The Space Thread

If you ejected your reactor would the momentum of the ship carry it to its destination anyway?

If so, your secondary reactor would only need to be powerful enough to run life support and do some relatively minor maneuvering at the destination. I was about to say that maybe a non-nuclear option would be feasible, but now that I think of it I'm not sure it would be better than a second nuclear reactor.

EDIT: Actually, wait, it would also need to be powerful enough to decelerate the ship as it got close. So, it would have to be on-par with the primary.

edited 9th Dec '12 8:55:50 PM by Topazan

Course not, but it might be in the interests of not-microwaving the crew to put the engines and reactors a big behind the populated part of the ship.

I think at least one redundant reactor would be needed. chances of a problem are low enough that one back up would probably be enough.

Depends. on a warp drive? eh. I dont know enough advanced physics to answer, but I think it's a no.

on a ship that actually produces thrust? the momentum is what your running on the whole time. you basically do one big push and then keep moving. losing the reactor would basically mean you have no brakes, so you going to get to you target...going a measurable fraction of lightspeed. Hitting things at a measurable fraction of light speed is not good.

edited 9th Dec '12 9:03:13 PM by Joesolo

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The problem wouldn't be getting there, the problem would be stopping once you reach your destination.

There's the fast way of stopping, and the safe way.

You need energy for the safe one.

You only need a planet to crash on for the fast one.

If I voluntered to go to Alpha Centauri, I'd be pretty darn happy to have both a redundant reactor and a main reactor as far from me as possible.

In fact, I'd like a redundant everything. But eh, limitations.

We all get those moments.

edited 9th Dec '12 8:57:21 PM by QuestionMarc

Yeah, I just thought of that right after I posted.

damn space ninjas.

on redundancy- EVERYTHING in space is redundant at this point. International space station had 2 ways to get crew and no less than 4 ways to get cargo to it for most of it's life. As of now, it's down to one way for crew but more than 6 ways for cargo now.

almost everything on the space shuttle was triple redundant. (Challenger went down because the o-rings were only doubly redundant, among other reasons)

I could go on but it'd get boring. long story short, it'll probably have at least 2 reactors.

edited 9th Dec '12 9:02:19 PM by Joesolo

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I just had a mental image of a warp drive powered kamikaze craft. Why is there a way to weaponize everything.

because Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space!

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Let's move away from that since it will just lead to war in space.

So how big should crews be? These spacecraft are probably going to be pretty huge so it's likely they'd need a decent amount of people to man them. There's also the fact that we should make sure we have more than one specialist for certain things since one of them could die.

edited 9th Dec '12 9:05:58 PM by Kostya

well, just for starters, you'd need scientists to do sciencey stuff. I'd say at least a few dozen of those. then you need special crew for the reactor(s)....you know what, I'm gonna do some quick searches and come back with numbers.

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Don't forget some form of security. These kinds of ships are probably going to be transporting cargo between systems in many cases so we could have people that try to steal that stuff.

Well, it depends on the purpose of the mission, I would think. If you're going to be sending colonists somewhere, you want a pretty big ship. If you're sending an exploratory crew, you'd want to minimalize people in favor of equipment. There would probably be quite a few people with experience in multiple fields rather than just one.

I don't think we've ever sent up more than five people at a time. Presumably we'd be able to send more with this kind of technology, since other areas of engineering would also be advancing.

It depend what the crew has for objective. Fly-by would probably require only like, 2 or 3 people.

I assume in best case scenario you would have several people, but again, there's some limitation to who we can carry.

Also, I want to add: never enough redundance

Ninja'd

edited 9th Dec '12 9:14:34 PM by QuestionMarc

You mean people on board or Space Pirates?

I don't know if you'd really need to designate any full-time security personnel, unless you had a HUGE crew. A small crew should be able to maintain order on an informal basis.

So I asked this in the other thread, but it got re-railed before I got an answer: The new warp drive is expected to require about 1,600 pounds of reaction mass (as opposed to the mass of Jupiter). What is that in comparison to a nuclear submarine, and how much would it cost?

