/sci/ - Science & Math

>Jerusalem Post

>>11242587
Accelerated payloads are extremely destructive so I'd wager relativistic speed pellets in space combat and kinetic bombardment with tungsten rods for orbit-to-ground offense.
As for defense measures, I think preemptive strikes, cyberwarfare to disrupt communications, sensors and calculations, and finally mutually assured destruction agreements are the only possible methods of preventing damage since, you know, its impossible to defend against relativistic bullets.

Spacewarfare will either be complete, sudden and total domination by a single military superpower, or an accumulation of doomsday devices flying over our heads forever just waiting for political relations to turn sour.

>>11242587

>>11242587
Imagine space troopers battling it out with swords within ships because they can't use guns lest they blow a hole out into space.

>>11242612
If they're expecting to be spewing lead around, your best friend is ventilating the atmosphere so there's nothing for shockwaves to propagate off of, and atmosphere loss has to be done by breaching a spacesuit - which probably already killed the guy wearing it anyway.

>>11242587
Nothing

>>11242620
>no google search results
...image sauce?

>>11242635
https://www.twitter.com/SpaceForceDoD/status/1208226022078009344

>>11242604
>Accelerated payloads
The problem with kinetic weapons in space is that the ships are also moving at very high velocity and space is mind-mindbogglingly huge. Hitting a target that's 100k to millions of miles away with a relativistic pellets would be extremely difficult and even a dedicated computer would have a hard time making firing solutions that could achieve this with accuracy.

Not to mention, the other ships, knowing your kinetic weapons can account for linear motion, might start purposefully moving erratically and constantly changing their positions and relative speeds to throw off your firing solutions.

I think computer guided ballistic missiles are a much more likely weapon system for space combat because they could change their flight plan on the go and an enemy ship couldn't avoid them by staying in one place.

Pretty much I think space combat would be fleets of ships engaging at 500k-2km engagement ranges, firing volleys of hundreds of thousands of thermo-nuclear ballistic missiles at eachother. Ships would probably have active defenses, small kinetic weapons or chaff, electronic warfare packages, lasers, to try and stop the missiles from getting to the target. So combat would basically be firing volleys of missiles to see who can wear out the other sides active defenses first. Each volley could potentially take days or at least hours to reach their target, so engagements could possibly last weeks on end, depending on how good the active defense systems are.

In truth, it would be extremely underwhelming. It would be 99% automated ships firing missiles at eachother for days on end, and you can't see or hear anything because of the distances involved. The ships would only be lightly manned so you arent going to have very many deaths.

>>11242587
Every attempt will create space debris and eventually result in Kessler syndrome. This will destroy every satellite and make space-flight impossible for centuries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDqXbGr1bXM

>>11242746
Presumably by the time we start having actual space battles material science will be advanced enough to provide adequate protection against most space debris.

>>11242587
personally if I were trump id say imma make the space force real and superman too. American fuck yeah.

>>11242746
>he wouldn't nuke the satellites to blow a hole in the Kessler "Field".
Not gonna make it.

>>11242761
He did make the space force real

>>11242587
Satellite interception and sabotage.
At least for the following decade.

>>11242741
>Pretty much I think space combat would be fleets of ships engaging at 500k-2km engagement ranges, firing volleys of hundreds of thousands of thermo-nuclear ballistic missiles at eachother.

This just sounds plain retarded and inspired by fiction like Star Wars or LotGH.

Space has three dimensions - it will not be like navy battles in the ocean on a single plain as you so seem to imply.

>>11242587
>Boarding combat
>No high explosive/penetrative weapons for fear of breaching
>Melee energy weapons are preferred
>Ship to ship combat
>Slam torpedoes into opposing ship till it sinks, also aim at their weapons first

The question depends on whether or not you put armor on your spaceships or not. If every weapon is a one hit kill then armor is useless.
If armor is useful then combat entails black cylinders about 100m long and 20m wide shooting small guided pebble size kinetic or antimatter missiles at each other from about a tenth of an AU away while shooting lasers at the incoming tiny missiles.

Just play Children of a Dead Earth it does all of this. KSP with laser drones.

>>11242806
>Single plane
Negro, if that's the implication you got from my post, re-read it.

I think space combat is going to be dominated by missiles rather than kinetic weapons BECAUSE space is 3 dimensional. Your kinetic weapon is basically useless against a ship that can change it's direction constantly.

Lasers (ala Star Wars and LoGH) are even more retarded because they loose power over distance and space battles are going to be happening over huge distances.

The volley aspect just means that fleets are going to shit out huge waves of ballistic missiles at eachother, not that they are going to be literally trading volleys like lines of musket infantry.4

And I realize now that I made a typo, the thing you quoted should say, 500k - 2 Million Km, not 2km.

>>11242587
it depends a lot of the type of technology the civs have and what they want to achieve and over which scales they fight. a fight in orbit with our technology could very well end up looking like this >>11242746 , while a fight with highly advanced weapons like the ones in the series 'the expanse', may be more like this >>11242741 , although in reallity they might fight with automated weapons that essentally fly though the entire solar system. for even larger civilizations it could look even more different.

if you are really interested in space warfare then i suggest watching a few videos of isaac arthur, although he mostly talks about the far future, so nothing that would only happen in our own orbit.

