What happens to all that debris?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:The velocity of the ships is why it is described as hemispherical, because that base velocity is greater than any velocity imparted by the explosion; so for an observer at the point of the explosion, all the pieces are moving away with a forward component (none with backward motion). Is is only from the moving point discussed about that it appears spherical. From that point all the debris is moving radially outward, not in random directions; except for those pieces that have collided with space junk. The collisions between pieces of debris can be ignored, because momentum is still conserved, so they are still headed outward.

That I don't agree with. I mean, your explanation that from the point of view of someone who is at rest relative to the primary at the point where the ships exploded, the debris field is moving away at the speed it had when it exploded. But that does not translate that the shape of the expansion is hemispherical, exactly because the velocities imparted by the explosions are so much smaller than the base velocity of thousands of km/s.

That is to say, while there is no piece of debris that has a velocity vector (relative to the primary or orbital velocities) pointing backwards, the shape of the blob remains spherical. The shape isn't determined by the base velocity[*], but instead by the relative velocities between components. The shape is the same for everyone, regardless of their frame of reference.

[*] Except, of course, if relativistic effects are relevant. If the relative base velocity is great enough that space contraction becomes pronounced, the shape won't be a rough spherical blob, but instead a rough ellipsoidal blob (not an ellipsoid of revolution; I don't know if this 3D geometric shape has a name).

You are right, I was trying to fudge an answer for whoever first said hemispherical.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:If the debris front is a million kilometers across now, then the explosions of the five ships can be treated as a point source to a high degree of accuracy (since they were within a few hundred kilometers of each other).

That's almost touching wedges. The separation between ships in a formation was never explicitly mentioned, was it?

Even if they were about a thousand kilometers apart, at a million kilometers that is still a good approximation. I was only indicating the orders of magnitude involved.

tlb wrote:You are right, I was trying to fudge an answer for whoever first said hemispherical.

It's in the text. But in terms of authors getting geometry wrong, this is fairly minor, inconsequential and lost among the overwhelming number of rights. Not like William Shatner saying 4 Borg cubes joining together to form a bigger cube in The Return...

You know, in the case of searching for dead pods, perhaps a pod can be made of some special metal that interacts with a special laser mounted on shuttles. There are certain metals, reflective metals, which reflect back the wavelength directed at them. Or, and a combination of, phosphorescent materials which will glow after you shine light on them. It may help in the search for dead pods.

The beacon in pods should have the ability of being recharged by solar panels when possible. I'm sure the Honorverse has durable solar panels.

cthia wrote:You know, in the case of searching for dead pods, perhaps a pod can be made of some special metal that interacts with a special laser mounted on shuttles. There are certain metals, reflective metals, which reflect back the wavelength directed at them. Or, and a combination of, phosphorescent materials which will glow after you shine light on them. It may help in the search for desd pods.

The beacon in pods should have the ability of being recharged by solar panels when possible. I'm sure the Honorverse has durable solar panels.

Though a lot of the time a pod would be too far from the nearest star for solar panels of any practical size to provide useful power. Plus the power to run the beacon has got to be a fraction of the power needed to run life support. Is it really useful for a beacon to operate for weeks longer than anybody could survive?
The pods that haven't had working beacons weren't because they ran down their batteries; it's because damage knocked out the beacon or the electrical system. Solar panels to recharge things won't help with either of those scenarios.

Still, since they might be useful occasionally, and they're probably cheap enough, the pods probably do carry solar panels even if most of the time they wouldn't help.


And I'd guess radar reflectors are more likely than optical reflectors/fluorescing coatings. Space is vast an an optically fluorescing pod is still going to be very hard to see at any distance. But one that can magnify its apparent size on radar, through passive corner reflectors, is going to show up on relatively long range sensors rather than the shorter ranged optical ones.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:You know, in the case of searching for dead pods, perhaps a pod can be made of some special metal that interacts with a special laser mounted on shuttles. There are certain metals, reflective metals, which reflect back the wavelength directed at them. Or, and a combination of, phosphorescent materials which will glow after you shine light on them. It may help in the search for dead pods.

