UC Snippet #17

What throws me off is the fact that textev comments on the debris field SAR encounters as moving away from their search vector. I would expect the lifepod to be moving in the opposite direction with respect to the debris field, and is probably the case. Which means the ship would have been moving away from SAR at a slower clip than the debris field. But that would imply that the debris field was overtaking the pod, thus most likely taking on damage.

::shrug::

cthia wrote:What throws me off is the fact that textev comments on the debris field SAR encounters as moving away from their search vector. I would expect the lifepod to be moving in the opposite direction with respect to the debris field, and is probably the case. Which means the ship would have been moving away from SAR at a slower clip than the debris field. But that would imply that the debris field was overtaking the pod, thus most likely taking on damage.

::shrug::

The pod is part of the debris field, which is scattered to hell and gone.

(1) Pods are designed to get you safely to the surface of a planet if you are close enough to it and and your velocity relative to the planet is small enough. They do not have missile drives, nor do they have inertial compensators, so if a ship is moving at --- oh, 15,000 KPS at the moment the pod is ejected --- and your pod has a max accel of 6 gravities for 20 minutes, you can reduce your velocity (relative to the debris of the ship) by a grand and glorious 7 KPS. So the debris will then be moving away from you at 7 KPS. So in four hours, you will be about 100,800 km behind the wreckage. That's not very much separation on the scale of a star system or SAR operations.

(2) Because of this, most pods which escape a starship moving at a velocity which makes recovery to a planet or some handy bit of system infrastructure impossible, stay with the debris rather than using up decel which isn't going to help them but will separate them from the wreckage any rescuers (there may well not [i[be[/i] any, you understand, but you play the odds when it's the only game in town) are going to search anyway. In the meantime, you conserve power and try to hold on as long as possible. It's much the same as the theory that you stay put in the forest when you figure out your lost, figuring any searchers will start from where you were last seen and you don't want to be steadily hiking away from them because you're, like . . . well, lost.

(3) The debris isn't moving away from the SAR shuttle's vector, except in a very general way (as evidenced by the relatively low velocity differential). They are in a different part of the debris field, and the range should indicate to you that the new target is quite some ways away --- like 43,000 kilometers --- and is, presumably, from a different clump than the one they have currently been investigating. More than one ship got killed, vectors are products of quite a few velocity and acceleration rates, and the opening velocity is only 12 kilometers (7.5 MPH, for our metrically challenged friends), which is little more than twice the speed of a brisk walk.

(4) If the pod had still been live, rather than dead, it would have brought up its transponder as soon as it was hit with search radar. Indeed, its transponder should already have been up (if you will recall the conversation between Yountz and his chief of staff). So if it was a pod, then it was obviously inert, which probably meant damage at launch and therefore certainly indicated that it was unlikely to be doing any deep space deceleration with no safe haven in reach.

runsforcelery wrote:

cthia wrote:What throws me off is the fact that textev comments on the debris field SAR encounters as moving away from their search vector. I would expect the lifepod to be moving in the opposite direction with respect to the debris field, and is probably the case. Which means the ship would have been moving away from SAR at a slower clip than the debris field. But that would imply that the debris field was overtaking the pod, thus most likely taking on damage.

::shrug::

The pod is part of the debris field, which is scattered to hell and gone.

(1) Pods are designed to get you safely to the surface of a planet if you are close enough to it and and your velocity relative to the planet is small enough. They do not have missile drives, nor do they have inertial compensators, so if a ship is moving at --- oh, 15,000 KPS at the moment the pod is ejected --- and your pod has a max accel of 6 gravities for 20 minutes, you can reduce your velocity (relative to the debris of the ship) by a grand and glorious 7 KPS. So the debris will then be moving away from you at 7 KPS. So in four hours, you will be about 100,800 km behind the wreckage. That's not very much separation on the scale of a star system or SAR operations.

(2) Because of this, most pods which escape a starship moving at a velocity which makes recovery to a planet or some handy bit of system infrastructure impossible, stay with the debris rather than using up decel which isn't going to help them but will separate them from the wreckage any rescuers (there may well not [i[be[/i] any, you understand, but you play the odds when it's the only game in town) are going to search anyway. In the meantime, you conserve power and try to hold on as long as possible. It's much the same as the theory that you stay put in the forest when you figure out your lost, figuring any searchers will start from where you were last seen and you don't want to be steadily hiking away from them because you're, like . . . well, lost.

(3) The debris isn't moving away from the SAR shuttle's vector, except in a very general way (as evidenced by the relatively low velocity differential). They are in a different part of the debris field, and the range should indicate to you that the new target is quite some ways away --- like 43,000 kilometers --- and is, presumably, from a different clump than the one they have currently been investigating. More than one ship got killed, vectors are products of quite a few velocity and acceleration rates, and the opening velocity is only 12 kilometers (7.5 MPH, for our metrically challenged friends), which is little more than twice the speed of a brisk walk.

(4) If the pod had still been live, rather than dead, it would have brought up its transponder as soon as it was hit with search radar. Indeed, its transponder should already have been up (if you will recall the conversation between Yountz and his chief of staff). So if it was a pod, then it was obviously inert, which probably meant damage at launch and therefore certainly indicated that it was unlikely to be doing any deep space deceleration with no safe haven in reach.

Oops, error in my original post. . .

Which means the ship would have been moving away from SAR at a slower clip than the debris field.

should be. . .

Which means the pod would have been moving away from SAR at a slower clip than the debris field.

