Freefall 3: Death Ray Byproducts

[theangelJean]

So, Bowman AI have enough safeguards to protect Sam even though he's not human, but actual humans don't?

Actually I wonder where Sam sits on the Bowman AI's is-it-a-human scale. We already know that it fails safe enough that Florence considers Dr Bowman to be "human". On the other, many of the robots categorise Florence on the "DOGGY!" side, even though she shares many of the same attributes. And they've repeatedly been shown to be willing to leave Sam in danger in favour of saving humans.

[Fyraltari]

Sam and an idea. Name a more dangerous combination.

Mr. Kornada and power.

They already discontinued "Long Pig", which is sometimes a euphemism for human meat.

Considering it's only artificial flavour added to lab-grown meat, it's unlikely to actually taste the same as actual human flesh.

[Gez]

So, Bowman AI have enough safeguards to protect Sam even though he's not human, but actual humans don't?

Eh?

Is this about Florence not being in human-safe mode? She explains it well enough I think: it's a matter of degree and her understanding of the situation is that things are stable enough that she doesn't need to go in human-safe mode at the moment.

[WanderingMist]

And they've repeatedly been shown to be willing to leave Sam in danger in favour of saving humans.

Clearly non-human seeing as at least one robot (the ship) tried to murder him repeatedly. To be fair to the robots, they learned from the example humans were setting when it came to Sam.

For example

Mr. Kornada and power.

Fair point. Sam tends to only endanger himself and his allies.

Considering it's only artificial flavour added to lab-grown meat, it's unlikely to actually taste the same as actual human flesh.

It's far enough in the future for FTL travel to be a thing. I think they can duplicate flavors pretty precisely as well as being able to simulate muscle development for lab-grown meat to more closely match the real thing. "Artificial flavor" and "natural flavor" are the same thing anyway, the only difference is where the flavor was created, in nature or in a lab.

[theangelJean]

Eh?

Is this about Florence not being in human-safe mode? She explains it well enough I think: it's a matter of degree and her understanding of the situation is that things are stable enough that she doesn't need to go in human-safe mode at the moment.

No, I mean that the actual humans don't come with built-in safeguards, so some human somewhere is going to decide to hunt Sqid for meat. Unless they've got much, much better at socialisation between now and then. They are better at limiting themselves to angry mobs and at most cartoon style violence, I'll give them that.

It just seemed an interesting contrast with the robots (edit: specifically the Bowman AI, which the Savage Chicken is not), whose safeguards are enough to protect Sam from being hurt or killed, despite his lack of the extra protection that being human would give him.

[Gez]

No, I mean that the actual humans don't come with built-in safeguards, so some human somewhere is going to decide to hunt Sqid for meat. Unless they've got much, much better at socialisation between now and then. They are better at limiting themselves to angry mobs and at most cartoon style violence, I'll give them that.

Problem #1 is that the Sqids live on a remote planet, so a hunting trip would be very expensive and time-consuming (even if you make the trip in cryogenic hibernation, your customers will have to wait a long time) ; problem #2 is that seeing a naked Sqid provokes a "the goggles they do nothing" from humans, so your hunting party will need to overcome that.

[theangelJean]

Problem #1 is that the Sqids live on a remote planet, so a hunting trip would be very expensive and time-consuming (even if you make the trip in cryogenic hibernation, your customers will have to wait a long time) ; problem #2 is that seeing a naked Sqid provokes a "the goggles they do nothing" from humans, so your hunting party will need to overcome that.

I never said it was a good idea. But, knowing current day humans, until they pass a law against it that is actually enforceable somehow, someone is bound to try. Freefall-era humans may think a little more deeply and act less hastily, who knows.

[Rockphed]

I never said it was a good idea. But, knowing current day humans, until they pass a law against it that is actually enforceable somehow, someone is bound to try. Freefall-era humans may think a little more deeply and act less hastily, who knows.

I am fairly certain that star travel is expensive enough and governments are worried enough about Sqids stealing technology that travel to Sam's Star is banned all sorts of ways. Currently they have a few samples of the Sqid biosphere and 1 very creative Sqid who they cannot send home for fear of him leading his people into space and/or nuclear weapons with which to determine anything.

[sihnfahl]

I am fairly certain that star travel is expensive enough and governments are worried enough about Sqids stealing technology that travel to Sam's Star is banned all sorts of ways. Currently they have a few samples of the Sqid biosphere and 1 very creative Sqid who they cannot send home for fear of him leading his people into space and/or nuclear weapons with which to determine anything.

That and any existing ship carrying anything to his planet would cause ecological collapse due to the relative competition levels. And Sam's contaminated.

