What happens to all that debris?

tlb wrote:Once you admit that there can be people in skin suits then I wonder about the utility of a black box. They can be engineered to survive a small explosion, but there are those that they will not survive.

kzt wrote:"Dr Taylor says in The Curve of Binding Energy (by McPhee) that the idea stemmed from the 15.2 kt REDWING-INCA nuclear test on June 26, 1956, where 30 cm diameter carbon-coated steel balls were placed 9 meters from the bomb by researcher Lew Allen, and were undamaged with only a loss of 0.1 mm of surface graphite."

So a properly engineered design can be very damn survivable. Not saying it's necessarily a good idea...

And we once had a member of this forum that would ridicule anyone who stated that something could be vaporized by an atomic blast. However in the Honorverse there are more destructive things: such as grasers or wedges that can reduce anything to its component atoms (except for another wedge). Further, it is not just the black box that has to survive, but also its communication links (until the last pod is out) in the face of battle damage and current surges. The carbon coated balls did not have to have service panels and data ports which needed to continue working.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:Once you admit that there can be people in skin suits then I wonder about the utility of a black box. They can be engineered to survive a small explosion, but there are those that they will not survive.

kzt wrote:"Dr Taylor says in The Curve of Binding Energy (by McPhee) that the idea stemmed from the 15.2 kt REDWING-INCA nuclear test on June 26, 1956, where 30 cm diameter carbon-coated steel balls were placed 9 meters from the bomb by researcher Lew Allen, and were undamaged with only a loss of 0.1 mm of surface graphite."

So a properly engineered design can be very damn survivable. Not saying it's necessarily a good idea...

And we once had a member of this forum that would ridicule anyone who stated that something could be vaporized by an atomic blast. However in the Honorverse there are more destructive things: such as grasers or wedges that can reduce anything to its component atoms (except for another wedge). Further, it is not just the black box that has to survive, but also its communication links (until the last pod is out) in the face of battle damage and current surges. The carbon coated balls did not have to have service panels and data ports which needed to continue working.

There are certainly pros and cons to the idea. It seems like for every pro I could think of, there seemed to be four times as many cons, which is why I "toyed" with the idea for so long. I only mentioned it now in passing.

I don't think it can be argued how much of a help it could be if such technology did exist in the HV, and if most of the cons were ironed out.

I think the communication link being cut is a real possibility. So, undoubtedly the number of people who made it out may be significantly understated. However, using ThinksMarkedly's N number of people reading on the output. It would still be a help if less than half of N has been found. It is how you look at it. N should be used as the minimum number of recovered pods, not the maximum number. So, if 500 pods are listed as survived and you only found 400...

I also do not think the black box should leave the ship until manually ejected or the ship explodes. Being able to survive a blast is why it is engineered that way. Of course, there may be times the box won't survive, but that will leave S&R in no worse for wear than before.

And, I agree it may not be a good idea in certain cases. Like when the SLN were firing on pods at Hypatia. I can imagine the asshole who eventually got his head handed to him giving an order to retrieve the box to get an accurate count on the sitting ducks. And no, I don't think the boxes should be encrypted and should be readily available to the enemy. After all, military law says an enemy must rescue pods. Pods should not be used to hide classified secrets, or be a recording to a battle. At any rate, I can imagine wars starting over a black box.

cthia wrote:Pods should not be used to hide classified secrets, or be a recording to a battle. At any rate, I can imagine wars starting over a black box.

It is not useful to have the black box in a pod, not even the last pod to be ejected; because then you have another something to be found, before you know what needs to be found. Ideally the black box should be attached to what is likeliest the biggest piece of the ship to survive; perhaps two with duplicate data firmly attached near each end of the ship.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Pods should not be used to hide classified secrets, or be a recording to a battle. At any rate, I can imagine wars starting over a black box.

It is not useful to have the black box in a pod, not even the last pod to be ejected; because then you have another something to be found, before you know what needs to be found. Ideally the black box should be attached to what is likeliest the biggest piece of the ship to survive; perhaps two with duplicate data firmly attached near each end of the ship.

