Mapping unknown regions of space?

[Rogue 9]

We know that hyperspace travel in Star Wars depends on precise calculations to avoid traveling too close to hazardous phenomena, which of course requires detailed knowledge of the areas of space being traveled through.

So how do you get such detailed knowledge? Since hyperspace travel is too dangerous without accurate charts, how did they get the charts, and how are unknown regions of space explored?

[Connor MacLeod]

Trial and error and probe droids. Lots of them. Or scout ships (automated or manned.)

[Batman]

Especially as the density of hazardous phenomena is by and large ludicrously low.

[Sarevok]

What about using good old telescopes to map out the stars ?

[GySgt. Hartman]

It's not just the stars you're interested in, but all mass points in space, i.e. planets, comets, asteroids and all the other good stuff that floats around and doesn't emit light.

[mr friendly guy]

I remember reading a blurb from Dark horse comics about the early days of hyperspace, where some explorers would just randomly plot a route and hope it leads somewhere good, and then sell the route to others. I believe they ended up encountering the Sith.

So as Connor said, trial and error would play a part in it.

[Darth Tanner]

Star Wars instant feedback sensors work at about 20 light year range don't they? (I remember hearing that on this forum somewhere but if someone has a more accurate figure) all that is needed to avoid collisions is jumps of 20 light years a pop to map everying at a crawl. It'll only take 5000 mini jumps to get all the way out to the rim so just rig up some automated probes and leave them to work on a spiral pattern. Still a few centuries of work to map it all but the Republic alone is 25,000 years old so I presume those that came before contributed to the star maps.

Also I think the risk of hitting minor objects is overstated. The Falcon came out of hyperspace inside the remains of Alderaan and didn't suffer any consequences from that. Smacking into a star may still be a problem.

EDIT: Having done some back of envelope calcs...

Assuming galactic volume of 7.8 trillion cubic light years. (worked out from our galaxy size)
Sensor cube measuring of 40 lights years from probe/scout.

It would take just under 123 million jumps to have covered the entire galaxy.

Or with 1000 probes doing a jump an hour, 14 years to have covered the entire galaxy.

Obviously the vast swathes of void don't actually need to be mapped so take it with a grain of salt.

[Lord Poe]

Remember, Luke piloted his way to uncharted Dagobah in TESB. So you don't need to know where every dust cloud is.

[Illuminatus Primus]

To be honest, the whole "hyperlanes" thing struck me as a stupid WEG contrivance. Maybe there are particular bands (perhaps light-years in diameter) that avoid all possible obstacles and allow for maximum speed and low relative fuel consumption while connecting areas of political, cultural, and economic importance. This would would be paths of convenience and preference, but they should not be required (especially for military ops) and they should not be chokepoints that can be mined or closed-off. Perhaps the very dense, inner regions of the galactic core might be a combination of difficult to navigate (compared to conventional standards, such as Poe's Dagobah example), full of astrophysically extreme and inhospitable phenomena (such as the supermassive black hole and its accretion disk), and a lack of desirable destinations (very low probability of habitable worlds and a very low concentration of post-helium elements) and therefore remain relatively unexplored and removed from connection with the outside galaxy. But the idea that it is hard to move through space is asinine. They claim regularly that a special route had to be prepared from Sullust to Endor (that the Imperials used for shipping and supplies, yet was ripe to be used as a Rebel staging area?). Of course the novelization says it is only a few hundred light years, not a good distance across the disk like the stupid EU cartoon maps.

[PainRack]

To be honest, the whole "hyperlanes" thing struck me as a stupid WEG contrivance. Maybe there are particular bands (perhaps light-years in diameter) that avoid all possible obstacles and allow for maximum speed and low relative fuel consumption while connecting areas of political, cultural, and economic importance. This would would be paths of convenience and preference, but they should not be required (especially for military ops) and they should not be chokepoints that can be mined or closed-off. Perhaps the very dense, inner regions of the galactic core might be a combination of difficult to navigate (compared to conventional standards, such as Poe's Dagobah example), full of astrophysically extreme and inhospitable phenomena (such as the supermassive black hole and its accretion disk), and a lack of desirable destinations (very low probability of habitable worlds and a very low concentration of post-helium elements) and therefore remain relatively unexplored and removed from connection with the outside galaxy. But the idea that it is hard to move through space is asinine. They claim regularly that a special route had to be prepared from Sullust to Endor (that the Imperials used for shipping and supplies, yet was ripe to be used as a Rebel staging area?). Of course the novelization says it is only a few hundred light years, not a good distance across the disk like the stupid EU cartoon maps.