[Radar]

That and any existing ship carrying anything to his planet would cause ecological collapse due to the relative competition levels. And Sam's contaminated.

Which, to be honest, opens up the question what happened there after the first exploration ship that did land on the planet. We are most likely not looking at any kind of apocalyptic event, but this is a seriously important question.

That being said, I think that the microbiological danger is a bit overstated here, as Sam survives quite well in an Earth-like environment with the key problem being a different oxygen content of the atmosphere. He very explicitly does not need to keep himself sterile to live. And if viruses and bacteria are not as much of a danger, making sure there are no higher life forms on a ship is far easier to manage.

[Fyraltari]

Can somebody explain to my smooth brain what's going on?

[PhantomFox]

Can somebody explain to my smooth brain what's going on?

The station is outrunning them, essentially

[theangelJean]

For anyone who wanted more detail (yes, I know that might be "no-one") - they're at the outer edge of the rotating station, and spinning with it. With the exit behind them, all they have to do is spin slightly less fast than the edge of the station (i.e. moving slightly backwards relative to the station). Once they're over the edge of the ramp, they're effectively in space and moving. All they have to do is make sure they're out of the way of the other end of the exit door, so they can avoid being scooped back up, and then their inertia will carry them away.

[Willie the Duck]

Okay, so (per this comic) they are accelerating forward at the time. I like how it is shown that some of the surfaces are not aligned with the 'gravity' of the ship in that state (yes, we went over this way back when the ship first became spaceworthy somewhere). What's interesting to me is that the shower appears to be at the forward side of a room, with the spigot (and thus water supply) on the forward side of that. I would have thought that spaceships would want water supplies on the aft side of person-occupied compartments, if only because you need structural support to keep the tank of water from pressing backwards towards the rear of the ship, and that's easier to do when it can be the actual joists in the wall or the like. Or maybe the difference is too small to care about. Either way, ISS astronauts/cosmonauts are jealous of a shower that size.

[theangelJean]

Either way, ISS astronauts/cosmonauts are jealous of a shower that size.

ISS staff get showers? How does that work in microgravity?

[Thomas Cardew]

ISS staff get showers? How does that work in microgravity?

ISS doesn't. They use liquid soap and rinseless shampoo with a tiny amount of water that either gets toweled off or evaporated by an airflow system. Skylab astronauts DID get a shower. It was incredibly cumbersome. They had to strap in their feet, raise a floor-ceiling cylindrical shower wall, then soap up, spray pressurized water over themselves, then suction up the water. It took like 2+ hours. The Apollo astronauts had bad sponge baths and a horrible stench.

[Willie the Duck]

ISS doesn't. They use liquid soap and rinseless shampoo with a tiny amount of water that either gets toweled off or evaporated by an airflow system. Skylab astronauts DID get a shower. It was incredibly cumbersome. They had to strap in their feet, raise a floor-ceiling cylindrical shower wall, then soap up, spray pressurized water over themselves, then suction up the water. It took like 2+ hours. The Apollo astronauts had bad sponge baths and a horrible stench.

And I didn't check to see if ISS had followed suit.
Apollo I can see not having much of a solution. It was a defined limited mission (I guess ISS tours are too, but serious difference in scale).
I'm surprised the ISS solution is what the ended up with. given how much they worry about dust and particulates and such getting into vital components, I would think air-soluble soap products would likewise be a no-no. Wonder what they will do with the next-gen stations and bases we are starting to hear about.

[Rakaydos]

And I didn't check to see if ISS had followed suit.
Apollo I can see not having much of a solution. It was a defined limited mission (I guess ISS tours are too, but serious difference in scale).
I'm surprised the ISS solution is what the ended up with. given how much they worry about dust and particulates and such getting into vital components, I would think air-soluble soap products would likewise be a no-no. Wonder what they will do with the next-gen stations and bases we are starting to hear about.

Spaceflight tends to be super conservitive- you go with what has been proven to work, because you cant afford to expiriment. I wouldnt expect anything else until we get AG stations like Vast's dumbell station and the ring-station that is Voyager Station.

[Willie the Duck]

Spaceflight tends to be super conservitive- you go with what has been proven to work, because you cant afford to expiriment. I wouldnt expect anything else until we get AG stations like Vast's dumbell station and the ring-station that is Voyager Station.

At the same time, they learn from mistakes. If evaporating soaps have created greasy buildup in hard-to-reach places, they likely will try to implement a different solution to the dirty-astronaut conundrum (after all, they apparently learned from the challenge of Skylab showers).

[Thomas Cardew]

I think it was less a 'mistake' as much as 'cheaper'. The shower was more weight, took up space, and was less water efficient. It's much easier to have the crew sponge bathe than to include bulky, unwieldy, and expensive creature comforts.

