Possible Tech-type Issues: EF Starship Questions

Tue Apr 1 06:05:59 EST 1997

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From: tinfor at interport.net (Tom Infortunio)
Date: 22 Mar 1997 10:14:05 -0500
Lines: 51

If it's not apparent, I've revisited "Severed Dreams" many times the past couple
of weeks, considering that since we are in the middle of re-runs, why not re-run
one of my favorite episodes?  These are just a few things that have been gnawing
at my mind as of late.

Firstly, what are EF Starship naming conventions?  It seems that prominent
generals or war leaders (meaning here - individuals who led in time of war,
*not* the Latin dux bellorum, which would equate to generals) get destroyers
named after them eg:  Agammemnon, Alexander, Churchill, while less prominent
ones, or perhaps those not involved in major conflicts get lesser ships named
after them eg: the Gunship Schwarzkopf.  Are there any heavier ships in the EF
fleet like battleships or fleet tenders(I guess they would be the equivalent of
aircraft carriers)?  If so, who would they get named after?

Not incredibly important questions, but interesting in my book.

Next, while watching SD, I noticed something maybe not so many folks would care
about unless they constantly dwell on how many wonderful ways there are for
human beings to die in vaccuum, like I do...

There are two words that would be foremost in my mind if I were on a Starship
about to entire a heavy fire zone:  Explosive Decompression.  If I'm standing in
one spot and my buddy is standing in another, I certainly don't want the blast
that just ripped open the hull and shredded him into molecules to then proceed
with causing my sorry EF uniformed butt to be sucked, without predjudice, out
into the great nether...

How feasible would it be, since I don't know the crew sizes or accessibility of
equipment on an EF destroyer like the Roanoke, to have the crew suit up in
vacc-suits (or p-suits, I'm not fussy on terminology, it all amounts to the same
thing), and decompress the hull before entering combat to avoid such heinous
things from happening to my sorry EF uniformed butt?

Again, not terribly important a question, but interesting to me...

Tom

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Infortunio

"To Strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
"To stand against the Darkness or Perish."
					-B5 Mantra

Check out The Dark Tower at: http://www.users.interport.net/~tinfor
Home to the Babylon 5 Observatory.
<*>

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From: rriddle at earthlink.net (Reed Riddle)
Date: 25 Mar 1997 16:24:09 -0500
Lines: 58

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In article <199703220054.TAA12197 at york.interport.net>, tinfor at interport.net
(Tom Infortunio) wrote:

<SNIP>
>
>Not incredibly important questions, but interesting in my book.

Always interesting to find the details about this stuff.....

>
>Next, while watching SD, I noticed something maybe not so many folks would care
>about unless they constantly dwell on how many wonderful ways there are for
>human beings to die in vaccuum, like I do...
>
>There are two words that would be foremost in my mind if I were on a Starship
>about to entire a heavy fire zone:  Explosive Decompression.  If I'm
standing in
>one spot and my buddy is standing in another, I certainly don't want the blast
>that just ripped open the hull and shredded him into molecules to then proceed
>with causing my sorry EF uniformed butt to be sucked, without predjudice, out
>into the great nether...
>
>How feasible would it be, since I don't know the crew sizes or accessibility of
>equipment on an EF destroyer like the Roanoke, to have the crew suit up in
>vacc-suits (or p-suits, I'm not fussy on terminology, it all amounts to
the same
>thing), and decompress the hull before entering combat to avoid such heinous
>things from happening to my sorry EF uniformed butt?

There are two answers to this one:  real life and reel life.  In real life,
everyone would be in vac suits, ths ship would be partially depressurized
(and certain areas likely to be hit would be completely depressurized), the
spinning section would be stopped, etc.  In reel life, there is only so
much money to go around per episode, and making up ~20 vac suits for a few
seconds of shots on the bridge, while incredibly accurate and cool, would
take away from all the other even cooler stuff in the show (like ~15
minutes of ship to ship action).  

If they could do it, they would; JMS is a stickler for authenticity.  But,
they couldn't, so they left in a little inacuracy and gave us an incredible
episode instead. 

>
>Again, not terribly important a question, but interesting to me...

