For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[Mr.dobsonian]

Yo is there a NASA thread?

[kerbiloid]

A lot of them.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

@SunlitZelkova  Good morning!

So - first things first: in the popular imagination, people VASTLY overestimate the efficacy of nuclear weapons.  We think in terms of completely destroyed cities and seas of glass and irradiated wastelands un-populable for centuries.  Get that out of your mind.  The primacy of how you view a nuclear exchange should be as bombs.  Full stop.  Look primarily at the explosive effects, from cratering to burn zone to concussion zone.  The 'scary stuff' (i.e. radiation which no one can see and few understand) has either very short term effects which are rapidly attenuated by weathering, distance or decay, or very long term effects that are effectively ineffective. 

This is not to minimize the threat; when you look at just the bomb aspects; they're still incomprehensibly brutal.  I posted above that the US has 310 cities and 19,500 towns (many of which are clustered around the cities).  You can overlay the effects of 2k bombs of various yields from Russia and China atop those cities, and just looking at the 'bomb' effects eliminate a significant portion of the population... but you need to anticipate that most outside of the impact devastation survive - at least for a while.*

• No one survives the crater zone.
• A rare few survive the thermo effects, for a short period (think people in deep basements or reinforced concrete structures).  Absent almost immediate outside medical intervention, most of those burned die - but some will linger.  Some rare few will recover.
• In the concussive zone, depending upon building materials** you get an expanding ring of survivors. 
• Outside the concussive zone, most people survive.  (I say 'most' because you get a few who just decide to not go on, and some who die by accident or civil disturbance or even shrapnel/debris)

The radiation will get a few:

• Crater/thermo people also get the most radiation, but they're likely killed by mechanical injury.
• Some few people in the concussive zone, and a rare few just outside it who get a full dose (i.e. they're completely exposed, watching it happen) will get irradiated and die.  Note: these people are almost all within 1km of the impact/detonation, and have a direct line of sight to the explosion.  People outside of 1km ( and esp. outside of the concussive zone) who witness or are exposed the explosion likely survive.***  People in the concussive zone, but indoors/behind a structure likely won't get the killing dose of radiation.
• Fully exposed people who escape the concussive effects can still be casualties of thermal radiation (burns) - but most people inside buildings are shielded.
• In the aftermath - some rare few will eat food or inhale dust contaminated with radioactive fallout - most of these will get sick but many can recover.  People merely exposed to fallout who take care not to ingest radioactive material and who clean themselves are generally fine.  Those who remain indoors in intact structures survive.
• People who remain too close to ground zero (heavy concentrations of irradiated fallout resistant to weathering) for too long will get cooked - like standing in front of an open microwave - but those areas are in or adjacent to the craters.  Those effects are almost completely mitigated in a matter of years (not decades).  "Fallout Plume" maps show places where people will have a higher than normal chance of getting a cancer sometime in their lifetime; read w/in 70 years. You should largely ignore those.

Okay - for story purposes, you've dealt with Day One.  While on a global or regional level, there may be 'secondary salvos' or follow-on waves of launches... at this point, none of that really matters to individual survivors.  You either got a Day One event or you did not - and if you get a subsequent bomb, that's your own personal Day One.

...

So - you have people who survive Day One.  Their next day is measured in individual hours.  Each hour is a survival event.  Time for people in crisis flows differently than for those of us experiencing bland normality.  I don't care where you are in the world, you are in shock.  Survival mode.  Survive Day Two?  Your life is now measured in Days.  Each Day seems an insurmountable, confusing Event.  Survive the first Week?  You are still counting Days, but now those are used to measure Weeks.  You find yourself breathing and mourning and planning.  Survive the first Month?  This is now your life.  The fear is less immediate - but its a presence you still feel and taste.  The future is actually a thing you can comprehend.  You still have to survive the oncoming Seasons, but if you do... if you make it to a Year? 

Congratulations, you are a Survivor - and have fully adapted to your new reality.  LIFE GOES ON.

...

