message 0629

• What kind of drive do Cherryh's spaceships have?

;Subject: Cherryhlist
;Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 09:26:33 +0100 (MET)
;From: Onno Meyer <Onno.Meyer@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de>

> >Markus thinks (nearly) the same about the vanes. But if a spread vane
> >is not the best for maneuvers, why no warships with two vane sets?
> 
> I'd present it the other way round:  A non-spread vane is *sufficient*
> for maneuvering, but not for FTL jumps.  Spread vanes are obviously 
> suitable for FTL and maneuvering, but would have other disadvantages 
> (e.g., larger mass, and a vulnerable structure with large cross section).
> 
> >On the inertia question, it has to be
> >nearly 100% damped. I can't get the accel required to bleed, say 10%c 
> >away in an instant in my head, but it has to be enormous. If you can
> >negate thousands of g, why should a few g remain undamped?
> 
> I agree with the "nearly 100%".  However, if you actually have 1000s of
> g's, then an imperfection of less than one percent *will* already translate
> into multiple g's, so I think this fits anyway.
> 
> 	Markus

Quotes from ML show that - at least on merchanters - the boost/dump
affects mostly (only?) the nervous system. About the vanes, I just
wondered why they are spread out at all. You could have vanes along
the hull and turn the whole ship just before jump.

Onno Meyer