Tadeusz
Member
Congresscritter Hank Johnson, Democrat from Georgia, asked in a televised meeting to an admiral...
What about if we get too many troops and stuff on Guam and it capsizes and tips over?
The admiral replied with a straight face...
We don't foresee that happening.
To be fair to the Democrat, he does have a serious disease, and perhaps he mispoke.
Now my question...
What about a world in which the the congressman's concerns were valid? Any ideas?
JohnA1nut
Member
To be fair to the Democrat, he does have a serious disease, and perhaps he mispoke.
What's the serious disease? Being a democrat? Do you know why democrats are more popular than republicans? Have you ever heard of someone trying to get a piece of elephant? (Think about it for a second, it will come to you)
What about a world in which the the congressman's concerns were valid? Any ideas?
I had an idea in which the world's orbit was so unstable that the sudden added weight of the verser and his gear throws the orbit out of alignment. I'm not sure what could be done with it, but I thought I'd throw it out there since it's similar.
I think it's a cool idea. Has potential.
I would guess that Mr. Johnson did not realize Guam was an island; either that, or somehow he does not understand how an island differs from a ship.
Perelandra (the world which gives its name to the title of the middle book of C. S. Lewis' not-globally-titled space trilogy) has floating islands, and although they are relatively stable I could see a small one getting flipped in a particularly bad storm. It's been run for versers, but it's a bit difficult trying to figure out whether your particular verser ought to replace Ransom or Weston or simply be a third-party observer.
Floating islands are certainly found in other contexts. I recall that Dr. Doolittle (at least in the Rex Harrison version) managed to locate one and accidentally got it pushed back to place from which it broke away. However, you would need to consider why the islands float. With Lewis, they were composed of material that was lighter than water and thus inherently buoyant. That's the essential nature of the thing, of course, but you can achieve it in various ways, including that the water itself can be extremely dense (which raises the fresh drinking water problem, but that might be resolved by having certain plants root through to the dense water and release desalinized water at the surface), or that the land masses are non-porous shells of some sort which fill with lighter humus and support plant and animal life, but if they tip they flood and sink.
"Islands" could be icebergs in a saline ocean too cold to melt them but not cold enough to freeze themselves, with an entire ecosystem of plants and animals adapted to living on the ice and building up layers of decomposed plant matter as a soil base. Like an irregularly-shaped ice chunk it would stabilize with the lightest portion out of the water, but if it became too top-heavy it would flip sideways as a new portion became lightest--and actually, there could be several portions similarly light enough to be the top, the balance stabilizing when any one of them was upward not because it was the most stable position but because to flip would require passing through a less stable position to get to a yet more stable one. If the air is warm or the sunlight tends to melt the ice, though, the tops would deteriorate and the bottoms rise, and the stability of the position might change over time.
The alternative is to have them float by some magic, probably cast by some ancient or the gods themselves, which causes the heavier land masses to stay atop the water; but then you have to consider what would cause one to sink.
You also have the question in every case whether there is also fixed land somewhere, and how large the various land masses might be.
So those are a few possibilities.
JohnA1nut
Member
I read about a guy who took thousands upon thousands of empty 2 liter soda bottles and built an island. The bottles are wrapped up in a net, on top of which is the land mass. At first glance, it appears no different from any other island, except that it floats on 2 liter bottles. It was some kind of protest against pollution or something why he did it. Built his own private island.... Now that's a guy with too much money and too much time.
Tadeusz
Member
Hepatitis C, although sometimes I think being a Dem is a tag for less than adequate logical abilities. I just watched ten minutes ago a Dem congressman say 'I don't care about the Constitution', and then quote from the Declaration of Independence when he was trying to go for the Constitution. Even the Dem strategist thought that saying 'I don't care ...' was pretty bad.
These are some pretty cool ideas. I like the non-porous land shell.
With a planet so unstable that a verser could tip it, would a meteor tip it? What about a hurricane on one side? Do you have rules about keeping crowds to less than ten people for fear of provoking a flip?
With the icebergs, this has the neat factor that you can repeat this flip many times. It also brings to mind one idea I've heard of a Nazi iceberg battleship. Big guns. Refrigerator coils to keep the thing cool. Unsinkable, several feet of ice to serve as armor over the passageways. A true monster.
What if the Nazi's were driven out of Europe, but held on in Norway and Sweden...and built their ice battleship fleet there? This greater length of durability of the Nazi's gives them time to develop nukes and the V-10 rocket. Much of the East Coast of America is nuked,a nd the interior and the West Coast sues for peace. Russia owns Europe. England is free, sorta. The only serious resistance to Germany is Australia because they have their own source of ice...Antartica. Still, they don't have enough men to really challenge the Nazi's who basically own the Atlantic and the Pacific. In this version, MacArthur succeeded in getting America to attack Japan first which some argue is the bad decision which led to the Nazi Ice Fleet.
