Large scale colonization ship

SpaceNut · 2020-09-08 18:49:19

The funding comes from the many ideas and gimmicks from the many posts that louis has been making here for quite some time....You are the one that owns your image and anything that one would from of you anywhere. Its about brand selling for those that go and of course creation there in....
Thats just changing the business model from government strangulation to corporate envisioned gold rush....

kbd512 · 2020-09-08 19:05:50

SpaceNut,

I'm not opposed to anything that could feasibly fund the effort, I just want a little reality injected into the ideation. The money spent on people and cargo transport vastly outstrips anything related to the watch industry. If we devised a way to ship Platinum back to Earth using mining assets forward deployed to Mars, do you think anyone would seriously think about funding the colonization effort using trinkets made on Mars? Every little bit helps, but in the end we need to make a solid business case for sending people there. I'm likewise all in favor of keeping government overreach to a bare minimum. If the private sector can feasibly do it, then the government should stay in its lane. However, basic technology development clearly is "the government's lane".

SpaceNut · 2020-09-08 19:11:12

Human Business and flight plan for mars

RobertDyck · 2020-09-08 23:49:16

kbd512 wrote:

If we devised a way to ship Platinum back to Earth...

I have posted elsewhere how to profitably ship platinum back from asteroids. But it doesn't involve Mars. I don't see how to ship anything back from Mars at profit. The whole point I've been trying to make for years is Mars is profitable, but that profit comes from transporting settlers. I came to that conclusion because cost of a ticket is your entire life savings, absolutely everything you own. For all passengers. That's a lot of money. Working out the details of this ship is a very useful exercise because it details how that's done. And this exercise has highlighted a problem: even though cost of each ticket is absolutely everything each settler has, it may still not be enough. I'm not giving up, but this needs some serious work.

kbd512 wrote:

basic technology development clearly is "the government's lane".

Ok. Problem is we have a lot of basic technology already. Using that in a cost effective manner is not "the government's lane". Example: Falcon 9/Heavy vs SLS. Building a Lunar Gateway is an absolutely stupid idea, and colossal waste of time and money. How do we get government (read NASA) to focus on developing mini-magnetosphere, nuclear thermal rocket engines, and pulse fusion rocket engines? We could deploy the Centrifuge Accommodation Module to ISS to test long duration effects of partial gravity (lunar and Mars level) on small mammals such as laboratory mice. Italy paid for it, Japan built it, but it was never launched. We could launch it today using Atlas V, rendezvous with ISS using a Cygnus service module. That would make sense, but no, they committed to building Lunar Gateway instead. The reason NASA's traditional contractors want to build it is they already know how to build a station. It's using ISS technology. That means no technology development what-so-ever! You just said "basic technology development clear is the government's lane", but Lunar Gateway is not development at all! Hell, NASA could develop a full-up functional MCP spacesuit. That would be useful for Mars. But no, someone at NASA is committed to full 1 atmosphere pressure in space, and that demands high pressure spacesuits. MCP doesn't work with high pressure. MCP works very well with low pressure. That requires habitat also have low pressure; eg Skylab or at most 1/2 atmosphere. NASA is obsessed with gas bag suits, because that's what they've done. Again, they don't want to do useful technology development.

One problem with NASA is a significant faction who do not want human exploration of space at all. Yes, a significant number of individuals within NASA itself. I seriously believe one reason NASA keeps coming out with stupid ideas is some (not all) within NASA are actively trying to sabotage human space exploration.

kbd512 · 2020-09-09 09:26:51

Robert,

Yes, the fuel and transportation costs are so high that we need a fusion driven rocket to reduce the fuel cost to something manageable. The Aluminum fuel cost is about $1.32M for 600t and requires 6 launches at 100t per launch or 4 launches at 150t per launch. Therefore, the minimum cost for transport fuel to get from Earth to Mars is $40M or $60M per flight. That's for a fuel that provides a 5,000s Isp. The per passenger cost differential is $40K per person if the fuel can be shipped in just 4 launches rather than 6.

That's probably still not cheap enough, which is why we need Uncle Sam to develop a rail gun that can fire aluminum slugs into orbit for a fraction of that price. Affordable space transportation is an infrastructure game. The less transport costs, the more travel you can have, but the more it costs in terms of technology development to reduce the marginal cost of transport. We still need Starship to carry passengers, but for low value bulk cargo like water or fuel, there needs to be a much cheaper alternative to ground-to-orbit rocket propulsion. The electricity cost to deliver 600t of fuel using the rail gun would be $1.7M at $0.10/kWh, with 28.4kWh/kg required to achieve orbit. Even with facilities maintenance, we're talking about an order of magnitude cost reduction, moving us solidly into Concorde ticket prices (still very expensive, but more affordable without selling absolutely everything you own). I'm thinking $50,000 ticket prices are feasible, for pretty much everyone living in an industrialized country, but only by limiting Starship flights to sensitive components and launching everything else via railgun. If 5,000t of metals / plastics / textiles / wiring are required to build a ship, then launching all of that would cost $14.2M in terms of electricity, quite a dramatic difference compared to the $330M to $500M required to launch it via the least expensive rocket ever devised, no?

In any event, I don't want NASA dictating rocket design to companies like SpaceX, but we do need them to do basic research and development of enabling technologies. Cherry picking MCP suits and Congressionally-approved boondoggles is not a representative view of what NASA has done. NASA developed closed loop life support and radiation mitigation technology that no private company would develop on their own, because the government is still the only customer. The US Air Force funds most of the rocket engine development programs.

Here's what we absolutely must have, in terms of technology development:

1. utterly reliable closed loop or nearly closed loop long duration life support
2. high thrust / high Isp rocket engines for in-space propulsion
3. artificial gravity for long duration interplanetary transits
4. GCR and SPE / CME radiation mitigation technologies, such as the mini-magnetosphere you mentioned
5. nuclear fission reactors to prove tens of megawatts of electrical power to fusion-driven rocket engines and surface colonies

ISRU technologies were not included because no missions are practical without them, so you can either make your own rocket fuel to return or you're not going.

Nice to have (will rapidly become mandatory during colonization, though):

1. MCP space suits
2. nuclear thermal rocket engines (falls between chemical and nuclear fusion rocket engines in terms of thrust-to-weight)
3. high speed laser-based deep space data relays and GPS in orbit around Mars and solar power satellites that can beam power to the surface on-demand
4. novel construction techniques that maximize the use of local resources for habitat construction
5. aeroponics or hydroponics to grow food without soil

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-09 09:59:04

For kbd512 re #280

1) There's a lot of aluminum on the Moon ... at some point (I assume) a supplier there will be competitive

2) I think you were thinking of "volume" of digital traffic in your "nice to have" #3 item ... speed is unlikely to increase

In any case, thanks for a nice summary of the situation.

SearchTerm:MustHaveTechnology for space development
SearchTerm:NiceToHave technology for space development

(th)

kbd512 · 2020-09-09 10:35:09

tahanson43206,

Before we can affordably mine the moon, we need to affordably send materials to orbit and fabricate structures with basic materials there. For example, we need the ability to fabricate sheet / plate metal structures if we're going to use Aluminum or steel. We have to develop and build-out the support infrastructure to get the marginal cost improvements required to make this endeavor economically feasible.

Regarding Item #3, the speed of light and radio wave propagation in a vacuum doesn't change, and that's not what I was suggesting. I was talking about data transfer rate or volume of data sent or received per second. The data transfer rate increases dramatically with lasers as compared to radio waves when we're talking about transmitting over tens of millions of miles, thanks to the signal-to-noise ratio increase from using lasers. There's also a dramatic reduction in power required. If it's not obvious, all lasers are line-of-sight communications, meaning a direct path from transmitter to receiver is required, with no pesky planets or stars in the way. We will need relay stations between Earth and Mars to contend with orbital periods causing the signal to be blocked by the Sun at certain times. Lasers are not a complete replacement for radios, but it's a necessary speed improvement for sending HD video / audio or having many different streams of data to send.

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-09 17:48:26

For kbd512 re #282

Building on the foundation of Item #3 ...

As I understand the field, the number of bits that can be delivered on a carrier is directly related (positively related) to the frequency of the carrier.

However, in your post(s) earlier, you included propagation factors that impact electromagnetic radiation differently. I would expect a solar system wide communications network to include facilities operating at a variety of frequencies, and along a variety of paths.

In posts a while back, I reported work by a science fiction writer who was thinking at depth about how an interstellar communications network might work. The workable radius the writer was considering was a sphere on the order of 10 light years from Earth. Over that distance, it seemed feasible to imagine useful conversations, despite the 20 year time lag for round trips.

Bringing the conversation back to RobertDyck's vision of a vessel large enough to serve the Earth/Mars route on a regular basis, I would expect the vessel to be equipped with as many communications capabilities as were supported by the environment at the time.

The potential of quantum communications is "out there" as a tease ... both the Chinese and the US are (apparently) investigating the potential for secure communications using quantum entanglement, but I find if difficult to imagine the data rate could be very high.

One thing that seems curious is the action-at-a-distance question ... I've not read anything that indicates whether two entangled photons communicate at the speed of light or not ... All experiments I've heard about so far have involved round trips of a few hundred kilometers at most, so the question does not appear to have come up.

(th)

kbd512 · 2020-09-09 18:38:24

tahanson43206,

The frequency of transmission plays a major role in the quantity of data that can be transmitted per unit time and an IR laser's frequency is far above radio frequency ranges. There are various other ways to pack more data into a carrier signal per unit time, but increasing the frequency is generally how we do it when using radios. That's why 5G cellular communications operate at higher frequencies than 4G, for example.

Radio frequency communications are generally either focused / directional or unfocused / omni-directional. The focused signals can transmit more data per unit time because more of the electromagnetic radiation arrives at the receiving end than with omni-directional antennas, improving the signal-to-noise ratio (strength of the signal) and lowering the transmitter power requirements, but that also requires precise alignment of the transmitter with the receiver over extended ranges, essentially a line-of-sight system as a result, just like lasers.

I can't speak intelligently on quantum communications, so you'll need to find someone who knows more about that. However, I built radios as a kid and I was a Radioman in the Navy. I understand the premise behind quantum entanglement, but don't know enough about the technical details to understand how that would enable two parties to communicate with each other faster than the speed of causality / light. Since no working device is known to exist, assuming it isn't highly classified military technology, I can only presume that nobody else does, either.

I would expect that microwave-based SDR and laser communications would be the communications systems of choice, with HD video / audio virtually requiring lasers and lower data rate shipboard systems monitoring applications and voice communications occurring over radio frequencies. VHF and UHF could serve as an omni-directional backup for voice communications or low data rate applications.

In any event, reliable communications are essential and having various backups helps to fulfill that requirement.

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-09 20:16:23

For kbd512 re Post #284

Following up on your post, which itself seems to be supportive of RobertDyck's topic here ....

RobertDyck set out a tentative list of crew members for the Interplanetary vessel, based upon a 1903 model.

Post #186 SearchTerm:CrewDesign for Large scale colonization ship

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 56#p171556

Not posted before: Crew. Based on a 1903 passenger ship, but adapted for modern technology. Result for this ship:
Captain, 6 deck officers
Petty Officer, 4 sailors (janitor, cargo rigging & handling)
Chief steward, 1 steward for luxury cabin, 12 table waiters, 8 bedroom stewards (housekeeping), 12 cooks, 2 baristas.
Chief engineer, 8 engineering staff (electrician, plumber, etc)
Purser, Doctor & nurse
Total: 60

Star Trek anticipated the need for a dedicated Communications Officer on the bridge, and RobertDyck's bridge crew of 6 officers could include such a post.

Edit#1: The Captain would be likely to be able to handle any of the bridge positions

Because the creators of Star Trek(tm) and their many many students have spent vast amounts of time thinking about the countless details of the various visions of life in the Star Trek(tm) Universe, I thought it might be helpful for followers of RobertDyck's initiative here to see a bit of the lore that is available.

The source given below appears to be part of a gaming system of some kind.

Source: https://support.ubisoft.com/en-gb/Faqs/ … ities-STBC

ANSWER:
We put together a short overview for you that should help you to get a clear idea of the four bridge officers' roles:
Captain
The captain oversees the status of the ship and gives orders to each of their officers. He or she is also able to take over each role position to perform actions personally.

