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Reuben Night
“You’re an idiot, rookie.”
The junior pilot scratched his stubby beard. “I really don’t see where this is coming from, Sue.”
“Church,” she corrected. She’d be damned if she let a rook get comfortable calling her by her first name.
“Sure, whatever.” Leonard lifted another spoonful of sludgy potatoes. They dripped back down to his plate in slow motion, courtesy of the ship’s artificial gravity. “Point is, this goddamned food is starting to give me nightmares, and I really don’t see why the company doesn’t put it in the budget to something good every now and then.”
“Like a reuben?” Church asked as if the rook hadn’t been whining for swiss cheese and sauerkraut for a week on end.
“Yes, like a decent reuben. It isn’t even that hard!” Leonard raised his hands in a now very familiar prelude to a very familiar rant. “Corned beef doesn’t go bad. Cheese doesn’t go bad. And sauerkraut sure as hell doesn’t go bad. And it’s not like I’m asking for caviar-marinated lobster or anything like that. This shit’s cheap!”
“Okay, I’ve let this go on for way too long,” said Church. She flipped her napkin clean-side-up and pulled out a pencil. “We’re not leaving until you figure this out.”
“Figure what out?” The younger pilot put on a peevish frown that almost made Church physically ill.
“Why you’re a colossal fucking tool. And why the company doesn’t offer a five-star menu to freight crews.” Church ignored Leonard’s juvenile groan and began scribbling numbers on the napkin. “Bread for a crew of three hundred is going to be, what, about a hundred kilos? The beef’s gotta be another hundred, and the cheese and ‘kraut’s gonna be another. So that’s three hundred kilos of food, if we count in the weight of packaging and all.”
“Cargo hold’s got plenty of room,” Leonoard snarked.
“Shut the fuck up right now, rook.” Church added more figures to her calculations. “Force equals mass times acceleration, so if we want to maintain a comfortable cruising speed of half a G while adding three-oh-oh kilos to the load, we gotta increase force outputted by the engines by thirteen and a half hundred Newtons. Over a conservative journey of a million kilometers, that’s one point three five million megajoules of energy. And that’s only for about half the distance between Earth and Washington Station.”
Some hint of realization started to flicker in the Rook’s eyes. It was like the light at the end of the tunnel—far away, but promising.
“So,” continued Church as she squeezed several more figures into the last unused corner of her napkin, “Assuming an average ten percent fuel efficiency of a MaPCon fussion engine, you’re going to be spending nearly an entire extra kilo of fuel-grade deuterium just for Leonard White’s reuben night.”
Church grinned. The rhyme at the end had been unintentional, but certainly not unwelcome. Leonard stared blanky at the napkin.
“Now I’m almost sure that even a dumbfuck like you knows how much a kilo of fuel costs.”
When the answer didn’t come fast enough, Church flicked Leonard’s nose.
“I asked you a fucking question, rook,” she said, even though she technically hadn’t.
“About a hundred thousand dollars,” Leonard answered, dejectedly.
“A hundred thousand dollars!” Church motioned skyward in a little lazy gesture. “Not including the actual cost of the fucking stuff. Just for Mister White’s Reuben Night.”
The rhyme was entirely intentional this time.
Leonard buried his face in his hands. “But I can’t eat this fucking food anymore.”
“Look, Rook,” said Church as she slung an arm over Leo’s shoulder. “Do you honestly think you’re the only one on this ship who hates eating this pigshit? Donnelley from engineering wants steak. Jo from nav wants fresh fruit salad.” She counted off each crewmate on her fingers. “I want nachos with guac. And call me a racist, but I’ll bet my left ass cheek that all Captain Zhang dreams about in his bunk is a bowl of fucking rice. We’re all dealing with it, rook.”
Leonard wore the face of a broken man. His gaze wandered between the floor and the gelatinous meatloaf on his plate.
“Look, I just want a—”
“Shut the fuck up, rook.”
The junior pilot scratched his stubby beard. “I really don’t see where this is coming from, Sue.”
“Church,” she corrected. She’d be damned if she let a rook get comfortable calling her by her first name.
“Sure, whatever.” Leonard lifted another spoonful of sludgy potatoes. They dripped back down to his plate in slow motion, courtesy of the ship’s artificial gravity. “Point is, this goddamned food is starting to give me nightmares, and I really don’t see why the company doesn’t put it in the budget to something good every now and then.”
“Like a reuben?” Church asked as if the rook hadn’t been whining for swiss cheese and sauerkraut for a week on end.