The beacon in pods should have the ability of being recharged by solar panels when possible. I'm sure the Honorverse has durable solar panels.

Though a lot of the time a pod would be too far from the nearest star for solar panels of any practical size to provide useful power. Plus the power to run the beacon has got to be a fraction of the power needed to run life support. Is it really useful for a beacon to operate for weeks longer than anybody could survive?
The pods that haven't had working beacons weren't because they ran down their batteries; it's because damage knocked out the beacon or the electrical system. Solar panels to recharge things won't help with either of those scenarios.

Still, since they might be useful occasionally, and they're probably cheap enough, the pods probably do carry solar panels even if most of the time they wouldn't help.


And I'd guess radar reflectors are more likely than optical reflectors/fluorescing coatings. Space is vast an an optically fluorescing pod is still going to be very hard to see at any distance. But one that can magnify its apparent size on radar, through passive corner reflectors, is going to show up on relatively long range sensors rather than the shorter ranged optical ones.

The beacon should at least last as long as the skinsuit. Textev says a skinsuit's endurance is far above that of a pod's. Textev gave that info during the recovery of the Admiral, so I assume their pod died of natural causes, in a system where the sun could have been a factor. And, I'm talking about running the beacon only, not life support. You still want to recover dead bodies to send home to families.

I was thinking about specially designed lasers that may overcome some of those drawbacks, but, powering IT would become a problem after a very short time, even if the other drawbacks could be overcome. And, of course, I was thinking about using it in addition to, not instead of. Even short range where it appears to be a pod but rush hour traffic isn't exactly amenable.

Thanks. Just thinking about the poor hapless person in a pod. Especially a claustrophobic civilian. Noone has to raise their hand.

Thanks.

Textev verifies there were no more active beacons leading up to the Admiral's pod ...

There were no live transponders left. There hadn’t been, for almost an hour now. All the active beacons had been intercepted, and they weren’t going to find any more of their star system’s saviors alive. But it didn’t matter. Not to Paulette Kilgore.

Yep, it seems like my little brainstorm might be of assistance. Even here they've switched to a more manual and visible search for what they aren't sure is a pod. The Admiral's pod. Some other not so conscientious teams may have given up too soon. Some cheaply available low-tech solutions could help when you have to fallback to the cheaper form of searching with the naked eye. Like now.

She knew that wasn’t really so. She was on the ragged edge of collapse, Asteria was low on fuel, and they were eleven light-minutes from home. Whatever she and Debnam wanted—needed—to do, they had to turn back soon. At least they knew the wreckage’s vector, and System Patrol had planted huge radar reflectors and active transponder buoys in the heart of the field. Maybe the Manty Navy would be able to complete the work Paulette Kilgore would have to leave undone, after all. Maybe. She hoped so. But in the meantime—

“Got it!” Debnam said suddenly. “Coming up on your Number Three now.” Kilgore looked at the indicated display, slaved to the optical head Debnam had been using to search visually for their target. All she saw for a moment was the dim, almost imperceptible glow of reflected sunlight, but then Debnam zoomed in, and her weary eyes narrowed.

“It is a pod, Paulette!” Debnam said.

“Yeah, but it looks bad,” she replied. Not only was there no beacon, but even the running lights designed to guide searchers visually to it were dead. Nor did their passives detect any EM signature from it at all.

Doesn’t mean anything, she told herself doggedly. Only been four or five hours. Pod may be dead, but Navy skinsuits’re good for a lot longer than that on internal resources, and the pod’s rad and heat shielding’d hide their signatures. If somebody got aboard it in the first place, she might still be—

cthia wrote:You know, in the case of searching for dead pods, perhaps a pod can be made of some special metal that interacts with a special laser mounted on shuttles. There are certain metals, reflective metals, which reflect back the wavelength directed at them. Or, and a combination of, phosphorescent materials which will glow after you shine light on them. It may help in the search for dead pods.

