[TML] lifeboats (ERV)

[Richard Aiken]

On 9/23/07, Tom Naro <tomnaro at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Sounds like a good reason to put the starport a little bit distant from the main population settlements.  The people in the startown that builds up near the starport will hear the booms on a regular basis  - but they should be use to it.  I wonder if there is a brisk business in ear plugs?

Newbie startown worker: "What was that boom?"
Old hand: "Ummm?  Oh.  The sound of a ship going for orbit on hard
burn.  In other words, their money is leaving.  What you want to hear
are the louder ones, as folks with money who are in a hurry to spend
it come down from orbit."

NOTE: If a 3 gee ship only reaches supersonic at high altitude, that
would mean a ship accelerating more slowly won't have one at all.
Right?  So backwater ports - where only 1 gee and 2 gee ships normally
set down - may not be used to hearing sonic booms at all.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein