Re: (3532) Space Planes and TL 6 Vac Suits

Scott Kellogg writes:
>Did anyone even LOOK at the 'Little Renegade' TL 8 spaceplane before
>they published it?  Take a good look!  Ok, Disp=20, that's a the size
>of a 4.5 ton aircraft with the wings unfolded.  Or the size of a 13.5
>ton aircraft with them folded.  Ok, this thing is about the size of an
>A-4 Skyhawk, or a MiG-21.  Right?

>Look at the weight.  Loaded=484 tons.  Ok, this thing weighs more than
>twice the weight of FULLY LOADED B-52, and has wings the size of a
>Skyhawk!??

Doesn't a Disp of 20 mean 20 cubic meters? (My books are buried)
If so, this puppy has a density of 484e6 grams/20e6 cc. Which works out
to 24.2 g/cc. This is *noticeacbly* denser than platinum, and in fact
denser than *any* know substance. (excluding things like "degenerate
materr, and neutronium).

So, it fails a class *Zero* reality check.


>One other thing I noticed in here was the TL 6 vac suits.
>They say they are related to TL 6 flight suits.  Presumably they are
>thinking of the Mercury Project space suits.  Well, I once had the
>chance to buy an old Mercury Project suit, (one of the ones used in
>training acutally) and did a little research on that particular suit.
>The Navy GS-1 (I think it was) was NOT a good suit for dextrous
>operation.  (To put it mildly)  Oh, it was just fine to walk around in
>and use when you're at atmospheric pressure, but when pressurized, it
>becomes almost totally rigid.  Wearing one in vacuuum would basically
>paralyze the wearer completely.  The problem is you are wearing a huge
>man shaped rubber balloon.  There was no way to articulate the joints
>against the pressure of the suit.

>At 3PSI internal pressure, the amount of force required for the wearer
>to touch his shoulder was the equivalent of bending a steel bar!

Well, in the 50's there was work on a *much* more flexible suit. It even
had a few tests in a vacuum chamber (with a person wearing it) before it
was cancelled. It was the basis for the "skinsuit" seenm in many SF
stories. We *could* have built it, we chose not too.