SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread VIII

[Lonestar]

Also: Lonestar, now that the matter with Beo is sorted out, we can get back to my visit.

Well, shoot, I'm out of ideas as the ultimate goal of the invitation was reached(albeit because Beowulf stole my thunder). Wanna go to To Colonial Williamsburg?


Or maybe....

[DarthShady]

Colonial Williamsburg sounds good.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Shinn Langley Soryu, you never gave me a final answer on the Moskva class helicarrier(with a SLEP and Yak-141M complement) deal. So?

I accept the offer for the Moskva helicarriers and the Yak-141Ms. You'll be receiving a check for $2.8 billion immediately.

[Ryan Thunder]

Either that's a really big gun or that turret is automated? The design reminds me vaguely of the Merkava, although on the whole the tank looks too small to be an MBT to my (admittedly completely untrained) eye.

It has a 130mm gun. It's got similar dimensions to the Abrams.

I took ideas from the Merkava but I didn't realize that it would be that obvious... XD

[Ryan Thunder]

Also, Beowulf, how the hell did you fit a laser CIWS and a frisbee missile interceptor on your bombers? What are they powered by, unicorns?!

[Beowulf]

Also, Beowulf, how the hell did you fit a laser CIWS and a frisbee missile interceptor on your bombers? What are they powered by, unicorns?!

Laser CIWS fits inside the aft most fuel tank, displacing fuel. The LDM is fitted inside the forward bomb bay. It fits because they displace other items. The penalty is a reduction in range and bomb load.

Oh, and BTW: tank guns don't have a hexagon profile inside the barrel. They also typically don't have a shroud around the barrel.

[Ryan Thunder]

Also, Beowulf, how the hell did you fit a laser CIWS and a frisbee missile interceptor on your bombers? What are they powered by, unicorns?!

Laser CIWS fits inside the aft most fuel tank, displacing fuel. The LDM is fitted inside the forward bomb bay. It fits because they displace other items. The penalty is a reduction in range and bomb load.

Ah, fair enough.

Oh, and BTW: tank guns don't have a hexagon profile inside the barrel. They also typically don't have a shroud around the barrel.

No, they generally don't. I am well aware of this fact. The rifling is hexagonal. The Germans did it with some rifles, IIRC.

The shroud is harder to come up with a decent excuse for, though.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, a laser on a plane that small is perfectly possible, especially solid state. It's just that it will be tricky ruggedising all that to make sure the coolant fluids don't leak etc. and also housing the optics for long range targeting. Also, I don't think you can put in more than say 4-6 15KW modules (I am being generous here. These modules are likely at least 0.5 m in length, 0.5 m wide.), which I am guessing you are using either your own local designs or mine. And you will likely get a theoretical maximum of ~45-60KW. While it is possible to not put the modules side by side, it will make life a little tad harder to get a perfect phase lock. Note that at high power, the phase locking is done free space, since there's not much around that can tolerate that sort of power. Bear in mind that cooling unit is likely larger than a standard refrigerator, which will take up even more space. Even if you use oil, I think you still need a fair bit of pumps and some heat exchanger process to remove a lot of heat. The efficiency of these things is about 40% at the maximum. I haven't heard of a solid state laser that has even achieved 50%.

Here's a pic I think of one such module from Lockheed Martin. I would say roughly nearly a meter in length, but definitely half a meter wide thereabouts: [url=hhttp://www.gizmag.com/vesta-laser-northrop-grumman/10158/]15KW laser module, with electronics, and some pipes. Heat Exchanger Unit not seen[/url]. There are lots of conflicting pictures out there and God knows how they look like. May be I will know when I go hear them talk about it in Baltimore at CLEO 2009.

Here's another pic: 15KW module.. I can't 100% judge how big but I think it's likely <1m by <1m. Maybe you could actually put them 7 in a go, but they will likely be side by side unless they are able to correct the beam phase accurately with the given electro-optic modulators, though your system will be more sensitive to vibrations.

[DarthShady]

Shinn Langley Soryu, you never gave me a final answer on the Moskva class helicarrier(with a SLEP and Yak-141M complement) deal. So?

I accept the offer for the Moskva helicarriers and the Yak-141Ms. You'll be receiving a check for $2.8 billion immediately.

Pleasure doing business with you Sir.

I'll have a delivery post up sometime later tonight.

[Beowulf]

Laser stuff

The Bone isn't a small plane. It's a bomber. It's also 6+ years of development time over @, so the lasers should be either smaller or more space efficient (which are really the same things). The laser is going to be fuel cooled, after which it's burned in the engine. No heat exchanger necessary. If you run out of fuel, you've got bigger problems than the fact that your CIWS isn't working.

