Why aren't space ships ever shown correctly in movies or such?
Assuming we get past deflecting laser weaponry, a real ship in space would need to be able to accelerate quickly in any direction, why is it that they're only ever shown moving like traditional jet fighters?
Are there any shows/films/games that have done space combat correctly?
![0558f3a932cdb7358315c184fea0faad[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/OEFz2tp.jpg "0558f3a932cdb7358315c184fea0faad[1].jpg")
because they look dull and purely functional. fictional things look cooler
Assuming there is no antigravity drive or something, multi-direction thrusters would kill pilots due to g-forces. It would probably be advantageous for them to remain behind the CoG due to pilot retention and phisiology. Same goes for surface-to-space vehicles.
>>7912928
sometimes BSG got fighter mechanics kinda close - def closer than anything that comes to mind outside of hard sci fi novels
>>7912957
manned fighters in space is obvious nonsense
manned fighters in space dogfighting is lunacy
I'd imagine combat space ships would be unmanned, either AI or "radio" controlled
>>7912966
>manned fighters in space dogfighting is lunacy
You underestimate human stupidity
>>7912966
anon references specifically the physics of the ships moving, not how practical it would be.
>>7912974
The ships moved like aircraft on BSG, so that's definitely not "kinda close."
OP, how would you show space ships "correctly"?
>>7913156
Theyd have to behave like in Kerbal Space Program. Imagine how difficult it would be to even find and enemy, line up your orbit and then outmaneuver him with somewhat realistic physics.
>>7912928
Taking evasive action from missiles and such can only be done if you're flying away from it and making small adjustments to your trajectory. Any more sudden movements/adjustments in trajectory can create deadly G-Forces and kill everyone flying the ship.
>>7912928
Realistic space combat between military forces would be abstract and visually boring.
Like a nuclear war. You show missiles launching, then there are explosions. No drama, no conflict, just cause and effect.
Competent space combat along our tech development path would happen at very long ranges and with minimal opportunity for human decisionmaking.
It might be different in a world where they never developed computers, but managed to work out spaceflight with human pilots. Or you could have some interesting scenarios where neither side was properly prepared or armed, especially between two vehicles or a vehicle and a station that almost docked (or did dock) before one side noticed the other was prepared to board and seize control.
Most people don't get a chill down their spine when they think about thrust vectoring.
>>7912973
No one is giving a robot control of weaponry. Drones are controlled by people, and even auto pilot is just preprogrammed series' of actions initiated by humans. DARPA is researching how to put machnes under direct neural control - now how to put neurons under computer control.
We'll grow brains in a tube, designed for perfect obedience and low-oxygen requirements, and make them kamikaze pilots.
>>7913184
>No one is giving a robot control of weaponry
Yes we will. Because a robot will fight better, so it's that or lose.
>We'll grow brains in a tube, designed for perfect obedience and low-oxygen requirements, and make them kamikaze pilots.
That just sounds like a shitty robot?
>>7912928
http://myanimelist.net/anime/1793/Kaze_no_Na_wa_Amnesia
>>7913209
>That just sounds like a shitty robot?
My nigga
>>7912928
Do you agree that the design that makes the most sense are saucer shaped? Which makes you wonder that flying saucers are real or someone really did saw a flying saucer once...
>>7913236
You'd want something that's sphere shaped that can use it's ports for attack and thrust
You know what people never talk about in space combat? Chaff and flares.
You can make aluminum foil just a few atoms thick, and a square mile of the stuff would only weigh a few hundred pounds.
Imagine a space battlefield littered with tons of chaff, blocking lines of sight, reflecting sunlight and maybe using radioisotopes to radiate their own heat, while fireworks burst all over the place, making a terrible noise for your sensors to work out, while ships coast, chill their hulls, and use low-observable cold-mass drives.
Imagine a cloaking device that deploys an actual cloak of foil. Maybe there's a ship behind it, maybe there isn't. You can't fucking see through it. It's foil. Burn through it with a beam weapon? Maybe you reveal the enemy, and maybe you don't, but you definitely reveal the position of your beam weapon and whatever it's attached to.
Now imagine that, rather than these being deployed in a static cannonade between stately battlecruisers, this is an intense clash between forces coming together at km/s or even relativistic speeds, over in seconds for better or worse.
If you think space combat is going to be simple and easy to analyse, you haven't thought hard enough about it.
