message 0168

• Speculations on spaceship (esp. Rider) drive and fuel

>From: David Zink <zink@Panix.Com>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 09:25:04 -0400 (EDT)

> I wasn't talking about the insystem freighters, of course (I was talking
> about them in the context of Heavy Time, where I mentioned they had rocket
> drives only).  The citations you list would indeed tend to support your view.  
> However, in DS, a battle at Pell has the carriers Tibet and North Pole with 
> deployed riders trying to break through the Union fleet to rejoin the rest of 
> the Company fleet.  Such a maneuver would be completely impossible if the 
> riders were limited to, say, 1/1000 the acceleration of a carrier, since the 
> Union carriers (of which about a dozen were available) could run rings around 
> them.  In effect, deployed riders would make *any* battle a deathtrap for an 
> outnumbered carrier.  Also, since they lack the acceleration to try and
> evade missiles, they would certainly be the first casualties in any kind
> of combat, contradicting the fact that all Company fleet carriers still
> have their original riders.  Probably she just didn't think too closely
> about these points when she designed the riders.

My impression is that riders are capable of great accelerations (10.5 g
is mentioned in one place), however they lack the fuel to do it for the
extended periods needed to attain high speeds.  I would be surprised if
something as large as a carrier could attain 10.5 without artificial
gravity systems to lessen the load.  Unless the entire crew is embedded
in gel you aren't even going to get that high, and I'd be surprised if
even gel would give the necessary support to human internal structures
to allow such high acceleration for any period.  10.5 newtonian still
takes a while to attain light speed.

	-- David