On 10/1/2021 at 7:48 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

societies like those in the Southern Hemisphere would be in danger of collapse

I think it is likely that we in the Northern Hemisphere overestimate the degree to which most of the world has integrated to and relies upon the Global Economy - for anything other than 'nice to haves'. 

A fair analogy is that the US, Canada, Europe (including Western Russia) and the strongest economies of East Asia are 'cities' that rely upon the rural parts of the world for goods and services; but to think that people in the 'rural' areas need the cities to survive is a fallacy.  Sure, they like phones and XBoxes and Tractors - but do they really, really need financial services, retirement advisors, marketing departments, research universities, lawyers, economists or government agencies to go on?  Think about the 'Arrogant American General' meme - the guy who wanted to bomb the Taliban back to the stone age, only to discover they were already there.  (This analogy requires appreciation for a simple fact: modern humans are not stupid - whether the Sioux & Comanche, the Viet Cong or Taliban - not having technological equality to your foe does not equate to an instant loss.  "Stone age" is an economic feature; take a time machine back and rescue Otzi before he died in the ice... he'd be using cell phones and driving within a year of being brought here.)  You should look up Eastern Pakistani weapons market info: blacksmiths were forging replacement parts to AKs and ARs to get them back into service, and people were soldiering and taping phones back into action.  These are examples of humans' smart, tough and resilient traits.  Guided bombs are nice-to-haves.

On 10/1/2021 at 7:48 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Japan was on the verge of a major famine at that point, and malnutrition was virtually universal. Industry had either been destroyed or ceased to operate. Drug use was common, use of a black market had ensued, and crime was rampant. There was not much "we", only "I". The only thing that kept everything from completely falling apart was the Allied Occupation. Obviously, after a nuclear war there will be no occupation.

Famine will be a feature of the aftermath of a global (Northern Hemisphere) nuclear war.  It will be concentrated around the city-centers and littorals of the Northern Hemisphere - and occur on certain islands and parts of un-bombed Northern and the Southern Continents that are overly dependent on foreign food (think over-populated Middle Eastern / North African areas and major cities of Africa and SA.)  Those people I mention above who survive the First Year (esp. teens & 20-somethings) - get to see their grandkids.  So what's a fair number to speculate?  I think you get decreasing rings of famine radiating from each city; those in the most rural/self-sufficient parts of the world remain largely unaffected.  Those who need food brought to them?  They are in trouble - and yet some will be so tough and resilient to survive in every zone.  So what is that number of Day One Surviving city-dwellers who subsequently perish to famine?  1/3?  1/2?  I don't think it's more.  The family willing to walk 75 miles into the most rural area and collapse at grandma's house?  They make it.

 

On 10/2/2021 at 5:56 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

he "things" are indeed there for revival of civilization, but I am skeptical whether people would have the will to work towards restoring things to their pre-war state- the state which lead them to the war in the first place.

Why?  That's pretty bitter.  Even after a total collapse, people will find that working together enhances their individual chances of survival - but I think your question is larger than that; I agree that what comes after won't be a carbon-copy, but on a fundamental level I do think that you get cities again and along with that economic and political structures that are analogous to what is currently in place.  The names and causes will change - but the structures are simple and thus will be there.

On 10/2/2021 at 5:56 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

After a war once things reach to a certain minimum level (the Wild West and/or 17th century towns and villages) I do not believe the population would feel any need to go further than that, as they will continually be raised in an environment where food and child rearing is the number one priority- and beyond that is a distraction. It might be a "Wild West" with 1990s level medical care- but not the continental spanning singular societies/civilizations from before the war. These are mainly just the aftermath of religiously or power driven* empires from earlier history that eventually got to the point where no one in the general population realized what they were doing and have become the numerous democracies or republics we have today.

