Re: starship-design: Computer displays et al.

["Peter / Sci" <scifox@asylum30.freeserve.co.uk>]

> Peter / Sci wrote:
>
> > Such output I feel would be a good use for the relativly primative
> > holographics we have available to us.  I imagine 3D navigation might be
> > rather tricky without it to enable us to visualise it.
> > The one that springs to mind was shown on a BBC program, "Tommorows
World"
> > some years ago, and I seem unable to find a more up to date source of
> > information on it.  It was being concidered as an alternate display for
> > air-traffic-control.
> > It concisted of a tube with a rapidly spinning single-helix within it, a
> > single turn of which took up the entire height of the small chamber.  It
was
> > spun, and since the helix took up only one turn of height, a laser,
> > projected from below witht he right timing, was able to set the point of
> > it's height by whatever part of the helix was passing above it at the
time,
> > thus enabling graphics to be displayed as a truely 3D image.
> > A larger, and preferably colour, vesion of this I think be the perfect
> > navigational display.
> >
> I think the real computers used will have less functionally as the movie
> and
> tv people would have us believe. Other a shuttle from ground to orbit
> what
> need is there for fancy navigational stuff. Just point it in the right
> direction and go for naviation to the stars as it takes a good while to
> get
> where you are going.

I mean for signifigently more that just surface to orbit manuveres. I mean
entire package. Launch (however unlikely that a  whole starship would be
launched from the surface), orbital insertion, adjustments in orbital height
(from low, to geostationary, etc, or even insertion at Le Grange points),
orbits worked out on-the-fly by gravitational well measurements.   Possibly
also facility for aerobraking and other rare (hopefully) ship manuvres. I'm
thinking beyond Sol-system operations to the potential for having to come up
with safe routes in new terratories (after all, the first starships will be
probes and exploration craft, yes?).
I brought up holographics, because as I see it the best way to represent
manuveres in 3 dimentions is with a 3dimentional display system.
True, a screen can display can display a 2D interpretation of a 3D
environment, but I can't see it ever providing as much information as a 3D
display.

I agree that most of the computing power on the ship, will probably consist
of nothing more than "smart" system relays. If you want videos or music,
etc, played on your own computer (I mean, we do have to think of the
psychological wellbeing too, of the crew), you plug it into the ship
network, dumb in itself, and transfer what you want (low priority data) from
someone else on the network, or a central data-storage.  Whereas changes to
essential systems would be reported to whatever terminals were at the time
logged in as engineering/environmental/etc, (mid to high priority data).
Things like signels to manuvering thrusters or engines, would be
high-priority data, getting transfered first through the network, or
possibly having their own seperate control lines.
Thought: Would there be a backup control room or alow the ship to be
controlled from anywhere on board, with correct accesss?  The later would
seem more prudent, as it alows more redundency in the system, without any
extra physical parts.

Sci