Spaceports

[McPerth]

Terra was part of the Solomani Confederation.

Within in the Imperum, what distinguishes a starport is Imperium administration and extraterritoriality, and could actually have quite a number of facilities spread around the system, not just a landing pad dirtside and an orbiting spacestation.

The Solomani Confederation was part o fthe Imperium until the lomani War, and the war was not long enough for those extra A starports to be smaller spaceports that were upgraded during it.

And don't foret we have other examples (as Vland, as I showed in my f ormer post) of Imperial worlds having more tan 1 starport.

 

[Condottiere]

The Confederation exercises conspicuous independence from the Imperium, and Earth was considered the hub of humanity.

Also as i recall, these three seem to be dirtside installations, without a mention of orbitting facilities, which might also be counted separately.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I think in years past the consensus was that the starport listed on the UPP / UWP was the main Imperial port, or the primary government sanctioned port, but that there were probably hundreds of other ports (moreso places to just land) just not listed -- for whatever reason.

I brought up spaceports because no one really ever talks about them, and other than the little blurb that Mike Whightman brought up from the Scouts book (6?), you never see any written up, mentioned, nor talked about. It's not a big deal, but I was wondering what other Citizens thought about that.

 

[mike wightman]

I think it is down to scenario requirements.

If you are doing planet of the week adventures then the starport is all you need, unless the scenario itself involves insystem travel to an alternate star/space port.

If on the other hand you have a campaign set in a single system where there will be lots of travel between the stuff in that system then detailing the local spaceports will be necessary.

I have run a couple of single system games and spaceports are found at every major colony. Every O'Neill cylinder is its own spaceport.

 

[Condottiere]

Anything can be a spaceport, even a concrete landing pad in your backyard.

One assumes you need authorization from local government if you're allowed to operate it.

We know what distinguishes a starport in Imperium space, everything outside there is conjecture.

 

[tjoneslo]

One of the things that makes describing (star|space)ports difficult is having a good image of both the requirements for landing a ship and what else needs to be there for cargo and passengers.

For example, if you are using TNE designed ships with the nuclear weapon exhaust HePLAR drives, you really are not going to be using a simple concrete pad for landing.

Most people seem to assume a gravity drive or something similar with little or no dangerous exhaust. So simple concrete pads or cleared bedrock can be used for a planetary landing.

Another thing not covered is how big a ship can you land? Handling a Free Trader (already a large craft) is very different from managing a 5,000 ton passenger liner or a 10,000 ton mega-hauler.

And what is expected to come off and go onto the ships that do land there? Breakbulk cargo (small boxes), 8 dton cargo containers, passengers, livestock?

The Port of Los Angles or New Orleans is a cargo port, built to handle ships with cargo, but not many passengers. An Airport is the opposite, mostly passengers with a little cargo. So you may have a SpacePort which handles only cargo, and not allowed to be used by the tramp freighters which are small cargo and passengers. Especially on high-TL, high population worlds there may be specialized ports.

 

[McPerth]

So you may have a SpacePort which handles only cargo, and not allowed to be used by the tramp freighters which are small cargo and passengers. Especially on high-TL, high population worlds there may be specialized ports.

Assuming you're talking about this being thought for large freighters, I guess most of those cases would by highports, as most those large freighters are likely not to be able to land.

 

[kilemall]

Airspace/near orbit safetyA major issue often overlooked with spaceport downs or even the shuttling from highports of cargo and passengers. You only have so much sky to give to fast movers coming in hot or blasting off.



As such, I would start expecting size and delay limits for highly desirable time slots just like busy airports the higher the pop and starport. The bulk would go high-port and distributed spaceports to spread the aerospace traffic around.



I also would visualize the majority of interface craft at primary planets to be grav vehicles, until they get so busy that having 4G+ small craft can move more people through air lanes faster.



Another distinction might be that the starport is the official interstellar customs control point for general cargo and passengers, and any other spaceports either have specialized one-use arrangements such as say a corporate bulk resource loader/unloader or a passenger line's terminal, like old Atlantic lines had their own docks or present day cruise ships have a dedicated pier.

 

[Timerover51]

I tend to view spaceports as more akin to commercial airports than commercial seaports. Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee has both a passenger terminal and a cargo terminal. Passenger aircraft, upon landing, head for the passenger terminal. Cargo planes, primarily UPS and FedEx, land and head for the cargo terminal. The cargo terminal has the equipment needed to unload the aircraft cargo containers, which tend to be designed to fit the curve of the aircraft fuselage. As the aircraft fuselage is not exactly near the ground, the equipment is basically large fork-lifts capable of reaching the fuselage. Now, if you are thinking of lots of bulk cargo, then a mose specialized facility is likely going to be needed, or the ship is going to be a self-unloader, capable of unloading its own cargo.

As for landing, there you are basically dealing with the ship-dry dock question. Can the dry dock take the weight of the ship, and can the ship bottom take the weight of the ship when it is resting on it? What is the ground pressure per square inch, square foot, square meter, of the ship's landing surfaces? My ships tend to resemble flattened submarines, with fore and aft cargo doors along with beam doors, for precisely that reason, ground pressure. Passenger staterooms are above the cargo deck for the Free Traders, Tramp Cargo Liners, and Subsidized Merchants. I figure the clear height of the cargo deck needs to be at least 15 feet/4.5 meters to allow for adequate clearance for various types of cargo, both container and odd sized. My standard small shipping container is 5 foot by 5 foot by 10 feet, 1.5 meters by 1.5 meters by 3 meters, so one-half a Traveller dTon. That makes for much easier movement on the ship and allows the ship to carry its own forklifts for unloading as needed.