Though it doesn't matter. Your post covers it all. I actually considered that the pod would be encountering a debris field from the destruction of other ships, as well.

Your post reminds me of something my father taught us. If you survive a plane crash, remain with the plane. SAR will be looking for the plane, not for you.

Thanks.

Governor’s Residence
City of Shuttlesport
Smoking Frog
Maya System

“Mister Ellingsen, Captain Abernathy. It’s good to see you again!” Oravil Barregos said, standing and extending his hand as Julie Magilen escorted the visitors into his office.[/quote]

*****

I am curious if Ellingsen & Abernathy are going to be invited to dinner again ......

-- Stewart

stewart wrote:

RunsForCelery wrote:[Governor’s Residence
City of Shuttlesport
Smoking Frog
Maya System

“Mister Ellingsen, Captain Abernathy. It’s good to see you again!” Oravil Barregos said, standing and extending his hand as Julie Magilen escorted the visitors into his office.

*****

I am curious if Ellingsen & Abernathy are going to be invited to dinner again ......

-- Stewart

In the excitement of the 'promised/threatened' disaster, I had overlooked that line - thank you...

cthia wrote: -snip-
Albeit, I just assumed the way the pods overcome a ships vector is because we (well, not me) decided that a launching ship's accel is negligible.

tlb wrote: -snip-
I do expect that normally a damaged ship that is launching life pods will not be accelerating at the time. Why would it?

Earlier I brushed over the question of whether a ship launching life pods would be under acceleration (as opposed to having velocity); but it is interesting and so let me go back to that.

I think the primary reason to expect that there is no acceleration is that a ship that is in good enough shape to maintain acceleration is a safer place to be than in a life pod - absent a military imperative. There are two places in the books where the crew is sent to life pods from intact ships: the crew of Crandall's fleet after surrender and at Saltash where missiles were on their way. Note that striking the wedges both signals surrender and kills acceleration.
I am reminded of the Air Force's attitude about paratroopers: they must be crazy to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. I expect that they consider any airplane that is not burning nor about to crash to be perfectly good.

PS. Did "the Fly that should not be named" have an unexpressed thought on the previous page?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote: -snip-
Albeit, I just assumed the way the pods overcome a ships vector is because we (well, not me) decided that a launching ship's accel is negligible.

tlb wrote: -snip-
I do expect that normally a damaged ship that is launching life pods will not be accelerating at the time. Why would it?

Earlier I brushed over the question of whether a ship launching life pods would be under acceleration (as opposed to having velocity); but it is interesting and so let me go back to that.

I think the primary reason to expect that there is no acceleration is that a ship that is in good enough shape to maintain acceleration is a safer place to be than in a life pod - absent a military imperative. There are two places in the books where the crew is sent to life pods from intact ships: the crew of Crandall's fleet after surrender and at Saltash where missiles were on their way. Note that striking the wedges both signals surrender and kills acceleration.
I am reminded of the Air Force's attitude about paratroopers: they must be crazy to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. I expect that they consider any airplane that is not burning nor about to crash to be perfectly good.

PS. Did "the Fly that should not be named" have an unexpressed thought on the previous page?

Yep.
I screwed up on snipping.

I just speculated on what kind of reception the SLN evacuees will get when they land on the planet concurrent with their violations of the Deneb Accords and Erandandi Edict.

Randomiser wrote:
A bit disappointed the Sollies finally turning tail and leaving gets done in a couple of retrospective sentences. Oh well, maybe it has saved some space so we can see the reaction when they report in back home.

It is a snippet. You may get your wish in the book.

runsforcelery wrote:I know this one is a little short, but I am sure all of you will understand why it absolutely had to end. Did.

Just saying.

(BIG SNIP from RAW)

“Get on the com,” that voice she didn’t recognize said very, very calmly. “Tell them we just found Admiral Kotouč . . . and he’s alive.”

Since this is the end of the Hypatia action (which I read weeks ago as part of the Baen Webscription), I think it is an appropriate place for a thought I had this week on how this battle could have gone differently (I wouldn't be surprised that it was not technically possible for Kotouč's taskforce to do this). The basic problem is that the "Phantom" couldn't fire enough missiles to over saturate the SLN defenses. Thus, Admiral Kotouč had to engage within the range of his heavy cruisers (that had single-drive missiles). The solution (again, if missile designers didn't think of the possibility, this might not be possible - even though I think it has been done with missile pods) is the "Phantom" stacks an enormous number of missiles (about 4000) about 30 million kilometers from the SLN taskforce and they are fired off 370 or so at a time 20 seconds apart. The heavy cruisers control the ones that the "Phantom" can't. BTW, the ships have moved some distance from where the missiles are sitting, and left a few drones behind to pretend to be the ships launching the missiles.
BTW, I fear that this will be MAN doctrine when LenDets are using missile pods.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:the "Phantom" stacks an enormous number of missiles (about 4000) about 30 million kilometers from the SLN taskforce and they are fired off 370 or so at a time 20 seconds apart. The heavy cruisers control the ones that the "Phantom" can't. BTW, the ships have moved some distance from where the missiles are sitting, and left a few drones behind to pretend to be the ships launching the missiles.
BTW, I fear that this will be MAN doctrine when LenDets are using missile pods.

The problem is MDMs are very dumb and require more than a trivial amount of hand holding to be effective at long range without enormous volume. 20 seconds is a pretty trivial amount of time. And since we are not talking about 20,000 missile salvos...