I like that read as a way of harmonizing the text. Again, though, given
trial and error, you've got to get pretty close to an Oort cloud object to
be in its "grav well." Somewhere I think we said how many Gs that is
instead of simply "100 planetary diameters," or else now I'm confusing
2300 with Traveller.
> The way I always read that is that the Terrans were, in essence, using the
> "feature" of a jump drive precipitating you out of jump space when you hit
> a gravity well as their "braking system". They didn't understand the
> mathematics well enough to calculate a jump into empty space. Basically,
> they were playing bumper cars with the jump drive. Once they got a working
> model of a jump drive that worked properly, someone had an "ah-hah!"
> moment
> on the mathematics.
>
> --
> Mario
>
> http://mario.silent-tower.org/
>
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 12:45 PM, [Traveller_TNE] <
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Thought so.
>>
>> Here then is some highlights from the troublesome section...
>>
>> "The Jump Drive
>> (A.D. 2088-2098)
>> The UNSCA research station on Ceres had one more miracle to produce. It
>> was at that station that Terrans first developed the jump drive, which
>> allowed for accessible interstellar travel, in 2088. At first, the
>> prototype jump drive was extremely fuel hungry and limited in range. It
>> was
>> used only within Sol system, as a fast means of reaching the outer
>> planets
>> and the cometary cloud."
>>
>> Jump drives are jump drives. Fuel efficiency is not an issue per se,
>> though higher capacity drives require more fuel to throw you farther
>> through hyperspace to emerge a farther distance away in normal space.
>> The
>> canon explanation was always that the Terrans were *using* jump drive
>> inefficiently, not realizing at first that their new technology allowed
>> not
>> only faster travel times to the outer system, but could be used to
>> travel
>> interstellar distances. With usage over time they soon discovered they
>> could leap further and further away until the Americans jumped to
>> Barnard's
>> Star.
>>
>> "Even after the UNSCA produced a true jump-1 drive (in 2092), there
>> seemed
>> to be little practical application
>> for the technology. No other star systems were within a parsec of Sol,
>> and
>> the mathematics of jump navigation seemed to imply that a jump into
>> empty
>> space was not possible. "
>>
>> The text essentially contradicts itself, having just given a practical
>> use
>> for the new drive "a fast means of reaching the outer planets..." But
>> that
>> aside, the handwave employed regarding the mathematics of jump
>> navigation
>> also doesn't work. Americans being well...Americans, even the latter
>> 21st
>> century, they would have pushed the envelope. The cometary cloud is
>> nearing the edge of the Sun's gravity well. Someone would have made
>> that
>> next leap outside the Sun's gravity well and when they discovered that
>> they
>> had no problem returning to the last jump point, it would have been an
>> eureka moment equivalent to Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier.
>>
>> "The first step was to locate a âjump point,â a wandering planet or
>> browndwarf star located at a convenient
>> point in interstellar space. Such bodies were known to exist, although
>> locating them precisely was often
>> quite difficult, and it was unlikely for one to be in a convenient
>> location. Here the American mission planners
>> were lucky â a candidate rogue planet was found, located so that
>> jump-1
>> starships could reach it from both Sol and Barnardâs Star."
>>
>> Here they treating jump drive like Traveller: 2300's stutterwarp, which
>> *did* need a gravity well to function.
>>
>> Later in the next section...
>>
>> "It was at Barnard that the two societies began an enthusiastic trade in
>> high-technology goods. Terran entrepreneurs did especially well offering
>> medical and biotechnological goods in exchange for examples of Vilani
>> engineering. The Vilani felt that they got the better end of this
>> bargain,
>> not realizing how quickly Terran scientists would reverse-engineer the
>> technology they received. One critical item developed (by 2108) was a
>> Terran version of the Vilani jump-1 drive, allowing Terran explorers
>> their
>> first easy access to the nearest stars."
>>
>> Jump drive is jump drive and J-1 drives are J-1 drives. The Vilani
>> could
>> not have "better" J-1 drives. At best *for story purposes* the Vilani
>> J-1
>> drives might be more reliable (which would make sense given that the
>> Terrans were essentially running around on 1st generation jump drives
>> and
>> the Vilani were using J-1 drives that had been made the same way for
>> centuries), but that is not how it is written.