Engineer
The engineer controls the energy flow of the ship. They can direct energy to specific systems and manage repairs of the ship.

Helm
The helm controls the ship itself. They fly the ship and are also responsible for Impulse and Warp travels.

Tactical
The tactical officer is responsible for weapons, shields and targeting. They fire the ship's weapons (Phasers or Photon Torpedos) at enemies and raise or lower the shields.

In RobertDyck's Universe, the need for the Tactical officer is less significant, but I believe that position should be retained as a part of the standard for space craft operating in the Earth/Sol system. It is human nature to prey upon others, so many millennia of experience confirm that there will eventually be a need for each vessel of any size to be able to defend themselves from human intervention. However, from a purely practical point of view, the vessel in RobertDyck's Universe is going to be operating in an environment full of moving objects, from Helium nuclei stripped of electrons to asteroids wandering through the neighborhood.

The Tactical Officer should be a member of any crew carrying humans for dealing with natural hazards. A vessel of the size of the Circle-Y design that seems to be evolving under RobertDyck's direction is NOT going to be able to dodge space debris or hazards in an agile manner. It seems (to me at this time) more likely that corrective measures need to be taken by smaller agents acting on behalf of the vessel.

Sacrificial probes/drones might be employed to deflect objects up to some size.

The Tactical Officer would be responsible for monitoring radiation threats, and alerting crew and passengers of the need to move to shelter when necessary.

In short, I think this is a position that should be retained from the Star Trek model.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-09-10 07:20:39)

SpaceNut · 2020-09-09 20:59:57

Telemetry data and location along with many other science instruments would all be automated by computer for transmission of the information. The delay even when using the light band is still long and so will be the returned response even with the use of lasers....

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-10 07:44:35

This is for RobertDyck, Chief Architect of the Circle Y space vessel design initiative.

Decision opportunity: The "handle" of the shape as it exists at the moment (2020/09/10) is 50 meters long.

That arbitrary length was chosen because that is the proposed length of the SpaceX Starship.

For aesthetic (and for practical reasons) I would like to offer for your consideration the use of the Golden Ratio (1:161) to provide an length of 180 meters.

Extending the length will improve space availability for the "handle" of the shape.

The "handle" must include the radiation protection accommodations for the entire complement of the vehicle, directly under the hub.

(this is per your specification that the vehicle will travel with the "handle" pointed toward the Sun)

In addition (of course) the "handle" will include the main propulsion section, and supplies of fuel for propulsion, life support and stocks needed by the passengers and crew, AND whatever cargo is being shipped to Mars.

Finally, the "handle" will (presumably) include the main onboard power supply, and all the life support equipment for the "handle" plus backup for the rim section.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-09-10 07:45:57)

RobertDyck · 2020-09-10 11:46:39

kbd512 wrote:

I can't speak intelligently on quantum communications, so you'll need to find someone who knows more about that. However, I built radios as a kid and I was a Radioman in the Navy. I understand the premise behind quantum entanglement, but don't know enough about the technical details to understand how that would enable two parties to communicate with each other faster than the speed of causality / light. Since no working device is known to exist, assuming it isn't highly classified military technology, I can only presume that nobody else does, either.

How do you contain a single photon? Theoretically range of a quantum entangled pair of photons is the entire universe, but problem is we don't know how. For now it's more practical to use quantum entangled electrons. Quantum physics doesn't give a range limit to that either, but a theory I've been working on ( ) says reliability will drop with range. Electrons can be contained in a quantum well of a microchip, so this uses modern electronics.

Quantum entanglement is instantaneous. Propagation delay is a mathematically exact number: zero. Exactly zero time regardless of distance. It doesn't matter if range is across the room, other side of the planet, from Earth to Mars, or another star system. Speed is distance divided by time. Calculating speed of quantum entanglement gives you a divide by zero error. Technically there is no "speed" because there is no delay time at all. Now that's to the subatomic particle that's quantum entangled; the rest is normal electronics.

