Tonight on PBS: "Why Ships Sink"

[scott]

Tonight's episode of Nova is called "Why Ships Sink." Might be interesting background for "Why Ships Crash Into Perfectly Obvious Asteroid Belts."

9PM Eastern time in the US, probably 8 or 9 elsewhere, and I'm sure there will be repeat showings to record. Maybe even available online from PBS.org eventually.

 

[Enoki]

They fill up with water and no longer float....? Just sayin'.... :rofl:

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Thanks.

I am watching it now. And one of the first things I see is a swimming pool, actually a couple in a ship, you know surrounded by water.

So, now the question becomes, are there Zero-G rooms in luxury space liners?

 

[Carlobrand]

Thought the first:

The best way to get the passengers ready for where they're going is to gradually alter the g's in the living spaces over the course of the week in flight. Perhaps do that in the common areas and allow passengers to retreat to whatever gravity they're accustomed to in their rooms.

Thought the second:

If I'm operating a luxury liner, I'd give control over the room gravity in their stateroom to the occupant. Maybe on a timer or something so they don't end up in an awkward float for a day or more until the steward finds them. Wait, perhaps better to set a gravity control setting just for the bed itself - wouldn't do to have your desktop items drift off on the breeze from the vents. And, a grav-control exercise room: imagine coming home from a trip with pics of you lifting a 500-pound weight.

 

[far-trader]

Thought the first:

The best way to get the passengers ready for where they're going is to gradually alter the g's in the living spaces over the course of the week in flight. Perhaps do that in the common areas and allow passengers to retreat to whatever gravity they're accustomed to in their rooms.

I've done the day/night cycle, and clock synch too... but then in MTU jump arrival time and place are precise known values. In Traveller's official random time and place arrival those last two won't work. As for adapting to local g's that might take longer than a week done slowly, best the passengers train before leaving. And most civilized places will have artificial gravity, at least in the buildings and starport areas for those not adapted or not wanting to adapt.

Thought the second:

If I'm operating a luxury liner, I'd give control over the room gravity in their stateroom to the occupant...

So many things to go wrong :devil:

...but then, again MTU, artificial gravity doesn't work that way. It's a whole ship effect, either off or on, and the g's are set when the hull is laid down. No grav pong, no variable gravity in different parts of the ship, no passengers throwing up in their stateroom when playing with zero g, no hijackers hacking the gravity controls to incapacitate the bridge by turning the g's there up to 11, no... you get the idea

 

[scott]

Lots of interesting stuff in the show that could make life complicated for PCs--navigational errors, crew abandoning passengers to their fate (horrible in real life, but a good game scenario), captains having mental breakdowns in crises, poor lifeboat management, etc., etc.

In the show, a musician who was working on a ship that started to sink found the rising water that no-one had told the passengers about, sent out the Mayday from an empty bridge, and then helped the other passengers get on Coast Guard helicopters, all after the captain froze and the crew left in a lifeboat. Good guy to have aboard.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Yeah, right.

/snippity/

In the show, a musician who was working on a ship that started to sink found the rising water that no-one had told the passengers about, sent out the Mayday from an empty bridge, and then helped the other passengers get on Coast Guard helicopters, all after the captain froze and the crew left in a lifeboat. Good guy to have aboard.

What ever, dude. You take him then. I watched it too and Mister Entertainer was on a second sinking ship.

We got a name for that type of character. We call them Jinx! You take the Jinx I don't want him on my ship. :devil:

 

[77topaz]

...no hijackers hacking the gravity controls to incapacitate the bridge by turning the g's there up to 11, no... you get the idea

Well, there wouldn't be gravity controls for the bridge (not ones that could be changed except in a hangar, by experienced mechanics). That would be on permanent Terra-gravity or whatever the homeworld of the pilot is. But the luxury customers could change their gravity, albeit with staff supervision.

 

[Enoki]

Lots of interesting stuff in the show that could make life complicated for PCs--navigational errors, crew abandoning passengers to their fate (horrible in real life, but a good game scenario), captains having mental breakdowns in crises, poor lifeboat management, etc., etc.

In the show, a musician who was working on a ship that started to sink found the rising water that no-one had told the passengers about, sent out the Mayday from an empty bridge, and then helped the other passengers get on Coast Guard helicopters, all after the captain froze and the crew left in a lifeboat. Good guy to have aboard.

This would be more realistic in a scenario. You are on some far trader or free trader with a 3 or 4 man crew and they are just your typical 'fishing boat' types. Maintenance is if it works great. If it don't and the ship goes it doesn't matter...... Then you have them semi-competent at their jobs to begin with.....

Things go south and the crew scrams in the gig leaving you and your party on a broken down, drifting hazard to navigation sprialing into a gas giant......