“Yes, like a decent reuben. It isn’t even that hard!” Leonard raised his hands in a now very familiar prelude to a very familiar rant. “Corned beef doesn’t go bad. Cheese doesn’t go bad. And sauerkraut sure as hell doesn’t go bad. And it’s not like I’m asking for caviar-marinated lobster or anything like that. This shit’s cheap!”
“Okay, I’ve let this go on for way too long,” said Church. She flipped her napkin clean-side-up and pulled out a pencil. “We’re not leaving until you figure this out.”
“Figure what out?” The younger pilot put on a peevish frown that almost made Church physically ill.
“Why you’re a colossal fucking tool. And why the company doesn’t offer a five-star menu to freight crews.” Church ignored Leonard’s juvenile groan and began scribbling numbers on the napkin. “Bread for a crew of three hundred is going to be, what, about a hundred kilos? The beef’s gotta be another hundred, and the cheese and ‘kraut’s gonna be another. So that’s three hundred kilos of food, if we count in the weight of packaging and all.”
“Cargo hold’s got plenty of room,” Leonoard snarked.
“Shut the fuck up right now, rook.” Church added more figures to her calculations. “Force equals mass times acceleration, so if we want to maintain a comfortable cruising speed of half a G while adding three-oh-oh kilos to the load, we gotta increase force outputted by the engines by thirteen and a half hundred Newtons. Over a conservative journey of a million kilometers, that’s one point three five million megajoules of energy. And that’s only for about half the distance between Earth and Washington Station.”
Some hint of realization started to flicker in the Rook’s eyes. It was like the light at the end of the tunnel—far away, but promising.
“So,” continued Church as she squeezed several more figures into the last unused corner of her napkin, “Assuming an average ten percent fuel efficiency of a MaPCon fussion engine, you’re going to be spending nearly an entire extra kilo of fuel-grade deuterium just for Leonard White’s reuben night.”
Church grinned. The rhyme at the end had been unintentional, but certainly not unwelcome. Leonard stared blanky at the napkin.
“Now I’m almost sure that even a dumbfuck like you knows how much a kilo of fuel costs.”
When the answer didn’t come fast enough, Church flicked Leonard’s nose.
“I asked you a fucking question, rook,” she said, even though she technically hadn’t.
“About a hundred thousand dollars,” Leonard answered, dejectedly.
“A hundred thousand dollars!” Church motioned skyward in a little lazy gesture. “Not including the actual cost of the fucking stuff. Just for Mister White’s Reuben Night.”
The rhyme was entirely intentional this time.
Leonard buried his face in his hands. “But I can’t eat this fucking food anymore.”
“Look, Rook,” said Church as she slung an arm over Leo’s shoulder. “Do you honestly think you’re the only one on this ship who hates eating this pigshit? Donnelley from engineering wants steak. Jo from nav wants fresh fruit salad.” She counted off each crewmate on her fingers. “I want nachos with guac. And call me a racist, but I’ll bet my left ass cheek that all Captain Zhang dreams about in his bunk is a bowl of fucking rice. We’re all dealing with it, rook.”
Leonard wore the face of a broken man. His gaze wandered between the floor and the gelatinous meatloaf on his plate.
“Look, I just want a—”
“Shut the fuck up, rook.”
“Force equals mass times acceleration, so if we want to maintain a comfortable cruising speed of half a G while adding three-oh-oh kilos to the load, we gotta increase force outputted by the engines by thirteen and a half hundred Newtons. Over a conservative journey of a million kilometers, that’s one point three five million megajoules of energy. And that’s only for about half the distance between Earth and Washington Station.”
I'll leave it to more mathematically-minded people to discuss whether the above is accurate or not. I'm just going to stick with my social sciences background and say that it worked for me.
I quite enjoyed this fic. It frames the prompt in an environment that's a little different to cafes and deli bars, and that made it automatically refreshing. The fact that the fic manages to form some nice character sketches, with believable attitudes and motivations, made it all the better for me. I got a sense of a wider world beyond this scene, and yet it just about pulls off a sense of being a standalone piece, rather than something connected to a larger story. A stronger ending would have helped that sense of independence; the last lines kind of tail the story off, rather than end it in a satisfying way (for me personally). A quibble then, but a relatively minor one.
Couple of typos too, but nothing major.
Good stuff, thanks for sharing your work.
I'll leave it to more mathematically-minded people to discuss whether the above is accurate or not. I'm just going to stick with my social sciences background and say that it worked for me.