Length doesn't matter so much as the width and height. Source for the FIRESTRIKE says it's 12" x 23", so 8 could fit into a 4' square. From there it goes into the laser turret, which should be substatially easier to manufacture than the YAL-1's turret, due to the lower power's involved. Oh, and the FIRESTRIKE is apparently already ruggedized.

*insert Adam Savage quote here*

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Laser stuff

The Bone isn't a small plane. It's a bomber. It's also 6+ years of development time over @, so the lasers should be either smaller or more space efficient (which are really the same things). The laser is going to be fuel cooled, after which it's burned in the engine. No heat exchanger necessary. If you run out of fuel, you've got bigger problems than the fact that your CIWS isn't working.

Length doesn't matter so much as the width and height. Source for the FIRESTRIKE says it's 12" x 23", so 8 could fit into a 4' square. From there it goes into the laser turret, which should be substatially easier to manufacture than the YAL-1's turret, due to the lower power's involved. Oh, and the FIRESTRIKE is apparently already ruggedized.

*insert Jamie Savage quote here*

The FIRESTRIKE is ruggedised, but combining the beams isn't that simple. Also, if I read the news reports of the Lockheed Martin laser right, the lasers beams were lined up side by side just so that they would combine through interference on the far field. Also, your beams propagation path are at best at least of the same length (or at least a multiple of the wavelength). That and you need additional electronic and optical components to lock all the lasers. All that can be certainly ruggedised and then supported with some anti-vibration stuff.

If you really want to save space, there's the option of following Textron's single 100KW Laser train. That is the laser system that will be employed in CATO's own airbourne laser system. It's a lot less problematic to use single large trains rather than several small trains because your phase noise will be so bad the average power will actually fall below 100KW. The drawback would be the laser system in question uses a cooling system where the refractive index matches the ceramic tile and flows through the ceramic tiles. Assuming I interpreted the diagram (and if it isn't a case of obfuscation) in LaserFocusWorld correctly.

[CmdrWilkens]

Well, mine gave me a failure in Selene 6, which means another LM test flight is inevitable. That means Selene 7 in Q4 2016, and Selene 8 in Q1 2017, with the landing on Selene 9.

Unless we accept the risk an upgrade 7 to a lunar orbital test...

And then we can have a LITERAL race to the Moon! IN SPACE!

A question, though: does the MSA release their launch scheules publically? If you don't it's no biggie, we'll just have Lev steal them, but I have to ask

EDIT: BTW, one of these days I'm totally gonna have to put together a novaterran Moon mission in Orbiter

I know this is dragging up from the past but since I've got all my files back together I'm finally getting around to posting everything. This will include, in about another 30 minutes the flight list through Daedalus 8 which is also, probably in an hour or so, going to go up into the Wiki. If you've got questions about the material below let me know because here is how I've been rolling things:


I do everything in Excel with an =RANDBETWEEN(1,100) for each launch and in the case of actual landings the descent phase. For the missions with 2 units (Pegasus 8,9, and 10 and all Daedalus missions starting with 3) the second rocket is indicated as -B and when there are landings/practice landings it is indicated by -C.


The success percentages are:

Result
Total Success, All Systems
Success, 1-2 Minor Failures
Partial Success, one major or multiple minor failures
Partial Failure, multiple major system failure, degenerative orbit reached
Total Failure, destroyed on launch pad

Min
80
16
6
3
1

Max
100
79
15
5
2

Abbreviation
TS
S
PS
PF
TF

As each mission series gets entered I physically re-type the current =RAND so that it doesn't keep switching around on me and this is currently complete through the end of the Daedalus program in 2018. Note that I've added 2 additional moon shots which may or may not get cancelled depending upon whether or not we can get the "Eagle" spaceborne. Those 2 extra shots are basically being paid for with a combination of an extra bit of Canisian money and the funds made available by Cascadia for putting one of their astronauts on Daedauls 5,6,7,10, and 13. Though I should add that I've only done full crew rosters through Daedalus 8 and that is all that will be released.