 

[epicenter00]

So, now the question becomes, are there Zero-G rooms in luxury space liners?

You know, I bet there would be, for the same reasons. Especially after cheap and reliable gravity control, flying around in space wouldn't really be all that different essentially trapped in a hotel for the duration of your trip.

If you're playing in Traveller Universe, you can't even look out the windows; there's no big observation decks to watch the stars while in Jump. You're trapped in a windowless hotel for a week that could really be on any planet because it's always 1G on a 24 hour day/night cycle.

Similar to having swimming pools on passenger liners at sea - it's dangerous and impractical to let passengers swim in the sea on a passenger liner, especially a moving one (but people still want to swim, since they're at the sea) - you'd have zero-g rooms where people could participate in various zero-g activities since ... well space is supposed to be zero-g, right? And it's dangerous and impractical to let passengers out for spacewalks during the week in jump.

 

[mike wightman]

When did this space is zero gravity meme begin?

After all what we are really talking about is being weightless due to being in free fall not absense of gravity.

 

[aramis]

When did this space is zero gravity meme begin?

After all what we are really talking about is being weightless due to being in free fall not absense of gravity.

The absolute values of gravitic attraction are, for much of space travel, close enough to 0 to be ignored for all but orbital mechanics. Several orders of magnitude less than human perception provides for sensing.

Only the vast distances and long durations make them significant.

Now, in orbit, it's still called "microgravity" by the working scientists in the field. Still, it often rounds to 0.

 

[77topaz]

If you're playing in Traveller Universe, you can't even look out the windows; there's no big observation decks to watch the stars while in Jump. You're trapped in a windowless hotel for a week that could really be on any planet because it's always 1G on a 24 hour day/night cycle.

I've seen a number of pictures of liners with windows; if you're lucky enough to get a "window cabin"/stateroom you have a view (albeit of a grey or purple expanse).

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

There's no reason why Traveller luxury suites couldn't have virtual windows featuring any terrain (space or otherwise) that you want, indistinguishable from the real thing. You can get a Disney Cruise Line room featuring a real-time virtual porthole right now, if you want to spring for it.

 

[77topaz]

There's no reason why Traveller luxury suites couldn't have virtual windows featuring any terrain (space or otherwise) that you want, indistinguishable from the real thing. You can get a Disney Cruise Line room featuring a real-time virtual porthole right now, if you want to spring for it.

Of course, there could be virtual windows. I remember an article in Freelance Traveller (on the website, at least) about virtual rooms.

 

[Mithras]

IMTU you can see something in jumpspace... I like to think of it as psychedelic, much like he end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Lots to look at, big windows.

 

[Enoki]

You know, I bet there would be, for the same reasons. Especially after cheap and reliable gravity control, flying around in space wouldn't really be all that different essentially trapped in a hotel for the duration of your trip.

If you're playing in Traveller Universe, you can't even look out the windows; there's no big observation decks to watch the stars while in Jump. You're trapped in a windowless hotel for a week that could really be on any planet because it's always 1G on a 24 hour day/night cycle.

Why windowless? One wall in your cabin is a vid screen you can set to whatever you like.....

 

[mike wightman]

The absolute values of gravitic attraction are, for much of space travel, close enough to 0 to be ignored for all but orbital mechanics. Several orders of magnitude less than human perception provides for sensing.

Only the vast distances and long durations make them significant.

Now, in orbit, it's still called "microgravity" by the working scientists in the field. Still, it often rounds to 0.

There's the rub - it doesn't.

At the altitude of typical shuttle flights and the international space station the gravitational field strength is still 0.9g.

You have to get to an altitude of 6000km for gravity to fall off to around 0.25g, still far from microgravity - micro means 1/1000000, so how far do you have to be from earth before its force of gravity drops to 1/1000000g?

 

[BlackBat242]

Mike... I believe Aramis used the phrase "for much of space travel".

Since 99% of space travel IN TRAVELLER is well outside the gravity well of any planet, then what the gravity effects are in close orbit is pretty irrelevant to the situation he was actually describing, now isn't it?

 

[BlackBat242]

...but then, again MTU, artificial gravity doesn't work that way. It's a whole ship effect, either off or on, and the g's are set when the hull is laid down. No grav pong, no variable gravity in different parts of the ship, no passengers throwing up in their stateroom when playing with zero g, no hijackers hacking the gravity controls to incapacitate the bridge by turning the g's there up to 11, no... you get the idea

So apparently you have no inertial/acceleration compensation then, because all that requires variable gravity fields that change intensity and direction to oppose whatever acceleration vectors are being created by the ship's Mdrive at that instant.

Since this has to be accomplished via a computer control, then alterations to the program can cause the gravity field to be varied in other ways.