>>11242838
although i tink with the right technology the distances could be even farther. i mean the only thing that happens over larger distances is that it takes longer to fly there and maybe the hit probability sinks, which isent even necessarily true. and if you got powerful telescopes, you may even be able to spot ships accellerating on the other side of the solar system because of their eshaust gases and what not. with ai controlled missiles, you might as well start up those missiles as soon as you see the enemy get of his planet or station or whatever he is on

>>11242838
>>11242865
also over these vast distances, lasers might not be as useful for attacking directly but they can still have other uses, like destroying incoming missiles. even if the missile debris still fly towards you, they now are unguided, allowing you to evade it.

>>11242865
>you might as well start up those missiles as soon as you see the enemy get of his planet
Practically, this is probably what would happen in an inter-solar system conflict. It's very possible ships wont really be used at all and it will simply be planets/space stations/space habitats/etc firing missiles or giant kinetic mass drivers at eachother.

>>11242868
I mentioned that in my first post. We can stop ballistic missiles with lasers right now, there is no reason a combat space ship wouldn't do the same. But you can only fire so many lasers, hence why I think space combat would be a game of trying to fire more missiles at the enemy then they can realistically counter.

>>11242746
>builds laser
>deorbits all space debris
nothin personell

>>11243192
>Builds half section
>Removes space debris with wacky anime hijinks
Sasuga

>>11242741
nah it will be just like the pacific war
>GOLD LEADER REPORTING IN
>RED TEAM MAKING ATTACK RUN
>PPEW PEW PEEEEEW
>CABOOOOOOOOOM
>IM HIT IM HIT AHGHGHG
>IM CONNA COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM *BAAAANG*

>>11242838
>Lasers (ala Star Wars and LoGH) are even more retarded because they loose power over distance
They do in what is basically a vacuum?

>>11243240
...this is /sci/ right?

>>11243249
I asked a question. Answer it.

You are very likely getting confused.

>>11243240
Ofc, they just dont lose it according to inverse square bc the source in this case wouldnt be isomorphic. Assuming you could generate the energy onboard lasers would still be extremely useful in space combat.

>>11243240
I'm the guy you actually replied to.

And yes, lasers lose power over distance. Lasers are still a wave and they dissipate over long distances. The wave gets wider and more dispersed the further it goes, and the more dispersed it gets the total energy of the beam gets dispersed with it.

It's not noticeable in human distances but in over hundreds of thousands of millions of kilometers the beam becomes very weak.

I think it's either New Horizons or Juno (cant be assed to look up which) that actually uses lasers for communication and, while it's better than radio waves, there is still a lot of lost data and signal loss.

>>11243267
>over hundreds of thousands of millions of kilometers
Should be "or" millions of kilometers
I'm too tired for this shit

>>11243240
The energy isnt lost, it would just miss the target because its impossible to create a perfectly parallel laser. Energy density of a laser decreases with time because of this.

>>11242741
I'm the anon you replied to and I'm here to tell you that your concern over hitting moving targets far away in space is valid and erratic movement would indeed counter path prediction.
But you forgot something important: none of that is needed. You only need to cast a single payload at relativistic speed that shatters mid-flight and works as a relativistic scatter shot. It doesn't matter how the target moves or if it attempts to move out of the way, it cannot defend against this after the payload is shot. Everything in a certain volume ahead of the payload is due to die. I call that zone the cone of inevitability.
The true defence against this is to use deterrents. To prevent the payload from being launched.

>>11243277
>cone of relativistic shot
I've never considered this before. That's legitimately kind of terrifying.

Wouldn't the force required to separate the shot going at relativistic speeds be fucking enormous though? And even if you fire several trillion relativistic rounds space is big enough that you could still miss, particularly if the the enemy ships are moving at ludicrous speed.

Either way, it's an interesting idea i've never considered before.

>>11242587
just give the money to NASA, do we really need another branch of the military with a bloated administration just burning money?

>>11242587
AI shooting projectiles from light seconds away. Humans literally cannot think fast enough for space warfare so the idea of space fighters is just lmao.

Unguided kinetics of any variety are retarded, good luck waiting literal hours for your slow unguided hunks of shit to traverse the distance, the enemy will just move out of the way or intercept them.

Lasers are kings:
>perfect scale-ability
>single laser system can route to many mirrors, a single weapon system for all targets
>phased arrays turn entire parts of ships hull into extremely effective mirrors
>pulsed lasers are literally impossible to block or hard counter, only raw heat resistant matter can slow them down
>cheap as shit to fire
>is its own sensor and targeter
>long range, a 20 meter diameter aperture laser mirror built with MODERN technology would have an effective range in space of 120,000 km
>perfect close in accuracy for perfect point defense

Missiles
Space war missiles are bomb-pumped weapons, this means instead of actually impacting a target they use the energy created by detonating a nuke to power a one-shot weapon system. See: Shaped nukes (casaba howitzer) and bomb pumped lasers, only need to get withing a few dozen thousand km of target to kill it, thus avoiding closing with the point defense of the ship. The problem is that these weapons also make incredibly good anti-missile missiles. may end up making them not economically viable compared to just spamming laser ships.

Particle beam weapons may end up being the shit but we don't have enough real world data to know for sure.

>>11242612
>>11242821
future warships are not the fucking ISS, they would be able to take a few bullets.

>>11243249
try actually running the numbers you stupid faggot

>>11243353
Jokes on you when I never get my fleet closer than 1 million km and spam missiles at you all day

>>11242587
Sabotage, subterfuge, sand cannons, propaganda, misdirection, single-use nuclear pump lasers/masers, single-use rail canons, mirrored whipple armor, complete EM-spectrum AI-monitored scanning, solar-orbital AI controlled kinetic weapons trains, needle-shaped ships, carbon-nanotube-painted umbrella camo hides, and space axes.