The issue may be the "density" of ship travel, not space itself. If we speculate that ships may interact with each other in hyperspace, then a dedicated "traffic" lane may be neccesary so that ship accidents are reduced to a min. For example, ships travelling from Ord Mantell to Galantos may be "restricted" to a specific route through space by convention. Ships moving from elsewhere would thus avoid colliding with ships travelling on this route, and by monitoring when ships leave Ord Mantell and given normal traffic conventions, ships exiting hyperspace from Ord Mantell would avoid hitting ships that has just exited hyperspace.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The issue may be the "density" of ship travel, not space itself. If we speculate that ships may interact with each other in hyperspace, then a dedicated "traffic" lane may be neccesary so that ship accidents are reduced to a min.

Evidence? My post is based directly on that canonical depiction of hyperspace and its mechanics in the ICS, as well as real world astrophysics and astronomy. Yours is hand-waving.

For example, ships travelling from Ord Mantell to Galantos may be "restricted" to a specific route through space by convention. Ships moving from elsewhere would thus avoid colliding with ships travelling on this route, and by monitoring when ships leave Ord Mantell and given normal traffic conventions, ships exiting hyperspace from Ord Mantell would avoid hitting ships that has just exited hyperspace.

Starships that can interact with other ships traveling in different vectors as if they were the size of star systems (in order to have any hope of directly interacting and require "freeway-esque" traffic control) suggests that hyperspace missiles to intercept fleets would be a realistic tactic: it isn't. Also, its totally at odds with star systems that constantly have many ships reverting and going to hyperspace quite close to the planet - on scales where if they had any likelihood of interacting in transit in deep space, they definitely would within a light-second of a single planet. Not to mention this still does not explain why some regions of strictly natural phenomena would effect patterns of travel.

[PainRack]

Evidence? My post is based directly on that canonical depiction of hyperspace and its mechanics in the ICS, as well as real world astrophysics and astronomy. Yours is hand-waving.

We know that hyperspace pulse mines exist, which interact with ships in in hyperspace and damage them. Lastly, since ships in hyperspace can be tracked, there MUST be some form of interaction with normal matter. And since FTL sensors exist, and ships in hyperspace can detect gravitational fields lightyears away, there MUST be some form of interaction with ships in hyperspace.

We also do have canonical evidence of ships smashing into each other when exiting from hyperspace, from the infamous impact of 3 ISDs into Executor to Han Solo complaining to Karrde about their ship near collision.

Strict traffic control at the system point is already canon, along with designated hyperspace points for transiting to other systems.

[Illuminatus Primus]

We know that hyperspace pulse mines exist, which interact with ships in in hyperspace and damage them.

Since your 'theory' is about vectors of ships in hyperspace at odds with one another and not simply mass shadows, this has nothing to do with your theory. If mass shadows are extremely large (requiring deep space traffic control) than they wouldn't be able to decant so close to planets or ships in hyperspace would be unable to travel very close together. Red herring.

Lastly, since ships in hyperspace can be tracked, there MUST be some form of interaction with normal matter. And since FTL sensors exist, and ships in hyperspace can detect gravitational fields lightyears away, there MUST be some form of interaction with ships in hyperspace.

So what? If we're just talking about garden-variety kinetic collisions, space is so empty that most paths through deep space should be safer than the safest plane trip. Red herring.

We also do have canonical evidence of ships smashing into each other when exiting from hyperspace, from the infamous impact of 3 ISDs into Executor to Han Solo complaining to Karrde about their ship near collision.

REAL-SPACE collisions, involving close maneuvers or decanting close to a particular destination. This has fuck all to do with having freedom of movement in deep space with essentially zero density of ship-like physical obstacles. Red herring.

Strict traffic control at the system point is already canon, along with designated hyperspace points for transiting to other systems.

