Re: Lo-tech moon shot
In reply to #5904 Lo-tech moon shot by Bertil Jonell
here is the message I sent to ER..... and the reply I got which covers some of the question that other people had. johno - ------- Forwarded Messages Forwarded: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 22:20:52 -0400 Forwarded: "[email removed] " Return-Path: [email removed] Received: by fs1-6.bbn.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA09987; Tue, 17 Aug 93 22:12:10 EDT Message-Id: [email removed] To: "ER........" [email removed] Cc: [email removed] Subject: Re: Lo-tech moon shot In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 17 Aug 1993 17:51:00 GMT." Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 22:12:09 -0400 From: "John C. Orthoefer" [email removed] > Problem: 1-5 Individuals of tech 6-8 stranded on an earth type world at TL0, > their only means of returning to civilisation is to get to the TL15 vessel on > the planets moon. > > Question: Given time (assuming anagathics if nescessary) could a ship be > built to get to the moon? I'd like to know a bit more, I don't have enough information. Is it 1-5 people on a tech level 6-8, with a general population of several million? Or is this a Desert Island kinda problem? Also do they have access to TL 15 (or TL 6-8) computers? Do they have cash for that world? Or even Astromomey books? What kind of education? My guess is you have a desert island type problem. And my answer is I don't think so. Just to hit a moon, you need a computer and/or some very good astromony insterments (yes, the first orbits were don't on chalkboards, but that was really the results of 300 years of science.) To build a rocket engine (even solid fuel) you need to know 100's of years of knowlege of Chemistry, metalurgy and fuild dynamics. Solid fuel can be harder, because you are burning explovies, how do you keep it from lighting up all at once? How do you make a fuel which burns on it's one oxidizer? If you have a chemistry book you (at least I think I could) can figure out the chemistry you need. To make the trip it takes Liquid O2, or even pressurized gas. You need Liquid O2 for a Liquid fuel engine. To store gases you need Steel flasks. And GOOD pressure/vaccuum pumps. 5 people in several life times couldn't mine enough steel. They would also have to have a transport system to make it work. I can't think of any one place on this planet with everything you need sitting in one place. So you need a real infrastructure, like the US's. If the planet has people that you can work and educate, even TL 0 slaves. And your people have computers to plot the moons orbit and guide the ship (you need ATLEAST simple analog computers, which I couldn't build, but I think someone being creative with some TL7 laptops might be able to hack something). The scale of the earth/moon system is hitting a golfball about 3000 mi (or 4800 Km) and missing by inches (Cm). And this is all assuming that have been able to build a self contained rocket motor. Which is assuming you have a cabin which will support life for 3 days. The simple final answer 5 people with no prefab parts, no way. 5 people with no prefab parts but some labor maybe with lots of luck. 5 people with lots of TL 6-8 people, of course. For more insite, subscribe to the space-tech mailing list. For a story that is roughly equivent to your problem look at Riverworld books by Farmer (I think). In the books if you don't know Mark Twain builds a riverboat out of very little (really he builds two, and people at the same site build an air ship too) and a riverboat is MUCH simpler than getting living beings out of the atmosphere. And they didn't have to worry about feeding themselves. Hope this doesn't total blow you away. But when you better define the problem I might beable to get you some more ideas of hangups. johno [email removed] - ------- Message 2 Forwarded: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 17:09:47 -0400 Forwarded: "[email removed] " Forwarded: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 13:09:30 -0400 Forwarded: "[email removed] " Return-Path: [email removed] Received: from sun2.nsfnet-relay.ac.uk by fs1-6.bbn.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA11206; Wed, 18 Aug 93 13:04:46 EDT Message-Id: [email removed] Via: uk.ac.bangor; Wed, 18 Aug 1993 18:08:10 +0100 Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 18:09 GMT From: "ER........" [email removed] To: JCO [email removed] Subject: Re: Lo-tech moon shot Ok here is what I have, At least one man with a technical background upto 1940's level of tech A pile of basic engineering, chemistry, mining and physics books. Some Precision TL 8 micrometers, vernier caliper and lenses A pile of anagathics A map of the planetry resources A region rich in Nitrate deposits, oil and minerals. (possibly) some TL 0 primitives to use to do grunt work. A tall mountain A BIG lake If you had plenty of time to calculate the orbit, could you build a 1 use dedicated analog calculator to do the burn times etc? I beleive the German Me233 Komet had a very easy to build rocket engine maybe that would do? Pumps are tricky but not impossible surely? Do you have to use steel? for low stress 1 use applications at least? Life support may not be a problem (a vaccsuit with enough air MAY be available) No prefab parts tho.... thanks for the reply PAVEWAY PAS could you forward this back to me (I forgot to make a copy) :) - ------- End of Forwarded Messages