>>11243356
>carbon-nanotube-painted umbrella camo hides
...
>Redemption of Vanity.jpg
>The coating, which is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNT) grown on chlorine-etched aluminium foil, can absorb 99.995 percent of visible light.

>>11243354
>That one military commander who calculates orbits of stars and planets to launch missiles from an unexpected angle

>>11242856
Second the Isaac arthur vid.
Pretty interesting videos for leyman interested in science.

>>11243353
i only know the fact that lasers lose power over distance. i just expected that particular anon to know that too. i cant explain why they lose power. but he got his explanation regardless and i learned some new words. win-win

>thinking people will be involved at all
it's gonna drones out the ass

>>11242741
>space warfare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xs3mGhQGxM

This

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
For anyone interested in plausible space combat for writing or otherwise, I think this site is quite valuable. Lots of reasonable conjectures backed up by numbers calculations.

>>11242821
how would you even board a hostile spaceship?
it sounds completely impossible

>>11242587
Why did they name it "Space Force"? It should actually be called "Space Corps"

>>11243607
Actually, it would made more sense to just simply rename the Air Force the Aerospace Force.

>>11243607
Until now it was named Space Corps. But some retarded President wanted a Space Force so they renamed it.

>>11243530
'the expanse', has some pretty good combat and boarding scenes

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bD25kPU7ZxQ

What was the purpose of creating a space force now? Are there terrorists on the moon?

>>11244026
>What was the purpose of creating a space force now?
To consolidate the operation and protection of crucial United States space assets under one organization, that's all for now. Space is pretty much lawless right now and with more players entering it, means that the United States needs to take it more seriously to stop others from messing with important American space services (such as GPS, spying, communications, weather monitoring, etc).

>>11244038
That's not the only reason. Other nation states are increasing their investment and capabilities against America's space assets, and a more coherent strategy is needed to take the nation's treatment of space concerns as something more than a matter of communications and intelligence infrastructure.

>>11243644
HAHA pop culture reference fun!

Just like star wars hopefully

>>11243368
More like that one genius commander who uses billion ton asteroids as shields to hide their missile launch platforms

Red vs blue when?

>>11242587
Firing at each other from really far away, since it would all be done through sensor arrays.

>>11244038
>>11244066
You are both right but forgot the third part, that the Space Force will create a culture of warfighting that is focused on space.

>2019
>can see space launches from cities like los angeles and miami
>can see starlink trains orbiting overhead
I imagine that in a real space war, we'll see all kinds of shit flying overhead, and it won't be just visible from people in distant battlefields, but will be visible to people all over the world, whether they're close to the fighting or not. It's gotta be a surreal sight.

>>11244930
>Space combat happens
>Kesseler syndrome makes near-Earth orbit impossible
>Satellites and all crash into random debris and destroy eachother
>Humanity cant into space for a century because of all the shit floating around from the space battle

Nice going

>>11243277
That's an interesting idea, but the distances we're talking the probability a single shot hitting at certain ranges decreases a lot. The distance between each shot eventually becomes larger than the profile of the enemy ship, and even if the light of the projectile reaching them is only a few seconds ahead, an onboard computer can maneuver and slip through those openings quickly enough, we've obviously reached the point where human decision making is unnecessary or even liable. And of course, at shorter ranges, it is certain death.

>>11242587
The main focus would be taking out enemy satellites and defending our own satellites.
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/464517-how-much-should-america-spend-to-defend-its-satellites
>The precision navigation and timing that is made possible by GPS itself annually generates between $37 and $75 billion in economic value. And according to some estimates, critical satellite infrastructure enables about $5 trillion in downstream economic impact (including internet, financial and weather services to the U.S. economy).
Not only are there military and economic incentives but there is also the technological advancement to be gained by putting money into the space industry.
We could also charge space taxes for nations that want us to defend their shit.

>>11245816
>>11243277
>>11242741
Here's a thought experiment. Juno satellite reached world record speeds, for a man made object, when it was spinning around Jupiter before crashing into the planet. That's way more than what is needed to leave the solar system. In this graph chart, the final figure in the red box is around 0.2 gigajoules (110 pounds of TNT). In comparison, a ton of TNT is 4.184 gigajoules. So, 110lbs of TNT force in a .50cal 800grain bullet would look similar to this, when it hit something, 2:22mins: https://youtu.be/CODwjfqTJYY?t=142

Now, imagine scatter shot of that creating clouds of projectiles tearing through space. You'd put it on a drone/smart missile that self-destructs on detonation, when it is "close enough," and sends the projectiles out in a massive cone. Fire several of those missiles out at just the right trajectories and you and up with a big net that can hit just about anything depending on the shot patterning.

>>11245905
Juno is an active mission in orbit around Jupiter. It has not crashed into the planet.

>>11245844
>take out enemy satellites
Nice, so Trump wants to create a huge amount of space debris that would make space travel impossible for future generations

>>11246216
No, the United States wants to be able to deny their enemies access to their space hardware during a war. What you proposed is a childish view.

>>11245816
>but the distances we're talking the probability a single shot hitting at certain ranges decreases a lot
This is true of any kind of ballistics, though. Do you not need your target within the horizon and a clear line of sight to shoot it with a conventional rifle? We're not trying to snipe someone an astronomical unit away, space weapons will still have range and be limited by distance and speed. Also, the scattering relativistic shot has no problem travelling at great speeds, but if you intended for the targeted craft to accelerate a couple kilometers to the side at a fraction of the speed of light to dodge it, the forces would crush every vertebrate onboard against their own skeletons and kill everyone anyway.
The only true defence against this kind of weapon is positioning (staying out of range, hiding behind an astronomical body) and deterrence (possessing hostages, leverage or placing your spaceship between the attacker and his own allies).
Once there is a clear shot and it is launched, its simply unavoidable death. Think about it, imagine a ship fires a payload at relativistic speeds at you. By the time you detect it coming your way, you're already too late several minutes or hours ago. If you see it, it will be hitting you because you can't even match its speed.

>>11245905
Exactly, the only way to avoid death by relativistic shots is to prevent the gun from firing.

>>11246172
Oh yeah, "insertion" was that speed, I thought it had already ended it mission this year, guess that is in 2021.

>>11246216
>Nice, so Trump wants to create a huge amount of space debris that would make space travel impossible for future generations
It's called job creation; going to space becomes normal, then Bob & Sons Co. can go swoop up debris for $$$

>>11246239
>Exactly, the only way to avoid death by relativistic shots is to prevent the gun from firing.
Thanks, Sergeant Zim.

>>11246216
Your strawman is the least of your worries, anon.

>>11246275
pic related

>>11243286
>Wouldn't the force required to separate the shot going at relativistic speeds be fucking enormous though?
If you can accelerate a torpedo to relativistic speeds, I don't think energy is the problem at this point but how about this: you design the payload to be purposefully unstable and impart torque onto it as you accelerate it with the mid-shot shattering actually being the most energetically favorable thing to happen as the centrifugal forces will cause the payload's material to yield and break - as intended. The conservation of angular momentum would cause the pieces to deviate from the linear trajectory of the initial payload, creating the cone of inevitability. There is no drag since we're in the vacuum of space, so the energy carried by the payload when fired will be conserved and divided by the shards. You don't need to calculate where each individual shard ends up and its a good thing that it's a nightmare to do so - it means there is no way for the target ship to collect the data on the shards, compute a death-free location and accelerate (and then decelerate, because of inertia) to that location, all against incoming city pulverising projectiles travelling at a fraction of the speed of light in enough time. Its an uncomputable function in any realistic timeframe and the engineering required to do so is so nightmarish its likely physically unfeasible.
There's a reason we put armour in tanks and cars and planes instead of making them fast enough to dodge bullets: its not possible. The thing about space battles is that 99% of the time, "collateral damage" isn't part of the equation.


>And even if you fire several trillion relativistic rounds space is big enough that you could still miss, particularly if the the enemy ships are moving at ludicrous speed.

>>11246275
>>11246287
Well, if there's a gun in your face do you think your best chances of survival are attempting to prevent the shot or of dodging the bullet?

>>11246293
Thanks, autism.

>>11242587
Mostly just damaging other nations satellites and shuttles

>>11242789
nuke in space = massive emp = even more debris from dead satellites

>>11244937
Just fight light minutes from Earth anon theres alot of space between Earth and Mars.

>>11242587
Read the Halo books, I think they are realistic.
It would essentially be ships hundreds/thousands of miles away shooting each other with computer guided rail-guns and nuclear missiles.

>>11242587
https://youtu.be/qjWEGlot35Y

>>11246287
>>11242587
>>11246275
>>11246620
in space it would be like this

>>11243353
>120k km
>long range
>space
lol
>run the numbers
Double lol

>>11242587
>>11246275
>>11246287
>>11246669
on Earth it would be like this after one side gets the upper hand and the governments sperg out with nukes

>>11243426
Orbital warfare is already a major consideration for every military power on earth, and has been for decades you cretin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarisation_of_space

Unsurprisingly, people dont want their satellites which their whole fucking society depends on to be destroyed in an alpha strike with no deterrent.

>>11246216
United states space command has existed since 1985 with the first successful satellite interception mission in the mid 1980s flying a fucking f15. The chinese followed this in 2007, the states again in 08 and india in 2019.

Never go full orangemanbad anon

>>11243286
>Wouldn't the force required to separate the shot going at relativistic speeds be fucking enormous though?
No? Why would you think this?

>>11242746
You live on a planet where the Americans and Russians stared each other down pointing at each other with nuclear weapons ready to devastate the entire planet at a hair's trigger, with a combined arsenal of 75,000 nuclear warheads at the peak.

Declassified Soviet files after the end of the Cold War show that MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine, which mantained that a nuclear war was unlikely to happen because both sides were too scared to do it, was a completely myth, the Soviets actually believed in a winnable nuclear was scenario and assumed the Americans also did, so they were even developing a Dead Hand system of automatic retaliation to defend against a decapitation strike.

So yeah, we were willing to destroy the entire planet in nuclear war to prevent the enemy from winning, and came close to it in 1983 (Soviet defense alert system fails and reports 7 American ICBMs heading for Russia), 1996 (Yeltsin activates the nuclear football in response to a Norwegian satellite confused for an ICBM) and freaking 1999 (Pristina Airport Standoff between Russia and NATO almost causes WW3).

The possibility of satellite debris doesn't even matter compared to how far governments are willing to do to ensure their survival and supremacy.

>>11242587
Go to toughsf for loads of worked out ideas about this. For eg:
toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-solution-to-long-range-space-combat.html

toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/10/space-warship-design-iv-complete.html

>>11242746
Kessler syndrome at worst results in somewhat reduces lifespans for low orbit satellites. If you have evidence otherwise, I'd like to see it.