I quite enjoyed this fic. It frames the prompt in an environment that's a little different to cafes and deli bars, and that made it automatically refreshing. The fact that the fic manages to form some nice character sketches, with believable attitudes and motivations, made it all the better for me. I got a sense of a wider world beyond this scene, and yet it just about pulls off a sense of being a standalone piece, rather than something connected to a larger story. A stronger ending would have helped that sense of independence; the last lines kind of tail the story off, rather than end it in a satisfying way (for me personally). A quibble then, but a relatively minor one.
Couple of typos too, but nothing major.
Good stuff, thanks for sharing your work.
Prose was good, the characterization was solid, given the space restraints, and the interactions were fluid. Description was minimalist, but well-targeted. The premise was novel, though the engineer in me will gnaw at it.
Hmm. I haven't done the math, but Church's logic seems to be that the Reuben would simply add to their mass, instead of substitute for other foods. If weight is so important, than it'd make sense to get dehydrated foods and then use recycled water for re-hydration. Maybe that's what they're doing with potatoes and meatloaf, but it isn't clear.
Meat stores well; at least they're already doing it with the meatloaf. If you have a crew of three hundred, theoretically you could bake the bread (since they have gravity - they don't use it on real spacecraft due to crumbs). Cheese is a little of a stickler; I don't know that it re-hydrates particularly well. Also, whoever is making these choices seems to be discounting the importance of morale, and the impact of food on it. The ISS actually has quite varied meals.
Dear author, I hope you haven't been too put off by my nitpicks; I enjoyed reading this, even if I can't help dissecting it.
Hmm. I haven't done the math, but Church's logic seems to be that the Reuben would simply add to their mass, instead of substitute for other foods. If weight is so important, than it'd make sense to get dehydrated foods and then use recycled water for re-hydration. Maybe that's what they're doing with potatoes and meatloaf, but it isn't clear.
Meat stores well; at least they're already doing it with the meatloaf. If you have a crew of three hundred, theoretically you could bake the bread (since they have gravity - they don't use it on real spacecraft due to crumbs). Cheese is a little of a stickler; I don't know that it re-hydrates particularly well. Also, whoever is making these choices seems to be discounting the importance of morale, and the impact of food on it. The ISS actually has quite varied meals.
Dear author, I hope you haven't been too put off by my nitpicks; I enjoyed reading this, even if I can't help dissecting it.
I agree with Sue. Leonard is an idiot.
You want that reuben, rookie? Well, then you fight for it instead of whining like a pansy. Think of ways the materials can be brought aboard without compromising the integrity of the space flight. Research alternatives for storage and preparation that could be applied to other types of food as to better justify their implementation.
You know what? I hope they don't have sandwiches in Washington Station either, you entitled ass.
The story's good, though.
You want that reuben, rookie? Well, then you fight for it instead of whining like a pansy. Think of ways the materials can be brought aboard without compromising the integrity of the space flight. Research alternatives for storage and preparation that could be applied to other types of food as to better justify their implementation.
You know what? I hope they don't have sandwiches in Washington Station either, you entitled ass.
The story's good, though.
>>Ceffyl_Dwr Okay, wall of text incoming. Look away now those of a non-STEM disposition.
The math is a little iffy. On the face of things my source (Atomic Rocket) suggests that at 10% efficacy deuterium fusion would be between 8-10TJ/kg, or about 5,000 times the stated energy density. Cancelling through that would put the extra cost for the sandwiches at $2,000, which you might be able to get the crew to pay for if they chipped in.
This is a pretty crude way of working out the costs, though. For pretty much any journey of this kind of distance you're less worried about the raw energy and more worried about the delta/v of the rocket. Adding extra dry mass means that you need more fuel and more propellant, though we're using an undefined engine and dry mass so I can't say how much more of either you'd need.
The increase is probably unimportant, however, as rocket being described is a torch ship (a sci-fi staple consisting of continuous acceleration towards your target until the midpoint, then continuous deceleration) and such designs have insane levels of delta/v. So insane that for the most part it makes a mockery of the gram-counting that's a staple of our current space programs. For example, the delta/v requirement to transfer between low-Earth and low-Mars orbit for the route our current probes use is about 5.8km/s, a torch ship would take 2,990km/s!
Adding a quarter ton of sandwich ingredients to the dry mass would increase delta/v requirements (by some incalculable amount as we lack the raw figures) but that would just mean turning down the engine and slowing the overall transit by a fairly negligible amount.
How negligible? Well to demonstrate.
Mission time equals T = 2 * sqrt[ D/A ]
Where:
T = transit time (seconds) = ???
