What happens to all that debris?

cthia wrote:As a matter of fact, somewhere in this very thread several people suggested a tactic that is used today. A fluorescent coating that glows when a certain spectrum of light hits it. It could be used to find hikers, mountain climbers, avalanche victims, etc. At any rate, the normal S&R gear would be included as standard, but not necessarily any specific hardware. And since this is the Cerberrus system during the Peep's reign, who is to say how prepared they were.

This has the R^4 problem, useless at the sort of range we are talking about.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

cthia wrote:As a matter of fact, somewhere in this very thread several people suggested a tactic that is used today. A fluorescent coating that glows when a certain spectrum of light hits it. It could be used to find hikers, mountain climbers, avalanche victims, etc. At any rate, the normal S&R gear would be included as standard, but not necessarily any specific hardware. And since this is the Cerberrus system during the Peep's reign, who is to say how prepared they were.

This has the R^4 problem, useless at the sort of range we are talking about.

I'm very surprised that
1) Life boats don't have a mylar sail for power collection/ signal collection/transmission.
2) part of the lifeboat kit / SAR kit is SAR balloon - essentially a collar with life support, communication and docking port(s) and an expandable balloon body. A collar on both ends would allow multiple to connect in a string or torus.

Theemile wrote:I'm very surprised that
1) Life boats don't have a mylar sail for power collection/ signal collection/transmission.
2) part of the lifeboat kit / SAR kit is SAR balloon - essentially a collar with life support, communication and docking port(s) and an expandable balloon body. A collar on both ends would allow multiple to connect in a string or torus.

Of course as Cerberus the (undamaged) lifeboats/pods wouldn't be a problem -- we know from HAE that if those are in range of a habitable planet they'll just go there and land. Given the low base vector velocity and close range Hades should be in easy range of any lifepod.

So Honor's S&R would focus on people in skinsuits -- either trapped in wreckage or blown free. And it's the later that are the hardest to detect as they're going to be much smaller signal returns than a lifepod -- and also need to be rescued much sooner.

Jonathan_S wrote:Of course as Cerberus the (undamaged) lifeboats/pods wouldn't be a problem -- we know from HAE that if those are in range of a habitable planet they'll just go there and land. Given the low base vector velocity and close range Hades should be in easy range of any lifepod.

So Honor's S&R would focus on people in skinsuits -- either trapped in wreckage or blown free. And it's the later that are the hardest to detect as they're going to be much smaller signal returns than a lifepod -- and also need to be rescued much sooner.

This. There's a lot more S&R needed than there is time before potential impacts. If there's something big heading for Cerberus they'll take it out with a graser, but that's it. There will be no other sweeping.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Of course as Cerberus the (undamaged) lifeboats/pods wouldn't be a problem -- we know from HAE that if those are in range of a habitable planet they'll just go there and land. Given the low base vector velocity and close range Hades should be in easy range of any lifepod.

So Honor's S&R would focus on people in skinsuits -- either trapped in wreckage or blown free. And it's the later that are the hardest to detect as they're going to be much smaller signal returns than a lifepod -- and also need to be rescued much sooner.

This. There's a lot more S&R needed than there is time before potential impacts. If there's something big heading for Cerberus they'll take it out with a graser, but that's it. There will be no other sweeping.

The really big bits will likely be pulled aside with tractors -- at least enough to miss the planet and allow for later S&R.

Then you'll have stuff small enough to burn up in the atmosphere, so no need to do anything special about that.

But in the middle you'll likely have debris big enough to survive reentry and bombard the surface, but too small and numerous to deflect them all away from the planet. Well, any survivors that might be trapped in something like that aren't going to survive reentry and impact anyway. So do what you can, but in the end better to protect the planet from those and avoid damaging the ecosystem or any of the camps.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Of course as Cerberus the (undamaged) lifeboats/pods wouldn't be a problem -- we know from HAE that if those are in range of a habitable planet they'll just go there and land. Given the low base vector velocity and close range Hades should be in easy range of any lifepod.

So Honor's S&R would focus on people in skinsuits -- either trapped in wreckage or blown free. And it's the later that are the hardest to detect as they're going to be much smaller signal returns than a lifepod -- and also need to be rescued much sooner.

This. There's a lot more S&R needed than there is time before potential impacts. If there's something big heading for Cerberus they'll take it out with a graser, but that's it. There will be no other sweeping.

Autonomous lifepods that make it to the planet and land is great, but I don't see how that actually saves time in S&R efforts. There is simply no way to know if there are any damaged pods. And of course, the skinsuits. Any conscientious navy would want to be thorough, like the RMN.

Since Hypatia, I wonder, at what point do you give up the search? Hypatia - and earlier in this thread - also made me toy with the idea of black boxes of a sort, that tells how many pods and skinsuits made it out. A black box should be able to carry a larger power source since there would be no crew inside. And they should be able to be engineered to survive an explosion.

Also consider way upstream we discussed the possibility of pods being launched empty, which could add considerably to the amount of time spent.

Something else. The debris could become a problem for the pods approaching the planet. The damaged pods that are limping in.

cthia wrote:Autonomous lifepods that make it to the planet and land is great, but I don't see how that actually saves time in S&R efforts. There is simply no way to know if there are any damaged pods. And of course, the skinsuits. Any conscientious navy would want to be thorough, like the RMN.

Since Hypatia, I wonder, at what point do you give up the search? Hypatia - and earlier in this thread - also made me toy with the idea of black boxes of a sort, that tells how many pods and skinsuits made it out. A black box should be able to carry a larger power source since there would be no crew inside. And they should be able to be engineered to survive an explosion.

Also consider way upstream we discussed the possibility of pods being launched empty, which could add considerably to the amount of time spent.

Something else. The debris could become a problem for the pods approaching the planet. The damaged pods that are limping in.

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. This is made worse, because they must stay with the ship to ensure an accurate count.

An empty pod should not auto navigate to a planet, but stay close in case one or more of those people in skin suits can get aboard. Also while empty they should have a different locator signal that would allow people in skin suits to find them, as well as the searchers to treat them differently. This assumes that people in skin suits have some motive power.

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. This is made worse, because they must stay with the ship to ensure an accurate count.

Additionally, the link between the black box recorder and the sensors it's feeding from may be interrupted due to battle damage, which often happens during battles. So if you find a black box that says that N people have made it out alive or N pods were launched, and you've already found at least N, that doesn't tell you anything: there could be more. So it's not actionable information for S&R.

ThinksMarkedly 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. This is made worse, because they must stay with the ship to ensure an accurate count.

Additionally, the link between the black box recorder and the sensors it's feeding from may be interrupted due to battle damage, which often happens during battles. So if you find a black box that says that N people have made it out alive or N pods were launched, and you've already found at least N, that doesn't tell you anything: there could be more. So it's not actionable information for S&R.

Also today military aircraft normally disable their "black box" when on military missions -- if forced down or wrecked the military doesn't want a record of where they've been, what they've been doing, their exact performance, or any sensor data to fall into enemy hands -- though they may be required to have and use black boxes when operating during peacetime over friendly territory.

I could imagine the same applying to a warship. And if a ship is captured they may not want a super-survivable record of everybody who was aboard for the enemy to find -- much less whatever else might be on stored in such a black box.

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.

"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...