JohnA1nut
Member
With a planet so unstable that a verser could tip it, would a meteor tip it? What about a hurricane on one side? Do you have rules about keeping crowds to less than ten people for fear of provoking a flip?
I was thinking more like no one knows about it, and it's only by the grace of God that it hasn't tipped yet. Only a handful of "crackpot" scientists know about it, and no one believes them. The problem isn't accepted by the masses until after the verser arrives and it actually starts happening. The verser realizes it was caused by his arrival though. It was just one of those crazy ideas I got whilst having a psychotic episode.
Brock
Member
hmm. Perhaps it tips due to certain key points on it's surface. too much weight on specific points causes a planetary movement (not necessarily a "flip"), and the movement changes the way the planet is moving through space, or something. some way to make the problem long-term. Or perhaps life arose on an incredibly unstable planet, covered in cracks, many volcanoes and danger zones, and seismic events happen whenever someone does something they aren't supposed to, and so the population is confined almost entirely to "safe zones" where the problem is less pronounced (likely where said life evolved in the first place).
JohnA1nut
Member
Well, I always liked the idea of the straw the broke the camel's back. A 200 pound verser with 300 pounds of equipment isn't even a drop in a bucket compared to the weight of a planet. If that could throw the planet out of alignment, then that's the straw.
(Doing Therapy)
Steampunk technology, I'm afraid.Refrigerator coils to keep the thing cool.
The problem is even if the power supply were elsewhere, refrigeration by its very nature produces more heat than cold--if you leave the door open on the refrigerator, the room gets progressively warmer as the system struggles harder to cool itself.
Add to that that your ships have to generate their own power. Even the most efficient generating systems are twenty percent waste heat, and the other eighty percent of the energy used becomes heat by being expended.
The ships would be vitally dependent upon cooling fins, probably huge radiator-like filigree structures extending upward and inherently unbalancing the ship because the ship is balanced at the center of mass--the shorter they are, the less efficiently then remove heat from the system, but the taller they are the more likely it is that the entire system will flip. They also would make fabulous targets.
You could instead drag them in the water. This would increase drag and thus increase power demands for propulsion. This could be reduced slightly, perhaps, by designing the propellers to double as cooling fins, but that's tough--a matter of opposite efficiencies, in which the better they are as cooling fins the weaker they are as propellers. Also, it means the heat dispersal is in the water surrounding the ice, increasing the rate of defrosting and demanding more energy to maintain it. It also makes the draft deeper, but with an iceberg-based ship that's already a problem (as is the sheer amount of energy needed to move what will be inherently not hydrodynamic in shape and have most of its bulk below the water line).
I am given to understand that rotational instability is the norm for single planets. Our own pole remains relatively constant in its angle because the gravitational force of the revolving moon stabilizes it.With a planet so unstable that a verser could tip it, would a meteor tip it?
I'm not certain to what degree outside forces are involved in such reorientations, though.
--M. J. Young
JohnA1nut
Member
Such an iceberg ship wouldn't work as an offensive weapon, but as a stationary stealth platform it would be amazing. You could make it so that it would look like any old iceberg, at least at a distance. It has the potential to be an awesome stealth defensive platform.
(Doing Therapy)
Tadeusz
Member
The non-porous land shell could be used as a pretty good metaphor for the more extreme form of enviromentalism. You're in a situation where you have to be really dedicated and protective of the environment, or it will kill you and your whole village in less than an hour.
JohnA1nut
Member
You're in a situation where you have to be really dedicated and protective of the environment, or it will kill you and your whole village in less than an hour.
Yeah, I like the way George Carlin put the relationship with the earth (Paraphrasing) "The planet can defend itself. Earthquakes, tornadoes, tidal waves, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions. The planet is fine. It isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!!!"
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
Two
MJ, couldn't you just conduct the heat back into the water? I mean you're sitting in an ocean full of heat sink. Pump hot water out one side and pull cold water in from the other. The water that came in would be almost freezing, which could only be helpful. Whatever heat that system puts out wouldn't raise the surrounding temperature more than a degree or two, if that. If worse came to worst, you could put the exit pipe in a coil a mile long. By the time it came out, it would be back to normal temperature anyway.
That pipe could even be part of the support structure that kept it stationary. It would be highly vulnerable to submarine attack, but to a surface vessel or an airplane, it would look like any other iceberg. Obviously, you'd have to give it beaucoup submarine defenses, but even then, the submarine couldn't destroy the platform, only the support structure. The platform could still float and still be quite combat effective.
