"Revising Pusher-Plates"
3rd Vorosh, 9 (2188)
Rivkah Of Unity
I look at Daas enter the room, tentacles covered with papers written up by Estrili. He lays out documents and diagrams on a table. "Hello Rivkah, we've put together what you asked for. We are making good progress."
I stand. "Daas, what exactly is the hold-up on the Orions? What is stopping us putting Loveboat One into mass production?"
"Loveboat One was a proof of concept project Rivkah. It follows the original Human documentation as near as we can with the redacted statements, and makes use of much more simple and easy materials, like the original Human designs called for. However, we are researching materials that offer far better performance; there is a lot of room for optimisation."
"I'm coming to the conclusion that we need as many of them as we can build as soon as we can build them. I want you to tell me exactly why I shouldn't say we go with what we've got."
"Because we can do much better."
"How? Daas, the way I see it, we have a working ship now. We declined twenty mission proposals to allow the navy to test our first pusher-plate module to destruction."
"You can be so like your mother. The Human designs called for construction with carbon steel for the structure; it was cheap and easy to work with and build something that could take the stress of thousands of bomb detonations, and within the constraint that they were working with on materials technologies two centuries behind our own."
"So you want to make better Orions? How much better - why I shouldn't I move Loveboat One to full production and we'll improve it later?"
"Because I can give you a ship that is stronger, faster, safer, more reliable by focusing our efforts on the R&D design instead of the working model."
"Explain?"
"We are looking for a higher performance design that's lighter and stronger. The carbon steels specified in their reports have densities in the region of 7850 kg per cubic metre, it depends on which alloy and grade exactly. But using just basic titanium instead gives us a stronger plate for 4500kg per cubic metre, which effectively means the same strength plate can be 40% of the mass while allowing a higher safety margin because of Titanium's better mechanical and thermal properties. And there's other materials; we can have Titanium alloys that are very close to Titanium in density but have nearly twice Titanium's yield strength, which would allow another cut in pusher-plate mass. Sound interesting?"
"Yes."
He then shows me a design for a massive crankshaft with a big electric motor and capacitor bank system. "What's more, we're looking at a crankshaft turned by the pusher-plate's movement that we can use to actively control the pusher-plate's movement - in the event of a premature detonation we'll be able to pre-compress the suspension, and in the event of a delayed explosion we'll be able to brake the pusher-plate and prevent the plate smashing into the ship. For a missed explosion we'll be able to stop the pusher-plate far more quickly than waiting for it to come to a stop naturally. This yields massive gains in reliability and safety."
"How much difference does it make?"
"Ship to ship the twelve metre pusher-plate we used on Loveboat One we can drop from the original 172 tons, to potentially 85 tons, probably 95 tons. And we'll have a safer, stronger, more reliable and better controlled design."
"So it's worth the wait?"
"Absolutely - the capability improvement is massive."
"What resources do you need to get them done quicker?"
He thinks. "I will write it up in a report. But I definitely need more computational power because to get the design down to below the 100 ton target will need optimised finite element analysis calculations, and the systems we have for that have been running your younger brother or sister."
"Well, they'll be free now. Mum and Dad are in hospital."
"If you can give me those computers, we can get the design work done. Then it's up to manufacturing."
"Thank you Daas."
He looks at me. "Rivkah, how many exactly do you want? It's a major design constraint; we can't put a fleet of ships together in a workshop like Loveboat One was. We will need full scale production lines. And it makes a huge difference as to what we can do whether you want ten, a hundred or a thousand of them."
I walk to the window. "As many as possible, as quickly as possible."
"Give me a number to work with."
"Ok. Come with me."
I take him through to where I duplicated Aunt Alex's display, then I switch it to display my projected requirements. His eyes go wide, and he stays silent, before slipping out the door. "I will see what we can do."
