Re: [FT] The Sa'Vasku

Ok, I'll weigh in on this one.	I'm an engineer (boring technical 
discussion warning.  RUN FOR THE ESCAPE PODS!!!!!!!!!)

<TECHNOBABBLE>

Water freezes when dumped into a vacuum because of the sudden loss of 
pressure (ie, pressure goes down, temperature does as well).  Water can 
be used to dump heat from a spacecraft because is carries some of the 
heat away with it, you just can't carry enough to make this method 
useful.  Temperature control _IS_ a big problem though.  Passing heat by

way of molecules is either convection for moving molecules or conduction

for stationary molecules.  In space its done by radiation. One of the 
concepts for cooling the Space Station was to pass oil through the 
system, then spray it across a gap open to the vacuum of space, where 
the droplets dump heat by radiation, then recover it on the other side 
of the gap and re-circulate.  OK, thats enough, are you all asleep now?

;^0

</TECHNOBABBLE>

JimC

----Original Message Follows----
From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca>
To: gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 21:20:53 -0500
Subject: Re: [FT] The Sa'Vasku
Reply-To: gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU

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-
> 
> 
> 
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