Which is probably irreconcilable with the filmic canon. Why didn't the Rebels close off the Hoth system, except for specific vectors? Why weren't the Rebels alerted by the lack of traffic control around Endor? The MF didn't need to go to a specific "Tattooine exit point here"; it just needed to clear the planet and the navicomputer had to plot a trajectory. The existence of the navicomputer suggests there are not fixed or narrow egress/ingress vectors. If this was practical, why does the Trade Federation need to envelope Naboo in order to effect a blockade?

The whole point of my discussion was that it makes no sense, and the canon is subject to interpretation. That there is some obstacles in realspace, that there are some risks, that there have been some collisions upon reversion, does not establish YOUR theory that offers synthesis between EU crap and astrophysics. The fact that SOME hyperspace mines exist and are used does not automatically establish YOUR theory. Your "traffic control required for safety in deep space" conjecture is not the null hypothesis.

[PainRack]

Since your 'theory' is about vectors of ships in hyperspace at odds with one another and not simply mass shadows, this has nothing to do with your theory. If mass shadows are extremely large (requiring deep space traffic control) than they wouldn't be able to decant so close to planets or ships in hyperspace would be unable to travel very close together. Red herring.

So what? If we're just talking about garden-variety kinetic collisions, space is so empty that most paths through deep space should be safer than the safest plane trip. Red herring.

Yet, the mass shadow of a comet is enough to disrupt the safe space travel of Karrde ship. Invisible hand was prevented from jumping into hyperspace by the mere presence of two warships.

REAL-SPACE collisions, involving close maneuvers or decanting close to a particular destination. This has fuck all to do with having freedom of movement in deep space with essentially zero density of ship-like physical obstacles. Red herring.

And I threw out two speculations, that hyperspace lanes exist to regulate smooth traffic, either in deep space or in realspace.

Which is probably irreconcilable with the filmic canon. Why didn't the Rebels close off the Hoth system, except for specific vectors? Why weren't the Rebels alerted by the lack of traffic control around Endor? The MF didn't need to go to a specific "Tattooine exit point here"; it just needed to clear the planet and the navicomputer had to plot a trajectory. The existence of the navicomputer suggests there are not fixed or narrow egress/ingress vectors. If this was practical, why does the Trade Federation need to envelope Naboo in order to effect a blockade?

And we know equally well that such points are used by smugglers and military vessels, with civilian vessels restricted to certain jump points. WEG depiction of hyperspace lanes being the only possible jump route is clearly bogus.
However, the existence of such routes is G canon, from TPM. Why would the mere taxation of such routes, and the holding of navigational data be so valuable to the Trade Federation? The issue now is to find out why such lanes exist and their unique qualities.

[Connor MacLeod]

I always figured hyperlanes were specific routes through hyperspace (well mapped and/or predictable) that are maintained for the express purpose of civilian traffic (merchants, individuals, etc.) to travel much more quickly through hyperspace. We know that real life objects both large and small represent hazards to any ship in hyperspace, which is why they can manuver around (or slow down to avoid) and keep shields raised for protection. minimizin gor eliminating some of those factors (things that would impedge/damage shields or force a ship to manuver around) probably would go a long way to speeding up hyperspace travel for merchant ships or civilan vessels, which ma ynot have as strong of shields as Military warships. (though military warships probably could use such routes to to prevent wear and tear on their systems.)

I think of it as being akin to being "on road" or on a highway sas opposed to using poorly maintained roads (or being off-road.) Some vehicles can certainly travel offroad (especially military ones) but they're not neccesarily as fast as they are on a paved and maintained road. And a car cannot go places where an ATV can go.

[Surlethe]

Why couldn't hyperspace lanes be pre-plotted routes stored in the navicomputer? Dr Saxton notes in the ICS that the only barriers to hyperspace travel are mass shadows and the fact that it's difficult to keep precise track of every object in the galaxy, so routes have to be plotted around probability cones of each object's last orbit. If the government maintains up-to-date information on these routes and regularly updates, say, a public holonet database that all navicomps access, then regular traffic can instead of calculating their own trajectories around known masses simply follow these "hyperlanes", which are known to be free of obstruction, to the destination.