Of course, I'm pretty sure that number is for getting to the nearest star, so a warp drive that can let us jaunt over to Mars in a few hours or days would presumably be far cheaper.

Alright, heres what I'm coming up with.

this is just rough estimates of a long term exploratory mission to a solar system, going with a big ship.

reactor crew- the NS Savannah *

had a crew of about 30 dedicated to the reactor alone, so I'd say at least 30 for the reactors them selves.

the warp drive- I'm not even going to try to get numbers for this, so i'm going to guess you'll bring at least 2 or 3 warp drive experts along for the first ride, plus a few more for working on it, plus scotty, so lets just say around 20?

general ship crew- think some of these guys can overlap with the reactor and warp drive guys, but lets say maybe 10 guys for more general stuff?

Scientists- well their the main reason for this. we're going to have all sorts of them coming along, with a few from each field. lets say 30 over all.

Medical- I'd say everyone should get medical training but they should have at least 5 dedicated medical staff. maybe throw in a psycho-therapist EDIT- plus security guys, I guess.

at least 56 people

I'm probably forgetting something important so lets round it to 60.

EDIT- didn't think of security. I'll put that under medical guys and give them the remainder of the rounded up.

and yea, if you want to just do a fly by you only need a few. but wheres the fun in that?

If this sounds insane I'm really up too late, cant sleep.

edited 9th Dec '12 9:28:17 PM by Joesolo

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A fly by would probably be to make sure there's something there to be studied in the first place. And possibly collect a few initial samples of whatever there is. They'd be like... professional astro-cartographers.

At around sixty people though, I think they'd be able to handle security without needed security personnel specifically. Though don't forget that one of those scientists is going to have to be the pilot as well. Ships don't steer themselves.

edited 9th Dec '12 9:30:09 PM by AceofSpades

According to the first source i could find, a nuclear submarine's reactor mass is about 110 tons.

EDIT- so smaller than a nuclear submarine.

Everyone's going to have to be multi-skilled. we could probably have the captain with the other "general purpose" guys.

edited 9th Dec '12 9:35:45 PM by Joesolo

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What about officers/administrators?

What do you mean? 16 hundred pounds isn't even a ton.

What would they even do?

edited 9th Dec '12 9:34:13 PM by Kostya

they'll be ranking members of each group. We can't afford anyone just in charge of people, except maybe the captain. each sub-crew will have a chain of command. reactor crew will probably have 3 "shifts", with 1 shift leader "higher" than the others, medical would report to a head doctor, ect.

EDIT-Oh, oops.

Alright, doesnt need to be too big then. I thought it was 1600 TONS of fuel...

edited 9th Dec '12 9:37:30 PM by Joesolo

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@Kostya - Command, maintain order, and make difficult decisions? Kind of important in a crisis situation.

Makes sense, but a captain at least would be reasonable. And I think if you can afford security personnel, you can afford a command crew.

edited 9th Dec '12 9:38:18 PM by Topazan

yea, it'd have a captain.

I suggest we find a man named Kirk.

alright, i'm getting punchy. night all

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Well, we have officers as astronauts NOW. People with military history have made up most of the astronauts we've sent out into space, I'm pretty sure. Civilians make up the minority in that respect. So. Basically what they've been doing. Being the leaders and making decisions. *shrug*

You're not going to have exploratory missions without someone clearly in charge to turn to if things go to shit suddenly. And space being what it is, going to shit is going to happen at some point.

^^ Nah, not Kirk. He'd try to screw the first alien they came across, and get Earth into an interstellar incident because she happened to be the Head Honcho's favorite daughter.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

I'd say a designated quartermaster would nice to have as well. Someone needs to keep track of the ship's supplies, make sure no one's wasting any or using more than their fair share and ensure the living conditions stay tolerable.

So, I'd send a captain and a quartermaster as the full-time command, and there would also be a chain of command among the specialists as Joesolo said. Also, give the therapist a high rank, although I'd recommend a psychotherapist rather than a psycho-therapist. :P

edited 9th Dec '12 9:57:27 PM by Topazan