2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[Eternal_Freedom]

You did launch a flying tankski, it was just after the Moon landing. And it was glorious.

As I recall, it was produced by the suspiciously advanced armour-plate factory attached to the space centre.

[RogueIce]

I know pretty much nothing about space technology and such, though I do have a space program. I have that northernmost island on the equator for a reason, after all.

As to what I have or programs I'm running...well unless somebody more knowledgeable is willing to help me out, for now it's "whatever a reasonably technologically advanced nation with a roughly $7 trillion GDP would be expected to have and be doing" I guess.

[Skywalker_T-65]

No Arcadian space program. Our location where IRL Iceland should be kinda precludes native launches, and we can't be bothered leasing an island closer to the equator. I imagine there is probably the occasional Arcadian astronaut who hitches a ride on some other nation's rockets though.

[TimothyC]

As I've worked with Steve & Simon on their programs, and will say the following about the UK (Unified Kingdoms) program: The launch site on Kwajalein is great for smaller launches, although it can, in theory take something the size of an Atlas V or a Falcon 9. A local launcher about the payload size of a Falcon 1 has been test launched, while Hawai'ian astronauts hitch rides with Shinra, Tianguo, & Cascadia. There is also something called "RED MOON", but no one quite knows what it is, although rumors indicate it has something to do with the harbor that is being finished on the south shore of Upolu....

I believe we decided early on that no-one has landed on the moon yet, but that orbital traffick is developed broadly to 'our world level'.

I am operating on the presumption there have been sample return missions, and to be honest, even without a conventional space race, someone would have done so, and published the results.

As for stations: I hope Simon and Steve don't mind, I know Simon has 20-30 tonne stations single piece stations in orbit That grew from a MOL analog to a Salyut analog. The Cascadians put up a station in the mid 90s after they got their Flight 1 Shuttle (Lockheed Star Clipper/LS-200 analog) working, and it's mostly a minimal FRED (scaled down FREEDOM - The ISS is FRED plus half of Mir 2). FRED is getting old, and will likely be replaced when the Flight 2 Shuttle is first used sometime late this year.

From the work on FRED, I'd imaging that everyone starts to get the idea that you should probably pre-fab your truss sections prior to launching. This takes up a lot of volume, but saves a lot of headache in space.

[Simon_Jester]

Timothy? I looked up the actual weight of MOL and as far as I can tell, it's more like 15 tons; I downscaled my rocket accordingly (to something commensurate with the Long March family's larger variants, incidentally). There might be a heavier one in the works, or not. Not sure.

Also, prefab trusses! Because turning a wrench in microgravity is surprisingly hard work.

You did launch a flying tankski, it was just after the Moon landing. And it was glorious.

As I recall, it was produced by the suspiciously advanced armour-plate factory attached to the space centre.

What that was, was a parallel universe. An AWESOME one.

[TimothyC]

Timothy? I looked up the actual weight of MOL and as far as I can tell, it's more like 15 tons; I downscaled my rocket accordingly (to something commensurate with the Long March family's larger variants, incidentally). There might be a heavier one in the works, or not. Not sure.

Ah. I guess I was still operating on the content we had talked about. Sorry.

[Simon_Jester]

You were, it's fine, I've been mostly incommunicado lately.

[Beowulf]

Speaking of space launch vehicles, the current Tianguo launcher of choice is the Ying. It approximates a Falcon 9/Heavy in capability, in the two different versions available. The light is around 13 tons to orbit, while the heavy is 50 tons.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So I can claim the first station then?

Certainly Aurora is our present station, and is probably about halfway between Mir and ISS in size. We use a Zeus-12 heavy launcher, 30 tonnes to LEO, with a light version to launch our large semi-reuseable capsules.

[Siege]

You can have the first station. This space stuff is very exciting but in the meantime, what's the state of the conference? Is there anything left to discuss, will there be concluding remarks, or can we move on to the next day(s)?