>>
>>
>
trial and error, you've got to get pretty close to an Oort cloud object to
be in its "grav well." Somewhere I think we said how many Gs that is
instead of simply "100 planetary diameters," or else now I'm confusing
2300 with Traveller.
> The way I always read that is that the Terrans were, in essence, using the
> "feature" of a jump drive precipitating you out of jump space when you hit
> a gravity well as their "braking system". They didn't understand the
> mathematics well enough to calculate a jump into empty space. Basically,
> they were playing bumper cars with the jump drive. Once they got a working
> model of a jump drive that worked properly, someone had an "ah-hah!"
> moment
> on the mathematics.
>
> --
> Mario
>
> http://mario.silent-tower.org/
>
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 12:45 PM, [Traveller_TNE] <
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Thought so.
>>
>> Here then is some highlights from the troublesome section...
>>
>> "The Jump Drive
>> (A.D. 2088-2098)
>> The UNSCA research station on Ceres had one more miracle to produce. It
>> was at that station that Terrans first developed the jump drive, which
>> allowed for accessible interstellar travel, in 2088. At first, the
>> prototype jump drive was extremely fuel hungry and limited in range. It
>> was
>> used only within Sol system, as a fast means of reaching the outer
>> planets
>> and the cometary cloud."
>>
>> Jump drives are jump drives. Fuel efficiency is not an issue per se,
>> though higher capacity drives require more fuel to throw you farther
>> through hyperspace to emerge a farther distance away in normal space.
>> The
>> canon explanation was always that the Terrans were *using* jump drive
>> inefficiently, not realizing at first that their new technology allowed
>> not
>> only faster travel times to the outer system, but could be used to
>> travel
>> interstellar distances. With usage over time they soon discovered they
>> could leap further and further away until the Americans jumped to
>> Barnard's
>> Star.
>>
>> "Even after the UNSCA produced a true jump-1 drive (in 2092), there
>> seemed
>> to be little practical application
>> for the technology. No other star systems were within a parsec of Sol,
>> and
>> the mathematics of jump navigation seemed to imply that a jump into
>> empty
>> space was not possible. "
>>
>> The text essentially contradicts itself, having just given a practical
>> use
>> for the new drive "a fast means of reaching the outer planets..." But
>> that
>> aside, the handwave employed regarding the mathematics of jump
>> navigation
>> also doesn't work. Americans being well...Americans, even the latter
>> 21st
>> century, they would have pushed the envelope. The cometary cloud is
>> nearing the edge of the Sun's gravity well. Someone would have made
>> that
>> next leap outside the Sun's gravity well and when they discovered that
>> they
>> had no problem returning to the last jump point, it would have been an
>> eureka moment equivalent to Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier.
>>
>> "The first step was to locate a âjump point,â a wandering planet or
>> browndwarf star located at a convenient
>> point in interstellar space. Such bodies were known to exist, although
>> locating them precisely was often
>> quite difficult, and it was unlikely for one to be in a convenient
>> location. Here the American mission planners
>> were lucky â a candidate rogue planet was found, located so that
>> jump-1
>> starships could reach it from both Sol and Barnardâs Star."
>>
>> Here they treating jump drive like Traveller: 2300's stutterwarp, which
>> *did* need a gravity well to function.
>>
>> Later in the next section...
>>
>> "It was at Barnard that the two societies began an enthusiastic trade in
>> high-technology goods. Terran entrepreneurs did especially well offering
>> medical and biotechnological goods in exchange for examples of Vilani
>> engineering. The Vilani felt that they got the better end of this
>> bargain,
>> not realizing how quickly Terran scientists would reverse-engineer the
>> technology they received. One critical item developed (by 2108) was a
>> Terran version of the Vilani jump-1 drive, allowing Terran explorers
>> their
>> first easy access to the nearest stars."
>>
>> Jump drive is jump drive and J-1 drives are J-1 drives. The Vilani
>> could
>> not have "better" J-1 drives. At best *for story purposes* the Vilani
>> J-1
>> drives might be more reliable (which would make sense given that the
>> Terrans were essentially running around on 1st generation jump drives
>> and
>> the Vilani were using J-1 drives that had been made the same way for
>> centuries), but that is not how it is written.
>>
>>
>