except in this particular case.) {maybe our TML
>historian knows of a reason I do not... Metlay?}
>
>At all other times a ship may fire it's engines to simulate gravitation.
>Even if the ship is just stationkeeping in orbit, the engines may be
>fired. Just put a slow spin on the ship and accelerate at one G. You will
>essentually be flying in a circle, but that won't affect a ship in orbit
>too much. You might annoy some guy in the starport control tower with
>maneuvers like that, but then again it should be a standard tech 9 station
>keeping maneuver.
Flying the ship in circles would "plaster" the crew to the walls not the
floor. Centripetal force and all that. Spinning the ship won't work
either since it can only be spun about an axis passing through its center
of mass. You could have two sections of the ship counter rotating thus
providing a nearly zero net angular momentum. Access would only be possible
along the zero-g axis at the center but you could simulate gravity even
during orbits and in jump space. 2010 had a sample of a ship that used
rotation as a "artificial gravity" generator. This still leaves the problems
of acceleration but you can't have everything.
>I would also think that a starship would need some sort of sensors that
>are capable of pinpointing the star to which the ship is going to jump
>to. Radiation & Magnetic sensors just aren't gonna do it. I think you
>are gonna need at least a telescope (light amplifier) and possibly a
>radar direction finder to locate the destination star by it's radio
>emmissions. (I don't know much about astronomy but I do know that a
>radiation counter will not pinpoint a star against all the background
>radiation. A magnetic sensor will be equally useless)
Radio emmisions are not that useful due to poor resolution - visible light
is better - stick with the telescope. Radiations sensors - I don't remember
what kind of radiation these detect is it particle radiation (electrons
helium nuclei etc) or EM. If its EM these will work fine. Do the detection
in the UV - IR ranges - not problems. Particle radiation would suffer
from cosmic background and non-linear flight paths.
Every now and then I just have to take some time to toss my 2 cents into
the ring! :-)
T.L.Hayes | [email removed]
MIT/Lincoln Laboratory | - or -
Lexington, MA | [email removed]
Got an AK-47 for his best friend, business the American way.
- Queensryche