Heinlein's "Rodger Young"

Anybody interested in this ship of RAH's from "Starship Troopers", take
a look at this site and lemme know what you think.

http://www.up-ship.com/Heinlein/heinlein.htm

--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller

In message , Scott Lowther
writes
Anybody interested in this ship of RAH's from "Starship Troopers", take
a look at this site and lemme know what you think.

http://www.up-ship.com/Heinlein/heinlein.htm


I think it's too streamlined. Was the Rodger Young ever expected to
enter an atmosphere?
BTW, my copy of "Between Planets" lists the jacket artist's name (Alan
Breese) but not that of the artist who drew Circum-Terra. Thanks.

Scott Lowther wrote:

Anybody interested in this ship of RAH's from "Starship Troopers",
take a look at this site and lemme know what you think.

http://www.up-ship.com/Heinlein/heinlein.htm


I don't think he mentioned red taillights in the book is what I think. :-D
By 1959, he would have had an idea that real spaceships weren't going to
look like Buck Rogers ones.
His entry pods for the troops are pretty aerodynamically and
mechanically sophisticated; why wouldn't he ship that carries them be
equally advanced in design? Start digging around for 1959 period
spaceship designs via a Google image search of Science fiction around
those years*, not use something from 1940. Spaceships from the late
fifties period tended to look like X-15s or the Luna from Destination
Moon, not winged Studebakers.
Hell, this thing predates the V-2- that would be like us going back to
the Moon in an Apollo capsu....wait a minute here...

* Some of their cover art got pretty realistic; this "Centaur" is from
1959:
http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/...ction/5909.jpg

Pat

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:

In message , Scott Lowther
writes

Anybody interested in this ship of RAH's from "Starship Troopers",
take a look at this site and lemme know what you think.

http://www.up-ship.com/Heinlein/heinlein.htm


I think it's too streamlined. Was the Rodger Young ever expected to
enter an atmosphere?


I don't believe it said one way or the other.

BTW, my copy of "Between Planets" lists the jacket artist's name (Alan
Breese) but not that of the artist who drew Circum-Terra. Thanks.


Is it the same art I show? My copy again lists "Illustrated by Clifford
geary."

--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller

Pat Flannery wrote:


His entry pods for the troops are pretty aerodynamically and
mechanically sophisticated; why wouldn't he ship that carries them be
equally advanced in design?


Problem: the RY would be *really* advanced, having a faster-than-light
drive and all. Regualr rockets, which by the late 1950's, woudl be
entirely irrelevant.

Start digging around for 1959 period spaceship designs via a Google
image search of Science fiction around those years*, not use something
from 1940. Spaceships from the late fifties period tended to look like
X-15s or the Luna from Destination Moon...


But then neither of those sort of designs would have a warp drive, one
imagines.

If you know of a design for a sci-fi ship that fits the RY bill, lemme
know. If has to be sizable (exactly how big is unclear, but there are
numerous references to the mobile infantry being stuck aft of Bulkhead
30... if it's 10 feet between bulkheads, that's 300 feet *before* you
get to the soldiers quarters), it has to look like a warship, it has to
have "warp drive," and it has to fit in with the other RAH type of designs.

--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller

Pat Flannery wrote:


* Some of their cover art got pretty realistic; this "Centaur" is from
1959:
http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/...ction/5909.jpg

Ah, the month before my first subscription started (10th anniversary
issue, first installment of "Starship Soldier" [sic]).

Scott Lowther wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:

His entry pods for the troops are pretty aerodynamically and
mechanically sophisticated; why wouldn't he ship that carries them be
equally advanced in design?

Problem: the RY would be *really* advanced, having a faster-than-light
drive and all. Regualr rockets, which by the late 1950's, woudl be
entirely irrelevant.

That's an utter non sequitur.

Start digging around for 1959 period spaceship designs via a Google
image search of Science fiction around those years*, not use something
from 1940. Spaceships from the late fifties period tended to look like
X-15s or the Luna from Destination Moon...

But then neither of those sort of designs would have a warp drive, one
imagines.

Another utter non sequitur. Pat is correct that starships and
rocketships tend to come in design 'eras' - and the RY should be based
on other designs of the era it was written in.

If you know of a design for a sci-fi ship that fits the RY bill, lemme
know. If has to be sizable (exactly how big is unclear, but there are
numerous references to the mobile infantry being stuck aft of Bulkhead
30... if it's 10 feet between bulkheads, that's 300 feet *before* you
get to the soldiers quarters),

RAH also mentions Bulkhead 30 as being a 'traditional term' - and
refers to the division between the mixed Naval crew and the all male
MI passengers. I.E. the distance varies with the class.

If he substituted the more 'naval sounding' term 'bulkhead' for the
actual naval term 'frame', then the distance could be as little as 32
inches between them. (And in actual naval practice the distance
between frames and bulkheads varies across the length of the ship.)

it has to look like a warship, it has to have "warp drive," and it has
to fit in with the other RAH type of designs.

The painting you posted fails (IMO) on all three criteria.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
news

If you know of a design for a sci-fi ship that fits the RY bill, lemme
know. If has to be sizable (exactly how big is unclear, but there are
numerous references to the mobile infantry being stuck aft of Bulkhead
30... if it's 10 feet between bulkheads, that's 300 feet *before* you
get to the soldiers quarters), it has to look like a warship, it has to
have "warp drive," and it has to fit in with the other RAH type of
designs.


http://www.starshipmodeler.org/gallery7/sm_sulaco.htm

Something along those lines.


--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is
how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech
card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory
into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing
ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and
desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller

In message .net,
"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" writes

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
news

If you know of a design for a sci-fi ship that fits the RY bill, lemme
know. If has to be sizable (exactly how big is unclear, but there are
numerous references to the mobile infantry being stuck aft of Bulkhead
30... if it's 10 feet between bulkheads, that's 300 feet *before* you
get to the soldiers quarters), it has to look like a warship, it has to
have "warp drive," and it has to fit in with the other RAH type of
designs.


http://www.starshipmodeler.org/gallery7/sm_sulaco.htm

Something along those lines.



While I can certainly believe that the Sulaco was "inspired" by Starship
Troopers :-) I have a real problem with that being a 1/2400 scale model
- it would be bigger than an aircraft carrier. In fact, a bit of
searching tells me that the Saratoga in "Space: Above and Beyond" _was_
the size of an aircraft carrier.

In article ,
Scott Lowther "scottlowtherAT ix DOT netcom DOT com" wrote:
...has to be sizable (exactly how big is unclear, but there are
numerous references to the mobile infantry being stuck aft of Bulkhead
30... if it's 10 feet between bulkheads, that's 300 feet *before* you
get to the soldiers quarters)...

Alternatively -- setting aside the possibility that "Bulkhead 30" is just
traditional slang for the dividing line -- the bulkheads might be named by
location rather than being numbered consecutively, i.e. that's the one 30
meters aft of the coordinate-system origin (which is presumably at the
nose).

Unfortunately, the Starship Troopers universe doesn't seem to be metric,
and although 30 meters is halfway plausible, 30 feet is ridiculous. (I
can't see things being dimensioned in yards; not even the most hard-core
non-metric engineering does that.)
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