[Connor MacLeod]

Well you could probably plot around some phenomena, but there's always bound to be something random (other ships travelling, meteors or comets, or something else like that) that a ship could occasionally run across and therefore manuver around, so even "pre-set" coordinates might need a certain level of tweaking.

Hence the benefit of some maintained routes for Star Wars vessels - minizming or eliminating obstacles (or even minimzing the amount of manuvering needed) can allow a ship to maintain both the straightest course as well as maintain a higher speed.

Hell you could have satellites or beacons along the path dedicated to broadcasting sudden changes.

[Havok]

Well you could probably plot around some phenomena, but there's always bound to be something random (other ships travelling, meteors or comets, or something else like that) that a ship could occasionally run across and therefore manuver around, so even "pre-set" coordinates might need a certain level of tweaking.

This is what I've always assumed the navicomputer was for, and why it takes a "few moments" to get fresh "coordinates" from it. You input, where you are, where you are going, then the computer plots out the safest, fastest course there, calculating in all the various known anomalies and such, that can effect the route.

Hence the benefit of some maintained routes for Star Wars vessels - minizming or eliminating obstacles (or even minimzing the amount of manuvering needed) can allow a ship to maintain both the straightest course as well as maintain a higher speed.

Hell you could have satellites or beacons along the path dedicated to broadcasting sudden changes.

And this is what I've assumed was the case with the hyperlanes. Government maintained roads. Leave them at your own peril.

[Surlethe]

Well you could probably plot around some phenomena, but there's always bound to be something random (other ships travelling, meteors or comets, or something else like that) that a ship could occasionally run across and therefore manuver around, so even "pre-set" coordinates might need a certain level of tweaking.

To be perfectly honest, the chances of that in interstellar space are vanishingly small. And for the Empire, which doesn't even notice an entire system lost to a star gone nova, the loss of an occasional ship to a small, wandering interstellar body will mean nothing.

Hence the benefit of some maintained routes for Star Wars vessels - minizming or eliminating obstacles (or even minimzing the amount of manuvering needed) can allow a ship to maintain both the straightest course as well as maintain a higher speed.

Maintenance in terms of sweeping all the lanes clean? Is that feasible at all even for a civilization the magnitude of the Empire? It makes more sense that maintenance means keeping a tight bound on the uncertainties of celestial bodies in well-traveled regions so routes can be preplotted instead of having to be calculated on the fly.

[Connor MacLeod]

To be perfectly honest, the chances of that in interstellar space are vanishingly small. And for the Empire, which doesn't even notice an entire system lost to a star gone nova, the loss of an occasional ship to a small, wandering interstellar body will mean nothing.

So then why bother with navigational particle or ray shields? For that matter why worry about keeping shields raised when in hyperspace. That's supposed to be a big concern to prevent the ship getting destroyed as I recall.

I have to dig back but apparently it doesn't take all that much. (I even recall it coming up either on Curtis' site or the ICS books.)

Maintenance in terms of sweeping all the lanes clean? Is that feasible at all even for a civilization the magnitude of the Empire? It makes more sense that maintenance means keeping a tight bound on the uncertainties of celestial bodies in well-traveled regions so routes can be preplotted instead of having to be calculated on the fly.

Why not? It wouldn't neccesarily need constant pushing or "cleaning", only periodic cleaning when a ship was detected or communicated its presecnce. Given the level of interconnected communications or sensor capability (remember that Obi-Wan was able to gatehr data on Kamino from the Jedi temple on Coruscant in AOTC? Nevermind the Holonet.) I don't see such a system/network being all that implausible. What's more you could probably automate it.

[Connor MacLeod]

This is what I've always assumed the navicomputer was for, and why it takes a "few moments" to get fresh "coordinates" from it. You input, where you are, where you are going, then the computer plots out the safest, fastest course there, calculating in all the various known anomalies and such, that can effect the route.

A navicomputer's quality will effect both the speed at which courses are calculated, as well as (by exntesion) how quickly they can be modified (and thus how quickly the ship can evade a target - its "reactions" so to speak. A "slower" navicomputer probably cannot travel quite as quickly - at least not constantly so.)

[Surlethe]

So then why bother with navigational particle or ray shields? For that matter why worry about keeping shields raised when in hyperspace. That's supposed to be a big concern to prevent the ship getting destroyed as I recall.