Keep in mind that relativistic projectiles are themselves vulnerable to being atomised. A single layer of foil or even plasma held in a magnetic field with blast the projectile into ions, which can then maybe be deflected magnetically.

>>11242587

He didn’t create it. He just made it it’s own agency. Perhaps they need it like that since it’s mostly secretive stuff. They shoot eachothers satellites down. That’s the space war. Whomever shoots everyone’s satellites down, sends preconstructed buildings to them moon before anyone realizes wins the war. The idea is having establishment. And letting no one in. Russia and US supposedly went toe to toe around 2004-2005 when Russia is blamed for having shut down most US satellites and put putin in power and damaged partial American defenses. US is technically left with no other option but look eastward. Creating Russia by pure systematic conniving action.

Probably not all that exciting really. Guns are a no go, lasers aren't anything like you see in the movies so at most it'd probably be spaceships ramming into each other or people stabbing each other with spears out in space.

>>11246979
>spaceships ramming into each other
>people stabbing each other with spears out in space
>not all that exciting really
Your criteria for "exciting" are pretty damn demanding.

>>11246979
Laser still have a use for electronic warfare. Those sensors are pretty fragile.

>>11242587
There won't be any, it's just an excuse for larger military industry fundings

I have a amateur theory that the 'cinematic' appeal of warfare and the technology of warfare are inversely related. By cinematic appeal I mean the sense of enthusiasm and excitement the average person can gleam from it, the way it appeals to our primitive sense of hunting or play-fighting. The more advanced we get the more warfare becomes an abstraction away from a tooth and claw experience. Exceptions, but the further and further you get in technology the further it comes from the human imagination of it. Space combat is not going to be star wars or even star trek, it's liable to be so far removed from an easy to contextualize human experience that it will lose that cinematic appeal. Think about it like this:

A man on foot with a spear is you with a very long arm.
A cavalryman with a spear is just you with 4 legs and a long spear.
A dogfighter is just a cavalryman with a ranged lance on a 3d axis.
How the fuck do you contextualize for your ape brain >>11242741 ? It's the same way you can't make cyberwarfare sexy and cinematic. It's on it's own different 'dimension' of combat that cannot appeal to our human experience.

Anyone play Coade? Probably not as realistic as advertised but still interesting.

In terms of weapons: missiles with fragmentation warheads and drones with conventional guns (so you can have light drones without heavy power supplies and radiators) are the way to go.

If you want capital (manned) ship to ship combat then railguns firing very small (>1g) projectiles at very high speeds is the way to go. Any decent armor will vaporize the projectile before it does much damage but you can basically just sandblast off any sensors, radiators and weapons off your opponent before he gets in range. If he hides them behind armor then you've got him locked down in a passive stance. Lasers can do much the same but they require huge radiators which make you a much bigger target.

>>11246290
My point is I don't think you're considering the actual scale of things in space. To put it one way, the Earth is like .000001% the mass of the solar system and we still consider it a "big" object, because from our perspective, it is.

In Earth scales of course it's impossible to make a vehicle that can dodge bullets (well, other than planes), but that's because the distances involved are miniscule, almost incalculable small compared to the scale of the solar system.

As an example, look at how complicated the math behind orbital rendezvous is. There is an old-space analogy NASA used to use about orbital rendezvous being like throwing two tennis balls from either side of a house and having them collide in mid air over the house.

Now imagine that applied to distances that are millions of km apart. Even if you calculate a trajectory that takes into account both the current position and inertial velocity of the target object, at those distances even a few mm of error in the movement of the target object can result in a miss.

Space is incomprehensibly huge to a human mind. Even an object moving at relativistic speed can miss if the enemy ship happens to change it's velocity by a tiny fraction of what it should be.

I liked the idea of that other anon where the payload is a conventional ballistic missile that fires a relativistic shot once it closes in. That's an idea that combines the strengths of each and eliminates their flaws. The missiles can adjust their approach and be basically unavoidable over long distances, and the relativistic payload would negate the active missile defenses of the target ship. There isn't even really a way to defend against a weapon like that.

>>11246696
The "forward" inertia of the particles of matter involved would be so great that it would take a huge force to change their trajectory to create a "cone" effect.

>>11247160
You didn't understand my scattershot payload weapon at all. Its impossible to dodge something that you can only detect microseconds before it tears you apart. Every single weapon has a useful range. No one is talking about sniping a spaceship an astronomical unit away as I said. It's about getting within range and firing the relativistic payload. Since it has a speed that is a small fraction of the speed of light, by the time you "see" it or your sensors detect it, it's impact time.

>>11247287
I guess what i'm trying to say is that you will never get close enough to engage in fleet-on-fleet action like that. By the time you get to where the other fleet was at they will be long gone, probably firing missiles at you the entire time.

And i'm also pointing out that ships don't even have to detect your projectiles to avoid them. They could have a computer guidance sub-routine that randomly fires their control thrusters during combat to constantly alter their inertial velocity. In space distances even small changes like that make your relativistic weapon impossible to aim. The cone negates this, but it's either going have too much spread over distance or the fleet your targeting will have already altered course several times before those projectiles can get to where they were.

Pretty much my argument is that distances in space warfare are going to be utterly massive and relativistic weapons, even ones that have a cone area of effect, are going to be far too inaccurate for the scales involved. A weapon that can change it's trajectory mid-flight is basically a requirement on these scales.

>>11247110
In Ender's Game there is a part where Ender watches some archival footage of a space battle between a human fleet and an alien fleet, and he describes it basically being little bursts of light against a background of start for several hours, you can't even see the ships.

I think that would be the most likely accurate description. Space battles would be 99% automated constructs attempting to kill eachother over distances that a human mind can barely grasp.

>>11246239
I was really more playing into your assumptions, great distances, so good positioning. But there will always be intermediate distances where the kill shot is possible but a defensive maneuver is also possible. The determinant factors are the actual fraction of lightspeed of the relativistic projectile, and the amount of scatter. If the distance is large enough relative to the speed, information from the projectile may reach you and you may attempt a maneuver, obviously you are correct that it may not be fast enough which is determined by the actual scatter: what is my wriggle room, given that I actually have enough time to maneuver? The distances we're talking about are already massive but if you abstract the scale enough, you eventually realize it's basically a really dangerous bullet hell for both sides at this range. Anything closer and whoever shoots first wins.

>>11247302
Damn, you really have faith in the inexhaustibility of your fuel. Spacecraft will always be either orbiting celestial bodies or travelling between them. If your ship dares leave the Earth-Moon system and I deploy a few cone spewing ships around the Earth, I have already successfully blocked you from humanity and ensured death by starvation.
In this thread, about realistic militarization of space, I'm using the very near future as the starting point. There are no colonies, no one is even close to leaving the Heliosphere, and we're all dependent on resources from the Earth or, at the most, a lunar station (which is its own problem since its international soil).
You can always run away out of range of enemy spacecraft, but every lightsecond away from Earth is another step towards a very vast, cold and dark grave.

>>11247316
>Anything closer and whoever shoots first wins.
Well, yes, if two opposing spacecraft have the relativistic cone torpedo that's exactly what happens. I imagined three main weapons: small linear relativistic pellets for "short" range, the cone torpedo for medium-long range, tungsten rod kinetic bombardment for orbit-to-ground attacks. For longer-than-economically-feasible ranges, its more of a tense game of chess and crippling anxiety. If the target is too far, then it's too far. There is no conceivable way to do it because c is the upper limit on speed.
The thing is, the first military superpower to deploy a few spaceships capable of carrying and shooting these weapons wins the spacewar for as long as they can pay their upkeep, like a planetary blockade. There is an incentive not to blow every craft apart because you can't reach the point where orbital debris makes exiting the planet impossible, but whoever controls the skies, controls the door to the Universe.

>>11247319
Negro once you have fusion power, something within our grasp literally as we speak, starship fuel becomes trivial.

On top of that, what makes you assume these ships are going to be crewed by people. You might staff them with an engineering team to keep them operable and make certain repairs, and to keep watch over the ship; but ultimately space based war ships are going to have all systems controlled by computers, and possibly even adaptive learning AI. You might not even need an engineering team if you just make said ships capable of launching repair and resources gathering drones, a concept which is, again, being tested on the ISS as we speak.

I do agree with you that the first Nation to launch permanent orbital weapons platforms will have a monoply on space operations. But keep in mind that every other country with the means will likely try and undermine that capability if they can. It doesn't mean much controlling space based weapons platforms when your Nation could still face nuclear annihilation either in retaliation or as a first strike. Sure, you can fuck them up in turn, but they will still be able to fuck you up as well.

I guess i'm coming at this from a hypothetical of; things we know are physically possible, technology we can grasp with our current understanding, and the assumption that there are two powers in the solar system capable of assembling and maintaining fleets of space war ships or weapons platforms.

>>11247335
I am always reminded that the only reason the US didn't immediately dominate global politics through nuclear threats was a combination of passiveness and espionage. They definitely had the opportunity to make outrageous demands until the USSR got their own. And what's worse, breakthroughs of that magnitude could happen again soon and possibly more than once, and I don't know if the first one to get them won't seize the opportunity. The catastrophic space warfare is really limited by our ability to accelerate mass to acceptable fractions of c, which is a ways away. Me, I fear genetic diseases carried by enginereed viruses, you could cripple countries permanently, and it's more related to present-day inventions.

>>11243518
/m/ here, I was wondering when it was going to be posted.
But let's make sure people actually want to read it, shall we?

THERE'S NO STEALTH SPACESHIP POSSIBLE IN SPACE
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php#nostealth


SPACE FIGHTER IS A WORTHLESS MEME, YOU'LL NEVER HAVE DOGFIGHT IN SPACE
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fighter.php#id--Why_Fighters_Are_Worthless


THE EXPANSE HAVE MAGIC THRUSTERS THAT WILL NEVER EXIST AND LACK 1KM2 HEAT RADIATOR

>>11246216
not only Trump, China, Russia and even India got similar stupid plans

>>11246728
No anon, the real threat here is Asians vs everyone else. Never allow the Chinese into space.

>>11247871
If I have to choose between the Jews and the first world puppets and the Chinese, then I for one welcome our new Chink overlords. Long live the Glorious People's Republic of China!

>>11247916
Most of the anti-jew stuff is Chinese misdirection, anon. The Jews just want to make money; they need you for that. That is nothing like the Chinese goals in any manner; they do not need you for that.

>>11247922
The chinese need you to be their customer

>>11242587
cant wait to to fuck up martian rebels and screw belter whores so hard they walk funny for life.

>>11247922
It's unironically backwards from what you posted. The Jew tries to trick people into hating China because they are the only strong, focused ethnostate not controlled by global kike financial conquest. The Chinese need you to be their customer but they aren't conquerors. The Jew wants to control you like a slave.

>>11247937
If you think there are going to be enough people living on Mars to support a rebellion you are sadly mistaken. There will small populations on other worlds, but they will be almost entirely support staff for recreational facilities or science operations. Maybe some industrial and mining interests.

The vast, overwhelming bulk of humans in space are going to live in orbital colonize like O'Neill cylinders or rotating asteroid stations and the like. Mars, Venus, and some outer solar system Moons, will basically be tourist traps with some secondary science and industrial facilities.

>>11244026
Not yet but well 'find' them

>>11242741
>>11247110
>>11247302
These. Space warfare sounds cool as fuck but realistically, it's not going to be very exciting, which kinda sucks. But I guess that's kinda good since it means we probably won't romanticize it like we do other kinds of warfare, and a good portion of it will probably be automated at least. Or at least unmanned.

And to be honest, I only ever really see space warfare being relevant in the very dawn or so of colonization. There are so many resources out in space, that there's no real reason to fight over them. I guess the issue of land and where to live might become a problem but we could always create space habitats like O'neill cylinders anyway.

I think any debate on this topic should be split into two categories:
1. Deep space combat without planets so it's basically an empty physics sandbox
2. Gravity-field combat where a large body significantly perturbs the trajectories of 'free falling' bodies

Kinetic weapons in 1) are way more viable than 2) depending on range and whatever other details. For 2) I think whatever you're firing MUST be self-propelling and guided unless you're very very close.

My justification for this: 607 hours in KSP

>>11242741
>The problem with kinetic weapons in space is that the ships are also moving at very high velocity and space is mind-mindbogglingly huge. Hitting a target that's 100k to millions of miles away with a relativistic pellets would be extremely difficult and even a dedicated computer would have a hard time making firing solutions that could achieve this with accuracy.
You are actually wrong. It's insanely easy to make a machine that can perfectly hit a shot at relativistic speeds. It's been done before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLS90nEpIkI

>>11242746
>Every attempt will create space debris and eventually result in Kessler syndrome.
No it wouldn't. Space debris is tiny and deorbits quickly. It takes less than a day for really small space debris to deorbit from orbits as high as the average satelite

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDqXbGr1bXM
popsci retard

>>11243296
Yes! Star Wars, nigga!

>>11242609
I was just thinking this.

>>11248965
>There are so many resources out in space, that there's no real reason to fight over them
Don't forget the universal human desire to kill people who think wrong

>>11242587

>>11243847
Begone thoth!

>>11243530
see >>11249205

So when are we gonna see our first true space warships

>>11242612
No. It won't be that.
It'll be orbiting nuclear warhead platforms. Wouldn't at all be surprised if they'll be on failsafe triggers, so if they're not 'reset' on a regular basis, they launch on their targets automatically.

Sure, there'll be 'hunter-killer satellites' that exist to find and take out the enemy's nuke platforms, but they won't get them all.

Sadly, might just be that we won't have to wait around for global warming to kill us off, or a pandemic, we might just nuke the planet into uninhabitability with this shit.

>>11249214
That just sounds like ICBMs with extra steps

>>11249215
Once the platforms are in orbit they're easier to hide than missle silos on the ground or mobile launchers. Also think about the volume available in orbit compared to on the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS4vzoQm_xw

>>11249210
are there any designs that take reality into account of how a space warship would look, with current tech, assuming money was infinite
Arleigh Burke DDGs are pretty sexy, what's the space version look like
Yes I've seen BattleCruiser Yamamoto

>>11249261
>>11249210
The X-37B almost certainly has armament capabilities and it looks like the Space Shuttle fucked a Predator drone

the problem that you all are not considering when talking about kinetic/long range weapons is whether it would be possible to detect AND identify vessels at such a range

>>11249261
>Arleigh Burke DDGs are pretty sexy
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that. I think modern navy ships in general look pretty aesthetic.

But yeah, spacecraft meant for war (and in general, really) are going to look clunky as fuck probably, until they work out the kinks and produce better technologies, if ever.

>>11249335
>I think modern navy ships in general look pretty aesthetic.
Absolutely this. Warships have been sexy for hundreds for hundreds of years now and I doubt they'll ever stop at this point

>>11249105
>guided missile is a relativistic weapon
I don't think you understand what you're even talking about. A relativistic weapon is more like a railgun or some other system that fires a small piece of material at an appreciable fraction of C. Basically a gun that fires a bullet at a quarter or more the speed of light.

The problem is that with such a small object traveling at such a high speed, and keep in mind that in space, even something like a planet or moon is technically "small," trajectories can be thrown off by even the smallet of errors. A few mm of error can result in a total miss, and as i've pointed out multiple times in this thread, ships could easily incorporate a micro-propellant or ion thruster system that constantly subtly alters their trajectory to make any kind of relativistic weapons basically useless.

>>11249108
See >>11249105
The video he posted. It took from 1985 to 2006 for the satellite they destroyed to completely de orbit.

Kessler syndrome is a real concern but by the time space based war ships are a thing materials science will probably be good enough that kessler syndrome wont matter much.

>>11249205
Holy shit the g forces on those boarding craft would be enormous. All the guys inside them would be stains on the front wall of the craft.

>>11249210
I doubt it will be in our lifetime. Humanity needs to expand throughout the solar system and space mega-structures and manufacturing needs to be common.

>>11249261
I don't have an image, but I imagine that it would be a small rotating cylander for the crew (if there is a crew), with a long metal manifold behind it with all the fuel and rcs systems, and a thruster/propulsion block on the far end.