Mission results data:

Value
88
65
67
72
87
76
57
68
35
86
74
37
41
98
53
76
74
78
100
65
34
71
79
98
67
55
28
98
39
71
31
7
N/A
N/A
79
30
64
100
2
N/A
30
26
37
97
16
18
64
35
93
57
35

Result
TS
S
S
S
TS
S
S
S
S
TS
S
S
S
TS
S
S
S
S
TS
S
S
S
S
TS
S
S
S
TS
S
S
S
PS
N/A
N/A
S
S
S
TS
TF
N/A
S
S
S
TS
S
S
S
S
TS
S
S

Mission
Peg1
Peg2
Peg3
Peg4
Peg5
Peg6
Peg7
Peg8
Peg8-B
Peg9
Peg9-B
Peg10
Peg10-B
Daed1
Daed2
Daed3
Daed3-B
Daed4
Daed4-B
Daed5
Daed5-B
Daed5-C
Daed6
Daed6-B
Daed6-C
Daed7
Daed7-B
Daed7-C
Daed8
Daed8-B
Daed8-C
Daed9
Daed9-B
Daed9-C
Daed10
Daed10-B
Daed10-C
Daed11
Daed11-B
Daed11-C
Daed12
Daed12-B
Daed12-C
Daed13
Daed13-B
Daed13-C
Daed13-D
Daed14
Daed14-B
Daed14-C
Daed14-D

Date
Q2 2014
Q3 2014
Q3 2014
Q4 2014
Q4 2014
Q1 2015
Q2 2015
Q3 2015
Q3 2015
Q4 2015
Q4 2015
Q4 2015
Q4 2015
Q1 2016
Q2 2016
Q2 2016
Q2 2016
Q3 2016
Q3 2016
Q3 2016
Q3 2016
Q3 2016
Q4 2016
Q4 2016
Q4 2016
Q1 2017
Q1 2017
Q1 2017
Q2 2017
Q2 2017
Q2 2017
Q3 2017
Q3 2017
Q3 2017
Q1 2018
Q1 2018
Q1 2018
Q1 2018
Q1 2018
Q1 2018
Q3 2018
Q3 2018
Q3 2018
Q3 2018
Q3 2018
Q3 2018
Q3 2018
Q4 2018
Q4 2018
Q4 2018
Q4 2018

There are two rather obvious fail points. The first is Daedalus 9 which will have issues with the initial launch and be aborted (thus the N/A for -B and -C since the mission will scrub shortly after liftoff). The second is the 2nd launch for Daedalus 11 will be a total failure with destruction on the launch pad (thus the reason for the Daedalus 11-C abort as we won't be going to the moon with only half the equipment).

Roughly speaking its obviously a 2% chance for total failure and a 5% chance for emergency abort (counting Partial and Total Failure) and 10% chance for a mission scrub. From a safety standpoint I'm treating all Partial Successes as endangering the mission enough to require an abbreviated mission. I figure these are rather conservative numbers but much of that is from the speed into space and thus I'm treating the current launch system as needing a major shakeout.

The next major MSA programs will be:
Icarus (using the Ares VI system to go to the next closest planet)
Theseus (using the Jupiter/Delta IV to begin long term space habitation)

The Theseus program will have a much higher success rate indicating the maturation of the Jupiter and Delta IV systems. I will be switching to a =RANDBETWEEN(1,1000) with the rates set as TF 1-5, PF 6-10, PS 11-50, S 51-600, TS 601-1000. That would give me a 1% failure/emergency abort rate and a 4% mission abort rate. The Icarus program will have roughly the same sucess rates as above (the TF and PF are gonna drop a bit but PS will still be up to 15%) HOWEVER its going to get a lot more rolls (1 for each launch, 1 for initial burn, 1 for mid-course correction, 1 for orbital entry, 1 for going to the surface, 1 for coming up, 1 for TEI burn and 1 for mid-course correction). This means a typical mission without landings has 7 rolls and a lander mission 9.


Given that we are already in 2017 I'm going to indicate that Daedalus 6 did NOT land on the moon and the Daedalus 7 mission will be the landing. I'm assuming we switched to the 1 week= 1 month speed which would mean that Daedalus 7 will launch sometime between now and the end of the month, probably around next weekend if I remember otherwise the weekend after that.

Right now I'm trying for interesting dates and next weekend would give me roughly the 1st-8th of February and the weekend after that the same period in March so I may have to do it on the 1st or 2nd of next month in order to land on the Ides of March 2017.


*Edit* Had the old datestamps before the MSA pushed up the first few launches in Daedalus, datestamps are now current.

*Edit#2* I suddenly realized that if I was launching the Eagle as well on 13 and 14 that I should include 1 more roll for those missions so I added Daedalus 13-D and 14-D and re-rolled the missions (I upped the TF/PF but kept PS capped at 15).

[PeZook]

You know, I like this system. Way more comprehensive than mine, too.

[Lonestar]

Colonial Williamsburg sounds good.

Alrighty, posted. Otherwise out of ideas...

[Master_Baerne]

Stas, I'm afraid that I have neither the idea nor the time to construct a response post at the moment. I do appreciate the ideas though.


(Floating nuclear powerplants? What'll they come up with next?)