If my theory is right (my attempts at unified field theory) the randomness we see in motion of electrons is caused by electrons having 3 and a fraction dimensions in our 4 dimensional space-time universe. The fractional dimension causes electrons to behave as a fractal. This will randomly break the quantum link. The microchip will have to constantly "heal" the connection. That is done by entangling a third electron to a pair. That is, a pair noamlly is one electron at each end. Link a second electron at one end. Then link another electron at the other end as well. Once you have all 4 electrons entangled to eachother, break the second pair from the first pair, without breaking the pair. This should leave you with two pairs. With a hundred or two hundred quantum wells on a single chip, some can be used to "heal" while others are used for communication. Manipulating electron spin state is how you send a signal. Massive parallelism gives you "broadband" communication. Quantum doesn't have bands, but you get the idea.

Point-to-point, completely secure. Does that make sense?

RobertDyck · 2020-09-10 12:09:19

In post #186 (page 8) I proposed crew based on an ocean ship from 1903 but updated. For our ship:

Captain, 6 deck officers
Petty Officer, 4 sailors (janitor, cargo rigging & handling)
Chief steward, 1 steward for luxury cabin, 12 table waiters, 8 bedroom stewards (housekeeping), 12 cooks, 2 baristas.
Chief engineer, 8 engineering staff (electrician, plumber, etc)
Purser, Doctor & nurse
Total: 60

Notice no military. This is a civilian passenger ship. But yea, we will have to avoid asteroids and meteoroids.

RobertDyck · 2020-09-10 14:56:59

The ship will operate 24-hours with 3 shifts for galley staff. Deck crew will also require 3 shifts, so during cruise the bridge will have 2 crew at a time.

Do we need a Purser? That's an accountant, handles money. If meals are included, why would they need money during the trip? Economy / single cabin passengers purchasing a meal in the luxury restaurant? That's all I can think of. So can we eliminate the Purser?

Barista is bartender. With 3 shifts, should we add a 3rd one?

::Edit:: Cash bar? The bartender/barista could handle that.

SpaceNut · 2020-09-10 17:28:44

Space x starship crew would then allow for 40 more personnel selections give or take in that we would be adding scientists, geologists and engineers to fill out the roster for 100 even as the specialists needed to get insitu and other stuff going on Mars from the start....

RobertDyck · 2020-09-10 18:37:30

I was thinking the crew would ride with some supplies. A couple people created layouts of what the interior of Starship could look like. It emphasizes that it could carry more in an airliner configuration to LEO.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index … msg2012778
https://www.humanmars.net/2019/08/specu … x.html?m=1

RobertDyck · 2020-09-10 20:30:18

Since so many people don't click a link...

Deck%2BD%2Bof%2BSpaceX%2B100-passenger%2BStarship%2Bdesign%2Bby%2BAce%2B%2526%2BMichel%2BLamontagne.jpg
Deck%2BE%2Bof%2BSpaceX%2B100-passenger%2BStarship%2Bdesign%2Bby%2BAce%2B%2526%2BMichel%2BLamontagne.jpg
Deck%2BF%2Bof%2BSpaceX%2B100-passenger%2BStarship%2Bdesign%2Bby%2BAce%2B%2526%2BMichel%2BLamontagne.jpg

kbd512 · 2020-09-10 21:20:55

Robert,

Well, it certainly sounds interesting, but I'd like to hear more about your unified field theory. I'll start a separate thread for that, though.

As promised:

RobertDyck's Unified Field Theory

Last edited by kbd512 (2020-09-10 21:28:37)

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-11 05:29:25

For all .... there appears to be an opportunity to contribute to design of the crew complement of RobertDyck's Large Vessel.

His opening example is from 1903, and while there is much to be said in its favor, it does not appear (to my eye at least) to be well matched to the needs of a 21st Century space vessel.

My attempt to introduce concepts from the (fictional) 23rd Century resulted in a snap-back to 1903.

If anyone in the contributing membership has actual experience aboard ship, or formal education about crew design, please add a post or two to the topic.

(th)

RobertDyck · 2020-09-11 09:19:09

This is the ship I based crew on:
SS City of New York - 1903. Passengers 1740, officers & crew 362.
https://www.gjenvick.com/OceanTravel/St … dbook.html

Captain, chief officer, 6 deck officers.

