306: Shiprot

ENTRY 306: Shiprot

The majority of space vessels have a planned operational life of ten years - a decade in vacuum exposes a hull to deterioration from microimpacts, cosmic rays, and solar temperature differentials; the inner workings of the spacecraft suffer from oxidation, radiation leaks, accumulated biological detritus (if inhabited), and even infection. Vehicles that kiss atmosphere have even shorter operational lifespans, the added friction and pressures placing greater strain on the hull. Even ships that remain docked at major habitats for years at a time experience unexpected component fatigue from the "wash" of waste gases and chemicals of constant traffic that can accumulate around the space station. This general wear and tear on spacecraft is popularly known as "shiprot."

Ten years on after the Fall, shiprot is becoming a major issue as scumbarges and other older craft exit the window of their original planned use. Starware and other industrial hypercorps are already gearing up bids and facilities for major refitting, while autonomists are addressing the issue with community-driven DIY refit networks, working out where and how spacecraft owners can repair their own vehicles within their own means - not an easy task, and more than one older ship limps along with a poorly fixed hull or that has to make use of older-model toilet harnesses because they can't afford to gut the ship and start over. For those where their spacecraft pretty much is their home, the thought of gutting and rebuilding is a last-ditch resort, and they're willing to suffer a little discomfort to keep their old birds running.

Using Shiprot

The future can be bright and shiny and spotless and grimy and dirty and improbably venting steam at the same time. People think of space as an inconceivably large volume filled with really very little in it, and imagine that satellites and spacecraft can merrily float along for years or even centuries without suffering much of any calamaties, and by and large this is true - except that most transhumans insist on taking their spacecraft near moons and planets, to dock with habitats, to apply thrust to move them, leave them out in the sun, and of course live in them. While most of these activities do imperceptible amounts of damage (except biomorphs living in them; nearly every ship has a strain of superbacteria that they can never get rid of), the fact is that over time all the stresses and impacts add up. Spaceships, even shiny and new ones, eventually deteriorate (some quite quickly, if you're making multiple atmospheric launches with them), and while you might be able to float for quite a long time through the void without losing hull integrity, eventually the wires are going to rot and the hull plating will wear away enough to let cosmic rays through, and the superbacteria will mutate and kill you all. Long story short: spacecraft have a finite lifespan, and that is a good thing.

Shiprot is an excuse for something to fail. This can be a moment of tension, when the PCs need to don their vacsuits and go make an emergency repair, or it can be a larger plot point where the PCs are effectively stuck in their current habitat for a little while because essential repairs need to be made before the vehicle is safe for transhumans to go out in it again, and/or they need to raise the funds to refit their craft. Refitting brings with it the possibilities of customization and upgrades, which often appeal to the more detail oriented and technical players (or those that have just always desired a laser hardpoint on the prow, or the ability to reroute ship controls to their ecto). Given the general hostility of space, even small potential failures in spaceworthiness are generally issues of concern (at least to the transhumans riding in them), and can make a decent complication for what would otherwise be a boring journey getting from point A to point B.

Seeds

• Arriving at the latest habitat, the PCs find that their ship is quarantined after a routine biological survey detected the presence of genital crabs, believed to have been extinct on most habitats. The PCs can come out after a thorough decontamination, but eliminating all the insects from the ship will be a major undertaking - and made all the more difficult by local conservationists that want to preserve the insects for future generations.
• The PCs receive a distress signal: an autonomist has decided to try and shield his hull from further microdeterioration by covering it with layers of water ice harvested from an asteroid. Unfortunately, the improvised device they used has malfunctioned, and the crippled ship is now being buried under layers of ice and they are trapped.
• Parts for the Space Phantom II light cruisers are slim - and fetch a good price on the open market now that the ships are no longer in production and are beyond the means of most 3D printers to produce. The PC runs across an urgent ad with a shopping list on the Mesh, and it just so happens there's a space graveyard nearby nearby. Of course, if they try their luck they might have to fend with fellow scrappers looking to cash in.

