[FT] Sa'Vasku Screens

Does this mean that screen strength of a Sa'Vasku ship will be directly
proportional to the bladder size & the speed at which said organ can be
emptied?

Colin
-----Original Message-----
From: Timothy Pricer <pricer@rcasun.life.uiuc.edu>
To: gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU <gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 06 December 1998 04:06
Subject: Re: [FT] The Sa'Vasku

>I did some quick  crude radiation heat transfer calculations and found
a 1
mm
>sphere would freeze in about 10 sec, 1cm sphere in 100 sec., 10 cm
sphere
>in 1000 sec and so on.  This ignores the heat loss due to vaporization
>of water.  At standard conditions the heat of vaporization is about 7
times
>that of freezing and it is conceivable that some of the water could
>vaporize which would draw off enough heat to freeze the rest of the
water.
>One should also note that the author Brian mentioned (David Brin) is
>a physics professor.
>
>>
>> Brian spake thusly upon matters weighty:
>>
>> Is this possible? I'm not sure it would work. I think that falls into
>> a popular fallacy about space: That space is cold (ducks and prepares
>> for salvo fire from the physics guys out there).
>>
>> I was under the impression space was not cold, rather it had a lack
>> of temperature - because as I understood it temperature is a property
>> of matter relating to how excited or how expanded the particles were
>> and what phase they were in or some such. As a result, space being
>> largely empty, doesn't really have much of a temperature.
>>
>> And you can't effectively lose heat in space (by ejecting water)
>> because (I could be wrong) the water has no nearby particle which it
>> can transfer its energy (heat) to, therefore it is unlikely to
>> freeze. I believe you require a transfer of energy between molecules
>> or some such to change temperature.
>>
>> This is illustrated by one of the main space shuttle problems:
>> Overheating. The humans and equipment inside radiates heat. It
>> doesn't (because it can't) radiate into space. So things get warm.
>> The only way to radiate heat is to do something like heat a gas and
>> then vent that gas (particles with energy attached) into space, thus
>> venting the energy. Normally, because you can't radiate the energy,
>> it just stays with you. Or so I understood.
>>
>> Now perhaps I'm totally FUBAR. (Wouldn't be the first time).
>>
>> > How about "Mister" for your organic sandcaster? Instead of spraying
sand,
>> > it sprays water/some other liquid - which in space instantly
freezes
into
>> > ice crystals anyway, giving roughly the same effect. fits the
organic-ship
>> > feel as well.
>> >
>> > (One of David Brin's books had a scene where a (non-bio) ship
dumped a
>> > massive load of water to screen it's escape - and to lose the
>> > wieght)(Can't remember the name...not 'Uplift War', not "sundiver',
one
of
>> > the other uplift series books...with dolphins in it...mental
blank...)
>> >
>> > Brian (burger00@camosun.bc.ca)
>> > -
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/9774/games.html -DS2/SG2/games-
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> /************************************************
>> Thomas Barclay
>> Voice: (613) 831-2018 x 4009
>> Fax: (613) 831-8255
>>
>>  "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot.  C++ makes
>>  it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."
>>  -Bjarne Stroustrup
>> **************************************************/
>>
>
>