A boatswain (now called Petty Officer), his mate, 12 quartermasters, 24 sailors. Duties: cleaning, painting, maintaining the vessel's hull, superstructure and deck equipment, preventive maintenance, cargo rigging, winch operations, deck maintenance.

Chief steward, steward, chief stewardess, and four women in first cabin.
Second cabin & steerage one stewardess each. 36 table waiters, 16 bedroom stewards (housekeeping), 2 in the pantry, 16 cooks, 6 porters, 5 messroom stewards (wait on officers), 14 in second cabin, 16 in the steel age, 4 bakers, 3 butchers, 5 storekeepers (includes bartenders & men in charge of storerooms of provisions).

Ship's carpenter. Chief engineer, 27 assistant engineers, 1 electrician & 3 assistants, 1 blacksmith.

3 donkey men, 31 leading firemen, 54 firemen, 63 trimmers: oil engine and shovel coal.

purser (keeper of accounts), ship's surgeon & one assistant.
-------

Obviously we don't need the entire department of "donkey men". Our ship won't need anyone to shovel coal or manually oil an engine.

Instead of ship's surgeon & one assistant, I said ship's doctor & one nurse.

No carpenter or blacksmith, but we will definitely need ship's engineer, electrician, plumber, and engineering staff for equipment maintenance and repairs.

boatswain & sailors: may need to update titles, don't need to paint or rig sails, but will need janitors to clean, and cargo handlers.

Don't need porters. Passengers can carry their own luggage to their cabin. As for luggage to the cargo hold, that's the job of cargo handlers.

Don't really need anyone in charge of storeroom. Cargo handlers can carry provisions from zero-G cargo hold to kitchen regularly. Don't see a need for dedicated bakers or butchers.

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-11 10:27:25

The link below ** should ** show a model of the Circle Y version of RobertDyck's concept for Mars/Earth transport.

I was attempting to set the length of the handle (propulsion unit, et al) to a proportion of 1.61 to the diameter of the habitat rim.

The RobertDyck Circle Y design features a rim diameter of 76 meters.

The link below includes a rotate capability:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/BXK2N … 9&li=shops

Edit#1: The link below ** should ** point to a short YouTube video showing an earlier version of the Circle Y design, with a 50 meter propulsion unit.

https://youtu.be/UyyPf8U5p2g

Rotation is counterclockwise. Apparently that is the default. The animation was set up to run either way, but when the animation was rendered, counterclockwise rotation was selected.

If someone out there in the NewMars community is interested in expanding upon this little video, I would be happy to assist where I can. The Blender program is a massive open source project, and there are books shelves worth of material to learn. On the other hand, the program is free, and there is a very large community of users.

What I would like to see (for example) are presentations showing a Starship approaching the "rotating" habitat and docking with the port in the nose.

This would be similar to the animation that was done (by hand) to make the movie 2001, which featured a VonBraun space station.

SpaceNut (or it might have been RobertDyck) found a section of video from that movie, earlier in this topic.

Edit#1 ... I am (somewhat) amused by how poorly the link to YouTube performed on a different computer than where it was created.

Suggestions for improvement of the "performance" would be welcome. At this point, I'm working (or at least trying) to support RobertDyck's initiative to design and (perhaps even) inspire construction of a ** real, honest ** space transport. The goal here would be to master new skills faster than they fade out from disuse.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-09-11 12:30:06)

kbd512 · 2020-09-11 11:18:52

tahanson43206,

I have actual experience as a Navy crew member aboard an amphibious ship and two nuclear powered aircraft carriers, but these are fundamentally different kinds of ships.

A real ship has a Captain / Commanding Officer / CO and Executive Officer / XO, obviously, but the person in charge of the ship for day-to-day operations will be the Command Duty Officer or Officer of the Deck. The CDO / OOD is responsible for the operation of the ship during his or her shift, even though the CO and XO and CMCPO bear ultimate responsibility (all three will be punished if the vessel is improperly hazarded).

The CO is overall responsible for hazarding (sailing) the ship, and bears ultimate responsibility for the welfare of all crew and passengers and the ship itself. His or her duty is to do the utmost to ensure that the crew / passengers / ship arrive at their destination in good working order.