Here, I have to question the time-scales we are discussing.  Within the first year, you very easily get city to county level governments up and running, and in many places regional powers that resemble states.  So, what then does the next decade or so look like?  Big question.  We could end up with a bunch of Feudal states like Japan and Europe had for centuries.  But - those arose out of societies where basically Mafia/Gang/Tribe warfare was the norm and family political power was everything.  I'm not sure that comes back.  Places like the US and Canada are saturated with representative government as the norm - you could get a few 'Strongman States', but I think you get more variations on elected governments (ala Western US Territories - perhaps rampantly corrupt, but at least initially set up with the structures of democracy).  Sadly I don't know enough about China or Russia today to predict what happens to them once Central Civil Oppre-ahem-Authority is lost.  Does China revert to warlords and Three Kingdoms-style or do local collectives form and spread - or is the fear of chaos so great among the Chinese that they band back together into a One China no matter what personal cost (and regardless of what form/economy that government takes)?  Does Russia get a Strongman / Tsar or does it rise again as independent successor-states?  I think you have to have an appreciation for the regional collective imagination, fear and mythos to predict those answers.  (This is why America does not get 'Kings')

On 10/2/2021 at 5:56 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

But arms related factories will either be targets themselves or lie close to targeted cities. I don't think the prior authority figures will survive as they too will be targets themselves. And the civilians will not rely on the army to get them food either because of a lack of trust or reasons related to certain beliefs.

People will work together, but not nation or state/province sized organizations.

On 10/2/2021 at 3:10 AM, kerbiloid said:

The Wild West is not a survivalism. It's a colonisation of steppe for cattle herding performed by a developed industrial urban civilisation.

The WW colonists were not lonely romantics, they were excessive human resources expanding from the industrial areas of Europe and... Transatlantic Europe, Ciseuropeans and Transeuropeans.

Their cowboy attitude is just a showing-off. They were wearing the  European clothes, drinking whiskey, and using guns instead of arrows.

The Wild West thing wasn't related to the state of survivors in the immediate aftermath, it was about how civilization would ultimately end up- relatively modern amenities spread here and there, but no nation level cooperation and also frequent lawlessness.

Again - on what timescales?  I refer you again to the Pakistani blacksmith rebuilding factory-built arms using a coal forge in a wood and cloth structure: that's happening in the First Year.

"Prior Authority Figures" - yeah, I'm with you on this: they're either dead or no one trusts them.  At best they get to be a 'local strongman' (presuming they land on a military base that survives and are not killed out of hand)... but they're done.  Exception being Southern Hemisphere and 'Rural' world leaders; those who survive the First Year likely see their power increase.

Nation/State/Province sized organizations re-occur within the First Decade.  Out of necessity.  It's a way of protecting your border and extending your authority.  Towns will band together into economic, political and military unions and grow and absorb others until they are matched - those become the new borders.  Then, those states will either band together or contest one another in the coming decades.  W/in 50 years you get nations again, with sizes that resemble today's.  (Sure, a continent-wide nation like the US might initially break up and then reform into 3, 5 or 7 independent nations... but for how long?  The memory of America will be a fond one, the 'Good Ol' Days' and the evil Enemies who did this to us a threat answerable by collective government and plural/integrated economy - the West will Rise Again!)****

Also - people WILL resettle the cities.  Because, for no other reason than they're already located on the best water sources.  People live in the Littorals and Riparian areas for a reason - and something as inconsequential as a war will not change that basic need.  The road networks leading to those places survive.

 

Finally - vis, the "Wild West".  This is a 30 year period rife with beautiful and romantic imagery - for the 'winners'.  But it wasn't so rigidly contained in time.  It's the culmination of 400 years of replacement population (emigration).  You have to appreciate a few things; the 'wars' between the various Native Nations and the uncontrolled horde washing across the continent always had an inevitable conclusion.  By 1860, there were 31 Million people east of the Mississippi that called themselves Americans.  West of the Mississippi there were approximately 300,000 members of various Native Nations that had neither the population, or the technological or economic structures to resist this flood of humanity.  By 1890 there were 90 Million Americans, and still about 300,000 Native Americans contesting for control of an area of 1.8 Million square miles.  The result was foregone.  Factually, the people moving into the West from the East were literally walking into the Wilderness... the fact that other people lived there before them and might want to continue to use and control the land in their traditional ways was 'background' information and anecdotal.  

FWIW - the only way to 'win' Afghanistan would have been for something analogous to the American West to have occurred, whether by the Russians or the Americans; no one was interested in doing that, however.

So there might be a period of time where 'wild-west' style anarchy / freedom reigns in places; I just don't see that lasting more than a few decades before the inevitable blanket of 'civilization' reasserts control... and once that happens? 

We're back to the races.

The NEW 'modern' post-war NORMAL.

 

 

 

 

 

* This site: NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein (nuclearsecrecy.com) presents data slightly differently than I do.  I tried to do St. Louis - but it wants to kill Lexington (for me).  I used a Chinese Dong-Feng 5 as the weapon.  The 'Airburst' map contains the crater and what I call 'thermo' zone in the fireball, with what I call the concussive zone as 'moderate blast damage'.  The site's 'thermal radiation / 3d degree burn' radius is for people out golfing or otherwise outdoors - those indoors are protected.  

**Japanese cities' abundant use of wooden construction meant that the thermo-effects created a conflagration which extended past the thermo zone, and those same structures were less effective at withstanding the concussive effects - whereas newer concrete and brick structures (factories) remained, surviving both.  Modern buildings will increase the survival rate of future victims.

*** These projections are pretty good - but need to be adjusted (slightly) for the yield.  If the cratering/thermo zone extends beyond 1km, they still apply to people in those particular bomb's concussion zone and those outside of it.

****Okay - Rome (as an empire) did not return once destroyed, but the successor states incorporate many of the ideals valued by the Greeks and Romans - and those survive.  One might argue that it took 1600 years for Rome II (America & Pax Americana) to arise again - but it did)

VC-Nuclear-Safety-18pp-Education-Guide-Downloadable-FINAL.pdf (pcdn.co)

 

Ask yourself whether a Pakistani-Indian Nuclear Exchange would leave cities that resemble Japan's, given the differing building materials.  

Edited October 3, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[DDE]

17 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

One thing I do not understand about Project Orion... the hole where the injector pops out the bomb is not far from where the plasma plume hits the plate.

Meaning some will fly through the hole and hit the injector.

That sounds like a problem waiting to happen, since every pulse the injector is flashed with  what remains of a focused plasma cone.

It sounds like the only way to mitigate this is to increase the piston length holding the plates and keep the injector closer to the ship's main body... meaning the bomb travels farther before passing through the plate to detonate.

Am I right or wrong?

The injector is protected with a conical shield.

[Spacescifi]

5 minutes ago, DDE said:

The injector is protected with a conical shield.

 

Do you have diagrams or pictures?

What exactly? The injector nozzle is shaped like a forward facing cone with the hole in the middle?

Or metal halves that slide up off rails to cover the nozzle tube after each ejection?

 

My personal suspicion is that ablation will be an issue sooner or later since the cone armor is no where as thick as the pusher plate.

[Spaceman.Spiff]

37 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Congratulations, you are a Survivor - and have fully adapted to your new reality.  LIFE GOES ON.

Then you can be first to start collecting fusion-powered exoskeletons and create a pseudo-religion centered around technology!

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Congratulations, you are a Survivor - and have fully adapted to your new reality.  LIFE GOES ON.

Spoiler

(Should be here)

 

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

No one survives the crater zone.

Survives, but not him.
Unless he sits 300 m deep inside a suspended armored hull.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

In the concussive zone, depending upon building materials** you get an expanding ring of survivors. 

Who wasn't holding on to something massive or hiding in a room.

Also, making a dog from fingers is as traditionally highly recommended, to keep your spirit brave and to burn a funny figure on the closest wall.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So - you have people who survive Day One.  Their next day is measured in individual hours.  Each hour is a survival event.  Time for people in crisis flows differently than for those of us experiencing bland normality.  I don't care where you are in the world, you are in shock.  Survival mode.  Survive Day Two?  Your life is now measured in Days. 

