Re: Looking for sources on day to day life aboard ship


"Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1177773427.588378.136000@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Apr 28, 11:51 am, Mark Borgerson <mborger...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <1177758449.723...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, a...@xxxxxxxxxx says...



In article <UCFYh.2361$JF6.990@edtnps90>,
Arved Sandstrom <asandst...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Derek Lyons" <fairwa...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4632241b.611610750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Arved Sandstrom" <asandst...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

2) huge amounts of non-manning. The idea of both giant military
spacecraft
(a la SF) and large crews just don't make much sense,

Your most efficient spacecraft will be ones with no human crew at
all,
essentially just weapons with mobility.

You treat these as if they were facts Arved - when they are actually
assumptions.

I did introduce the entire exposition with the phrase "the military
situation might develop as follows".

Everything after a qualifier like that should be taken as a guess or
assumption, and so my thoughts were meant.

I think I may have found you the crew for your interstellar combatant
[1]:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6600965.stm

Now, I'm aware that some will quibble that uploaded mice lack the
military
virtues, but I'm sure everyone will agree that uploading cats would be
a
really, really bad move [2].

Cats have an historically important role in interstellar navigation in
science fiction. See the work of Cordwainer Smith:

""The Game of Rat and Dragon" in The Rediscovery of Man.

Sf. One of the Instrumentality of Man stories. As men colonize the
stars, they are menaced by shapes in the darkness that humans know as
"dragons" and cats know as "rats." People called pinlighters work with
telepathic cats at protecting their starships from this menace, but what
does it imply for their ability to relate to other people? For cat-
lovers: one of his best, and requires almost no background."

http://pegasus.cityofveils.com/sffst-rt.phtml



[1] or, at least, something that leads to them..
[2] They might be implemented in a computer environment, they might
think
much faster than before, but they're still dam' cats, with the urge to
pounce on small squeaky things and tormet them. And from the PoV of a
fully-tooled-up military starship, //everything// will look small and
sqeaky..

Mark Borgerson

This would seem to be the point to suggest that the highly unusual
ability to herd cats might become an important factor in interstellar
exploration. There are project managers who claim this ability today,
but putting vanity to the test would separate the mensch from the
boyos.


Speaking of starships .... it looks like "Scotty" is headed out to the Final
Frontier today:

http://www.ctv.ca:80/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070428/star_trek_070428/20070428?hub=Entertainment&s_name
Ashes of Star Trek's "Scotty" head to space today
Updated Sat. Apr. 28 2007 8:54 AM ET

Associated Press

EL PASO, Texas -- If all goes as planned Saturday, the cremated remains of
the actor who portrayed "Scotty" aboard Star Trek's starship Enterprise will
sail into suborbital space aboard a rocket launched from the southern New
Mexico desert.

Actor James Doohan's remains, along with those of Apollo 7 astronaut Gordon
Cooper and about 200 others, are aboard the second private rocket scheduled
to be launched at Spaceport America, a commercial spaceport being developed
in Upham, N.M.

UP Aerospace Inc. of Farmington, Conn., launched the first rocket from the
desert site in September. But that Spaceloft XL rocket crashed into the
rugged desert after spiraling out of control about nine seconds after
liftoff.

Company officials blamed the failure on a faulty fin design. A Spaceloft
SL-2 rocket, with a fourth fin added for stability, will carry the cremains,
which were loaded into the rocket last month.

Family members paid $495 to place a few grams of their relatives' ashes on
the rocket. Celestis, a Texas company, contracted with UP to send the
cremated remains into space.

Charles Chafer, chief executive of Celestis, said last month that a CD with
more than 11,000 condolences and fan notes was placed on the rocket with
Doohan's cremains.

Doohan died in July 2005, at age 85. The remains of Gene Roddenberry, who
created "Star Trek," were sent into space in 1997.

Saturday's launch from the fledgling spaceport -- currently a 100-foot by
25-foot concrete slab in a patch of desert more than 50 miles north of Las
Cruces -- continues to keep the New Mexico project ahead of its nearest
competitor in the West Texas desert.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, is said to be developing a spaceport
north of Van Horn, Texas. Bezos' Blue Origin is working to develop manned
spaceflight for space tourists.

British billionaire Richard Branson also has announced plans to launch a
space tourism company, which is expected to have its headquarters at the New
Mexico spaceport.






.

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