On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 8:25 AM, Grimmund <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

> The Sol system is about 13 light-hours across.  Put a layer of sensor
> bouys 15 light minutes above  and 15 minutes below the ecliptic.
> Assume each buoy has an observation sphere of 60 light-minutes radi,
> that's 28 sensor buoys to give you eyes above and eyes below, with
> lots of overlap.   Not an insurmountable task or expense.  It's broad
> field IR cameras, computers and comm gear.

Correction.  44 above and 44 below for a total of 88 buoys.

Still, 88 sensors buoys at (excessively expensive) 1MCR a pop (plus
spares) is roughly the cost of three scout ships from Book 2.

You can jigger those numbers up or down depening on system size and
the observation radius of the buoys.

You'll still need a couple of tenders, and maybe an extra crew (or
two)  to rotate to keep the tenders in play while the crews get some
r&r.

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan