Stuff I've read lately

"L is for Lawless" (Sue Grafton)(audio) - Ironically, this brings me up to date with the series (which is currently at "U"). This one was pretty interesting, Kinsey managed to keep the body count to two (and she didn't kill anybody!) There was even a bit of a mystery element, where is the money hidden? Is there even any money? Quite gripping.

Liberty Ship

I forget where I first saw this... I was poking around on the Internet a couple of years ago, and found a lot of good stuff, this was probably in there. (Related to the Project Rho site, which I've mentioned before).

The Liberty Ship is truly impressive, something for our generation akin to the Saturn 5 rocket. A shame it will probably never be built...

I wanted to run some of the numbers, because I keep getting them jumbled (stupid units):
Mission mass: 2.722e6 kg (6e6 lbs)
Dry+empty mass: 7.258e5 kg (1.6e6 lbs)

The power is given as 80 GW, and the fuel mass flow is 178 kg/s. That translates (via ve = sqrt(2E/m)) to 29,981 m/s exhaust velocity (which matches well with the given 30k). That power sounds high, I will probably examine that in a separate post.

Thrust is ve * fuel mass flow, which yields 5.337e6 N (which roughly corresponds to the given 1.2e6 lbs, if 4.4N=1 lb force - which is what Google implies).

The biggest problem I ran into was finding the right delta v for LEO. Project Rho gives it as 11,180 m/s (before aero and grav drag). Wikipedia gives it as 7.8 km/s without drag (and 1.5-2 km/s drag).

The other problem is the total thrust is very low. With 7 engines, thrust is 37.357e6 N. Dividing that by the loaded weight (mission mass) gives an acceleration of 13.726 m/s^2 (1.4 g's). This will cause a very long lingering in the Earth's gravity well (rockets often use 10 g's for liftoff).

I'm not certain how to calculate the gravity drag. Project Rho gives vd = vo / a, which seems to allow for any velocity. It seems unlikely that any acceleration below 1 g can ever escape, but perhaps I am wrong...

Regardless, this gives us v_drag of 5,575 m/s - which cuts heavily into the given mission dv of 15 km/s (perhaps that is the intent). It is unclear what effect a lifting body has in these figures...

One alternative is to increase the fuel flow (to increase thrust, and decrease linger time). Unfortunately, this cuts into ve. The mass ratio (full mass divided by dry mass) is equal to exp(delta v / exhaust velocity) (that's the natural number, e, to the x power).

So any drop in exhaust velocity has an exponential effect on the mass ratio, which drives up propellant mass, which drives down cargo mass.

You can drive ve back up with engine power, but ve is the square root of power, so half ve must be made up with 4x power...

Stuff I've read lately

"Nebula Awards 27" (James Morrow ed.) - I like reading these short story collections. They give exposure to a lot of authors who I might not normally read. And coverage of a lot of areas. Plus, if I don't like a particular story, it's over quick!

Stuff I've read lately

"Paradise Lost" (John Milton)(audio) - This is one of those books you always hear mentioned by name, but no one ever talks about the details. Probably because the details are incredibly long winded...

I think the most amazing part was the whole thing is nine hours, and most of the time is spent with demons giving speeches to each other (and bizarre battle scenes where I lose track of who is fighting). In the last half hour, Milton covers all of history from Adam to the (his) present (~1600).

Failville

(continuing my review of Facebook games)
I don't know why I keep giving Frontierville another chance... I keep thinking it has to get better at some point...

There is an interesting correlation between games I enjoy and games that allow non-paying players access to the for pay item. For example, Robot Builder and Nitrous Racing (which needs its own reviews) are my two favorites - both allow you to get the bonus items without paying (of course you can pay to get more).

Frontierville gives you 1 per level (called "horseshoes"). Stupid decorations cost 10 or more (the treehouse is 100). You might need 4 or 5 just to finish some building that all your friends are done with (so they stop sending you the materials).

When I signed in last week to help some friends with items they needed, I was notified of a chance to win 50 horseshoes by completing 6 missions.

So, I churned hard on those missions - harassing my friends like never before. As the deadline approached, I was starting to finish!

Then, what do I see?

The missions are multi-part! Each one I finish gets backed by "Phase 2". Yea, no chance of success.

Stuff I've read lately

"K is for Killer" (Sue Grafton)(audio) - Yet another last minute killer reveal. Plus, I can't even figure out if the killer was strategically bumped off by Kinsey or simply disappeared to start a new life (she called someone who she thought was a mobster - it was unclear if the killer was working with them). Another big body count: the original victim, her friend, an old guy, his gardener - plus maybe the killer.

Riverworld

I finally saw the Sci Fi channel movie adaptation of Riverworld (by Philip "The Outlaw" Jose Farmer).

I was mostly impressed. The story is fairly true to the original (including the important aspect of grail slavery). They even managed to fit in the airship, although some characters were shuffled.

The most disappointing aspect for me was the not-so-fabulous riverboat. It looked like an ordinary riverboat. And instead of steam-driven machine guns, it had a small cannon on the front (like an age of rifles cannon).

I was also surprised by the ending. Although the books didn't exactly end well either (I don't even remember the ending!)