RE: Shuttles and ship's small craft

I always assumed that ships had interface shuttles (I thought that I
read
this somewhere, but was unable to find it), but that the shuttles could
not
have a mass greater than 0.75 mass (so that the hanger and craft
together
was 1 mass) and thus could carry only about 0.10 mass. This is enough
for
courier exchanges and small trips to a planet, but not enough to carry a
meaningful part of a crew in one trip.

As for merchant ships, ITTT specializes in contracts with start-up
colonies
that do not have the resources or manpower to build, man or maintain a
Transit Station. See http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/ft25/gov.html
 - Husky Hvy Freighter
 - Lodestone Freighter
 - Workhorse Medium Freighter
Otherwise to serve these communities, the freighter would need to be
Fully
Streamlined (much more expensive). See
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/ft25/gov.html
 - PackRat Lt Freighter
 - Stork Medium Freighter

-----
Brian Bell
bkb@beol.net
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/	 
-----

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Imre A. Szabo [SMTP:ias@sprintmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 9:59 PM
> To:	gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
> Subject:	Re: Shuttles and ship's small craft
> 
> Jarrard, Jonathan (J.) wrote:
> 
> > Actually, I am far more concerned with ground-to-orbit interface
> capability,
> > unless you assume that most planets have transit stations, or ships
are
> > equipped with teleporters.
> 
> Transist stations.  Otherwise you have frieghters with areospace
shuttles,
> this
> makes for very expensive (read un-profitable) merchant ships. 
Afterall,
> how
> often are those shuttles going be used during the trip?  Only at each
end.
> The
> rest of the time they would just sit idle...	If you have transit
> stations,
> those shuttles would be used for every non-atmospheric ship.
> 
> IAS