>>7913209
>Yes we will. Because a robot will fight better, so it's that or lose
It doesn't exist right now, and when getting the missing functionality is already possible with tiny clumps of 100 or so neurons, I doubt the impetus is there.
A few cells can be protected in ways a brain couldn't. Genetic engineering could make cells that use proteins that can survive high temperatures - like a-amanitin.
>That just sounds like a shitty robot?
On the contrary - it's a robot that can be trained like an animal, and whose programming can still be replicated, removed, and plugged into other machines.
Hypothetically, it should be possible to design a neuron that doesn't even need oxygen. The neural nets built from them could be streamlined, so there's no way extraneous action potentials could get in the way.
In the end, biology and technology blur to the point of total unity at the lowest scale.
No one wants to see large capital ships slugging it out at beyond visual range with rail guns and drones.
>>7912928
>a real ship in space would need to be able to accelerate quickly in any direction
>>7912928
Most of the space ships you see are also designed to go in atmosphere, that and if you have adequate engines to move equally in ""all"" directions you're looking at 6+ primary engines which takes up a shit tonne of room. Why not just have 1 primary engine and rotate then burn?
>>7913415
The borg cube just kinda sits around though
>>7913664
I'd imagine you'd have ships built for going down into planets and separate combat ships built to stay with a mothership in orbit
>>7912928
the bsg universe had some level of gravity manipulation at least for larger vessels, which kinda throws lots of things regarding practical ship design out the window. No need to orient ship deck layout to deal with g-forces from acceleration and lots of other shit. Seemed to be related to whether or not a ship had an ftl drive, which perhaps served both functions.
>tfw you will never fly a B-wing
Why even continue reincarnating
>>7913681
Something like that really depends on the civilization in question though. For example in BSG we know that although they had resupplying stations and probably space repair stations, all the war ships were designed to be landed on a planet to undergo maintenance, whereas in the Star Trek universe they were sufficiently advanced that practically all their planet level resources had effectively been moved into space and all ship based operations could be completed just as easily there (Though they weren't military ships).
Basically I think there is a fine line between a civilization that is able to operate in space and a civilization that is able to operate out of space and that this capability would heavily influence the majority of the ships designs primarily concerning atmospheric flight capable.
>>7913184
>No one is giving a robot control of weaponry.
A guided missile is effectively a robot kamikaze that uses every trick at its disposal to destroy its target after launch.
All any weapons platform is (jet fighters, drones, aircraft carriers, destroyers, even men and tanks) in this day and age is a means to get that vicious mechanical monster closer to its objective...
>>7913741
You don't waste fuel going into orbit rather than land and having to relaunch the entire ship.
Because we don't know how an actual space warship from 1000 years in the future will look like or around what design tenets or energy sources it will be built so they just go with whatever looks cool.
>>7913279
I can see through a piece of foil just fine, and I'm not a billion dollar space battleship.
>>7913279
I dont think you understand the purpose of aircraft countermeasures. So extrapolating them to space looks even stupider
>>7913279
Chaff is already beatable by UWB pulse doppler l. Not only that but 9Xs have target tracking sampling where they can make a decision on what the likely target is by the changes in the detection of the foils movement compared to the aircraft.
Flares can be overcome by range switching which is complex for aams but simple for current heavy weight air defence missiles. Not only that but generally air defence missiles have multiple sensor types employed in one launch including multiple IR/UV/radio and visible light bands, LIDAR, laser guidance, and high powered UWB emmissions from multistatics all over the field. Chaff and flares in space will do absolutely nothing because trajectories are much easier to calculate in space especially for large ships. The only EPMs in space will be offensive counter measures like missile seeking missiles, and if there can be enough power generated, full band jamming
>>7912966
>manned fighters in space is obvious nonsense
>manned fighters in space dogfighting is lunacy
In BSG in particular, I can see why there would be strong political and cultural bias against unmanned weapons, tbqh senpai senpai-anon-kuhn.
>>7913705
>a LONG times ago in a galaxy far, far away
nigga you already flew a B-wing, you just don't remember it
>>7912928
Same reason real spacecraft don't have this capability. Because rotation doesn't necessarily require a use of propellant, and because thrusters are heavy, both in terms of their individual mass and the reenforcement of the hull that's required to weather their abuse, so it's better to have only one major thrust profile with a high potential acceleration. If you want rotating thrusters, you run into the same problems as VTOL - the engineering requires additional mass for reenforcing against stress in every direction the ship could possibly sustain it.
