A question I would have for airships in the traveler setting involves getting rid of hydrogen or helium all together. If light and strong enough materials can be imported from offworld to make rigid vacuum bags for lift, why not use them? They would lift much better than either hydrogen or helium and not need to be refilled. No nasty burning either (although they might implode rather spectacularly if damaged). This material is also likely to take less space and mass than a contra-grav - and far less likely to be restricted by trade regulations. Now these voidbags would have to be pretty strong and impervious to gas leakage, but the base material should be available from higher tech worlds.
The completed voidbag need not be imported, as these could be formed and shaped onworld, but the base materials would need to be imported. I'm not familiar enough with the traveler universe or the Gurps vehicles rules to know if this could be done and what the cost difference would be from imported contra-grav. But as I read this thread I could not help but think about this. Regards _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
