Re: [gurps] [VEHICLE] of the week 741 – Stealth Shuttlepod, Single Seat Version

[Onno Meyer]

Zan replied to me:
> > Stealth Shuttlepod, Single Seat Version v1.0 (TL11)
> 
> > Equipment:
> >   Body: Long-range radio with scrambler; medium-range laser communicator
> > with scrambler; 5-mile AESA, LPI; two 5-mile PESAs; 5-mile radscanner; 
> > surveillance sound detector, level 5; IFF; inertial navigation system; 
> > two C5 hardened small computers; neural induction field; high-security 
> > alarm; 0.01 kT self-destruct; 1-man full life system. External: Radical 
> > emission cloaking; radical sound baffling; radical stealth; intruder 
> > chameleon; radiation shielding.
> 
> Not much room for luggage! :)

20% of the nominal volume, and 25% of the actual volume.
 
> It would be interesting to build up an example of the kind of sensor net
> it would be trying to defeat.  Is it designed for smuggling or
> intelligence operations against a fully developed TL 11 opponent?

Not really. When I wrote the introduction, I didn't want to get 
too repetitive - the Stealth Shuttle writeup mentions primitive
worlds and the Drones talk about first contacts.
 
> Using TL 11 Earth as an example.  
> 
> The Sol system at TL 11 would probably have a very large sensor net
> watching the outer system for FTL ships, c-fractional mass weapons and
> the like.  

I'm assuming a warp-capable civilization, cf the Stealth Shuttle,
so a FTL sensor is a must. FTL radars will have awesome range,
and only stealth screens help.

On the other hand, FTL radars are active, and there might be a 
limit how many technobabble beams one wants to pulse over a
homeworld.
 
> Earth orbit would probably be very full.  Lots of civilian
> infrastructure: power satellites, shipping warehouses, residential
> housing and shopping and entertainment.
> 
> Lots of scan satellites directed toward Earth just like now only more
> so, both government and civilian, with probably the literal ability to
> do facial recognition from orbit.  This scan ability would be available
> to AI or near-AI computer systems.

Somewhere you run into physical limits from atmospheric 
distortions, but generally yes.
 
> Depending on just how much computer ability is available, a stealth
> shuttle might find itself vulnerable to detection by its disturbance of
> air streams.  On the other hand, there would be *lots* of other traffic
> doing the same thing.

The answer to that is going slow. Ionization wouldn't help, 
either.
 
> And of course the amount of inter-communication between systems would
> matter too.  Would the weather system even bother informing Homeland
> Security (or whatever they call it).

They might call search and rescue or the traffic cops if there is a 
wake without transponder.
 
> I suppose that even if that was a problem, a stealth shuttle could
> mitigate it by following in the wake of a scheduled flight.  If it was
> close enough to another ship, even a successful sensor roll :) by
> Homeland Security systems might dismiss it as a sensor ghost.
> -- 
> Zan Lynx <zlynx at acm.org>

But you couldn't hide the mothership that way.