Instead, all of that mass can be put into two flywheels to enable practically free rotation, or if faster movement is desired (why?) vernier thrusters that don't need huge bulky structural changes.
>>7913989
>they can make a decision on what the likely target is by the changes in the detection of the foils movement compared to the aircraft.
That's because the foil is in an atmosphere. In space, they can both just coast in an essentially frictionless environment.
You're thinking too much of what chaff and flares are used for, and how they work, in the atmosphere. In space, you expect a maneuvering ship to be visible at great distances because of the heat it (and its reaction mass) radiates.
You can find pages and pages on the internet of chuckleheads sneering at the idea of stealth in space, basing all of their arguments on the assumption of clean, empty, low-traffic space and lots of time to look through it.
>>7914535
It's nothing like VTOL, which isn't an engineering problem, but that physically it uses far more power than fixed wing lift & a runway.
>i know how space ships will look
also, there could easily be thrusters in those lamellar sort of things on the sides
>>7913755
*evil missile sound*
>>7913163
>a world where they never developed computers, but managed to work out spaceflight with human pilots
mfw I remember that Apollo 11 was landed manually
there's a BSG-themed mod for freespace 2 that allows you to disengage thrusters but still move on your previous trajectory
>>7916925
well from having watched BSG I can say that they don't have those
also I think that the point was to reference the BSG fighters, which unfortunately fly in space as though they're in air
still a great show though, maintains an air of realism despite with the filming technique and acting despite being very unrealistic
>>7916977
>Apollo 11 was landed manually
...after five successful robotic Surveyor landings (two of the seven attempts crashed due to engine failures).
NASA has always liked to pretend that astronauts are more than passengers.
>>7916994
I'm sure you know a lot about spaceflight and being an astronaut considering you're a bigshot aerospace insider that does hypersonic research on his space time when he's not fucking bitches and doing top secret missions to the callisto base
>don't underplay astronauts just because you can't be one you fucking mong
>>7914596
>clean
hard to fill an enormous vacuum with dirt.
>empty
>hard to fill an enormous vacuum with anything.
>low-traffic
hard to get high-traffic densities when you're in an enormous vacuum.
>lots of time to look through it.
most of it is empty so not much to see, and because of the enormity you have a pretty long time window for detecting anything that approaches.
Near a planet you could hide below the horizon but that's about it, in open space it's going to be clean, empty, low traffic and very hard to hide.
>>7912928
The Nostromo
/thread
>>7912928
The expanse
I expect space combat would boil down to building the fastest missiles and mass drivers you possibly can, then using them to fire relativistic grape-shot at your opponent until one of you becomes too punctured to carry on.
>>7917829
You'd need to suitably randomize the ejection of your grapeshot or sufficiently sophisticated computers might be able to minimise the chance of avoiding the scatter.
>>7917808
this. I've been delighted at the physics of spaceflight and space battles in this series so far. Their one premise is the discovery of a high-efficiency high-thrust drive.
>>7912947
>multi-direction thrusters would kill pilots due to g-forces.
Uhh... no. I mean, sure, it's physically possible for a spacecraft to be equipped with meatbag-squishingly powerful thrusters in every direction, but it's by no means a fundamental problem. In fact, having a number of such large, heavy, powerful thrusters may offer no appreciable benefit and would be detremental to some aspects of performance, such as delta-V. The unmanned Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle has a mass of 140 lbs and it's thrusters are in the 500-1000 lbf range, so it's maximum acceleration is still only 7 Gs - less than that of a manned fighter jet.
>>7913159
Yeah. Once you finally DO find your target, you're probably looking at days (or even YEARS, at interplanetary ranges) of maneuvering and propellant management just to achieve a firing solution. And even then you have to decide whether you're going to try and hit the target before he even knows what hit him, or if you're going to anticipate evasive action on his part and do what it takes to ensure your own missiles have enough delta-V to match his evasive maneuvers.
>>7913975
Countermeasures may not be exactly the same in space, but they're still certainly useful. Many ICBMs are already believed to employ chaff and/or decoy warheads to defeat/saturate missile defenses.
>>7913989
>Chaff is already beatable by UWB pulse doppler l.
In the atmosphere, sure. In space, there's no drag to slow the chaff down and so doppler filtering won't work anymore.
>>7917434
>Near a planet you could hide below the horizon but that's about it, in open space it's going to be clean, empty, low traffic and very hard to hide.