The best questions in the world to ask are the ones that don't seem
important.  :)

>
>Tom

               Reed

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From: schillin at spock.usc.edu (John Schilling)
Date: 28 Mar 1997 12:38:26 -0500
Lines: 78

rriddle at earthlink.net (Reed Riddle) writes:

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>In article <199703220054.TAA12197 at york.interport.net>, tinfor at interport.net
>(Tom Infortunio) wrote:

>>How feasible would it be, since I don't know the crew sizes or accessibility
>>of equipment on an EF destroyer like the Roanoke, to have the crew suit up in
>>vacc-suits (or p-suits, I'm not fussy on terminology, it all amounts to the 
>>same thing), and decompress the hull before entering combat to avoid such 
>>heinous things from happening to my sorry EF uniformed butt?

>There are two answers to this one:  real life and reel life.  In real life,
>everyone would be in vac suits, ths ship would be partially depressurized
>(and certain areas likely to be hit would be completely depressurized), the
>spinning section would be stopped, etc.  In reel life, there is only so
>much money to go around per episode, and making up ~20 vac suits for a few
>seconds of shots on the bridge, while incredibly accurate and cool, would
>take away from all the other even cooler stuff in the show (like ~15
>minutes of ship to ship action).  

Actually, you may be mixing "reel life" and "real life" here.  For starters,
in reel life pressure suits are basically snazzy jumpsuits with gloves and
helmets.  In real life, pressure suits are 100+ pound monstrosities that 
make the most cumbersome medieval plate armor seem comfortable by comparison.
Advanced materials might get the mass down, but the restriction of mobility
is inherent in the concept.

So there's a pretty powerful motive to *not* depressurize the ship.  Both
American and Soviet astronauts, have found that even the simplest tasks
take an order of magnitude longer during EVA, than in a shirtsleeve
environment.  If I, in my pressurized spacecraft, can target and fire
missiles every second, but it takes you ten seconds to press the "fire
antimissile" button, you're screwed.  An oversimplified example, perhaps,
but you get the idea.

And decompression is mainly a problem of reel life, not real life, as well.
Pressurized spacecraft will not pop like balloons if someone makes a hole
in them; that effect is specific to unreinforced membrane construction, which
is not high on anyone's list of aerospace construction techniques.  A craft
strong enough to hold pressure in the first place, is strong enough to take
a penetrating hit without suffering any additional damage to "explosive
decompression".

The fact that air will leak out through the hole, may of course be of some
concern to the crew.  But it won't happen instantaneously.  A ten-foot hole
in the side of a cruiser, would still require several minutes to let out
even half of the internal atmosphere.  Which should be plenty of time to
isolate the problem, or at very least get the crew into temporary protection.

So barring some fundamentally new way of making "spacesuits", it seems 
unlikely that anyone would put up with the limitations of working in a
depressurized environment for the dubious advantage of not having to deal
with "explosive decompression".  Fundamentally new ways of making spacesuits
are of course possible in the next three hundred years, but not to be taken
for granted.

Me, I think all EA space force personnell wear anti-vacuum long johns under 
their uniforms, with inflatable helmets rolled up under the collar.  Which
might explain Zack's persistent complaints about discomfort and style :-)

--
*John Schilling                    * "You can have Peace,              *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP       * or you can have Freedom.          *
*University of Southern California * Don't ever count on having both   *
*Aerospace Engineering Department  * at the same time."                *
*schillin at spock.usc.edu            *          - Robert A. Heinlein     *
*(213)-740-5311 or 747-2527        * Finger for PGP public key         *

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From: tinfor at interport.net (Tom Infortunio)
Date: 28 Mar 1997 18:51:31 -0500
Lines: 82

<a bit of snippage>

>Actually, you may be mixing "reel life" and "real life" here.  For starters,
>in reel life pressure suits are basically snazzy jumpsuits with gloves and
>helmets.  In real life, pressure suits are 100+ pound monstrosities that 
>make the most cumbersome medieval plate armor seem comfortable by comparison.
>Advanced materials might get the mass down, but the restriction of mobility
>is inherent in the concept.