Or perhaps it floats mostly normally like an iceberg, and the propulsion system is used mostly to steer. The people are given supplies periodically and the platform is towed to wherever it may be needed. It's not something you could reliably call on for backup in a firefight, but it could be an excellent surveillance, spy, or defensive position. Kind of reminds me of Deep Space Nine.
Now that I think about it, you could even make the cooling system and the propulsion system one in the same, at least to a degree. Have multiple intake and multiple outflow pipes all over the place. If you need to move the iceberg, transfer power from these intakes and outflows to these intakes and outflows, and it would move on a a water ramjet kind of thing. You'd have to have the intakes and outflows with adjustable direction nozzles, with a full range of movement. This would increase the power and give you a lot of room for fine-tuning the movement. (If you had to navigate an ice corridor, for instance) It would have full 360 degree movement, although it would almost certainly favor going in particular directions due to the irregular shape of the iceberg. The top speed would probably be walking or slow jogging speed, but it WOULD move. If you needed to keep it stationary, just transfer power from the intakes and outflows in such a way so that it didn't move.
I'm imagining the cooling system as a huge coil in the center to which all of the intakes and outflows run. Those don't even have to be exclusive. Change the direction on the pump and the intake is now an outflow. You would need to keep a minimum number running constantly to maintain the cooling status quo, but with the before-mentioned fine-tuning, keeping it stationary wouldn't be a problem. If you needed to full-speed ahead (at 10 MPH) to a destination, you would have more jets running, and so more heat, but at the same time, more cooling water would be running through the system. The cooling systems would have to be the beefiest around the outflow jets. Can't exactly have the very heat waste it's producing melting it at the points. The intake/outflow jets would be all over the place. At seemingly random points all over the submerged ice. To a submarine, they could be disguised to look like rocks or debris in the iceberg. You could also have torpedo tubes all over the place, similarly disguised.
(Doing Therapy)
MJ, couldn't you just conduct the heat back into the water?
Yeah, I addressed that very briefly, but let's tackle it in more detail.
Pump hot water out one side and pull cold water in from the other. The water that came in would be almost freezing, which could only be helpful.
Ah, but why is the water intake "almost freezing"? It is so because it had to pass through the artificially-maintained ice surrounding the intake, transferring its heat to that ice and partially melting it; maintaining the ice around the intake is thus an additional challenge. You're going to want to extend the intake away from the ice some distance, but ultimately you still have to pass the water through a hole in the ice, and no matter how well insulated that pipe is you are going to cool your coolant water by making more work for your refrigerator system.
Whatever heat that system puts out wouldn't raise the surrounding temperature more than a degree or two, if that.
Ah, but only that much in what space of time? And how many of these do you have, how near each other? If the device moves with the water (as icebergs do), it will be heating the surrounding water constantly, and if it takes an hour to raise the temperature two degrees, it's going to raise it quite a bit more in a day. If it's stationary, then you're depending on the water to move past the island, and already that gives you the fluid equivalent of inverse windchill factor (the water is warmer than the ice, and the ice can't cool it fast enough to prevent melt because the warmer water that it cools is constantly being replaced by yet warmer water), and it is working against itself by heating the fluid. How much heat does it release into the water? It releases an amount of heat equal to all the energy used to 1) make the ice; 2) power the propulsion system; 3) power the cooling system; 4) operate all other onboard systems; and 5) account for inefficiencies in the system which probably total at least twenty to thirty percent more than the power used efficiently. That means you are easily putting twice as much heat into the water as you are putting cold into the water to maintain your ice, maybe thrice if you're running a lot of other equipment or using highly inefficient power conversion systems. So if you are putting in one degree per minute of cooling power and three degrees per minute of heating power, you're fighting a losing battle--and when you crank up the system to increase the cooling power, the result is you increase the heating power probably more so, because as you exceed system parameter systems become less efficient and overheat more per unit of work accomplished.
If worse came to worst, you could put the exit pipe in a coil a mile long. By the time it came out, it would be back to normal temperature anyway.
Ah, but why would it be back to normal temperature? Because it already transferred the heat into the water through the walls of the pipe much closer to the ice.
Now that I think about it, you could even make the cooling system and the propulsion system one in the same, at least to a degree. Have multiple intake and multiple outflow pipes all over the place. If you need to move the iceberg, transfer power from these intakes and outflows to these intakes and outflows, and it would move on a a water ramjet kind of thing.
You could do that, and it's a practical idea, but it also means you would have to be in motion constantly--shut down your cooling system and you start to overheat, start overheating and you start melting rapidly. Oh, you could have jets pushing in opposite directions, but then your intakes are going to suck from your outputs and you'll lose efficiency in the cooling because the cooling water is warmer.
I'm imagining the cooling system as a huge coil in the center to which all of the intakes and outflows run.