There are untold thousands of asteroids, many of which are far, FAR larger than a typical spacecraft, that are "hiding" in deep space right now. If detection in deep space is so damn easy, as you suggest, then why does it take so long to find these asteroids?
>>7917829
>relativistic grape-shot
>relativistic anything larger than particle beams
>>7913236
/x/ leak, everybody
>>7917829
You're assuming that you have years to plan for hostilities when the reality might be that the hostilities don't occur until you've already docked.
Furthermore you're assuming some barbaric scorched earth rules of engagement.
>>7917829
Nigga what? There would be no reason to use anything other than laser based weapony aside from when we need mass destruction
To the persons who say no stealth in space remember.
>There are random rocks out there too, you can shoot them but its a waste
>You need to actually identify a detected spaceship as enemy or you go to the brig for murder
>There are likely friendly and neutral spaceships too
>War can be declared and peace negotiated, neither may occur at predictable or convenient times.
>>7917959
>>7917808
I couldn't watch The Expanse.
>Oppressed space proletariat of unskilled labor.
>Fixing a radio is srs bsns.
>We have to get near the spacelanes and hope to flag down a passer-by.
>I have to rinse my hair in somebody else's sink because our asteroid belt space city isn't getting enough shipments of ice for me to have full-length showers.
Nope. Dropped. Cancelled. Deleted.
Because boats
well instantaneous acceleration can still only be in the direction opposite the exhaust from the thrusters.
there may be no drag in space but to change in velocity still comes from pushing against something.
>>7918117
poster
nvm, i see you're ask why it is designed like that.
maybe it's more cost effective to build one set of large thrusters and then just use smaller ones arranged at the head and tail of the ship, either end as from the center of mass as feasible to more gradually rotate the craft to orient it away from the direction you wanna head.
if it was combat craft i can see why it would be advantageous to have it designed as you say but it would also look crappy and loose its advantage in an atmosphere, in the case of start wars all the 'fighter' craft are sort of used in both atmosphere and space.
>>7918135
Just gimble the main thruster, or use RCS/Reaction wheels. It doesn't take that long to rotate even a large vehicle.
I can understand a single large primary and a "decent" secondary that is perpendicular that can be rapidly oriented by rolling. But still, its probably best to just use the primary thruster.
>>7918030
>There are random rocks out there too, you can shoot them but its a waste
That's assuming you can even find them.... which takes us years of searching and a helping of dumb-luck using current technology.
>>7918167
If you want a fun math puzzle find out how many photons are received by a detector by a reflective object in deep space, then do the same for a blackbody.
Depending on your chosen parameters it can be quite sparse. Try tracking something that only has a detectable photon every few minutes or hours. Even better when that photon is lower energy than the background stars and solar system clutter.
In a semi-related note here's a detection/nose problem.
http://datagenetics.com/blog/may22014/index.html
>>7912928
Most of the ships in fiction take place in scifi universes where humans can do impossible things like make concussive energetic warfare so its safe to assume the ships can move in any direction without any thrusters on every side. Also you dont need a constant thrust just use it once and you move at the that speed forever until you hit something.
There ain't no stealth in space:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php#id--Why_Not?_Let_me_count_the_ways
>>7913279
Space is really big to block a line of sight you need a very dense huge cloud of chaff.
>> chill their hulls
Where does the heat go? Thermodynamics says it has to go somewhere
>>cold mass drives
Still have an exhaust plume
>>foil cloak
Will get warm if there is a ship behind it.
>> reveal position of beam weapon
This does not matter because there is no stealth in space.
You wouldn't even need to burn through it, you could just push it away with a laser.
>>7918030
>> random rocks
Don't change their trajectory much. You map them once and know where they all are. Engine burns are very bright.
>> identify ship as enemy
>> war can be declared at any time
Gee Mars just launched a bunch of ships on an earth intercept trajectory that are too heavy and put out too much heat to be civilian vessels, that's hella suspicious. Better keep our eyes on them and prepare to intercept over the next couple months.
>> friendly and neutral spaceships
You can know where all of your friendlies are
>>7918360
>Herp derp project rho
>Retards who can't even comprehend how insulation works, much less that using a wide-angle lens for a whole-sky survey fundamentally conflicts with the goal of achieving the high sensitivity and angular resolution necessary to detect dim objects
Face it, they're just scrounging for any bullshit excuse they can find to justify their absurd fantasy of nuclear-propelled armored space juggernauts.