The XO is responsible for the material condition of the ship, meaning maintenance / cleanliness / inspections thereof, as well as coordinating repairs and movement of supplies of whatever type (food / water / repair parts / crew) on / off the ship, and to report the progress of those operations to the Captain. He or she will coordinate work with the rest of the crew.

The Command Master Chief Petty Officer is responsible for crew discipline and morale, leadership training for enlisted and junior officers to become division officers, preventing junior officers from making judgement mistakes (most junior officer decisions are run through the Division CPO or CMCPO first), and training in general. He or she reports directly to the Captain. All enlisted problems are funneled through the CMCPO. It's very common to see the CMCPO with the XO for inspections. Although, junior officers would technically discuss their issues with their senior officers, it's also common for JOs to take issues up with the CMCPO since the CMCPO has the ear of the CO and XO. The CMCPO is like the complaint department / good idea department / training department, or something like that. The CMCPO is primarily interested in how things are done, whereas the CO and XO determine what is to be done.

I spent plenty of time talking to the XO about cleaning and repairs, for example, and that was normal. If the Captain or Admiral came to talk to you, that meant something went terribly wrong. As a sailor, the one thing you never wanted to have happen was to have your competence questioned by your superiors, because that meant they didn't trust you to do your job. Your LPO and CPO would constantly drill and question you on professional knowledge, so if you made a mistake it wasn't merely your own competence that was being called into question, but the other enlisted men and women who trained you. In point of fact, all officers in our Navy and Marine Corps are trained by the Chief Petty Officers from the Navy or Master Gunnery Sergeants from the Marine Corps.

Officers are taught to trust the men and women working for them, but trust is a two way street and requires competence to perform your duties. This is the actual dynamic at play on a ship between commanders and subordinates, not the cartoonish Hollyweird depictions of the military. I've never had an officer say "I order you to do X" during my entire time in the military. If it gets that bad, something is very, very wrong. All orders come in the form of requests or questions. "Is that aircraft ready to launch?" means "if that aircraft isn't ready for its next mission, then make sure it is". As an enlisted man or woman, your job is to anticipate what your commander requires and to have it ready to go before it's needed. This is not mind reading in practice since what you're doing isn't some big secret, as everyone there already knows exactly what they need to do. You're always told ahead of time what you're going to be doing. There's a POD (Plan of the Day) and maintenance board and discussion of the POD and systems casualties during muster at the start of the work day, so you already know what needs to be taken care of and should expect the officers to ask you what the progress of the ongoing work is.

There's an unwritten rule that says you can tell someone what to do or how to do it, but not both. You won't find a reference to it in any manual, but it sure was discussed at length quite often. Most officers prefer to tell people what to do and leave the details of how to do it to the people who have been specially trained to do what they want done.

The CDO / OOD will be hazarding (sailing / conning) the ship for an 8 hour or 12 hour shift. This is always a junior officer.

The Navigation Officer is typically a senior Petty Officer or Chief Petty Officer who is specially trained to navigate. The person at the helm of the ship is nearly always a 17 to 19 year old kid fresh out of bootcamp. Yes, it's always been done this way. The only way to build experience or season a crew is to properly train them and then take the least experienced people and give them the most demanding jobs.

The Communications Officer is typically a junior officer like an Ensign or Lieutenant Junior Grade, sometimes a SCPO or MCPO.

The Operations Officer is typically a mid-grade officer like a Lieutenant or Lieutenant Commander.

The Engineering Officer or Reactor Officer is typically a mid-grade officer like a Lieutenant or Lieutenant Commander. All COs / XOs / RDOs have to graduate from nuclear power school, usually a 2+ year process. This is a highly skilled / specialized position. Sometimes a Senior Chief Petty Officer or Master Chief Petty Officer will be in charge, but it's typically an officer level position.

The Supply Officer is a Lieutenant Junior Grade or Lieutenant. He or she does all the paperwork and phone calls on supply movements for the XO. Keeping track of orders for spare parts, fuels, weapons (hopefully not required here, but you can bet that there will eventually be space pirates), food, fresh water, or whatever is his or her responsibility. This officer is also responsible for laundering articles of clothing for the crew. This person also keeps track of the money the command is spending on supplies and makes reports up the chain of command.

