[TML] Ship shapes

[Garry Ward]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tommy Grav" <tgrav at mac.com>
To: <ross.winn at gmail.com>; "The Traveller Mailing List" 
<tml at travellercentral.com>
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 10:19 AM
Subject: [TML] Ship shapes


> On May 2, 2008, at 4:03 AM, Ross Winn wrote:
>
>> Jerry W Barrington wrote:
>>> So... civies should be spheres and warships long and thin?
>> I think having a unified design philosophy after some three thousand
>> years is not out of the realm of possibility.
>
> I would actually argue that civies, especially merchants will opt for a
> box configuration. A box is easier to fill, making use of all available
> internal space for cargo. A would also think that a box is much easier
> to build than a sphere. No need for bending hull plates and the internal
> support structure is much simpler.
>
> I must have missed something on why spheres are to be prefered???
Internal volume vs surface area. You can get more in a sphere than in a box 
relative to the surface area.

Granted, filling something with nice angles and corners is easier (from our 
perception). Perhaps the actual design structure is a box inside a sphere.

Cargo area is a box embedded in the sphere with the fuel, water and air 
tankage filling in the space between the outside of the box and inner 
surface of the sphere. Lhyd, water and air confrom to the spherical inner 
suface easily and the more rigid shipping containers are safely stowed 
inside box where they can be stacked tightly using every m^3 effectively.

Garry
>
> Cheers
>   Tommy
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