>This does not matter because there is no stealth in space.
Yes there is, and the fact of the matter is that countless space rocks already achieve it without even trying. Plus the NRO has already launched at least two stealth satellites, and probably several more.
"Stealth" does not mean 100% undetectable. Stealth merely means having a reduced signature that makes detection significantly less probable.
>>7918379
>>7918360
Yeah, Project Rho has collected a lot of material, but the original analysis stuff is garbage.
Basically, the argument for "no stealth in space" is that space is always clean and empty, the value of space battle assets is based on their constant power output, nobody uses anything for propulsion but hot rockets that make huge plumes of glowing hot gas or plasma (but nobody uses flares), and everyone has infinite instantaneous attention to pay to high-magnification telescopes pointing in every direction at once.
>>7918379
>>insulation
the heat has to go somewhere or you melt. If you plan on only insulating one side, doesn't matter because one could put detection sats over a very large area. Doesn't matter because the engine burns will give it away
>> much less that using a wide-angle lens for a whole-sky survey fundamentally conflicts with the goal of achieving the high sensitivity and angular resolution necessary to detect dim objects
one is not scanning the whole sky at once using a fish eye lense. If one is just looking for the exhaust plume, one can use a telescope with a much smaller field of view:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.arts.sf.science/-E6r2F8rgnQ/Ueui6xzQ9FQJ
One can also use a bunch of telescopes with small field of views and combine data from them. Pic related is a ridiculous example of this, put a bunch of telescopes pointing every which way: http://evryscope.astro.unc.edu/
>> countless space rocks already achieve it without even trying.
Well for one, we have very few telescopes that are actively searching for asteroids. We had ONE satellite that actually performed a space based asteroid survey(WISE), something it was not designed to do.
>> Plus the NRO has already launched at least two stealth satellites, and probably several more.
and yet the only reason we know about them is because they were detected by amateurs:
http://www.wired.com/2006/02/spy-3/?pg=3
that's not very stealthy
>>7918517
>>7918517
>space is always clean and empty
Why is space called space again? Maybe because it is empty....
>>hot rockets that make huge plumes of glowing hot gas or plasma
well what else are you gonna use? A big shiny solar sail? A mass driver with a fucking low ISP?
>>flares
see are only good for time frames of seconds. Flares don't accelerate or have exhaust plumes.
>>7918530
>the heat has to go somewhere or you melt.
What heat? The max continuous power of the Space Shuttle was just 21 kW. Assuming 1000 m^2 surface area, the Shuttle's equillibrium black-body temperature in the shade would be just 140 K. In the sunlight, it was even colder than an asteroid, as is the ISS.
But of course, these realities completely escaped the Project Rho retards, who can't even fucking comprehend how a manned spacecraft could be hotter on the inside than on the outside.
>one is not scanning the whole sky at once using a fish eye lense.
Their page said 100 square degrees; that's pretty fucking wide for an astronomical instrument.
>If one is just looking for the exhaust plume
Admittedly the more plausible approach, considering that's more or less how SBIRS works.
>one can use a telescope with a much smaller field of view:
You mean wider? A narrow FoV will improve sensitivity but covers a smaller slice of the sky, so your telescope needs to be pointed in the right direction at the right moment to actually detect a burn.
>https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.arts.sf.science/-E6r2F8rgnQ/Ueui6xzQ9FQJ
>S/N of 1:1
Is this nigger serious?
>Well for one, we have very few telescopes that are actively searching for asteroids.
Bullshit excuse. We've had half a dozen large ground-based programs (most lasting a decade or so and some involving multiple telescopes) dedicated to just near-Earth asteroids alone, and even those have only really picked the lowest-hanging fruit (large, bright, and/or close asteroids). And although we have fewer now than we did a decade ago, those few are discovering asteroids at a faster rate than a decade ago.
>We had ONE satellite that actually performed a space based asteroid survey(WISE)
And contributed table scraps. Talk about your major breakthroughs.
>and yet the only reason we know about them is because they were detected by amateurs:
In LEO. Just a few hundred miles away. And they STILL lost track of it.
>>7913184
>We'll grow brains in a tube, designed for perfect obedience and low-oxygen requirements, and make them kamikaze pilots.
By the time we reach that technology there will be no more wars.
>inb4 human condition
I disagree. Ever since the middle ages the deaths-by-war-per-100,000 has been steadily decreasing and I believe it will continue that.