D = distance (meters) = 225,000,000,000 (Earth/Mars average distance)
A = acceleration (m/s2) = 4.9 (0.5g as stated)
Therefore:
T = 428,571 (about 5 days)
Now, also:
Delta/v = 2 * sqrt[ D * A ]
So:
Delta/v = 2,100,000 m/s (which doesn't match precisely with the number used above because I've taken a bunch of abstractions)
Now, lets be really, really generous and say catering for the crew shaves ~5% off this and puts us at a delta/v of 2,000,000m/s. Distance doesn't change so A becomes:
A = 4.44m/s
And T must therefore be:
T = 450,000
Approximately 21,400 seconds slower, or six hours or 5% of the original transit time.
Given the crew's about 300 and they presumably are hauling a lot of cargo then the actual impact is going to be significantly smaller and so the time difference even less, maybe as little as a few minutes.
TLDR: the small delay and the extra fuel would cost the company additional money, yes. But far less than the stated amount and if the company were interested in saving money they would be doing literally any other mission profile than a Brachistochrone transfer which is mathematically the most inefficient way of getting between two points in space.
The math is a little iffy. On the face of things my source (Atomic Rocket) suggests that at 10% efficacy deuterium fusion would be between 8-10TJ/kg, or about 5,000 times the stated energy density. Cancelling through that would put the extra cost for the sandwiches at $2,000, which you might be able to get the crew to pay for if they chipped in.
This is a pretty crude way of working out the costs, though. For pretty much any journey of this kind of distance you're less worried about the raw energy and more worried about the delta/v of the rocket. Adding extra dry mass means that you need more fuel and more propellant, though we're using an undefined engine and dry mass so I can't say how much more of either you'd need.
The increase is probably unimportant, however, as rocket being described is a torch ship (a sci-fi staple consisting of continuous acceleration towards your target until the midpoint, then continuous deceleration) and such designs have insane levels of delta/v. So insane that for the most part it makes a mockery of the gram-counting that's a staple of our current space programs. For example, the delta/v requirement to transfer between low-Earth and low-Mars orbit for the route our current probes use is about 5.8km/s, a torch ship would take 2,990km/s!
Adding a quarter ton of sandwich ingredients to the dry mass would increase delta/v requirements (by some incalculable amount as we lack the raw figures) but that would just mean turning down the engine and slowing the overall transit by a fairly negligible amount.
How negligible? Well to demonstrate.
Mission time equals T = 2 * sqrt[ D/A ]
Where:
T = transit time (seconds) = ???
D = distance (meters) = 225,000,000,000 (Earth/Mars average distance)
A = acceleration (m/s2) = 4.9 (0.5g as stated)
Therefore:
T = 428,571 (about 5 days)
Now, also:
Delta/v = 2 * sqrt[ D * A ]
So:
Delta/v = 2,100,000 m/s (which doesn't match precisely with the number used above because I've taken a bunch of abstractions)
Now, lets be really, really generous and say catering for the crew shaves ~5% off this and puts us at a delta/v of 2,000,000m/s. Distance doesn't change so A becomes:
A = 4.44m/s
And T must therefore be:
T = 450,000
Approximately 21,400 seconds slower, or six hours or 5% of the original transit time.
Given the crew's about 300 and they presumably are hauling a lot of cargo then the actual impact is going to be significantly smaller and so the time difference even less, maybe as little as a few minutes.
TLDR: the small delay and the extra fuel would cost the company additional money, yes. But far less than the stated amount and if the company were interested in saving money they would be doing literally any other mission profile than a Brachistochrone transfer which is mathematically the most inefficient way of getting between two points in space.
Ahhh:
"The Cold Sandwich Equations," is it? Though Reubens are usually served warm, I believe...
Mike
"The Cold Sandwich Equations," is it? Though Reubens are usually served warm, I believe...
Mike
>>billymorph
That's... comprehensive, and you have my gratitude in explaining it. I'll... uh, have my homework reading ready to report on next week. Honest.
Also, that website is pretty fantastic. Especially for someone like me with a poor grasp of those particular realms of science. Thanks for the flag.
That's... comprehensive, and you have my gratitude in explaining it. I'll... uh, have my homework reading ready to report on next week. Honest.
Also, that website is pretty fantastic. Especially for someone like me with a poor grasp of those particular realms of science. Thanks for the flag.
There are some English idioms you'll have to explain to me.
You totally erred by stating "one million" kilometres, because your journey at a 0.5g boost would take only six hours (t = sqrt (distance/boost)), and that realisation alone means all the spiel about food and weight is irrelevant, since you wouldn't take any food for a six-hour flight anyway (or maybe a simple snack). Take that distance to "a billion" and we shall talk :)
[Max velocity reached is 50 kmps which is well inside Newtonian approximation.]
[Besides, my own math says the extra energy is only on the order of 150 MJ, which is ridiculous.]
Tier: misaimed :)
I really don’t see why the company doesn’t put it in the budget to something good every now and then.(put it … to …)
outputted
a comfortable cruising speed of half a g…Not speed, boost.
You totally erred by stating "one million" kilometres, because your journey at a 0.5g boost would take only six hours (t = sqrt (distance/boost)), and that realisation alone means all the spiel about food and weight is irrelevant, since you wouldn't take any food for a six-hour flight anyway (or maybe a simple snack). Take that distance to "a billion" and we shall talk :)
[Max velocity reached is 50 kmps which is well inside Newtonian approximation.]
[Besides, my own math says the extra energy is only on the order of 150 MJ, which is ridiculous.]
Tier: misaimed :)
This is a cute enough piece of drama, but even I was a bit skeptical when you mentioned boosting at a half-g the entire way, and didn't mention any reaction mass.
If you're curious about writing hard sci-fi rocket ships, I'd suggest looking into project rho.
(Wow, that's evolved a lot since I initially stumbled across it.)
If you're not interested in writing hard sci-fi rockets, consider doing a bit more handwaving and using a hyperspace drive or something?
Honestly, though, given space travel and what, I'd expect these people to be treated rather better. Sure, a company wants to make all the profit it can. But if space travel is common, they should have either resigned themselves to the inconvenience or fixed it, and if it's not common, they should be valuable enough specialists that they're not going to be eating slop. There might be a sweet spot in there somewhere, where new enterprises are trying their very best to be competitive and space is interesting enough you'd get people willing to sign on for a worse ride... I dunno. I'm not picky enough to mark this down too heavily for any one nitpick, I guess, but this is spun as if it was hard sci-fi, and... I've got a lot of nitpicks.
...oh, and a kilo of 99.994% pure 'deuterium oxide' (heavy water) currently costs about 7520US$, according to Google.
If you're curious about writing hard sci-fi rocket ships, I'd suggest looking into project rho.
(Wow, that's evolved a lot since I initially stumbled across it.)
If you're not interested in writing hard sci-fi rockets, consider doing a bit more handwaving and using a hyperspace drive or something?
Honestly, though, given space travel and what, I'd expect these people to be treated rather better. Sure, a company wants to make all the profit it can. But if space travel is common, they should have either resigned themselves to the inconvenience or fixed it, and if it's not common, they should be valuable enough specialists that they're not going to be eating slop. There might be a sweet spot in there somewhere, where new enterprises are trying their very best to be competitive and space is interesting enough you'd get people willing to sign on for a worse ride... I dunno. I'm not picky enough to mark this down too heavily for any one nitpick, I guess, but this is spun as if it was hard sci-fi, and... I've got a lot of nitpicks.
...oh, and a kilo of 99.994% pure 'deuterium oxide' (heavy water) currently costs about 7520US$, according to Google.
You have a strong beginning and a strong end. The problem is the middle. Even before I read the comments, I myself wanted to debate your math. >>billymorph did a much better job than I would though.
That's the danger of hard sci-fi. If you put out actual numbers, people WILL check those numbers. If you just wave your hands and say "it adds more mass, and that means exponentially more energy!" we'll all agree.
As a story, I think you had a great take on the prompt. Explaining to a "rook" why he can't "just have his sandwich" is perfect. The problem is that the explanation took the rest of the story, and the math was... iffy. Meat and cheese are actually rather high in caloric density. Bread isn't, but in terms of mass (rather than volume) its pretty decent. More importantly, until you show things like everyone on board being shaved bald and having their lower (if not upper) limbs removed to minimize mass, it's hard to begrudge a relatively dense Ruben vs. even an optimal protein shake.
Overall, strong attempt, but went technical without the
That's the danger of hard sci-fi. If you put out actual numbers, people WILL check those numbers. If you just wave your hands and say "it adds more mass, and that means exponentially more energy!" we'll all agree.
As a story, I think you had a great take on the prompt. Explaining to a "rook" why he can't "just have his sandwich" is perfect. The problem is that the explanation took the rest of the story, and the math was... iffy. Meat and cheese are actually rather high in caloric density. Bread isn't, but in terms of mass (rather than volume) its pretty decent. More importantly, until you show things like everyone on board being shaved bald and having their lower (if not upper) limbs removed to minimize mass, it's hard to begrudge a relatively dense Ruben vs. even an optimal protein shake.
Overall, strong attempt, but went technical without the
Not gonna review all the finalists but kinda had to chip in on this one.