The Mess Officer supplies food and drink to the crew. Sometimes the Supply Officer and Mess Officer are the same person, but only on small ships. Keeping hundreds of people fed is a full time job and all meals require careful planning (knowing how long everything takes to accomplish, mostly, but also knowing when more manpower has to be devoted to finish a task in a given amount of time) when several hundred people or more are fed 3 or 4 times per day. Food is purchased in bulk. The cooks and supply clerks manage the stores so that massive quantities of packaging materials are not required. You go to the store and purchase your next meal. We go to the store and purchase all the meals for the next month and organize or reorganize everything according to the demands for the next meal.

Anyway, the passengers would, necessarily, be part of the ship's crew, acting as enlisted sailors who can clean the ship / repair shipboard systems / cook meals / fight fires, as required to maintain the health and morale of the crew on a 6 month cruise to Mars. A six month deployment is the standard for all US Navy carrier battle groups. The children would be the only ones who could be considered as passengers, but by the time you're 16 or 17 years of age, you need to be an able sailor.

I will say that naval discipline is not like that found in the other services. Even seemingly minor infractions of rules or procedures are dealt with rather harshly. This is done because the sea is so unforgiving of human error. Any small lapse in judgement, however brief, can and often will get you killed or seriously injured. I have seen this first-hand, so it's not conjecture on my part. Space, an endless sea where human life is impossible without highly sophisticated technology, is even less forgiving. As such, these ships will not be party barges or luxury cruise liners. There won't be any bars or bar tenders onboard, except in someone's fantasy, which while fun to indulge from time to time, are not representative of reality.

There will necessarily be rigid adherence to procedure, prompt and exacting execution of orders / requests from the command, and a deeply ingrained belief in the need to protect each other since no one else can (the only real friends you have are there with you in the arena, whereas everyone else is just a spectator). This is not to say there won't be any recreation (gym workouts / races / hobbies) or events held just for fun (we had ice cream socials / music concerts / movies / steel beach picnics in the Navy), but the responsibility to maintain the ship and properly hazard the ship is in full effect at all times. There are no days off. People who can't handle that responsibility are well advised to stay at home.

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-11 11:57:37

For kbd512 re Post #298

SearchTerm:NavalOfficerRoles

Thanks very much for this reprise of a small part of the overall collection you have contributed to the forum.

It should be helpful for anyone thinking seriously (as I ** hope ** RobertDyck is doing) about planning personnel assignments for a vessel in the Earth/Mars circuit.

As a reminder for readers who might come away from post #298 thinking that conditions for paying passengers would be as severe as they are likely to be for the crew, RobertDyck reminded us very recently that this is intended to be a "passenger/freight" vessel, and not a military one.

(th)

kbd512 · 2020-09-11 12:41:09

tahanson43206,

There is no place for idle hands aboard a spaceship. It's an all-day, everyday fight to survive in an immediately lethal environment. A spaceship in deep space is a team space, not a "I'm going off to do my own thing" space. You can't call the Coast Guard if there's a fire and a dozen people are not going to be able to care for hundreds of people with zero practical training. This has been proven time and time again aboard civilian cruise liners, even when outside help is available.

You don't need military ranks or titles for the endeavor to work, but you do need military style discipline and cohesion to survive the trip. You may call the roles fulfilled by the CO "A", the XO "B", the CMCPO "C", and so on if it so pleases you, but the jobs they do are not open to debate, except in fantasy-world thinking. Take those necessary roles away or cause confusion amongst those making the voyage by not clearly defining who does what and the mission fails, simple as that.

The US Navy does have cargo vessels that are hazarded by mostly civilian crews, often without weapons of any kind, yet the command structure still exists aboard those vessels. They still have a CO and XO and so forth. Sometimes conventional wisdom exists for a reason. So, come up with whatever civilian-approved titles you'd like for those named roles, but those roles and associated responsibilities were arrived at through a lot of suffering and death. Repeating the mistakes of the past in so costly and perilous an endeavor is approaching the pinnacle of irresponsibility (perfectly acceptable if this is just fantasy, but never acceptable when human lives are involved).

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