And don't forget the 7/10 rule.
After 7 hours from the badaboom the radlevel drops by 10 times, at 48 h by 100 times.
That's why you should sit in a vault for 2 days and then get out and optimistically walk away perpendicularly to the GZ direction (to cross the fallout, which is 45° wide).
Of course, any simple rad-meter is highly recommended to be sure that you aren't walking into the contaminated sector from a clean one.
Sitting longer only irradiates you more than on top, that's why thou shalt not take a bag of food and sit inside, and why the vaults are for 2..3 days, not for living there like in postapocs. 

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

and 19,500 towns

19,000 of which are cheaper that a warhead even including the citizens and don't deserve it even on their request.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

  Survive the first Month?  This is now your life. 

At least, first < 9 months, while your blood keeps carrying red blood cells produced before the bone marrow had been irradiated and stopped producing them.

But it gives 3 months of optimism and good feeling, so enjoy it while you can.

But if you have survived 9 months and still here, your marrow stayed enough undamaged.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

to think that people in the 'rural' areas need the cities to survive is a fallacy. 

They do, because 3/4 of modern agricultural productivity is provided by industrial products (nitric fertilizer and machinery).
Also US agro depends on artificial watering, cuz it's at Central Asia latitude.
Without it, the productivity falls down for 4 times, down to the early XX  500..1000 kg/ha.
On the bright _literally side, the number of food consumers got also adjusted to.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

These are examples of humans' smart, tough and resilient traits.

The way from 1900 first cars to 1970 oil crysis was done in 70 years and nobody knew the way, and they twice destroyed the whole economics and industry during that time.
With a roadmap, literature, and examples from the future they would run in two or three decades.  Twice longer if cleaning the radiation.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Even after a total collapse, people will find that working together enhances their individual chances of survival

Especially when motivated by total mobilization and food control at the beginning.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Within the first year, you very easily get city to county level governments up and running, and in many places regional powers that resemble states.  So, what then does the next decade or so look like?  Big question.

Bigger chieftain - deeper vault.

In a year they would be visited by the government issues and report that the territory is under the gov control.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Sadly I don't know enough about China or Russia today to predict what happens to them once Central Civil Oppre-ahem-Authority is lost. 

1920s clearly show: it would be restored asap. At least because the external neighbors look and feel much more different.

Also 1920s clearly show that it's much better to live in a city but have some food for a year or two. Because the cities always take over, the countryside doesn't. Much greater amount of resources, industry and educated people are concentrated in the cities, that's because they appeared.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

'wild-west' style anarchy / freedom

With the government dollars, telegraph and railroad companies, banks and lawyers, and shells for guns, which are typical signs of anarchy, lol.

34 minutes ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

and create a pseudo-religion

Why "pseudo", when you are actually a.... well, that's they are calling you so, not you do it yourself, you just let them appreciate you.

Edited October 3, 2021 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

8 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They do, because 3/4 of modern agricultural productivity is provided by industrial products (nitric fertilizer and machinery).
Also US agro depends on artificial watering, cuz it's at Central Asia latitude.
Without it, the productivity falls down for 4 times, down to the early XX  500..1000 kg/ha.
On the bright _literally side, the number consumers got also adjusted to.

Ah - but don't forget that you get a ready-supply of labor and fertilizer (people and used food), and yes, far, far fewer mouths to feed.  Peeing everywhere solves the phosphorous problem, too.

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Ah - but don't forget that you get a ready-supply of labor and fertilizer (people and used food)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodrazvyorstka

The problem of early XX was that the artifical fertilizers started being produced in 1913.

As well, the conveyor belt for machinery production in 1912.

So, if the events happened a decade later, things would go easieer.

As now they see what and how to, the urban areas would just keep the countryside under control with no options.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

16 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodrazvyorstka

Interesting read.  I wonder if Russia had had a rural population as heavily armed as America's whether the result might have been different - especially as Russia was and remained a State with an Army as the crisis occurred.  Guessing the Army could have sorted that right quick.  Contrast this with @SunlitZelkova's scenario the remaining city dwellers (while numerous, and probably - at least in the case of US Citizenry - likely to be partly-armed) will likely be isolated from the pre-existing government's agencies of control.

