What happens to all that debris?

Flying Dutchman! Thanks tlb!

So, you could end up a Flying Dutchman in a debris field for over four hours, possibly alive. Brrr! Claustrophobic with space closing in all around you. With all the pretty rocks barely missing you.

Then, you get vacuumed up by a wedge? And you see it coming? ThinksMarkedly's notion hits home now. Thrusters only please. Even then, are you safe? Can SAR see just a skinsuited body? A skinsuit can't have a beacon?

cthia wrote:Flying Dutchman! Thanks tlb!

So, you could end up a Flying Dutchman in a debris field for over four hours, possibly alive. Brrr! Claustrophobic with space closing in all around you. With all the pretty rocks barely missing you.

Then, you get vacuumed up by a wedge? And you see it coming? ThinksMarkedly's notion hits home now. Thrusters only please. Even then, are you safe? Can SAR see just a skinsuited body? A skinsuit can't have a beacon?

I would assume skinsuit radios have a lower powered beacon on them. All the com electronics in Ginger's suit fried out (on purpose) so finding her was a bigger deal than normal.

cthia wrote:Flying Dutchman! Thanks tlb!

So, you could end up a Flying Dutchman in a debris field for over four hours, possibly alive. Brrr! Claustrophobic with space closing in all around you. With all the pretty rocks barely missing you.

Then, you get vacuumed up by a wedge? And you see it coming? ThinksMarkedly's notion hits home now. Thrusters only please. Even then, are you safe? Can SAR see just a skinsuited body? A skinsuit can't have a beacon?

Theemile wrote:I would assume skinsuit radios have a lower powered beacon on them. All the com electronics in Ginger's suit fried out (on purpose) so finding her was a bigger deal than normal.

Fortunately they had mapped her velocity (magnitude and direction); so they could look for something with that speed within a small angle cone heading out. Therefore Doppler radar would work.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Flying Dutchman! Thanks tlb!

So, you could end up a Flying Dutchman in a debris field for over four hours, possibly alive. Brrr! Claustrophobic with space closing in all around you. With all the pretty rocks barely missing you.

Then, you get vacuumed up by a wedge? And you see it coming? ThinksMarkedly's notion hits home now. Thrusters only please. Even then, are you safe? Can SAR see just a skinsuited body? A skinsuit can't have a beacon?

Theemile wrote:I would assume skinsuit radios have a lower powered beacon on them. All the com electronics in Ginger's suit fried out (on purpose) so finding her was a bigger deal than normal.

Fortunately they had mapped her velocity (magnitude and direction); so they could look for something with that speed within a small angle cone heading out. Therefore Doppler radar would work.

exactly - and that still took awhile.

More thoughts on a suit beacon - a separate survival mode with a 'ping" would be possible with the introduction of a capacitor and a trival amount of electronics - it could easily transmit at 10-50x the normal power of a normal suit radio and run for longer than normal - the capacitor just slowly siphons enough power for the pulse every second or 2. Depending on how it's designed, it might be able to send strong enough pulses which might damage the electronics long term (who cares, as long as you are saved before the life support dies). In addition, the system could automatically dip to a lower power, with lees frequent pulses after the suit reaches a lower power level.

cthia wrote:Flying Dutchman! Thanks tlb!

Yep. From the legendary ghost ship Flying Dutchman

The actual call was:
"Dutchman! Dutchman!" he barked. "Flight Ops is declaring a Dutchman! Get the ready pinnace out now!"

kind of their equivalent to "Man overboard!"

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Flying Dutchman! Thanks tlb!

So, you could end up a Flying Dutchman in a debris field for over four hours, possibly alive. Brrr! Claustrophobic with space closing in all around you. With all the pretty rocks barely missing you.

Then, you get vacuumed up by a wedge? And you see it coming? ThinksMarkedly's notion hits home now. Thrusters only please. Even then, are you safe? Can SAR see just a skinsuited body? A skinsuit can't have a beacon?

Theemile wrote:I would assume skinsuit radios have a lower powered beacon on them. All the com electronics in Ginger's suit fried out (on purpose) so finding her was a bigger deal than normal.

Fortunately they had mapped her velocity (magnitude and direction); so they could look for something with that speed within a small angle cone heading out. Therefore Doppler radar would work.

Theemile wrote:exactly - and that still took awhile.

