Re: FB - Thrust Ratings for Freighters

On Sat, 23 Jan 1999 DracSpy@aol.com wrote:

> I wonder what a feather could do to a fighter?

depends how fast it's going. say a feather is 5 g, and is stationary. a
fighter going at 10000 m/s (10g for 100 secs) hits it; assuming the
fighter has infinite mass (dontcha just love physics :-), the kinetic
energy involved in the impact is 500 kJ, enough to heat ten kilos of
water
about 12 degrees kelvin. not a lot, really.

> > > after all, warships won't be packed solid with
> > > stuff like merchies might,
> > 
> > oh, they will. why would warships have any free space? that would be
> > inefficient design. they are packed solid with power plants, drives,
> > computers, armaments, crew quarters, etc. look at how much room each
> > sailor gets on a current warship (on an rn destroyer, it's basically
a
> > bunk in a cupboard).
>
> If you look at FB1 (ESU inparticular) they keep talking about how
limited
> space is.

well, when you've got the KV to spinward, the SV to widdershins, 
intergalactic void above and below and inter-arm gaps hubward and
rimward,
yes, i suppose space is quite limited ... sorry. bad joke.

i don't have the fleet book, but this still does not interfere with my 
point - space concerns exist for military ships, as everything has to be
packed inside an armoured hull, whereas merchants do not have this
problem. unless FB1 refers to merchants with space problems, that is.

Tom