[halfeye]

I think it was less a 'mistake' as much as 'cheaper'. The shower was more weight, took up space, and was less water efficient. It's much easier to have the crew sponge bathe than to include bulky, unwieldy, and expensive creature comforts.

The internal capacity of Skylab was huge, the ISS is bigger because it has a lot of solar panels, but it's internal capacity probably isn't as large as Skylab's even now.

[sihnfahl]

The internal capacity of Skylab was huge, the ISS is bigger because it has a lot of solar panels, but it's internal capacity probably isn't as large as Skylab's even now.

In terms of habitable volume, ISS is larger. Slightly.

From NASA: Habitable Volume: 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters)

From Space.com: Skylab's habitable volume was enormous: 12,750 cubic feet

In terms of internal space for an individual compartment, though....

Most of the ISS modules are between 4 and 4.5 meters in diameter.

Skylab, however, was about 6.6 meters in diameter.

[halfeye]

In terms of habitable volume, ISS is larger. Slightly.

From NASA: Habitable Volume: 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters)

From Space.com: Skylab's habitable volume was enormous: 12,750 cubic feet

In terms of internal space for an individual compartment, though....

Most of the ISS modules are between 4 and 4.5 meters in diameter.

Skylab, however, was about 6.6 meters in diameter.

I'm mostly just annoyed that Skylab was destroyed by pig ignorance.

It was a terrible waste, it could have been attached to the ISS and used for all sorts of useful things.

[sihnfahl]

It was a terrible waste, it could have been attached to the ISS and used for all sorts of useful things.

Maybe. At the time of the ISS, Skylab would have been 25 years old, and have done about 140,600 orbits.

No telling what shape it would have been in. To say nothing of the necessary retrofits due to the age of the equipment on board compared to what the ISS packs.

[halfeye]

Maybe. At the time of the ISS, Skylab would have been 25 years old, and have done about 140,600 orbits.

No telling what shape it would have been in. To say nothing of the necessary retrofits due to the age of the equipment on board compared to what the ISS packs.

I loathe the way that like bad children the space scientists of the USA trash all of their toys in the hopes of getting new ones. I strongly suspect some of them would trash the Voyagers if they could.

The shape skylab would have been in was a big one. It was the third stage of a Saturn Five refitted as a space station. If nothing else, the shell should have been reused. There are other Saturn Five third stages out there, they wouldn't be as good as Skylab was, but they should be reused if they can be recaptured.

[sihnfahl]

I loathe the way that like bad children the space scientists of the USA trash all of their toys in the hopes of getting new ones. I strongly suspect some of them would trash the Voyagers if they could.

But only if they could instantly pop a follow-up probe with updated equipment based on what we've learned in the intervening times. It's been 45 years, after all, since V-I.

but they should be reused if they can be recaptured.

It would take a lot of time and effort. And depend on the orbit they're on. Heck, we still haven't captured any old satellites, nor have the means to. It's 'send up to consign them to the high orbit graveyard', or 'yeet them into the ocean'.

We've getting cluttered up there, and we'd need to clean it out...

[Yuki Akuma]

It would, in a lot of cases, be more wasteful to recover space vehicles than it would be to just let them stay where they are and eventually get destroyed on reentry.

[halfeye]

It would, in a lot of cases, be more wasteful to recover space vehicles than it would be to just let them stay where they are and eventually get destroyed on reentry.

The aluminium at least could be reused in most cases, we don't yet have an ore mining setup in space. No smelting either, so that would be "fun".

The Saturn Five third stages are not in Leo, and they're full of fuel tanks which are probably empty by now and could be lived in. They'd need to be adapted, but compared to the cost of pushing living spaces up the gravity well they'd be cheap. I'm not saying they're worth a big search, but if one were found within easy reach accidentally it would be worth keeping.

[WanderingMist]

The aluminium at least could be reused in most cases, we don't yet have an ore mining setup in space. No smelting either, so that would be "fun".

The Saturn Five third stages are not in Leo, and they're full of fuel tanks which are probably empty by now and could be lived in. They'd need to be adapted, but compared to the cost of pushing living spaces up the gravity well they'd be cheap. I'm not saying they're worth a big search, but if one were found within easy reach accidentally it would be worth keeping.

Here's the answer to why it almost certainly is not worth it to try and retrieve anything that is already in space:

https://what-if.xkcd.com/38/

[Rockphed]

We've getting cluttered up there, and we'd need to clean it out...

Too bad we stopped using our space plane that had a cargo bay suitable for collecting and de-orbiting space junk...