More thoughts on a suit beacon - a separate survival mode with a 'ping" would be possible with the introduction of a capacitor and a trival amount of electronics - it could easily transmit at 10-50x the normal power of a normal suit radio and run for longer than normal - the capacitor just slowly siphons enough power for the pulse every second or 2. Depending on how it's designed, it might be able to send strong enough pulses which might damage the electronics long term (who cares, as long as you are saved before the life support dies). In addition, the system could automatically dip to a lower power, with lees frequent pulses after the suit reaches a lower power level.

That is exactly how I thought the pod's beacon works, which is why I thought it used less power than the running lights with only a pulse every 50 seconds. Whose pulse rate decreases with time. A backup beacon just like that can be used on the pod.

Brilliant Theemile!

Jonathan, now I know the origin of Flying Dutchman.

Further thinking, while it might not be possible on daily skin suits, on emergency suites, I would design in "velcro" patches on the external skin of the suit you could open up with expandable mylar-like material folded underneath. in case of being lost in space, rip open the patch and expand the material. The material, of course would be a radar reflector, making it easier to detect you passively. Such a system would require a conscious person, but it would be a simple passive system.

Such sails could also extend from pods after a pre-determined interval after they detach from their ship.

cthia wrote:Flying Dutchman! Thanks tlb!

Jonathan_S wrote:Yep. From the legendary ghost ship Flying Dutchman.

The actual call was:
"Dutchman! Dutchman!" he barked. "Flight Ops is declaring a Dutchman! Get the ready pinnace out now!"

kind of their equivalent to "Man overboard!"

Kind of ghoulish to name this situation after a phantom ship that is doomed forever (or until Judgement Day) to try and fail at rounding the Cape of Good Hope. At least in the opera, the Dutchman can be redeemed by the love of a woman that is faithful unto death.

If the pinnace didn't get to him before Tracking lost him, the poor bastard would become a Flying Dutchman in truth.

Theemile wrote:Further thinking, while it might not be possible on daily skin suits, on emergency suites, I would design in "velcro" patches on the external skin of the suit you could open up with expandable mylar-like material folded underneath. in case of being lost in space, rip open the patch and expand the material. The material, of course would be a radar reflector, making it easier to detect you passively. Such a system would require a conscious person, but it would be a simple passive system.

Such sails could also extend from pods after a pre-determined interval after they detach from their ship.

Brilliant! It reminds me of animals that blow themselves up to make themselves appear larger, for survival.

They really wouldn't need to be conscious. IINM, the suit already monitors vitals. The suit could trigger it. Anything!, that gets even one more pod home. The idea of a small child alone in a pod lost in space breaks my heart. Anyone really.

But a child...alone...frightened...terrified.

Here's why I think there were empty pods to be found and why they weren't accidents, but what usually happens.

We all agree that pods must be robust. No one ejects from a perfectly working ship, so pods must survive really hazardous conditions. They must shoot away from a ship that could be about to blow up. Additionally, the ship is usually already very damaged prior to ejection (at least when fighting opposing forces of similar technical level). And a pod's got two goals after ejecting: keep its occupants alive and be found.

So I figure that pods might be ejected as soon as the occupants inside or a crewmember outside tells it to. It should definitely not doubt the order. The sooner it launches, the bigger the chance of being away from the blast radius if the ship explodes or further damage could prevent it from launching at all.

But when the ship is past a certain stage, all remaining pods launch. Whether that's computer-controlled or an officer must give the order, whether it's immediate or on a timer, I really don't know. In-universe, I suppose the RMN and other navies have data showing what works and what doesn't. But the point is that even empty pods are launched. Why? Because if the ship is seriously damaged, the pods may be too. They may not be able to determine that they are occupied, so better be safe than sorry.

Once they are out, pods have beacons. They are robust so they should mostly survive damage caused by debris and radiation. Lining all the pods aboard a ship below the wall probably costs less than a missile; the life pods of an SD less than a missile pod. So while they have batteries, the beacons are working and are transmitting the lifesigns of its occupants. That way, SAR crews can prioritise and triage before having to recover every pod: those with dying occupants get recovered first, as much as possible, then the ones with occupants in stable conditions, then empty pods (in case they did have someone aboard).

After that is done, the SAR crews search for pods that weren't transmitting and weren't found by accident yet. This is the stage that was described in the text: the pods with working beacons claiming people were inside were already all recovered. That left only the empty pods and those not transmitting. That explains why the Hypatian SAR crews had only found empty pods or pods with dead crewmembers inside for the past hours.