If one is maneuvering in Zero-G does this really play a vital role?  While
the suits, assuming that they would use the same suits we use today, might
still be unwieldy to some extent, wouldn't the absence of gravity help a
bit?  Also, wouldn't they be trained to maneuver effectively in such
conditions?

>So there's a pretty powerful motive to *not* depressurize the ship.  Both
>American and Soviet astronauts, have found that even the simplest tasks
>take an order of magnitude longer during EVA, than in a shirtsleeve
>environment.  If I, in my pressurized spacecraft, can target and fire
>missiles every second, but it takes you ten seconds to press the "fire
>antimissile" button, you're screwed.  An oversimplified example, perhaps,
>but you get the idea.

The advantage would go to the force who was able to operate while
pressurized obviously, but what if all forces were fighting with
depressurization as SOP.  Wouldn't that mean that everyone would be moving
at relatively the same speed to each other?

>And decompression is mainly a problem of reel life, not real life, as well.
>Pressurized spacecraft will not pop like balloons if someone makes a hole
>in them; that effect is specific to unreinforced membrane construction, which
>is not high on anyone's list of aerospace construction techniques.  A craft
>strong enough to hold pressure in the first place, is strong enough to take
>a penetrating hit without suffering any additional damage to "explosive
>decompression".
>
>The fact that air will leak out through the hole, may of course be of some
>concern to the crew.  But it won't happen instantaneously.  A ten-foot hole
>in the side of a cruiser, would still require several minutes to let out
>even half of the internal atmosphere.  Which should be plenty of time to
>isolate the problem, or at very least get the crew into temporary protection.

I hadn't considered this.  I picture explosive decompression more on the
order of what happens when a window on an airplane bursts open, sucking a
guy my size (6'3" 240+lbs.) out a 1' square.  Hmmm...

>So barring some fundamentally new way of making "spacesuits", it seems 
>unlikely that anyone would put up with the limitations of working in a
>depressurized environment for the dubious advantage of not having to deal
>with "explosive decompression".  Fundamentally new ways of making spacesuits
>are of course possible in the next three hundred years, but not to be taken
>for granted.

Of course, in fact, with the direction our space program is currently
heading in...yeesh...I don't even want to think about it.

>Me, I think all EA space force personnell wear anti-vacuum long johns under 
>their uniforms, with inflatable helmets rolled up under the collar.  Which
>might explain Zack's persistent complaints about discomfort and style :-)
>

Hehehe, works for me. ;-)

Tom
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Infortunio

"To Strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
"To stand against the Darkness or Perish."
					-B5 Mantra

Check out The Dark Tower at: http://www.users.interport.net/~tinfor
Home to the Babylon 5 Observatory.
<*>

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From: George Johnsen <ndeiprod at earthlink.net>
Date: 31 Mar 1997 14:37:14 -0500
Lines: 35

The answer in Real Life vs. Reel Life is substantially correct.  There
are always dramatic decisions to be made that can a) appeal to current
tech eyes, and b) satisfy our fixed budget. 

This is a hard line to walk, and we keep stepping over it in both
directions.  We keep asking questions, and following advice (thanks,
John!), but there are astill things that we do that simply look good,
and fit the story.  We are constantly improving even our stock shots,
though.  Notice the shuttle sequence in 410 now has retro fire in the
bay before main engine burn, and the main engines don't burn forever,
like they did before.  We had a reverse-burn (decelerating) transport
coming into Mars in 410 that was cut for time, leaving the "manouvering
to orbit shot" only (which, I'm sure, will get some people up in the
air, but hey- we can't buy the commercials!) We will continue to improve
the science we use as we go.

One of things we discussed substantially before we did it was the
rotating sections on the EA destroyers.  If we had locked them down, as
some say we should have, we would be having this discussion about magnet
shoes or something to explain why there were no floating folks in the
interior shots during engagement.  

As to explosive decompression, we have always postulated that anything
hit hard enough to have serious ED would probably be hard pressed to
sustain viable survivors.  I suspect that there will pressure suits used
in the short term and some Webb suit variant that will be used in the
mid term of outer travel.  We are not doing any "Nightflyers"- style
decompression gags in the near future, so we will not deal with that
issue yet.

George Johnsen
CoProducer, B5

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