In case you missed it: I am one of the guests on the most recent Girlamatic podcast! A whole bunch of my favourite Girlamatic artists and writers came to participate, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to chat with them.
So… i’m guessing a ‘core’ in Galaxioverse is not just the usual Apollo Service Module, or engineering deck, or server farm, or maintenance warren of Jefferies Tubes… but some kind of extremely sensitive sealed vault/crypt for emergency survival purposes? What else is in there apart from ship computer backups? Emergency life support? Weapons?
Interesting concept that I’d love to see developed more. I’m not used to the idea of a highly critical area on a ship which is never constantly checked or visited. I would have thought the more critical a section was, the more servicing it would get. Plus, our spaceships (or even our water ships) really don’t have anything like the heaps of spare mass and volume which Galaxioverse ships seem to comfortably have. What’s drive technology like? Is it something not mass-dependent?
But I’ve often wondered about long-term safety of starships that rely on computers (ie for navigation and life support and flight control). What is it like to be a sysadmin on a network where if it stops, you stop breathing? Probably the Shuttle’s flight computer or Windows for Warships come close…
Nate: I was assuming that the “core” was referring to some sort of engine core, perhaps only visited when the ship is in drydock for repairs. It may be a dangerous place to visit when the ship is in operations and the engines are running.
Nate, bearing in mind that I make no claims on being able to write proper “hard SF”, my vision of a typical ship’s Core is very much like a black box, something that you want to keep safe but not touch unless things go dreadfully wrong. There are many layers of backup systems and fail-safes on board these ships to keep everyone breathing, and the Core is like the final backup.
And yes, isn’t it wonderful how the ships in the Galaxioverse have space to waste? We used to joke about how they’d build three tennis courts and a bowling alley in there somewhere, just because they can. How do they do it? Good question!
As a Mac user, the term “Windows for Warships” only makes me shake my head sadly. Snow Leopard for Starships, now that’s the way to go!
Insectoid– well, to imagine yourself in Scavina’s shoes, she is on the cusp of finally discovering the fate of her husband (and the rest of the crew of the Hiawatha), who many have believed to be dead these past ten years, and now she’s walking through the abandoned site of the last place she saw him alive. Despite the good news of having found the Hiawatha at last, for all she knows he could have died in the crash. Did she come all this way only to lose him anyway? So yeah, she’s tense, and is a little less patient with Zan than she might otherwise be. On the other hand, Zan is also yakking too much.
Stewart, Tara, and company: it’s worse than you think. Ticonderoga class missile cruisers have(had) their propulsion plants run on Windows NT. About ten years ago someone goofed a decimal place and literally shut down their ship for two hours while they figured out what went wrong.
It’s probably a good idea to keep esoteric things like FTL systems as vague as possible just on general principal. But for an example of how you deal with a critical space you can’t go into, the reactor compartment back on the Ustafish had several windows you could use to look inside and make sure everything looked okay. Now, because you couldn’t have a direct line of sight to the reactor (for obvious reasons), your window was eight to ten inches thick leaded glass that looked at a mirror that you could tilt and traverse around. We also had remote sensors like bilge alarms and an air sniffer that constantly sampled the air from the RC for radioactivity. Even though this was effectively 1960s technology, it is reliable, and more importantly, not reliant on computers/software built by the lowest bidder.
J. Wilde: Neat! I’ve always been fascinated by US naval reactors. What happened – hypothetically speaking – if you looked inside through that eight-inch-thick window and found things weren’t so happy?
I think if I lived on a nuclear submarine I would need new pants regularly.
Nate: Well, it would depend on the nature of the unhappiness. Fires, steam leaks, and primary coolant leaks are all pretty bad. Hopefully you are in port and shutdown so that you can go in there and deal with a fire like you would any other shipboard fire (the exception being that you’d have to do a whole body radioactive contamination survey of yourself and everything you brought inside with you before you could leave the RC). A steam leak can be dealt with remotely by blowing the contents of the leaking Steam Generator overboard – the valves to do this are safely outside the shielded volume of the Reactor Compartment. A primary coolant leak is hopefully in a part of the system you can isolate, and that too can be discharged overboard or to onboard retention tanks from outside the RC. If not, the provision exists to keep the core covered with water up to and including the point where you flood the entire compartment up to the top of the reactor vessel – but at that point the boat’s probably a write-off…
Insectoid: Thank you for remembering I exist, even if I haven’t had my fair share of screen time lately! Don’t mind me, I’m only a disembodied voice over a com link. Just because I’m wearing a track in the newly polished bridge floors, pacing and worrying about my crew down there on this wierd Earth-look-a-like planet. General Nelson can’t POSSIBLY take as good care of them as I would!
Stewart, Tara, and company: it’s worse than you think. Ticonderoga class missile cruisers have(had) their propulsion plants run on Windows NT. About ten years ago someone goofed a decimal place and literally shut down their ship for two hours while they figured out what went wrong.
I actually remember hearing about something like this in a Computer Science class I once took. Of course, the professor pronounced it “Windells,” but …
Shipboard nuclear reactors sound like brown trousers time to me, as well.
Eh, believe me, you have no idea how over-engineered the Navy’s reactors are. The reactor was orders of magnitude more reliable than say, our air conditioning plants… The Navy’s steamed more than 100,000,000 miles on nuclear power with no reactor accidents. And I got less radiation exposure at sea on nuclear power than I did in port with the reactor shut down.
I’m gonna want one of those extender thingies.
So… i’m guessing a ‘core’ in Galaxioverse is not just the usual Apollo Service Module, or engineering deck, or server farm, or maintenance warren of Jefferies Tubes… but some kind of extremely sensitive sealed vault/crypt for emergency survival purposes? What else is in there apart from ship computer backups? Emergency life support? Weapons?
Interesting concept that I’d love to see developed more. I’m not used to the idea of a highly critical area on a ship which is never constantly checked or visited. I would have thought the more critical a section was, the more servicing it would get. Plus, our spaceships (or even our water ships) really don’t have anything like the heaps of spare mass and volume which Galaxioverse ships seem to comfortably have. What’s drive technology like? Is it something not mass-dependent?
But I’ve often wondered about long-term safety of starships that rely on computers (ie for navigation and life support and flight control). What is it like to be a sysadmin on a network where if it stops, you stop breathing? Probably the Shuttle’s flight computer or Windows for Warships come close…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMCS
Nate: I was assuming that the “core” was referring to some sort of engine core, perhaps only visited when the ship is in drydock for repairs. It may be a dangerous place to visit when the ship is in operations and the engines are running.
The phrase “Wndows for Warships” drives terror into my soul.
Scavina seems a little on edge. Zan is yakking a little too much, I guess. Either that or because of the flashback.
Hello, David! Yes, that makes sense to me. Seems like a good place to keep the “black box”.
“Windows for Warships”?? *runs screaming*
I have this image of the Blue Screen of Death coming up in Windows for Warships and there can be absolutely no good to come as a result.
Beware Generals who stand with arms crossed. They are not pleased.
Nate, bearing in mind that I make no claims on being able to write proper “hard SF”, my vision of a typical ship’s Core is very much like a black box, something that you want to keep safe but not touch unless things go dreadfully wrong. There are many layers of backup systems and fail-safes on board these ships to keep everyone breathing, and the Core is like the final backup.
And yes, isn’t it wonderful how the ships in the Galaxioverse have space to waste? We used to joke about how they’d build three tennis courts and a bowling alley in there somewhere, just because they can. How do they do it? Good question!
As a Mac user, the term “Windows for Warships” only makes me shake my head sadly. Snow Leopard for Starships, now that’s the way to go!
Insectoid– well, to imagine yourself in Scavina’s shoes, she is on the cusp of finally discovering the fate of her husband (and the rest of the crew of the Hiawatha), who many have believed to be dead these past ten years, and now she’s walking through the abandoned site of the last place she saw him alive. Despite the good news of having found the Hiawatha at last, for all she knows he could have died in the crash. Did she come all this way only to lose him anyway? So yeah, she’s tense, and is a little less patient with Zan than she might otherwise be. On the other hand, Zan is also yakking too much.
Stewart, Tara, and company: it’s worse than you think. Ticonderoga class missile cruisers have(had) their propulsion plants run on Windows NT. About ten years ago someone goofed a decimal place and literally shut down their ship for two hours while they figured out what went wrong.
It’s probably a good idea to keep esoteric things like FTL systems as vague as possible just on general principal. But for an example of how you deal with a critical space you can’t go into, the reactor compartment back on the Ustafish had several windows you could use to look inside and make sure everything looked okay. Now, because you couldn’t have a direct line of sight to the reactor (for obvious reasons), your window was eight to ten inches thick leaded glass that looked at a mirror that you could tilt and traverse around. We also had remote sensors like bilge alarms and an air sniffer that constantly sampled the air from the RC for radioactivity. Even though this was effectively 1960s technology, it is reliable, and more importantly, not reliant on computers/software built by the lowest bidder.
Tara: I totally knew that; I must be suffering from page-a-week-itis!
Also: hi, Wendy! We’ll see Fusella again sometime soon I hope.
J. Wilde: Okay, that’s scary.
J. Wilde: Neat! I’ve always been fascinated by US naval reactors. What happened – hypothetically speaking – if you looked inside through that eight-inch-thick window and found things weren’t so happy?
I think if I lived on a nuclear submarine I would need new pants regularly.
Nate: Well, it would depend on the nature of the unhappiness. Fires, steam leaks, and primary coolant leaks are all pretty bad. Hopefully you are in port and shutdown so that you can go in there and deal with a fire like you would any other shipboard fire (the exception being that you’d have to do a whole body radioactive contamination survey of yourself and everything you brought inside with you before you could leave the RC). A steam leak can be dealt with remotely by blowing the contents of the leaking Steam Generator overboard – the valves to do this are safely outside the shielded volume of the Reactor Compartment. A primary coolant leak is hopefully in a part of the system you can isolate, and that too can be discharged overboard or to onboard retention tanks from outside the RC. If not, the provision exists to keep the core covered with water up to and including the point where you flood the entire compartment up to the top of the reactor vessel – but at that point the boat’s probably a write-off…
Insectoid: Thank you for remembering I exist, even if I haven’t had my fair share of screen time lately! Don’t mind me, I’m only a disembodied voice over a com link. Just because I’m wearing a track in the newly polished bridge floors, pacing and worrying about my crew down there on this wierd Earth-look-a-like planet. General Nelson can’t POSSIBLY take as good care of them as I would!
Stewart, Tara, and company: it’s worse than you think. Ticonderoga class missile cruisers have(had) their propulsion plants run on Windows NT. About ten years ago someone goofed a decimal place and literally shut down their ship for two hours while they figured out what went wrong.
I actually remember hearing about something like this in a Computer Science class I once took. Of course, the professor pronounced it “Windells,” but …
Shipboard nuclear reactors sound like brown trousers time to me, as well.
Eh, believe me, you have no idea how over-engineered the Navy’s reactors are. The reactor was orders of magnitude more reliable than say, our air conditioning plants… The Navy’s steamed more than 100,000,000 miles on nuclear power with no reactor accidents. And I got less radiation exposure at sea on nuclear power than I did in port with the reactor shut down.
Perhaps Fusella will make a Halloween cameo.
Hmmm… is that a request?
Think of it as a polite suggestion from that disembodied voice…