No, if the coil is in the center then the heat is radiating in the middle of the iceberg and it melts from the inside out.
Don't get me wrong--I'd love to see it made "seemingly practical" in a game world, and you're on your way to doing that. It's just that I know enough physics to realize that it would not really work.
--M. J. Young
JohnA1nut
Member
Quoting MJ at random
No, if the coil is in the center then the heat is radiating in the middle of the iceberg and it melts from the inside out.
It releases an amount of heat equal to all the energy used to 1) make the ice; 2) power the propulsion system; 3) power the cooling system; 4) operate all other onboard systems; and 5) account for inefficiencies in the system which probably total at least twenty to thirty percent more than the power used efficiently.
Wrong on all points. You're not thinking outside the box. This refrigeration unit is 99% efficient, and the 1% of heat is rerouted back into the electrical generator, where the waste is again 99% efficient, practically nullifying the waste. The refrigeration system is capable of turning 1,000 gallons of water per minute back into ice. The iceberg isn't even naturally made. If the hull takes damage, the refrigerator can be turned up and water pumped up and the ice refrozen, repairing the damage not unlike a Borg cube. This takes a great deal of power, and is usually reserved for extreme situations only. The surrounding water is usually only a half a degree more than being frozen anyway, due to the nature of the polar regions the ships patrol. The insulation is so efficient that you could have a 90 degree room right next to a sub-zero room, and only use 2 percent more power either way to maintain the temperature.
The power system is something which couldn't even be conceived on our world. I'll call it Macro Micro Fission Fusion. (Please don't tell me there actually exists something with that name!!) The ice not only serves as armor, it is a battery of sorts. The heat energy in the ice can be absorbed and turned back into power to run the main ship. If it's above absolute zero, it has heat energy. The ice melts from the inside out. This is done when the main technology ship needs to go somewhere. (After the mission, etc.) It can also be done in extreme emergencies, as a "last resort" power source for the main ship. (What good is stealth, after all, if even your own people can't find you?) When it reaches destination, it powers up, and "grows" the iceberg armor hull. It is grown in a shape which gives it at least one direction of travel with greatly increased water efficiency, without looking unlike any other iceberg. This is the direction of travel when the iceberg needs to "Full speed ahead". Either that, or something resembling an equilateral triangle (three water efficient directions) Different configurations for different situations.
The main ship is designed to have the radar equivalent signature of a large rock. Large chunks of rock are not uncommon in icebergs, at least on this world. (Maybe here too, I wouldn't know). Even with detecting the large rock signature, 99 times out of 100, it really is an iceberg, so this isn't usually relied upon.
The ice "grows" first on the outsides of the intake/outflow/propulsion tubes. These can be extended and retracted at will, even with the ice covering. (The lubricant would put Teflon to shame for slickness, and the tips of the tubes are equipped with laser heating elements to cut back through. Also a low-yield weapon at close range.) Thus, the ice can be made roughly into any shape the captain wishes. (Thicker for stationary and more armor, thinner for greater speed, etc) Above the water line, the tubes would be retracted, but underwater and at a distance, the ends of the tubes would look like random pieces of debris on the ice. If you got close enough to see that they weren't, you would be in range of the weapon. The iceberg ship can move in any direction, regardless of the shape, however. It can even flip upside down, if the situation requires it. It is said that no ship has ever taken exactly the same shape twice. For obvious reasons, the tubes are usually left extended once the ice is grown, but can be retracted and re-extended if there comes a reason to do so.
The ice can be added to almost at will. It requires a lot of power, and isn't done often. However, once grown, it cannot be undone, unless it either melts naturally, or all of it is melted off and regrown from scratch.
The "default shape" would be a sphere with 100 feet of ice on all sides. I could also imagine something like this being used on land, disguised as a glacier.
"Modern technology William."
Rufus, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
(Doing Therapy)
Of course, all it takes is a M4@ energy manipulative to make all those pesky physics problems go away.
JohnA1nut
Member
Three
The cables would be like the joint in a flexi-straw. How it can unfold and contract, and manipulate all different directions. Except this unfolds from the ship, and is virtually flat when extended. The ends are painted white, to be less obvious. They also have sensor arrays and whatnot at the ends. The ends sticking out of the ice can extend not more than 10 feet on their own. Ten feet would give them enough manuvering room. You want them small and less noticeable. That would be maximum.
The ship itself would be more of a defensive platform. Equivalent to a castle under seize in a battle. Not something you would tend to attack with, unless the enemy got close enough for you to do so.
(Doing Therapy)
If you're dead set on tech, then just teleport the heat somewhere else (T14@something). Hell, you might could get away with beaming it into space with T9@9 Broadcast Power (a creative use of that technology, if I say so myself), where it could be converted back into useful form by a receiver satellite and beamed elsewhere.
