Subject: Rock as a Hull material
Between watching Babalon 5, old episodes of Gundam Mobile Suit,
and just plain dreaming, I was trying to think of a way to design
an O'Neill type colony using Traveller Starship construction
rules.
Megatraveller and CT had the Planatoid/Asteriod Hull type. That
could be adapted to a space colony fairly easily. This type of
construction seems to be missing in TNE. I haven't tried to adapt
MT/CT rules to TNE yet. Does anyone have any suggestions on
designing a space colony. Orbital colonies don't seem to be a
part of the traveller universe and I really don't know why.
Especially in asteroids fields.
About as far as I got on a colony design was the size/volume.
Since you need a diameter of about 1.7km to get a rotation rate of
1 RPM to produce a centripetal acceleration of 9.8m/s^2, my basic
hull was a cylinder 1.7km in diameter and 5.2km long. Roughly
700 million displacement tons. Add a fusion reactor an fuel for a
year, some storage space for supplies and you have a space colony.
My problem? What to use for the variables in the hull materials
table. The colony still needs a hull AV of 30 to protect from
radiation. Also, solar cells instead of fusion. Why centripetal
acceleration for gravity instead of grav plates? In order to
reduce the energy required to power the colony.
Any thoughts? comments? suggestions?
Topic 2:
Path of Tears: The Star Viking Sourcebook.
My comments. Nice sourcebook. Lots of info. Enough info for
100+ adventures. Answers some questions too.
John Bucsek [email removed]