Re: FB - Thrust Ratings for Freighters

In a message dated 99-01-24 14:04:46 EST, you write:

<< > 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.

XXXX
Good point, but if you put all of the anergy into one point it might do
anuff
damage to crack a canopy open.	There was a item on the news a while
back, it
talked about how a F-16's (or was it some other one) pilot got his skull
cracked open by a bird.  I'm assuming that the fighters would be moving
a lot
faster than the F-16 so a feather might do some damage.
XXXX
 > > > 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.
 
XXXX
If it wasn't there would be no wars, unless of cource your paranoid.
XXXX

 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
  >>
I agree with the last part.  In FB1 it talks about how Merchies are "tin
cans
with a drive unit on one end an a command moduel on the other" so I
don't
think that they have space problems.
-Stephen