Re: Space Nav

Esteemed?  Heh...  Not the last time I checked.  :)

Since the US is going to a new system, GPS should remain relatively
stable from now on out...  At least for my use, since I don't generally
go camping when we're at war...

Space Nav...  It's not either/or in general.  Any system would and could
be used, IF it was effective.

Using stars, unfortunately, is not effective in all types of use.  If
you already know where you're going to be, and you know the
constellations as they would appear to you, then using the "brightness"
of nearby stars can work.  But you MUST appear where you predicted
yourself to be.  Otherwise, things won't look right, and with 10s of
1000's of possible stars you could be looking at, and could be closer
to, without anything to uniquely point to, you're lost.

Navigation depends on unique and known points to reference yourself to.
Pulsar's give us both.	They don't move relative to you, they are
uniquely identifiable, quick and easy to find (if you know what you're
looking for), and with plenty of them, you're accuracy for determining
where you're at is near perfect.

So to answer your questions:
A) Either system would work, with stars carring the caveat IF you know
where you were going, plotted what stars you would expect and what
constellations you were looking for, and you actually get close enough
to the predicted point.  Pulsars work no matter what, given you don't
leave the area they've projected thier radio waves at....  (Effectively
this galaxy, and possibly neighboring galaxies, but doubtful to much
further out.)
B) Obviously either, if you actually make it there.  Best possible
navigation aid here is system bound, something like a SPS (solar
positioning system), but even a GPS works system wide, IF the planetary
diameter is wide enough for the signals to have a discernable space
between them (thus not looking like a single point) at the distance
you're at to them.  Of course, you can just point yourself at the signal
and travel towards it until you can differentiate signals.
C) The answer A applies here as well...

Rand.

P.S. answers to last email are forthcoming, I promise.	:)

Thomas Barclay wrote:

> Some esteemed lister wrote:
> A simple, and modern, example is GPS.
> Something (relatively) far away, and used
> every day to predict where on earth (and
> near Solar system as well!) you are.	I
> personally have used a GPS unit to
> determine where I'm going, where I've
> been, and where the hell I am right now.
>
> [Tomb] Assuming that the US is not
> invoking the special protocol it has in place
> to introduce errors (either localized or
> system wide) in the location information.
>
> [Tomb] Re: space nav - why is locating
> yourself either/or? You'd use visual, other-
> spectra, pulsars, etc. all to locate your
> position - whichever you could locate
> nearest and sufficiently distinctly to
> uniquely place yourself. Probably which
> method was easier or faster would depend
> on a number of factors and no one factor
> would be determinist. You'd have multiple
> methods to locate yourself and you'd use
> stellar objects which had fairly unique
> signatures where feasible.
>
> Here's an interesting follow up:
> How long do we think it would take for a
> starship to fix position:
> a) In deep space
> b) In a known planetary system
> c) In an unknown planetary system (but
> near a star that probably is cataloged
> somewhere)
>
> [Tomb] Regarding the roughness of space
> transit, the presence of human colony ships
> or military ships or merchant ships tells us
> nothing about the short term post jump
> effects. It merely says that any long term
> jump stresses can be avoided by 6 hour
> layovers or are sufficiently slow as to be
> acceptable (maybe increased risk of
> neurological disease, etc). For all we know,
> jump is terribly rough, but the humans
> compensate with drugs, regenerative
> technology, or some kind of mini-stasis
> field. You could be violently ill for an hour
> after jump. Who knows? As long as it
> doesn't have seriously and rapidly onsetting
> deleterious effects that are persistent, the
> kind of universe described in the game
> could exist. It could also be that if you push
> your jump intervals, the effects accumulate
> (think tough ride for couriers or mercy
> missions).
>
> My thinking was 6 hours was the "low
> stress option" which would allow you to
> jump continously for a fairly long time.
> Faster cycling would lead to accumulated
> jump stresses. And that military crews had
> methods to cope with this better than
> civilian crews and part of the selection
> process involved resilience to this
> phenomena. The way I envisioned it,
> military crews could push for up to four
> jumps a day, but most civilian ships would
> be happy with 2. To make reasonable (but
> still non-instant) travel times around the
> universe of GZG as depicted by Nyrath the
> Indispensable, Stellar Cartographer to the
> GZGverse, I think I set the maximum jump
> at 7.7 ly. I made military systems more
> capable than civilian ones, and travel in
> cold sleep safer. (This justifies colony
> ships, fish-stick marines, and lifeboaters
> going to cold sleep)
>
> I actually wrote some campaign rules for
> this, but they're temporarily off-web thanks
> to an ISP server dying in a most ugly
> fashion.
>
> If there is interest, I can get the HTML
> page with my take on things back up again
> fairly quickly.
>
> [Tomb] One last thought: Deathworld was
> written after Harrison visited Oz. He toned
> it down a bit for the novel.
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> Thomas Barclay
> Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca
> Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site
>
> Corruptisima republica plurimae leges.
> [The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.]
> -- Tacitus
> ---------------------------------------------

--
Fsck, either way I'm screwed. -- petro (alt.sysadmin.recovery)
Now *that* is the Sysadmin's motto. -- Peter da Silva
(alt.sysadmin.recovery)
On gifts for the S.O. for Valentine's Day as seen on Slashdot:
There's always the Kama Sutra. After all it is a book about geometry.