Edited October 3, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I wonder if Russia had had a rural population as heavily armed as America's

It had a lot of arms in the peasant hands, and also almost total (dismissed) army consisted of peasants mostly with stolen firearms; and the "green" forces (i.e. the rural rebels) were one of three main forces in the Civil War, fighting against/together with the "reds" and "whites" in various combinations.

***

Due to the industrial collapse after WWI and so, the "Red Army", "White Army", and the "green" revels were armed almost purely with rifles and sabres, and rarely had ammo for cannons, so the army wasn't armed much better than the peasant rebels.

But the united organization, the control of the ammo stocks, the remaining factories, and the food, together with arguing between the "whites" due to the lack any common political position, allowed the "reds" to take over both "whites" and "greens".

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

as heavily armed as America's whether the result might have been different

A modern army is armed much better than the armed farmers, compared to the early XX with its rifles.

Also every countryside freeman is a local actor, hardly able to operate long away from his farm and still keep it working.

So, as the US Army is armed better than the semi-state/semi-State National Guards, and those are armed better than the farmer shooting clubs, I would guess that everything would finish before it would really begin.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

The injector nozzle is shaped like a forward facing cone with the hole in the middle?

There is no hole. The cone is supposed to snap shut while the projectile travels from the barrel to the detonation point.

[Spacescifi]

28 minutes ago, DDE said:

There is no hole. The cone is supposed to snap shut while the projectile travels from the barrel to the detonation point.

 

I see... so a cone is good for deflection... but will ablate over time due to being plasma beamed multiple times a day. Leading to a flat nose tip sooner or later.

To improve the design I suggest regenerative propellant cooling and a powerful electromagnet cone to deflect the plasma even more with a mighty magnetic field.

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Spacescifi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

59 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

So, as the US Army is armed better than the semi-state/semi-State National Guards, and those are armed better than the farmer shooting clubs, I would guess that everything would finish before it would really begin.

Well - you are correct about that; any 'Company' of soldiers (regardless of branch) could, once they secured a population capable of providing food and warm beds, quickly pacify the local area. 

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodrazvyorstka

The problem of early XX was that the artifical fertilizers started being produced in 1913.

As well, the conveyor belt for machinery production in 1912.

So, if the events happened a decade later, things would go easieer.

As now they see what and how to, the urban areas would just keep the countryside under control with no options.

Another feature of any future Prodrazyvorstka is that, while brutal, likely results in a shortening of the timeline and return to centralized government... although it could again result in lingering economic stagnation.

When all your choices are bad...

Edited October 3, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Another feature of any future Prodrazyvorstka is that, while brutal, likely results in a shortening of the timeline and return to centralized government... although it could again result in lingering economic stagnation.

It was lasting for several years at the end of failed WWI and during the main part of the Civil war, when the not very developed industry was collaps(ing/ed), and an army was required:
at the West front (for  both "reds" and "whites" against the foreign troops, and that's why most of "whites" finally became "reds");
at the East (because of the Southern neighbors, ready to review the status-quo for various reasons);
and in between because the parties had a different vision of the future, under significant overpopulation of the rural areas (the plowland limited by the climate and the soil quality depending on place, absence of fertilizers and machinery; but still growing rural population).

Though, in a post-nuke developed urbanized country there would be no sense in the prodrazvyorstka on the own territory, because the urban population is three and more times greater than the rural one, so the objective way to feed the urbans is to move them to the rural place, making the farmers share the plowland, until the industry gets restored.

Edited October 4, 2021 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

For those interested in all the 'Touchy Feely" stuff, here's what's going on:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/04/health/nobel-prize-medicine-physiology-winner-2021/index.html

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I really hate to do this - because I think the artwork is gorgeous - but this is something that's been bugging me.

Can an airless planet or moon have surface liquid?

Take this video for KSP2: 

 

It's beautiful - and clearly airless and mostly dry... except that there are seas, lakes and filled craters.