>>7912928
>a real ship in space would need to be able to accelerate quickly in any direction
Borg vessels
>>7917967
>There are untold thousands of asteroids, many of which are far, FAR larger than a typical spacecraft, that are "hiding" in deep space right now. If detection in deep space is so damn easy, as you suggest, then why does it take so long to find these asteroids?
Because they are cold and in deep space and you're also contemporary sensor tech when it's an issue about future tech(because oh, we don't have any warfighting vehicles in space, at all, and if we ever built one with contemporary tech they would not be particularly hard to find, even with contemporary tech.
>>7918804
>What heat?
That heat that made them put those "fixed radiator panels" on the space shuttle and build the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Control_System for the ISS
>>7912928
hahahahahhaa
FINALLY PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO SEE THE PROBLEM WITH POPULAR MEDIA REGARDING JET PROPULSION
this is why I can't enjoy these sorts of games too bro, ayy lmaos use anti gravity to accelerate at great speeds omnidirectionally
>>7918934
Go elsewhere you fucking double nigger
>>7918949
cry more :)
or alternatively, post a rational counter argument
>>7918563
>space is always clean and empty
>Why is space called space again? Maybe because it is empty....
...right up until people deliberately make a mess of it.
>>hot rockets that make huge plumes of glowing hot gas or plasma
>well what else are you gonna use? A big shiny solar sail? A mass driver with a fucking low ISP?
There's no reason mass drivers have to have low Isp.
Two big balls are throwing small balls in one direction to accelerate in another. How massive is each? How much energy is being spent? You can't tell, because one could be throwing solid iron balls weighing tons and the other could be throwing hollow foil balls weighing grams. The solid iron balls could be full of waste heat from a 95+% efficient fission fragment or aneutronic fusion reactors, insulated and with the outer case chilled, while the foil balls are deliberately heated with radioisotopes, so they can't be told apart from their heat signatures for weeks.
The assumption that reaction mass can be observed and measured easily with passive sensors from a great distance is based on the unwarranted assumption that it has to be gaseous.
>>flares
>see are only good for time frames of seconds. Flares don't accelerate or have exhaust plumes.
For fuck's sake, apply a little more imagination than that. When I say "chaff" and "flares" I don't mean "just take some chaff and flares off of aircraft and put them on spacecraft without any design adjustments or application of different technology". I mean things that serve the same general purpose of obscuration and decoying. I'm talking about foil by the square kilometer, for fuck's sake.
>>7919185
>Two big balls are throwing small balls in one direction to accelerate in another.
>[Earth Defense command, 300 years later.]
>"Sir, the first martian invasion fleet have finally arrived!"
>"They ask us to send a retrorocket so they can slow down and commence the invasion."
>>7919185
Ion exhaust can be cool and wouldn't have the same visibility as a plume from a nuclear thermal rocket.
But there is no point in arguing with rhofags who think reactor temperature = skin temperature.
>>7918875
>Because they are cold and in deep space
They're often warmer, brighter and larger than actual spacecraft.
>you're also contemporary sensor tech when it's an issue about future tech
Who's to say future tech won't improve signature reduction as well? The "technology will improve" argument is a cop-out unless you can provide specific examples of coming technology (especially if the argument itself is that "there IS no stealth in space," not "well, well... there WILL be no stealth in space... eventually...").
>we don't have any warfighting vehicles in space, at all, and if we ever built one with contemporary tech they would not be particularly hard to find, even with contemporary tech.
We have many strategic satellites in orbit, a handful of which are stealth.
>>7918897
Which is still utterly dwarfed by (and in the case of the ISS, ultimately derived from) solar radiation falling on the spacecraft (or an equivalently-sized "cold" asteroid).
>forgetting the classics
>>7920303
>machineguns armed with mini-nuke element X bullets
Was an interesting book.
>>7912937
There aren't enough realistic spaceships in media to judge. Babylon 5 had some pretty realistic fighters which could maneuver in many directions that looked pretty decent though. Also there isn't enough ballistic weapons portrayed in scifi. Guns are amazing in space because there is no air to slow down bullets.
>This thread
But seriously, think about this for a second. It's probably more efficient to have one set of thrusters and some gyros than it is to have six sets.
With six, you have three-five sets of engines that you're not using at any point in time, so you'd need much more energy to move around all that extra mass. In both modern aircraft and watercraft, the engine(s) are almost always the most massive parts of the vehicle, meaning that you're potentially doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling the mass of your ship, which defeats the purpose of having six sets in the first place- Quick acceleration.