Those are both sci-fi, though; if you want to do it with refrigeration, I recommend calling in a magician as a consultant.
JohnA1nut
Member
Hell, you might could get away with beaming it into space with T9@9 Broadcast Power (a creative use of that technology, if I say so myself),
Except then it would send a signal all the way to space that the enemy could track. Might as well shoot up flares all the time. Doesn't really help with the whole "Stealth" aspect, ya know? Perhaps that's done in a non-combat situation where the location of the base is no secret to anyone, but not for combat. Creative nonetheless.
What I'm saying is that the refrigerator is so efficient that the water running through the tubes is more than enough to keep it cooled down. By the time it runs back through the 50 feet of ice surrounding it, the water is back to normal water temperature. The ice around the tubes would be melted, of course, but that would just make retracting them that much easier. In a sense, the ice would cool down the machine making it. That and some of the heat generated from the refrigerator is what heats the crew cabin. More efficient. Lots of insulation between that and the ice.
What am I saying? The shell of the ship and the shells of the tubes would have virtually the same density as the ice. That would make detecting it in the ice cube next to impossible.
Weaponry would consist of the before-mentioned short-range laser weapon, and 1 in 10 tubes is a torpedo tube. Those have to be kept relatively straight. The torpedoes are homing torpedoes, self-guided to target, and don't really need to be aimed.
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
More than one
The tubes would be placed beforehand to perform in the most efficient method for the ship they were intending to create. For the tubes to actually have to stick out of the ice and be exposed would be for increased sensor range, or if the ship had to move in a way which had not been anticipated in the original design. Most efficient, without getting outside the realm of the shape of an iceberg, that is.
It's a long term outpost, or slow patrol vessel, skeleton crew. On the whole, the tech ship is large in size, but the living arrangements would be rather cramped, as most of that is the refrigerator. Maybe six people living in a three bedroom apartment cramped. Three teams of two each. Not more than two asleep at any given time. Two working the 8 hours shifts, and other other two making use of the video recreation (movies, video games, music, etc.) to keep at bay the inherent stir-craziness which would come with this type of an assignment. The sleeping area would be (in a nutshell) a closet with a bunk bed. The recreation area would be (in a nutshell) a couch with a TV and stereo (for video games and movies) Perhaps limited exercise gear. (A treadmill that folded out of the wall. Tension bands to simulate free weights, etc.) Can't have the crew going stir-crazy for nothing interesting to do. Personal hygiene and grooming is a must, and enforced by everyone on board. The ensign can order the CO to take a shower, for instance. To save on space, day-to-day clothing consists of one size fits all jumpsuits and sneakers. You are required to put your clothes in the washer at the end of every shift. They are washed, dried, and taken out and worn by someone else. There might only be 12 sets of clothes for 6 people. Clothing is never worn for more than 24 hours by the same person without being washed, and you never put the same set of clothes back on. It's been washed and someone else is now wearing it. Of course, foul weather gear is available if the need arises. Psychological screening is required before joining the crew, and periodically thereafter.
The Macro Micro Fission Fusion is just to power the refrigerator. Otherwise, it is mostly powered by the present heat energy. When it's time for the outpost to pack up and leave, it retracts all of the tubes, and it powers the ice melting system (or the emergency life support, whatever the case may be) off of the stored heat energy in the ice. It really just need to fall downward out of what's left of the iceberg to leave. The ship is designed in the shape of a torpedo. The living quarters are on a 360 degree rotating axis to keep the crew constantly level. To leave, retract the tubes, and heat up until the pointed bottom of the ship breaks through the ice mass, and then submarine away. The ice mass is left behind, and no one is the wiser. If they weren't detected, the only way to know they had been there at all is if you just happened to see the huge, gaping hole in the bottom of an iceberg, and by then they could be anywhere. You usually try to grow the ice so that the ship will be towards the bottom, to make the escape easier. It is also the most vulnerable point, as the ice is thinner. If need be, the ice can be grown out down there, against an unexpected attack. Just makes exiting more difficult later. It can also draw power from the much greater heat energy of the water. The electrical and refrigeration systems are so efficient, it's quite the shame that it can't be very efficient as a ship.
To get into position, the tech ship submarines down, aims the pointed end towards the ocean floor, and deploys the ice making tubes to freeze the surrounding water. When ready, it bobs to the surface like a cork. (What? A huge piece of ice couldn't break off somewhere underneath the water and float to the surface?) The ship is now deployed as a surveillance/defensive outpost.