[Eternal_Freedom]

We can continue with it once we've agreed OOC what the result will be. If you like we can have the conference continue in the background while we discuss things OOC and just present the results and/or closing remarks when it's done.

[TimothyC]

Aurora sounds like Mir 1.5:

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yes, probably broadly similar to that. What are those big discs at one end?

[TimothyC]

Yes, probably broadly similar to that. What are those big discs at one end?

Solar thermal power units. Rather than the conventional photovoltaics, they heat a working fluid which drives a turbine. They can be more efficient (making useful work out of about 35-40% of the incident radiation vs about 25-30% for photovoltaics), but require precision tracking. You also have the issues of maintaining the working fluid in space. Personally, as a Thermo-Fluids guy, I much prefer them.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Interesting. Well I can say they're prototypes being evaluated.

Of course, we Orions would also be evaluating the possibility of a miniature Thorium reactor in space.

[Simon_Jester]

On the subject of the conference, correct me if I'm wrong:

1) We have more or less reached a consensus on Lothal. The UOCSR/San Doradan forces will launch a relatively soon attack, with the Umerians smoothing things over with the Lothali government. Then the Umerians jump in later.

2) Most of the other issues are running into problematic questions of international legal principles, or need further discussion, which I would LOVE to see IC, I'm just at a bit of a loss about. Unfortunately, the Umerian interest is mainly in making sure that we don't get international antiterrorist witch hunts that act to authorize major foreign powers to violate Umeria's nascent Monroe-Doctrine-analogue, so it's hard for me to figure out what to say sometimes. Some interesting ideas:

2a) The idea of international insurance or an international fund to help mitigate the costs of cleaning up after terrorist actions. An idea from Champa.
2b) The idea of creating an international body responsible for figuring out which groups are terrorists. The Umerians and Orions definitely favor this
__________________

Keeping up the space tangent...

The main problems with a true nuclear reactor in space are that:
1) It's got a certain necessary minimum weight- you can't downscale it past that point, and if "that point" is such that it'd take a stupid-expensive rocket to launch it, or if it's small enough that it doesn't have real endurance (i.e. decades in operation)
2) You can't deorbit it. The Umerians, for instance, de-orbited their two space stations by literally kicking them out of orbit and letting them burn up in the atmosphere. Something this size would be more problematic but the basic idea is at least sane-ish. By contrast, a nuclear reactor contains large amounts of fiercely radioactive nuclear fuel that will remain radioactive after burning up on re-entry.
3) Nuclear reactor fuel gets old and has to be replaced with heavy machinery; as a rule, the smaller the reactor the more often this is needed, but it can't realistically be done in space.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Fair points. I can always say we're experimenting with the idea, in a similar vein to our nuclear freighters plan.

[Simon_Jester]

OK, but what about the conference?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well we need to know what is going to be agreed before we can finish writing it.

[Simon_Jester]

We could write ongoing discussion?

[Eternal_Freedom]

If any of us know enough about interational law to make it convincing, sure.

[Simon_Jester]

OK, well I'd really appreciate it if you'd, y'know, actually talk about what you want instead of just going "meh, I'll say something when everyone else has decided what they're going to say."

[Eternal_Freedom]

I've said it. An agreement to share intelligence on terrorist threats and an international organization to define who is or is not a terrorist.

I will add to that an agreement and/or treaty committing nations to cooperate in removing said terrorists.

[Simon_Jester]

OK, well, it would be good to hear from some of the other major participants (Steve and RogueIce in particular, who play major nations). Siege's input is highly relevant, and I'd like the words of his characters to affect how such an organization defines terrorists.

[Steve]

International cooperation on determining what actually makes an organization an international-scope terrorist group that needs international cooperation to take down is fine. Cascadia will not be party to any agreement that places requirements upon its own justice system in terms of terrorism suspects, though. We won't be extraditing suspects without trial for King Alexander to shoot on international TV.

What is the particular of the "international insurance" plan? Is it something like a World Bank or international reconstruction fund?