The beacon in pods should have the ability of being recharged by solar panels when possible. I'm sure the Honorverse has durable solar panels.

US Military parachutes fluoresce in a specific wavelength visible in low light military scopes when the correct wavelength of a laser is applied to them - this is designed specifically for SAR operations like we are discussing. I believe the Navy might have the same on their personal life rafts and water die markers.

I see no reason a passive system like this doesn't exist for SAR in the future, though no specific passive mechanism has been mentioned.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:You know, in the case of searching for dead pods, perhaps a pod can be made of some special metal that interacts with a special laser mounted on shuttles. There are certain metals, reflective metals, which reflect back the wavelength directed at them. Or, and a combination of, phosphorescent materials which will glow after you shine light on them. It may help in the search for dead pods.

The beacon in pods should have the ability of being recharged by solar panels when possible. I'm sure the Honorverse has durable solar panels.

US Military parachutes fluoresce in a specific wavelength visible in low light military scopes when the correct wavelength of a laser is applied to them - this is designed specifically for SAR operations like we are discussing. I believe the Navy might have the same on their personal life rafts and water die markers.

I see no reason a passive system like this doesn't exist for SAR in the future, though no specific passive mechanism has been mentioned.

Thanks Theemile! I wasn't aware the tech already exists, although it seems almost intuitive. I'm certain the Honorverse can improve upon it and adapt it to SAR.

It should have many applications now. Extreme sports could use the tech to find hurt and lost hikers, climbers, etc., who are wearing the tech.

cthia wrote:It should have many applications now. Extreme sports could use the tech to find hurt and lost hikers, climbers, etc., who are wearing the tech.

This points to the same difficulty that would apply to pods: they may not be out in the open. Inside a field of debris, it may be obscured by other floatsam. Pods will also have been hit by small particles, which tear out the reflective coating and pit the surface. That means there will be false positive reflections from what got chipped away and reduced reflection from the pod itself.

That is to say that the coating is not a 100% proof solution. It's a very good idea and I hope either RFC reads this and figures out how to insert into the narrative or BuNine retcons it, but it will still require Paulettes with determination to find all possible survivors.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:It should have many applications now. Extreme sports could use the tech to find hurt and lost hikers, climbers, etc., who are wearing the tech.

This points to the same difficulty that would apply to pods: they may not be out in the open. Inside a field of debris, it may be obscured by other floatsam. Pods will also have been hit by small particles, which tear out the reflective coating and pit the surface. That means there will be false positive reflections from what got chipped away and reduced reflection from the pod itself.

That is to say that the coating is not a 100% proof solution. It's a very good idea and I hope either RFC reads this and figures out how to insert into the narrative or BuNine retcons it, but it will still require Paulettes with determination to find all possible survivors.

Oh yes, I agree. It will always take Paulettes and, let's not forget, Debnams. But perhaps with this tech the end result will be a few more pods going home. During my first read through, I wondered if there was just one more pod with someone alive who wasn't picked up.

Damaged coatings is why I proposed using specific metals as well. Even if a reflective metal is damaged, it will still send back the same wavelength. Reflectivity is a function of shape and metal. It is the phosphorescent coating which I suggested could be applied to the metal that can be chipped away. Even then, I imagine Honorverse bonding techniques can handle that as well. Child's play for the demonic duo.

****** *

Something about the following passage confuses me. It implies the beacon uses more power than the running lights. I would think the opposite. Obviously I'm wrong. Nonetheless, I was thinking that a beacon and the running lights are activated immediately after launch. If a backup beacon could be activated by the SAR team, it would help tremendously. It seems a pod is broadcasting and wasting power for a long time before someone is actually looking for it.

“Yeah, but it looks bad,” she replied. Not only was there no beacon, but even the running lights designed to guide searchers visually to it were dead. Nor did their passives detect any EM signature from it at all.

Also, how do pods get launched empty?