The water is desalinated (if need be) for drinking and other use. Debris is filtered out and put back into the water via the outflow tubes, as is the human toilet waste. This wouldn't be overly noticeable, as it would blend with the natural melting of the iceberg. Any fish which get pulled into the tubes are filtered out and typically added to the dinner menu if of an edible species. If that happened often enough, it could even sustain the crew, requiring them to bring fewer provisions.
(Said with a heart-felt laugh)
And MJ, if all of this to you seems to be nothing more than mindless, time-wasting gibberish, please do not forget that you did publicly challenge the mind of a psychotic to get creative!!!!
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
A lot
Just a footnote. I've got a schematic for this thing inside my head. I could go on. You said you wanted to see it done in a way which could be believed. Here it is. I'm going to stop now, unless you want me to finish this. (Better tell me tonight, or I'll lose it) But I'm done for the moment.
EDIT Scott, it would be the tech for controlling heat energy. Of course the ship gets hot. Fortunately, it's also completely encased in ice!!! It keeps itself cool. In fact, now that I think about it, the tubes have nothing whatsoever to do with the cooling system. I just completely redesigned the ship.
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
More than a few (Hey, for me, this IS taking it easy on the posting!!)
I really hope you let me finish this. The redesign could believably move undetected through solid ice. Please note, I am NOT writing about it, other than that.
Note to self: The ship creates the heat sink.
(Doing Therapy)
This refrigeration unit is 99% efficient, and the 1% of heat is rerouted back into the electrical generator, where the waste is again 99% efficient, practically nullifying the waste.
The problem is, every watt of energy you use in any form winds up ultimately as low-grade waste heat--friction and line losses are the inefficiencies, but the movements of motors, the powering of circuits, the pumping of fluids, every bit of "work" done degrades to heat.
Now, 99% efficiency and 99% recovery are good fantasy numbers, and I'll play with fantasy; tell me that they are able somehow to recycle their energy and I'll be happy. But the recycling also produces heat, and if the heat is never vented, it keeps building until it's no longer a question of whether what will melt is ice.
I'm afraid I'm a tough bird to persuade when you start doing things that break the laws of physics; and I'm not even all that good a physicist.
--M. J. Young
JohnA1nut
Member
Ah, another public challenge. Just what I wanted. ::Cracks Knuckles::
The ship is torpedo shaped, rounded on both ends, with an octagonal shaped hull. The tubes extend, 4 from each side. One tube can do everything that any other tube can do. The hull of the ship is designed as a heat sink. The tubes and the hull generate a force field. Inside the force field, the temperature can be controlled. It drops to nearly absolute zero, flash freezing the surrounding ice. The hull heats up. However, between the ice buildup, water running through the ship, and a controlled release of the heat from the hull, the heat is successfully dissipated into the ice, until the ship is completely encased, save for a bubble of water between the hull and ice. The ship can extend claws to stabilize itself in this bubble. The ice then heat sinks the ship, as the force field is maintained. It moves through ice by melting the ice and refreezing it at the same time. Moving the bubble.
My head is cloudy. I'm tired. Rant saved till later.
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
More than one
The force field would be detected as a temperature bubble. An area of so many cubic feet of whatever temperature. Dropping to absolute zero is detectable, and so the ship powers up as far from the intended target area as reasonably possible. Once frozen, the bubble is detected at the temperature they want the ice to maintain. In other words, not detectable, or at least not easily. After formation, the ship uses a combination of lasers and sonic frequencies to break the ice. Kind of like a sculptor, making an ice cube into an iceberg. The lengths of the tubes help get the base pattern down.
The hull is the heat sink for the ship at the beginning. The formation of the ice keeps the hull cool. It would be a controlled battle between releasing the heat in the hull and freezing the surrounding water. This is done by the computer for maximum efficiency, but there would be a pretty wide margin for error if a human wanted to do it. Worst case scenario, shut everything down and try again. The ship would cool in the water. The ship creates its own heat sink.
During the initial power-up process, the water running through the tubes is the primary coolant source. By the nature of what water is, its temperature range is limited, no matter how much energy is applied to heating it. Liquid water cannot go above 212 degrees, no matter what. I don't know the limit of gaseous water, just that it has one. (Or does it? I'm not certain now) No matter hot it was when it went in and no matter how hot it became inside, it would still be less than the melting point of the hull, and thus, cool it down. Hard to believe that superheated steam could be used as a coolant, ya know? (Not saying it would ever be superheated steam in this scenario, just that it could be done) It does get uncomfortably hot in the passenger cabin during this process, but no one has yet to pass out from it. (knock on wood) Once the ice is formed, the heat from the hull is released back into the ice, and through the tubes.
The water bubble around the ship would be unavoidable by this method. This would give it the ability to move through the ice, however. Four tubes on each octagonal side, one each out of the top and bottom. All of the side tubes retracted. Push the front tube further into the ice, and use it to pull the ship forward. With the force bubble raised, the heat of the hull would melt the ice in front, at the same time it was refrozen in the back. It would move not unlike, and not much faster than, an inchworm through the ice.