[Beowulf]

Floating nuclear plants isn't a new idea. It's just a shipboard power plant setup to power alot more than just the ship. There are various downsides to them, though. Thermal pollution for one (no one cares about that in Siberia, but it makes a difference in other climates). Another is that you need rather more power in tropical climes than temperate, because the increased ambient temperature results in lower efficiency.

[DarthShady]

Colonial Williamsburg sounds good.

Alrighty, posted. Otherwise out of ideas...

I enjoyed my visit, and I have no further ideas myself, so let's end it here.

[Lonestar]

Annnd....just a little backhanded swipe there, Fin

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Annnd....just a little backhanded swipe there, Fin

The ministry issued a "no comment" note.

[Ryan Thunder]

Laptops for kids!

Interesting idea there. Miratia does something similar for our high school students, but the parents have to subsidize it and they basically get a PDA with a folding external keyboard they can plug into it to operate the word processor and a stylus to operate the drawing software and everything else. It ends up costing around $300-450 per student.

The idea is more to help them manage their schedules by giving them something that beeps at them to remind them of stuff, and give them a central place to keep their notes organized in.

It also gets them experience in using such things, of course.

[CmdrWilkens]

Laptops for kids!

Interesting idea there. Miratia does something similar for our high school students, but the parents have to subsidize it and they basically get a PDA with a folding external keyboard they can plug into it to operate the word processor and a stylus to operate the drawing software and everything else. It ends up costing around $300-450 per student.

The idea is more to help them manage their schedules by giving them something that beeps at them to remind them of stuff, and give them a central place to keep their notes organized in.

It also gets them experience in using such things, of course.

Dude I won't even get into how there is no way your government should be able to afford that on top of all the rest of the basic neccessities of life at your GDP level (leaving aside the fact that your listed per capita GDP would put you third in this day and age behind on Qatar and Luxembourg). Either the parents have to subsidize most of it (in which case the vast majority of your students shouldn't have them) or the government subsidizes most of it (in which case your tax level is gonna be sky high and you should be shedding ex-pats like raindrops).

[Ryan Thunder]

Laptops for kids!

Interesting idea there. Miratia does something similar for our high school students, but the parents have to subsidize it and they basically get a PDA with a folding external keyboard they can plug into it to operate the word processor and a stylus to operate the drawing software and everything else. It ends up costing around $300-450 per student.

The idea is more to help them manage their schedules by giving them something that beeps at them to remind them of stuff, and give them a central place to keep their notes organized in.

It also gets them experience in using such things, of course.

Dude I won't even get into how there is no way your government should be able to afford that on top of all the rest of the basic neccessities of life at your GDP level (leaving aside the fact that your listed per capita GDP would put you third in this day and age behind on Qatar and Luxembourg). Either the parents have to subsidize most of it (in which case the vast majority of your students shouldn't have them) or the government subsidizes most of it (in which case your tax level is gonna be sky high and you should be shedding ex-pats like raindrops).

It's not a high-end PDA. In hindsight, I severely overestimated the cost of such a device. In actuality it would probably be more around $100-$150 per student, like the one I used to have in highschool that served me well in this role and actually had other features as well as the mere 4 programs this thing would run. The one Miratia uses wouldn't even play games...

[RogueIce]

Hey Stas, if you're gonna award that dude for operations in Svalbardia, it would be quiet, wouldn't it? I imagine if you made it a public spectacle the IRT would be a littled pissed. That is their playground, after all, and you running ops there probably won't make them happy.

[K. A. Pital]

Of course, no one is going to say "For elimination of person X". HSU would be awarded for "for heroic feats in service to the state and society."

[PeZook]

Dude I won't even get into how there is no way your government should be able to afford that on top of all the rest of the basic neccessities of life at your GDP level (leaving aside the fact that your listed per capita GDP would put you third in this day and age behind on Qatar and Luxembourg). Either the parents have to subsidize most of it (in which case the vast majority of your students shouldn't have them) or the government subsidizes most of it (in which case your tax level is gonna be sky high and you should be shedding ex-pats like raindrops).

How about you provide some calculations?

If Ryan wants to provide every student of his with a 400$ PDA, that means he has to buy one for around 500 thousand kids (if we assume 6% of the population are students of various kinds) when introducing the program. That's a mere 200 million. Spread it over several years, and Miratia can easily pay for it. Sustaining the program, even with a staggering 1% population growth rate would cost 32 million or so per year plus organizational costs.

That's for the high-end expensive PDAs, costs come down sinigifcantly when you can knock the costs down - and when you give a manufacturer an order for half a million PDAs, they WILL

And, of course, if parents subsidize even a small fraction of the costs, it becomes even cheaper.