I see, and you may be right. But I wasn't thinking that the black box should be "in" a pod. But the entire pod itself is the black box. After all, pods are engineered to be really robust and survivable, and to return to the planet and land. So, in theory, if undamaged, the black box can find you, instead of you finding it. That would also help when or if there is enough time for everyone to have made it out alive, then the "black box" can be launched. Also, I don't think engineering something to be a different shape from the pods should be recommended. At any rate, pods already have a lot of utility onboard, and are obviously quite survivable and autonomous. Why reinvent the wheel? Just make the wheel more survivable since you can lose the life support and use the room normally occupied by people to make it even more survivable.

cthia wrote:I think the communication link being cut is a real possibility. So, undoubtedly the number of people who made it out may be significantly understated. However, using ThinksMarkedly's N number of people reading on the output. It would still be a help if less than half of N has been found. It is how you look at it. N should be used as the minimum number of recovered pods, not the maximum number. So, if 500 pods are listed as survived and you only found 400...

My point is that the information doesn't change what you're going to do. If the box lists 500 pods as having been ejected and you've found 400, you're going to keep searching. If the box lists 300 pods as having been ejected and you've already found 400, you're going to keep searching too!

Communication links getting cut is a problem that could make the number be lower than it actually was. We can also get the reverse: the sensors in the pods having received damage that makes them think the pod is no longer there, so the black box registers the pod as having ejected. That would mean the count is higher than what it really is.

tlb wrote: The carbon coated balls did not have to have service panels and data ports which needed to continue working.

Everything in the Honorvese is built with nano-scale additive manufacturing. There are no panels, just ports that the metal fully locks in place. And they might not even be on the surface, you could easily use low power x-ray lasers and broadcast power to communicate with the electronics.

kzt wrote:Everything in the Honorvese is built with nano-scale additive manufacturing. There are no panels, just ports that the metal fully locks in place. And they might not even be on the surface, you could easily use low power x-ray lasers and broadcast power to communicate with the electronics.

If they can receive power and/or signals through their coatings via EM emissions, then they can receive a massive blast when a graser shot crashes down on the ship and fries everything.

tlb wrote:The carbon coated balls did not have to have service panels and data ports which needed to continue working.

kzt wrote:Everything in the Honorvese is built with nano-scale additive manufacturing. There are no panels, just ports that the metal fully locks in place. And they might not even be on the surface, you could easily use low power x-ray lasers and broadcast power to communicate with the electronics.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If they can receive power and/or signals through their coatings via EM emissions, then they can receive a massive blast when a graser shot crashes down on the ship and fries everything.

We know from the books than Manticoran naval technicians can, and do, replace components during maintenance; so unless this black box is intended to be replaced in total when something goes bad, there will be service access plates. From Echoes of Honor, chapter 39:

"Of course," McKeon murmured, "we only have his logs' word for the fact that he actually performed any maintenance checks. He could have falsified them. God knows it wouldn't be the first time someone did that to get out of a little work!"
"I know," Longmont said, her expression as troubled as Gonsalves' had been. "And the fact that he didn't log a single component replacement is certainly suspicious. According to his records he worked on—what?" She consulted her own memo pad. "Here it is. According to his log sheets, he up-checked fourteen sets of battle armor . . . and he did all that without finding a single faulty component?"

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If they can receive power and/or signals through their coatings via EM emissions, then they can receive a massive blast when a graser shot crashes down on the ship and fries everything.

It's done communicating when the part of the ship around it is all blown up.

kzt wrote:It's done communicating when the part of the ship around it is all blown up.

Maybe the ship didn't blow entirely up. HMS Phoenix was a total wreck after the Volsungs Advance Force's first wave, but it still had one airtight compartment. If Locatelli and Osterman hadn't died when the laser fired, they might have evacuated via pods.

And even if it's in pieces, pods may still be viable. So the blackbox readings aren't very useful.