Given that such a chance collision is certain death, individual ship-owners probably will invest in these shields, but there's no sign that even a galactic civilization is capable of detecting, let alone mapping, every random interstellar body that wanders across heavily-used shipping lanes.

Why not? It wouldn't neccesarily need constant pushing or "cleaning", only periodic cleaning when a ship was detected or communicated its presecnce. Given the level of interconnected communications or sensor capability (remember that Obi-Wan was able to gatehr data on Kamino from the Jedi temple on Coruscant in AOTC? Nevermind the Holonet.) I don't see such a system/network being all that implausible. What's more you could probably automate it.

Is 25,000 years enough in the first place to clear all the lanes of all interstellar debris so that only occasional maintenance is required? I'm looking for a back-of-the-envelope calculation, mind, not heuristics.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Yet, the mass shadow of a comet is enough to disrupt the safe space travel of Karrde ship. Invisible hand was prevented from jumping into hyperspace by the mere presence of two warships.

The comet was a FREAK occurrence. The warships were DIRECTLY IN FRONT of the Invisible Hand in LOW ORBIT. How does this require specific routes through deep interstellar space. You know the density is too low, and these examples just prove that physical obstructions can hurt ships or force them from transit. NO ONE IS DISPUTING THAT. However, the average probability of such an obstruction THROUGH DEEP SPACE is essentially nil. Not to mention you do not even have to fly through the galactic disk to get across it. The most sensible method would be travel in something like a parabolic arc over the dense areas of the disk and then back into it near your destination.

You need a watered-down interpretation like Connor's or Surlethe's, and just kind of wince-and-ignore it when they act like exploring certain regions or going places requires the hyperlanes. Unfortunately, the EU took a broad idea from WEG like hyperlanes and interpreted it narrowly as bottlenecks and required for any transit. Its not like a railroad.

And I threw out two speculations, that hyperspace lanes exist to regulate smooth traffic, either in deep space or in realspace.

And your evidence that there's a traffic issue likely in DEEP SPACE without ships in hyperspace having mass shadows the size of solar systems? We have astronomy - we know the density of large massive objects is basically nil. You need a mechanism to work around that. So far you've just repeated over and over again that you are right. That does not cut it.

And we know equally well that such points are used by smugglers and military vessels, with civilian vessels restricted to certain jump points. WEG depiction of hyperspace lanes being the only possible jump route is clearly bogus.

So what? That's just customs and law enforcement. It has NOTHING to do with my quip about hyperlanes, being mined and cut-off from military applications or transit.

However, the existence of such routes is G canon, from TPM. Why would the mere taxation of such routes, and the holding of navigational data be so valuable to the Trade Federation? The issue now is to find out why such lanes exist and their unique qualities.

Because Mom and Pop cannot afford comprehensive astrographic surveys? And they hold a temporary monopoly? We're talking about galactic governments and militaries acting like certain routes are REQUIRED and that they CANNOT TRAVEL through other areas. This is totally aside from the average traveler needing to pay the monopolistic astrographers for the data to put in their navicomputer. Governments and militaries should and do have the ability to chart their own paths and regions. Individuals do not.

[Surlethe]

Consideration of just how empty interstellar space is may be useful.

If the SW galaxy is like our own -- with a mass of 3.6e41 kg -- and we model it as a cylinder 50,000 ly in radius and 500 ly in height, we find that the average density of the disk is approximately 1e-19 kg/m^3. Given that the vast majority of this mass is concentrated into stars, interstellar space is considerably emptier -- interstellar medium (according to this comprises between 1% and 3% of the mass of the galaxy, so we're looking at an average density on the order of 1e-21 kg/m^3 for interstellar space.

[Connor MacLeod]

Considering we know very little to nothing of the actual mechansims of hyperspace, we can't really say how dangerous even thin or minor interstellar debris (or even just the medium) might do to a ship in hyperspace without protection. I can only point to examples that I know its dangerous: The Lando Calrissian novels, The Han Solo adventures, the EGW&T (at least one reference) and I bleieve the Dark Nest novels.

I'll have to see about getting actual quotes, and see if I can find anything to bakc up my recollection about Curtis discussing this.