From what I know - if you have liquid seas - you're likely to have an atmosphere (presuming, at least that whatever liquid boils off will either form vapor (clouds/haze) or break up into its constituent atoms/gasses - which should then stick around as an atmosphere) until the atmospheric pressure is sufficient to allow the warmed up ices to remain liquid at whatever surface temp found there.  Certainly I can imagine an impact liberating frozen sub surface ices that liquify and flow into the crater... perhaps even faster than they will evaporate, filling the crater or a local basin - but for how long?

When we see the surface of Titan:

 

...we don't get massive craters; instead we see a landscape of hills with obvious river and creek channels.

So on to the question:  while my KSP skills are so poor I'm not likely to ever visit Gurdamma - for those of you who can... if I am correct in my assumptions above - would its appearance (shown in the top video) in game as a cratered, liquid bearing airless planet bug you?  Would you prefer more weathered surface - and perhaps even haze like Titan, or even methane clouds (or whatever would be appropriate given its distance from Kerbol)?

Edited October 4, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[mikegarrison]

It would be a pretty exotic liquid that wouldn't evaporate in vacuum. What is the vapor pressure of mercury?

[kerbiloid]

Its molar mass is 200 (opposed to the air's 29), probably a monoatomic ideal gas, so unlikely by orders of magnitude.

Maybe it's covered by a thin film, or in KSP a strange thing is not only gravity,

[kerbiloid]

https://www-interfax-ru.translate.goog/world/795269?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

IATA stated that the world airline companies agreed to reduce the carbon footprint to zero by 2050.

[mikegarrison]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

https://www-interfax-ru.translate.goog/world/795269?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

IATA stated that the world airline companies agreed to reduce the carbon footprint to zero by 2050.

Yes they did state that.

[AHHans]

20 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Can an airless planet or moon have surface liquid?

No. You are right, that - assuming an at least approximately steady state - if you have a liquid then you'll have a gaseous phase above that, or the liquid will evaporate.

[After some more thinking:]  Actually, that's not totally true: Superfluid helium-4 is obviously liquid but with next to no vapor pressure as long as you keep it close enough to absolute zero.
[Even more thinking...] Well, the first statement is true: Superfluid helium will evaporate, but very slowly! Actually it will evaporate with the speed of energy that you transfer to it. So at the very least it will evaporate with the energy that the cosmic microwave background will transfer to it.

But this leads to one scenario: you have a liquid that has only a very low vapor pressure so that the "atmosphere" above it is so thin that you can essentially just ignore it when considering your rocket performance.

What you could also have in theory is a liquid with a high molar density so that pressure above the surface drops really fast and the "atmosphere" above the liquid is very thin, maybe even significantly thinner than the mountains around the "sea". That way you would land in a vacuum, but still have an "atmosphere" above the "seas".

Hmmm... I guess that materials for scenario 1 are either very cold (like liquid helium) or very viscous (like vacuum grease). The latter because in order to have a low vapor pressure the molecues will have to stick together rather well, which I believe also makes them viscous. So I think to get the visual effects you want you'll have to go with scenario 2.

Edited October 5, 2021 by AHHans

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

So...

If there is surface liquid, there is an atmosphere.

If there is liquid and atmosphere, there is vapor and thus, clouds

If there is an atmosphere with clouds - there should be precipitation. 

If there is precipitation, there is weathering / erosion... 

So... 

Do you want to see Gurdamma reworked with an atmosphere and clouds and weathered craters - or just let them finish the game with a pretty, but pretty wrong place to visit? 

[DDE]

All else equal, and R&D costs aside, what is cheaprr: one big chamber (F-1) or four small chambers (RD-170)?

[AHHans]

15 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

If there is liquid and atmosphere, there is vapor and thus, clouds

Why?

21 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Do you want to see Gurdamma reworked with an atmosphere and clouds and weathered craters - or just let them finish the game with a pretty, but pretty wrong place to visit? 

May I quote from the video description:

Quote

Still to come: a thick atmosphere [...]