Ad absurdum per aspera wrote:
>> Main obstacles for the characters: refine kerosene or alcohol for the
>> rocket to achieve orbit
>
> I guess that kerosene and both ethanol and denatured alcohol
> (methanol) should have been readily available, though the quantity
> needed for what sounds like a substantial rocket booster might be
> problematic. If you want to really get a subplot with drama and/or
> comic relief going, set it in Chicago, since the timeframe is the
> early days of Prohibition...
>
> Here's a picture of a 1920 car battery:
> http://cgi.ebay.com/1920-Ad-Ray-Car-...photohost ing
>
> That leads me to a suggestion of looking at contemporary newspapers
> and old movies to get a feel for the technology of the era and what it
> looked like. A next phase of research would involve finding the
> right museums or big-city libraries. Old encyclopedias and technology-
> enthusiast magazines are good sources; for example, this link suggests
> that in the US, 6V was pretty common, whereas if your story is set in
> Italy, you're looking at 12V:
> http://books.google.com/books?id=yQc...um=2&ct=result
>

It looks like Italy is it.

We're going to start shooting the indoor scenes next month; despite the
fact the plot and story isn't 100% finished. We'll probably shoot
different versions of the same scene more than once.
They decided to put me in the middle - I'm going to be in the craft when
it gets shot back. That was unexpected.

> Note that lead-acid batteries were a pretty familiar technology by
> 1920. Electric cars had been neck-and-neck contenders with other
> propulsion technologies since almost the earliest days of the
> horseless carriage, though they were in decline by 1920; World War I
> submarines had banks of batteries and ran on electric power while
> submerged; etc. Electric self-starters were getting common enough by
> then.
>
> As for the laptop chargers, those of Earth at the dawn of the 21st
> century can usually auto-adjust to 110-220 V a.c. 60 Hz wall current.
> There was still a fair bit of 25 Hz and some other frequencies
> floating around, so you'll have to look up what would have been used
> in Chicago, or Italy (I think they may have had 42, 50, or 60 Hz).

Any road warrior of th early 21st century carries with him an inverter
or a car cigarette lighter adapter. Today we call them power sockets.
They generally convert something like 12vDC to 15vDC to whatever the
laptop uses - eliminating the need for an inverter.
Look on ebay and search for magsafe and airline.
The current script is the characters will use the DC from the batteries
wire it to an airline/car adapter and then to the laptop.


> Anyway, whether AC or DC (the history of rural electrification also
> factors in) you can see plenty of opportunity for either major plot
> influences or grace notes in the search for computer power, so good
> luck!
>
> --Joe
>

I was thinking of maybe having a laptop power brick blow out, or damage
one of the laptops - this way it takes longer to do the calculations.