 September 12, 2011 - 5:11pm | I came across this on youtube. Maybe this is something the night hawks designers had seen on TV and they keyed off of Segan's statement that these ships would possibly reach 1% of the speed of light. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGE-WRqgPRE&NR=1&feature=fvwp -iggy |
 September 12, 2011 - 9:35pm | At sub-light velocities; Orion and Daedalus ~10% C These seem to be most in line with the SF technical designs and descriptions... and can avoid the time dilation issues by traveling slow enough. The hydrogen ram-jet does not really appear in Star Frontiers... and is far too fast and far too slow for the ships in the frontier... the problem with time dilation makes it both... pluss it's also WAY too BIG!!! (at 1G it could eventually reach 9.9~C and travel the entire galaxy in a single lifetime for the crew, but at the trade off that no home-port would be left to return to after the 10billion years it's gone.) But as far as Carl Sagan being an influence... most certainly! None of these designs incorporate the Void-Jump, or really any aspect of the interstellar travel seen in star frontiers, just a brief mention of the rather common idea of putting the crew into suspension... I find that seems to be found in part, with Sagan's talk of the 'fourth dimision' and his 'flatland' example, and the general idea of space-time naturally 'folding' through a variant unseen direction, a 'fourth axis' not observable from the three-dimensions of up-down left-right fore-back... but still part of normal space-time. An axis of vector that by existence may make the observable universe only appear more distant than it really is. An 'extra dimension' inside space-time, that is not to be confused with a 'separate dimension' outside space-time but with similar effects, was popular with the theoretical-physics and sci-fi of the time. Most sci-fi has redefined this into the separate dimension 'hyperspace' concept, while some (like stargate with it's wormholes) has tried to pull back from the hyperspace-as-otherspace model some, while still others confuse it further with warp-drive bubbles. The Orion (which I like to think of as an atomic-slinky rather than an atomic-motorboat) is a beautiful design, and could get us to Mars in under two years total with building time starting now [iirc...] if only... But the same could be said of the Ion/Plasma-type thrusters now. Trip time of those is ~3 months at shortest distance, build-times are projected to be around 1-2 years... all those times are being givin as best case scenarios and with no economic and political hang-ups, I suppose. But this is starting to get into what the Frontier ships need to be capable of, preferably with a bit less fuel-weight. Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 September 12, 2011 - 10:01pm | Ram jet powered ship returns to Laco. Its a returning Tetrarch ship. Hundreds of kilometers in diameter and a thousand kilometers long. The Galactic Enquirer runs a headline, "Jesus and Elvis return from touring the universe!" I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 13, 2011 - 1:42am |  Thats about the size of it!Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 September 30, 2011 - 2:56am | So is that the tech behind SF atomic drives? They just keep setting off nuclear blasts behind them? That is almost as disappointing as using radioactive ores to boil water for steam powered electricity generation. I suppose if that is the case, it is no wonder planets prohibit atomic powered ships from entering their atmosphere. And so much for a smooth acceleration. |
September 30, 2011 - 3:53am | So is that the tech behind SF atomic drives? They just keep setting off nuclear blasts behind them? That is almost as disappointing as using radioactive ores to boil water for steam powered electricity generation. I suppose if that is the case, it is no wonder planets prohibit atomic powered ships from entering their atmosphere. And so much for a smooth acceleration.
That would only be the case with a pusher plate. I think in reality that they were assuming that we'd develop an atomic drive evenualy. The reality is probably that a plasma drive or something else that will be getting us around in the near future. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
