Page 160: Hold this

[kiwi]

Loroi environmental systems must be very efficient if the shuttle is going to chill down. I understand that on human-occupied spacecraft a more common problem is getting the waste heat out.

Loroi pillow forts, regrettably, seem to be lacking in couches which makes it hard to get the proper tent-like effect. Depending on how long they’re going to be hiding, they may all wish for a nice comfy couch to get them off the freezing deck.

Finally, I hope Spiral doesn’t put her knife back on before bedding down. It looks like a safety hazard.

[asaenvolk]

I don't think that is a knife, not sure what it is. Though her handing it to him might have implications we are not aware of.

[Incinerator]

Loroi environmental systems must be very efficient if the shuttle is going to chill down. I understand that on human-occupied spacecraft a more common problem is getting the waste heat out.

Heat is a major problem in Earth orbit due to our proximity to the Sun. In #129, it's mentioned that this is a white dwarf system, which is basically a dead star. There isn't going to be much in the way of solar input in terms of heat here.

Plus, presumably the shuttle is designed to keep its occupants comfortable when its thrusters and power generation are operational, both major heat producers. As neither of these are running, well, you get the picture.

[boldilocks]

Personally I'm disappointed that Arioch didn't take this chance to force all characters to strip.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Heat is a major problem in Earth orbit due to our proximity to the Sun. In #129, it's mentioned that this is a white dwarf system, which is basically a dead star.

White dwarfs still put out a fair bit of radiation. Some have enough output to have a habitable zone, though it'd be closer to an orbit of 1 million miles than 93 million.

That being said, the shuttle is currently shooting beyond the jump point at break-neck speed. Without a rescue, I'd wager that the bigger problem with heating and cooling is for them to mimic the cooling profile of debris while maintaining a livable atmosphere inside. The exterior of the shuttle may have been flash-heated by the near miss, but in a couple of days, the Umiak that are camping the jump point might look at their sensors and say to themselves, "Huh, this chunk of debris is a different temperature than all the stuff around it, I wonder what it is."

[Arioch]

Apollo 13 got bitterly cold inside when the power went out, so much so that all the moisture inside froze; this despite the fact that it was about 1 AU from the Sun and being directly illuminated. Highland-7 is father than that from a white dwarf with a much lower luminosity than the Sun. I expect the shuttle to get pretty cold.

[orion1836]

[icekatze]

hi hi

The Apollo 13 module didn't freeze on the interior. According to NASA, the lowest temperature recorded was a still pretty cold 43°F, but for most of the trip it fluctuated between 49°F and 55°F

How cold a ship without power, but containing occupants, gets depends a lot on its albedo. A highly reflective craft would have roasted the astronauts alive, but the Apollo command module and lunar module had active and passive radiators. Although the active radiators were shut down without power, the passive radiators still had fluid circulating in the tubes due to temperature differential. (Without any heat generation internally, more reflective objects tend to have a lower equilibrium temperature.)

Without greenhouse gasses, the Earth with it's 36% average reflectivity would have an average surface temperature of about 1.4°F.

So, assuming they can't or don't want to close any passive radiator valves that are meant to keep a ship with a torch drive cool, I wouldn't doubt that it'll get really cold inside.

[Voitan]

Apollo 13 got bitterly cold inside when the power went out, so much so that all the moisture inside froze; this despite the fact that it was about 1 AU from the Sun and being directly illuminated. Highland-7 is father than that from a white dwarf with a much lower luminosity than the Sun. I expect the shuttle to get pretty cold.

Jardin sandwich it is.

[boldilocks]

Apollo 13 got bitterly cold inside when the power went out, so much so that all the moisture inside froze; this despite the fact that it was about 1 AU from the Sun and being directly illuminated. Highland-7 is father than that from a white dwarf with a much lower luminosity than the Sun. I expect the shuttle to get pretty cold.

Jardin sandwich it is.

Behold; he reclines among you, the bringer of light and warmth.

[Krulle]

hi hi

Heat is a major problem in Earth orbit due to our proximity to the Sun. In #129, it's mentioned that this is a white dwarf system, which is basically a dead star.

White dwarfs still put out a fair bit of radiation. Some have enough output to have a habitable zone, though it'd be closer to an orbit of 1 million miles (1,6 million km) than 93 million (150 million kilometer).

That being said, the shuttle is currently shooting beyond the jump point at break-neck speed. Without a rescue, I'd wager that the bigger problem with heating and cooling is for them to mimic the cooling profile of debris while maintaining a livable atmosphere inside. The exterior of the shuttle may have been flash-heated by the near miss, but in a couple of days, the Umiak that are camping the jump point might look at their sensors and say to themselves, "Huh, this chunk of debris is a different temperature than all the stuff around it, I wonder what it is."

Heat is a problem yes, for some surfaces/applications. That's why most spacecraft do a roll when in sunlight, to distribute the heat accordingly.