The passenger cabin is in a sphere, weighted to stay level, like the ball in a compass. Water runs through the tubes into this chamber, and the ball floats in it. Also, a spongy layer for shock absorption. Water runs through the outer layer of ice, where it's pretty slushy, not frozen because of the constant movement. It gets into the sponge chamber, and the rest of the ship, as a constantly moving coolant. This melts it and heats it back into water. It then gets pumped back out. By the time it gets back out, after having gone through the ice mass once again, it's back to the temperature of the surrounding water.
The Macro Micro Fission Fusion is in one end, the force generator is in the other. Whole ship is full of water, aside from the crew cabin. However, it's also pretty neutrally buoyant, as the hot water inside weighs weighs less than the surrounding water. Both ends have a magazine of torpedoes. These can be fired from any tube. If I say one tube can do it, they all can do it. In storage, the torpedoes are about the size and shape of bowling balls. A tad oblong, though. When fired, they roll out of the tube, and when in the water, employ the same flexi-straw technology as the tubes to stretch out. They attack the target. Far from pinpoint accuracy, however. Tell it to hit the ship, it WILL hit the ship. God only knows where though. What difference does it make, as long as it goes down, right?
It could conceivably attach itself to the wall via the tubes, and pull itself through an ice shelf, rather than forming the ice. When it got to where it needed to be, it would generate a series of sonic shakes to break the ice shelf off. Detectable as a minor tremor, not uncommon in arctic regions. Even as an iceberg, it would still move much faster than the inchworm. Then proceed to destination. Or, if it needed to escape, join the iceberg back to the wall, and inchworm through the ice.
To release from the iceberg, just undo the mooring clamps and retract the tubes. The ship will inchworm its way out though the force of gravity. It even (mostly) seals the hole. The hole left behind would be just larger than the exact size of the ship itself.
When you got to where you needed to go and were planning remain stationary for a while, turn off the temperature maintenance device, and the ship would naturally freeze back to the ice. Use the water running through the tubes to cool everything else.
Does this too badly violate the laws of physics for you?
(Doing Therapy)
Sorry--it's Wednesday, already late, I have a limited time in which to finish the forum and make dinner, and my brain is already fried from the e-mail. I got as far as the force field and knew that you weren't really dealing with the heat at all, just containing it, and figured at that point I wasn't going to get through the rest.
--M. J. Young
The ice the ship creates is the heat sink.
And the way a heat sink works is it gets hot and transfers the heat through it to a place where something is colder than it is, where the heat radiates from the heat sink into that cooler medium. So that means you have to heat the ice until it is warmer than the surrounding water (or air), at which point the heat will transfer from the ice to the surrounding medium; but we already know that the water around the ice is not frozen, and the ice was made from that water, so warming the ice enough to transfer heat to the water melts the ice.
You can refreeze the ice, but even with 99% efficiency in the refrigeration system you're still creating more heat than cooling, and since you're venting the heat into the medium you're trying to cool, the net effect is the ice keeps getting warmer, keeps melting faster, and eventually vanishes.
--M. J. Young
Brock
Member
BLECH! BLOOOGH!! EEECHH!! HACK, HACK! Oh sorry, that was my geek coming out. It does that when I hear something like this.
Heat cannot flow spontaneously from a material at lower temperature to a material at higher temperature. It is impossible to convert heat completely into work in a cyclic process.
Heat is the lowest form of energy. It can't be converted, and it definitely can't be destroyed. To flash freeze an area to absolute zero, you have to take the heat and put it somewhere else-like say, into the other areas of the ship. You're proposing taking the heat out then putting it back in along with much more heat to get rid of it. doesn't work. Heat must be put out of the vessel to truly get rid of it. a temporary solution IS storing it in something, BUT nothing we have discovered can completely contain heat energy fully. Don't know if a force field can do it. VFurther, moving heat takes energy, which is work, which in turn produces MORE heat. Then when the heat leaks, you have to put it BACK in. You'll have to change the laws of physics in a fundamental way to get what you're after.
Here's an idea. Transfer the heat into an object and then dump the object out of your vessel. That would get rid of it. Carry a bunch of these objects, and use more conventional heat sinks as well.
JTM
Member
If you use the ice as a heat sink, everything will create too much heat for it to work. Laws of thermodynamics. You'll need to actually vent all the heat, or it will build up and melt the ice, so you'll need to generally have the exits of the tubes clear, and the hull would need to be extremely heavily insulated as well, or the internal temperature would melt the ice, and if it is heavily insulated you risk killing everyone on board rather quickly in the event of a systems malfunction. And at the end of the day, you have a ship with an extremely distinctive IR profile, which pretty much negates stealth.