277: Pressure Ships

ENTRY 277: Pressure Ships

"Now you watch clanky, 'cause when we hit three hundred meters this hull is gonna squeeze like a tube of astronaut steak."
- Old Russ, Spacehand

Spacecraft, as a rule, are not designed to operate for extended periods within planetary atmosphere, much less in high-pressure zones of gas giants and underwater - where a spacecraft only has to try and keep the air inside from expanding outward, craft designed for high-pressure areas also have to accomodate the massive pressure of the atmosphere or fluid pressing inwards on the hull as well. There are further details to consider with regard to drag, the efficacy of engines and navigation in the different environment, and in the case of manned vehicles keeping the internal environment of the craft within acceptable limits to continue to support transhuman life, but what it generall boils down to is this: spaceships are (generally) not designed to go underwater or exploring the lower atmospheres of gas giants. The general solution for exploring and navigating about in the seas of Europa or gas giants like Jupiter are pressure ships designed specifically to ascend and descend, generally by adjusting pressure differentials or weight, taking inspiration from old Earth submersibles and rigid airships. Pressure ships generally have limited maneuverability, but as a rule of thumb vehicles that operate in a gaseous atmosphere are piloted with Pilot: Aircraft and those that operate in a liquid atmosphere use Pilot: Watercraft.

Space Balloon: These high-atmosphere vehicles are designed for navigating the (relatively) low-pressure upper atmospheres of many worlds, right up to the edge of space, and are especially popular on Venus. The balloon is filled with a lighter-than-local atmosphere gas, sometimes heated to generate additional lift or able to discharge ballast to lessen weight. They are especially cheap and ideal for delivering light cargo or personnel, but have limited directional control, especially in turbulent atmospheric systems like Mars. Space balloons are usable on Jupiter with some modifications by using different pressurized gasses to descend into the lower, high-pressure atmospheres. [Low]

Europan Bathyscaphe: A high-quality deep-diving submersible, the Europan bathyscape is a rigid craft with full life-support facilities for three transhuman biomorphs and contains a full suite of deep sea sensors; some even include a remote operating vehicle or specially-adapted deep-sea diving suits. The bouyancy of models is determined by a float filled with a dense, practically incompressible liquid hydrocarbon, and by ballast weights attached by electromagnetic seals. In an emergency if power fails, the bathyscaphe will automatically release its ballast and begin to ascend to the surface (assuming nothing has damaged the float). Without modification, a Europan bathyscaphe can descend over 10 kilometers deep. [High]

Jupiter Orion: The exploration of Jupiter's lower atmosphere is most easily accomplished by ambient pressure vehicles (i.e. those that do not have to support a transhuman biomorph-friendly atmosphere onboard), which are mainly operated by synthmorphs and informorphs. Once the difficulty of trying to keep a biomorph alive at the insane pressures and high gravities of sub-surface Jupiter are done away with, engineers can focus on trying to make a ship move and navigate through dense gases, with the knowledge that one false slip could send the craft and any egos aboard it crashing down to a surface where the pressure is so great that hydrogen gives up and becomes a metal. However, the Jupiter Orion is designed to operate far above such high-pressure zones, though far below where most spacecraft and aircraft can safely operate, and is designed as a prospector ship making sudden deep dives up to 10 bar in the atmospheres of gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn and come back out again. [Expensive]

Seed

• Sky Mountain, a smaller Venusian aerostat is failing, rapidly losing upper atmosphere stability and falling into the upper atmosphere, where it is expected to break apart before impacting the surface. The station was evacuated in haste, and the emergency communications system has failed. The PCs are hired to quickly travel to the failing station and manually trigger its fallback system which will deploy space balloons with much of the irreplaceable data and cultural artifacts of the habitat for later retrieval; the PCs themselves can take a ride on the last remaining escape balloon. It's a race against time, but such are the deeds that reputations are built from.