>>7912928
Sidona is a good example of realistic armor on a spaceship, it's armor is made of ice. Homeworld also explains it's ship armor as being made of a spray-on foam, which is also what support ships spray on to other ships to repair them.
>>7920543
To build on his point, just look at the wings on any airliner with tail-mounted engines. The wings are so far back for a reason.
>>7920550
Glorious Pykrete
>>7920543
Agreed, for the most part. Some applications might demand very rapid and aggressive translational maneuvers (i.e. the terminal stage of a guided missile, as with gif related), but as far as a combat ship itself goes, you're absolutely right. Pretty much the same exact reason why missiles have axisymmetric/cruciform fins/wings and fighter jets don't.
>>7920550
At what point does a combat spacecraft just become a fortified asteroid?
>>7920076
>>ion exhaust
Is really really hot
>>7919185
>> making mess in space
How? It would be impractical to make a ring of dust between mars and the earth to obscure points in between
>>propulsion by throwing thermos
Taking numbers from project rho(because I am feeling lazy) on mass drivers:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#massdriver2
It launches a 36 kg projectile at 15 km/s every minute or so. This has a KE of 4.05 GJ, assuming a 100% efficient mass driver, this corresponds to 213 MJ of waste heat.
Iron? You meant to say silicon dioxide right? Silicon dioxide has a molar heat of fusion of 910 KJ/mol( http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?ID=C14808607&Mask=2). We have ~ 600 mole of SiO2, so our projectile can store around 546 MJ of heat melting SiO2 which is more than the heat produced. So temperature will hover around the melting point of 1600 celsius.
This is not that bad. Jet engines are hotter than this. You could maybe put a thin shell of high emissivity material around it to make your thermos thing. Will have to do calculations later on this
This is fucking ridiculous though. You have to reject heat to sand turning to glass. And put said ball inside a shiny hollow sphere and get said ball moving up to kilometers a second.
Not to mention sand is hard to move around, molten glass is viscous and tends to solvate stuff. And the whole assembly will be big.
>>7920076
>>7921171
Ion exhaust is indeed very hot, there's no denying that. But it's also very, very thin, too (and thus has extremely low heat capacity). This ultimately adds up to a fairly low amount of radiated power overall (which should come as no surprise, really, since ion thrusters themselves are low-power thrusters).
So if you're looking at a thruster which draws only a few kW of power overall and therefore only radiates a few kW of power at most from all sources (engine, plume, etc.), how the hell do you expect to detect it reliably at interplanetary distances?
Granted, ion engines do run continuously for months or even years, so I suppose you do have a long time to look for it. But... still. It's like trying to find a 15-watt lightbulb on/near the Moon - only actually a hell of a lot harder.
>>7912928
so the movies don't alienate the audience, who generally don't know much about space or combat in space.
Consider the following:
In case anyone here plays or has heard of Star Citizen, I can look at that for what ships 'should' look like.
Rather than having large thrusters in every which direction, the ships have two or some number of very large engines facing backwards, and smaller thrusters in all directions. Instead of, say, 12 equal size thrusters in every o'clock position, there would be 8 thrusters on the cubic faces of the ship, the rear omitted, and one more thruster to make 9 on the front as a spacebrake.
This makes simplicity, less mass with more thrust, better visibility in the direction of travel, and more intuitive control.
The wings are there for one of several reasons.
1: Atmospheric lift/control
2: Fuel/weapons/landing struts storage
3: Sensors far away from the heat of the center frame, if applicable.
Sorry if it's hard to understand, it's 3:30 AM and I'm just home from work.
Freespace 2 is pretty much the only video game I know of that has full Newtonian physics dogfighting. It's fucking awesome. And yes, it accounts for G forces.
>>7921606
>Direction of thrust = direction of travel
Dude, do you even spaceflight?
>>7921094
>At what point does a combat spacecraft just become a fortified asteroid?
When it lacks the delta v, range(mission time) and acceleration for meaningful maneuvering.
Dogfighting is not possible in space, so I'm pretty sure that's not correct.
>>7921822
depends how you define dogfighting.
Its likely the 90% lethal weapon ranges will exceed the meaningful maneuverability of the spacecraft, so close range circling and "getting behind" seems unlikely.
>>7921691
maybe with mods, but the base game is definitely anything but newtonian