>>Xepher beat me to my main comment, kind of. Which is: All this brainpower put into the math of sandwich shipment is missing a bigger point. The ship is crewed by humans, who require food consumption to stay alive. That food is already reaching them. The question is not how much it costs to send them a sandwich from scratch, but how much extra it costs to replace the food already being sent.
There are some answers for that which would lead to a compelling story, but you seem to be boxing yourself out of them with your little details.
The simplest answer would be that they have the capability to locally produce some sort of gross nutrient sludge (algae paste from their biotanks, or whatever), and that the meal replacement cost is prohibitive because it requires shipping whereas their sludge-meals don't. But you already have them on a menu that closely resembles the food they're dreaming about, implying an existing food source capable of producing Reubens:
One workaround to that compatible with your current text would be to have them eating only freeze-dried stuff because Washington Station is in a location where they can locally produce water (such as on a comet). It's not that they want sandwiches et.al., but they want fresh sandwiches instead of reconstituted crap. But the math doesn't make this cost-prohibitive. Typically 70%-ish of the weight of many common foods is water weight, so if their diet is all reconstituted with local water, shipping non-freeze-dried foods would roughly quadruple the cost of their meals. This would mean that in the worst-case scenario — where food is by far the largest expense of maintaining active station personnel — denying them the occasional fresh meal as a holiday bonus means quibbling about an amount representing less than two days' pay.
But, y'know, despite how the replacement-cost thing breaks the central premise of your story, it ultimately feels a lot like a nitpick, because it would take like five words of editing to have them eating shipgrown algae sludge instead (and noting that all "real" food has to be shipped in). It's just the biggest of my issues that hasn't been mentioned yet, is all. And as >>Not_A_Hat said: "I'm not picky enough to mark this down too heavily for any one nitpick, I guess, but this is spun as if it was hard sci-fi, and... I've got a lot of nitpicks." I like the core concept, and the characterization feels strong for its space (though Church's abuse gets wearisome by the end). I commend you for a daring story willing to stray afield, and I'm glad you wrote this and I engaged with it, but a story about the math needs to get the math correct (and in the correct context).
Tier: Almost There
>>Xepher beat me to my main comment, kind of. Which is: All this brainpower put into the math of sandwich shipment is missing a bigger point. The ship is crewed by humans, who require food consumption to stay alive. That food is already reaching them. The question is not how much it costs to send them a sandwich from scratch, but how much extra it costs to replace the food already being sent.
There are some answers for that which would lead to a compelling story, but you seem to be boxing yourself out of them with your little details.
The simplest answer would be that they have the capability to locally produce some sort of gross nutrient sludge (algae paste from their biotanks, or whatever), and that the meal replacement cost is prohibitive because it requires shipping whereas their sludge-meals don't. But you already have them on a menu that closely resembles the food they're dreaming about, implying an existing food source capable of producing Reubens:
Leonard lifted another spoonful of sludgy potatoes. They dripped back down to his plate in slow motion, courtesy of the ship’s artificial gravity.
His gaze wandered between the floor and the gelatinous meatloaf on his plate.
One workaround to that compatible with your current text would be to have them eating only freeze-dried stuff because Washington Station is in a location where they can locally produce water (such as on a comet). It's not that they want sandwiches et.al., but they want fresh sandwiches instead of reconstituted crap. But the math doesn't make this cost-prohibitive. Typically 70%-ish of the weight of many common foods is water weight, so if their diet is all reconstituted with local water, shipping non-freeze-dried foods would roughly quadruple the cost of their meals. This would mean that in the worst-case scenario — where food is by far the largest expense of maintaining active station personnel — denying them the occasional fresh meal as a holiday bonus means quibbling about an amount representing less than two days' pay.
But, y'know, despite how the replacement-cost thing breaks the central premise of your story, it ultimately feels a lot like a nitpick, because it would take like five words of editing to have them eating shipgrown algae sludge instead (and noting that all "real" food has to be shipped in). It's just the biggest of my issues that hasn't been mentioned yet, is all. And as >>Not_A_Hat said: "I'm not picky enough to mark this down too heavily for any one nitpick, I guess, but this is spun as if it was hard sci-fi, and... I've got a lot of nitpicks." I like the core concept, and the characterization feels strong for its space (though Church's abuse gets wearisome by the end). I commend you for a daring story willing to stray afield, and I'm glad you wrote this and I engaged with it, but a story about the math needs to get the math correct (and in the correct context).
Tier: Almost There
Well, I thought this was a clever little story and an interesting interpretation of the prompt.
I'm too lazy to do the math myself, so I'll trust Billymorph's calculations. My first thought though was that if a mere 300kg's costs $100k in fuel, then I'm surprised the corporation running the ship doesn't require every crewmember to go on a diet before launch... Or only hire anemics!
Regardless of the accuracy / believability of the math, it was still an entertaining and well written little story, so thumbs up!
I'm too lazy to do the math myself, so I'll trust Billymorph's calculations. My first thought though was that if a mere 300kg's costs $100k in fuel, then I'm surprised the corporation running the ship doesn't require every crewmember to go on a diet before launch... Or only hire anemics!
Regardless of the accuracy / believability of the math, it was still an entertaining and well written little story, so thumbs up!
Retrospective: Reuben Night
The idea for this one was just me trying to figure out the most interesting way to deny someone a sandwich. I remembered watching some Discovery Channel documentaries as a kid about how weight is such an important factor in any space mission, so I threw together some freshman-year physics and tried to make it sound plausible. Unfortunately, I think it's pretty clear that a lot of you guys have a much better knack for figuring out this kind of stuff than I do. I played fast and loose with the math, and I guess it shows. :twilightblush: Which is a shame, because I love reading hard sci-fi, but it looks like writing it is going to be out of my reach for now.
Sue Church, Captain Zhang, and Washington Station are actually all from my scrapped entry for "The Killing Machine" OF Short Story round a couple of months back. I'm pretty sure the 7000 word draft I wrote for that will never see the light of day just because I have no idea what I was even going for with it, so cannibalizing its ideas and characters seems like the next best thing.
Anways, thanks for all the comments! I really appreciate the insight into what did and didn't work in this one.
And as a bonus for you guys, here's some trivia about the writing process behind this one:
-- For some reason, I thought half a G was 4.5 m/s*s. This skewed my figures accordingly.
-- I found a site quoting the cost of 99.994% deuterium oxide at $7520/kilo, but considering what a paltry sum that was, I handwaved it in favor of a bigger number. The in-universe explanation is that the deuterium needs to be a lot purer to work in the engines.
-- I actually didn't intend for Washington Station to be their destination; in my head Church brings it up just as a point of reference. But I totally understand why everyone thought it was where these guys are heading. I need to work on my dialogue. :P
-- MaPCon stands for "Magnetic Plasma Containment", which is loosely describes some theoretical fusion engine designs I read about as research for the scrapped Short Story entry.
-- The two characters' names are actually a spur-of-the-moment reference to a certain sci-fi comedy webseries that I've been watching since middle school. Yes, my taste in entertainment is that bad. :P
The idea for this one was just me trying to figure out the most interesting way to deny someone a sandwich. I remembered watching some Discovery Channel documentaries as a kid about how weight is such an important factor in any space mission, so I threw together some freshman-year physics and tried to make it sound plausible. Unfortunately, I think it's pretty clear that a lot of you guys have a much better knack for figuring out this kind of stuff than I do. I played fast and loose with the math, and I guess it shows. :twilightblush: Which is a shame, because I love reading hard sci-fi, but it looks like writing it is going to be out of my reach for now.
Sue Church, Captain Zhang, and Washington Station are actually all from my scrapped entry for "The Killing Machine" OF Short Story round a couple of months back. I'm pretty sure the 7000 word draft I wrote for that will never see the light of day just because I have no idea what I was even going for with it, so cannibalizing its ideas and characters seems like the next best thing.
Anways, thanks for all the comments! I really appreciate the insight into what did and didn't work in this one.
And as a bonus for you guys, here's some trivia about the writing process behind this one:
-- For some reason, I thought half a G was 4.5 m/s*s. This skewed my figures accordingly.
-- I found a site quoting the cost of 99.994% deuterium oxide at $7520/kilo, but considering what a paltry sum that was, I handwaved it in favor of a bigger number. The in-universe explanation is that the deuterium needs to be a lot purer to work in the engines.
-- I actually didn't intend for Washington Station to be their destination; in my head Church brings it up just as a point of reference. But I totally understand why everyone thought it was where these guys are heading. I need to work on my dialogue. :P
-- MaPCon stands for "Magnetic Plasma Containment", which is loosely describes some theoretical fusion engine designs I read about as research for the scrapped Short Story entry.
-- The two characters' names are actually a spur-of-the-moment reference to a certain sci-fi comedy webseries that I've been watching since middle school. Yes, my taste in entertainment is that bad. :P
>>Bachiavellian
Actually it is: g = 9.8 m•s⁻².
Containment or confinement? :P
Yeah, I know, nitpicking 😜
For some reason, I thought half a G was 4.5 m/s*s. This skewed my figures accordingly.