And a slightly higher temperature might be put down to some automatics running, or even a reactor still running in automagic mode.
Even a trickle energy might explain a lot to the Umiak for a while. Sufficient for a month or so. Plastics can also smolder pretty long, if not extinguished properly (>2 weeks), so they might put some heat generation down to that too. (advantageous for this explanation is a lack of gravity that ensures the oxygen flows not good enough to keep a fire going, but good enough for smouldering cables or the like. Understandably, the ISS planning is not really interested in experiments to see how long a smoldering cable can keep going on smoldering in microgravity.)

If it persists for longer, they might send someone.
But seeing that their sensor abilities should be MUCH MUCH better than ours, they'll observe that hot spot, and might just send a missile to be sure that that runaway reactor will not endanger anyone.
No need to burn fuel to get there.

A couple of days seems short for me, especially since the Umiak are in the middle of a major offense, and likely will try to use the momentum to surprise as many Loroi worlds as possibly, before their defenses and forces are fully organized.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Heat is a problem yes, for some surfaces/applications. That's why most spacecraft do a roll when in sunlight, to distribute the heat accordingly.

This isn't really a consideration here, as it would be very unlikely for any piece of debris to not be tumbling. It's more a matter of average temperature and how long it takes to reach equilibrium temperature. Because cooling slows as the object cools, the objects with a lower equilibrium temperature will cool faster.

Plastics can also smolder pretty long, if not extinguished properly (>2 weeks), so they might put some heat generation down to that too.

I would expect any intact pressure compartment would be noteworthy.

But seeing that their sensor abilities should be MUCH MUCH better than ours, they'll observe that hot spot, and might just send a missile to be sure that that runaway reactor will not endanger anyone.

Their sensors are much, much better than ours, that's why this is such a big deal. The shuttle is counting on them not taking a closer look. If the Umiak see an intact shuttle tumbling through space, even if they assume the occupants are dead, that would be a relatively valuable thing to capture.

A couple of days seems short for me, especially since the Umiak are in the middle of a major offense, and likely will try to use the momentum to surprise as many Loroi worlds as possibly, before their defenses and forces are fully organized.

If Stillstorm's analysis on page 127 is accurate, and I have every reason to believe it is, then the groups that were sent to the jump points were sent there to suppress them, not to push further into Loroi territory. The main body is the spearhead, those other groups are going to loiter at the jump points and try to crush anyone who tries to come from behind.

[kiwi]

Well, there will be some chunks of that station floating around. (I assume it's, regrettably, been blown apart by this point.)

I guess a relevant question at this point is, what powers a station? Would you use some kind of antimatter or something nuclear. Antimatter will be denser, but fusion fuels are safer to store and can be carefully sucked out of gas giants. Maybe some stations are large industrial facilities where they run very large fusion reactors to make the antimatter (which is not naturally abundant, for reasons we don't understand).

Stations are large and don't need as much delta V (measure of how long * how hard they can accelerate) as ships, so this might be a good place for a 'boring' fusion reactor. If the fusion processes release any neutrons then the reactor vessel will be somewhat activated, and the remaining debris will be warm for a while.

If the station included a fission reactor (not as dumb as it might sound; they are easier to make than the fusion reactors we can think of and extremely power dense), then chunks of the core will be toasty warm (and extremely dangerous) for months. After some months, these chunks will then move down to warm and merely highly dangerous for a few years.

[Arioch]

The station was blown apart by high-energy explosions, so the debris will be extremely hot and highly radioactive. But given the speed of the shuttle and the scale of the distances, I think interaction with station debris is very unlikely past a few minutes after the explosion.

The station's powerplant was a taimat reactor (essentially an artificial equivalent of antimatter).

[asaenvolk]

All known anti-mater past the random atom or two is artificial, so in a since its really just a battery, the power to make that anti0mater has to be produced somewhere.

[icekatze]

hi hi

We've observed some naturally occurring anti-matter. Positrons are occasionally produced in lightning strikes, are present in some cosmic rays, and will sometimes be produced in the magnetic fields surrounding stellar bodies. It's not exactly random.

Taimat is, presumably, something that was created without a real world analogue to imitate.

[asaenvolk]

That would still be artificial production and within the bounds of what I was referring too (unless you can by some miracle harvest the fettosecond lasting positrons form lighting), the upshot of which means you could still have very close solar stations who harvest light and magnetic fields from suns to create truly vast amounts of power to produce antimatter or something like is as a power storage medium.

You could also use micro-black holes (in a number of ways)
Or vacuum energy (may be)

Ultimately, on a fundamental science level, any option you are going to use is going to likely be wrong, writing true "Hard science fiction" isn't possible past only a few decades in the future, but the point is "what might be"

[icekatze]

hi hi

I guess I'm not sure what the distinction you're trying to make is. Pretty much any fuel used by a space faring civilization is going to be processed in some way. Even if someone is scooping hydrogen from a gas giant to fuse, they'd need to refine it.

I can only speak for myself and wouldn't want to put words in anyone else's mouth, but I had interpreted the point being related to Taimat being designed instead of copied. A genetically engineered life form might behave similar to a natural one, and might even be made of the same components, even if a natural life form can be cloned there's a distinction.

[DevilDalek]

What's the betting the Barsham Courier cockblocks poor Alex..

[boldilocks]

What's the betting the Barsham Courier cockblocks poor Alex..

Your chastity must be preserved, little brother!