Incidentally, the ice ship idea in the real world was actually British. It was intended to be an aircraft carrier that could carry bombers and withstand torpedo strikes. It actually used a wood pulp and ice combination, required extremely thick outside insulation, and a massive ducting system. Since it was never tested, it is uncertain whether it would work. That material also melts more slowly than ice.
JohnA1nut
Member
Brock, (Doing Therapy) means I am, at the time of that writing, having a psychotic episode. All of my strange ideas come to me then. The Daywalker zombie world was one such idea.
As far as the laws of physics being different, I don't want to touch that, cuz then you gotta change the physics in the whole flipping world, and that's just too much to deal with.
JohnA1nut
Member
Two
I can't believe it!!! (Laughing hysterically) I forgot the main design feature of this device. The tubes. Form the ice on the right side of the ship, and expel the heat through the tubes out the other side. Start at the top and out the bottom. Something like that. That would work until the ice was formed, then it would work as described. The ice forming would absorb some heat from the tubes, yes, but that would be expected. (remember the water bubble?) Oscillate it around between the different intake and outflow tubes. It could be controlled in some way to work.
I didn't understand what MJ was saying until I started therapy. Getting the psychotic episode going helped. I was just trapping the heat in the ice. I wasn't letting it out. This way, it would actually get more efficient as the process continued. The ice forming cools the intake water, and it starts absorbing more and more heat. It would start as normal water converted to and expelled as steam, change into slushy water converted into really hot water, and eventually get to where it was normal water going in, normal water going out.
It would actually be pushing itself away from the hot exhaust, by the water ramjet system. By the time it had to change direction and form ice on the other side, that heat would be dissipated into the ocean.
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
. It sounds like the plan involves heating the ice until it reaches thermal equilibrium with the ocean water
No, I think that's the water coolant I'm talking about. The water coolant heats up. The ice wrapped around the tubes helps to cool it down, so it absorbs more heat.
This also solves the problem of the inside of the tubes icing. If it starts to ice too badly, change it into an outflow exhaust.
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
Two
As the water went through the ice-covered tubes, it would freeze into slush, but not completely because of the constant movement. When it got inside as a coolant, it would melt back into water, and be cooled back down upon expulsion. Consequently, the ice would never completely encase the ship or the tubes, as it would then be absorbing the heat. After that, it would work fine. Damn, I'm good!!!
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
This is true JTM, but we're talking about a ship completely encased in hundreds and hundreds of tons of ice. If the ship did overheat, it just means it melts an inch more ice all around the ship in the water bubble.
I didn't get what MJ was saying until I thought of a teakettle exploding because the top was covered. The heat would react the same way. I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking "It's encased in ice, of course it's going to be cooled down!!" But first the heat has to go someplace. It wouldn't go anywhere. This way it would. Once the start up sequence was finished, the ice would work as a heat sink. The more heat it generated, the more ice it would melt in the bubble. But only after the start-up sequence was finished and a whole lot of heat was expelled through the tubes and into the water. After that, it only generates enough heat to melt the ice in a six inch bubble around the ship. It wouldn't even have to be 99% efficient for this to work.
That's kind of the way my psychosis works, actually. This board is one of my heat exhaust vents.
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
Two
And in fact, if they needed to for some reason, they could even have limited control over the temperature of the surrounding water. Instead of sending the heat to the ice, send it out the tubes. The water bubble would freeze more, and the ship would being spraying out warmer water. Likewise, send more heat out the hull, melt more ice in the bubble, and spray cooler water out the tubes. It would be a balance between melting the ice on the inside versus what temperature water was sent out.
I could see that, if they needed to melt the ice quickly, shunt all the heat out the tubes and none to the ice. It would be spraying out hot water, taking it back in, and spraying it out again. No matter how hot that got, it would still be enough to cool the system.
Or if they were in battle with that ice-clad aircraft carrier mentioned above. They could melt the carrier a lot faster than the carrier could melt them, then just refreeze the ship. It might not even be obvious to an observer why the carrier went down. Even then, a freak thermal draft in the water would explain it. Yeah, that would be an attack they could use against another ice-clad ship. The ice clad rolls past this innocent looking iceberg, which suddenly starts spraying scalding water at the side. The ice-clad goes down, and it would be completely explainable.
(Doing Therapy)
JohnA1nut
Member
Three
Heat is the lowest form of energy. It can't be converted, and it definitely can't be destroyed.
Heat can't be converted into other forms of energy? What do you think a steam locomotive does? After a process, it transforms heat into forward motion. And that's just one example. Hope that doesn't sound rude. In person it wouldn't.
(Doing Therapy)
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