Actually it is: g = 9.8 m•s⁻².
MaPCon stands for "Magnetic Plasma Containment"
Containment or confinement? :P
Yeah, I know, nitpicking 😜
>>Monokeras
I was still 0.4 m/s*s off! That makes a bit of a difference, I think!
And I suppose neither containment nor confinement would be technically appropriate, since the concept isn't about preventing radioactive leakage. Rather, it's about inducing fusion of non-radioactive plasma using magnetic fields. So I guess, "compression" would work if I changed the acronym to MaPCom? Unless that also has a technical definition in this context.
I was still 0.4 m/s*s off! That makes a bit of a difference, I think!
And I suppose neither containment nor confinement would be technically appropriate, since the concept isn't about preventing radioactive leakage. Rather, it's about inducing fusion of non-radioactive plasma using magnetic fields. So I guess, "compression" would work if I changed the acronym to MaPCom? Unless that also has a technical definition in this context.
>>Bachiavellian
Not so much I think.
Precisely, you create a bottle of plasma — for me it’s confinement, since the plasma tends to break the barriers of the magnetic fields. It pushes constantly on the “virtual” sides of your magnetic box. Besides, I’m not sure you can actually kindle the fusion reaction with magnetic fields alone (remember magnetic fields never accelerate, they merely deviate particles). You have to use an external source of heat (but I would have to check on the Tokamak principles again).
I was still 0.4 m/s*s off! That makes a bit of a difference, I think!
Not so much I think.
And I suppose neither containment nor confinement would be technically appropriate, since the concept isn't about preventing radioactive leakage. Rather, it's about inducing fusion of non-radioactive plasma using magnetic fields. So I guess, "compression" would work if I changed the acronym to MaPCom? Unless that also has a technical definition in this context.
Precisely, you create a bottle of plasma — for me it’s confinement, since the plasma tends to break the barriers of the magnetic fields. It pushes constantly on the “virtual” sides of your magnetic box. Besides, I’m not sure you can actually kindle the fusion reaction with magnetic fields alone (remember magnetic fields never accelerate, they merely deviate particles). You have to use an external source of heat (but I would have to check on the Tokamak principles again).
>>Bachiavellian
I should really apologise for the physics dump. It's not that I wanted to discourage you writing these kinds of stories, its more of a warning that for hard sci-fi there's always someone who checks the maths. The key I've found in hardish science stories is always to leave numbers vague enough that no-one can run them through a spreadsheet. Or if you use the numbers, make sure the person with the spreadsheet was you.
That might sound like a bad thing if you're not very scientific, but the good news is, paradoxically, rocket science is actually one of the easier sciences for an author to wrap their head around. Not because its particularly simple, as some of the equations would make quantum physicists scratch their heads, but because its more or less solved. If you're writing about anything in the solar systems and with anything that resembles a realistic engine there exists long libraries of precise equations covering that situation, often with lengthy explanations and even discussions as to relative merits. In many cases its not a matter of too little, but almost so much that it's hard to tell what's important.
Which is a shame, because I love reading hard sci-fi, but it looks like writing it is going to be out of my reach for now.
I should really apologise for the physics dump. It's not that I wanted to discourage you writing these kinds of stories, its more of a warning that for hard sci-fi there's always someone who checks the maths. The key I've found in hardish science stories is always to leave numbers vague enough that no-one can run them through a spreadsheet. Or if you use the numbers, make sure the person with the spreadsheet was you.
That might sound like a bad thing if you're not very scientific, but the good news is, paradoxically, rocket science is actually one of the easier sciences for an author to wrap their head around. Not because its particularly simple, as some of the equations would make quantum physicists scratch their heads, but because its more or less solved. If you're writing about anything in the solar systems and with anything that resembles a realistic engine there exists long libraries of precise equations covering that situation, often with lengthy explanations and even discussions as to relative merits. In many cases its not a matter of too little, but almost so much that it's hard to tell what's important.
>>billymorph
No apology necessary at all! Like I said, I played fast and loose with the numbers and kinda just hoped it sounded plausible enough to pass. Comments like yours helped me figure out the kind of fact-checking process that happens inside a reader's head. It's been a good learning experience.
And don't be worried about discouraging me—there is a "for now" in that sentence for a reason, you know. :)
No apology necessary at all! Like I said, I played fast and loose with the numbers and kinda just hoped it sounded plausible enough to pass. Comments like yours helped me figure out the kind of fact-checking process that happens inside a reader's head. It's been a good learning experience.
And don't be worried about discouraging me—there is a "for now" in that sentence for a reason, you know. :)