Actually on second thought here is a quick paint mockup, I tried to make it 3d. This design could be scaled depending on how huge you want to make your ships.

>>11249335
that's CG-73, a guided missile cruiser, not a majestic Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyer. The DDGs have the gnarly, swept angles.

>>11249416
>fusion power planet
Fuck me should say Fusion Power Plant

>>11249412
>Absolutely this. Warships have been sexy for hundreds for hundreds of years now and I doubt they'll ever stop at this point
Man, I'm more of an Air Force guy but fuck me, if I don't kinda want to join the Navy because of shit like pic related.

>>11249418
I was well aware of that. Modern US cruisers look cooler btw.

>>11249424
if you're into fancy optics, but can't afford to purchase them for yourself then i guess the air force still has the upper hand, but i guess all the fancy telescopes and satellites will be transferred to the space force eventually

>>11249416
>Holy shit the g forces on those boarding craft would be enormous.

It indeed looks like a very rough ride, but the guys inside are elite marines and in the show/book universe they have drugs that allow them to handle high G loads.

>>11249416
I'm not any of the anon you quoted, joining the party,
I would like to mention that with a ship of the MASS you describe, a ion thruster won't give you a 1mm drift unless it's what you'd call a main thruster.
Not that you need to go relativistic to destroy such a ship.

On my part, I'm of the opinion that missiles swarm would be considered overkill as you can essentially ALWAYS make one that will reach the target with 100% chance (even as a MKV bus) and cost less.
Any more 'subtle' space warfare would likely end with laser ship surgically destroying critical part of another warship and disabling them, even if designed to have a giant mobile shield pointing in the direction of the enemies, the tactic will just break down around orbit or whoever have the largest fleet.

The Kessler syndrome will SHAPE ENTIRELY orbital combat, laser or not it's enough to justify boarding action as the only mean of taking strategic orbit.
There's good argument to be made about space warfare being essentially impossible, you'd seek peaceful solution first or lead a genocide with a chance of MAD.

ps: picture isn't a design I'd defend, just fitting the thread.

>>11242587
Based

>>11242587
As of Friday Lucasfilm has released a total of 9 documentaries covering this very topic.

>>11242612
Sounds based

>>11247160
>The "forward" inertia of the particles of matter involved would be so great that it would take a huge force to change their trajectory to create a "cone" effect.
Please, at your earliest convenience go read or watch some lecture on basic kinematics because this is absolutely not how objects behave. Hypothetically, If an object passed you by going at 0.5c and you kicked it you would still deflect it. Velocity can (and always does) have multiple components in space.

>>11249205
how do they get away?

>>11250494
back in the pods or in their newly commandeered space ship

>>11243847
Fuck, I love the Expanse

>>11242789
Nukes cause as much damage as they do because of the pressure waves they generate. In space you've got no atmo so the only damage is from a direct hit, not being shielded from the x rays, and the emp.

>>11242620
Escapism is for cowards

xcom

>>11242604
>lol just propell this moon at .99c, see it is easy!
Kys dummy

>>11242587
Modern is satcom and imaging/radar and antisat weapons. Once manned space colonies and bases become a thing they will mostly be vulnerable targets that will mostly be ignored. Far future you might have "children of a dead earth" limited conflicts where drones and missiles carried by warships deny orbits and threaten other fleets.

>>11242746
Kessler syndrome is impossible and orbital debris can be removed by laser brooms.
Look at what happens in a collision, a few chunks in the original orbit and lots of splinters that deorbit or do nothing.

>>11242821
>>11242612
>melee boarders
>worrying about breaches
Wrong. When you board you already broke their ship and disabled their engines and main power. You tether a drone and duct tape claymore mines on it. Then you drive it through the crew module and warn the crew to surdender, which they will because there is no point in continued resistance.

>>11243240
Yes, even a perfect laser becomes wider over distance.

>>11243276
Even a perfect laser diverges.

>>11244026
To relocate USAF and USN space assets under a single command because they were being redundant and were not unified in mission or budget.

>>11247160
>claiming orbital rendezvous is hard in an age where every child has played Orbiter and KSP
Rendezvous is solving two body math problems. Because both objects must end in same orbit it gets even easier because you need to either launch in plane or do a plane change maneuver which makes the problem two dimensional.

>>11244038
>>11244066
>>11252082
These. It's actually a pretty smart move desu. May as well get the ball rolling, not to mention satellites are a HUGE part of warfare these days anyway. We'll get to proper space warfare eventually.

>>11242612
say it with me anons

SPACE PIRATES

>>11252107

>>11242604
love me some rods from god

>>11242609
space based and moonrakerpilled

>>11242598
you mean like Jeru (orbital station at the high end of the orbital lift) and Zalem (suspended 1km-in-the-sky station at the low end of the orbital lift) in Alita's mangas? They fought wars in space for controlling those.

>>11244937
10. Near earth orbits are not stable for a century, decade at most
2. If we have capability to put sufficient tonnage in orbit for space combat to not be a meme, we have enough to perform kesseler syndrome cleanup.

>>11254687
>2. If we have capability to put sufficient tonnage in orbit for space combat to not be a meme, we have enough to perform kesseler syndrome cleanup.
That's like saying because we hate nuclear bomb we have the mean to rebuild base or cities destroyed as if nothing happened.

Hope you didn't have all your spacedock in orbit because the only other way to have your "clean-up" ships will be to launch them and hope they won't be destroyed by millions of projectiles fast enough to pierce tank armor and too numerous to track in all but statistical way.
You can't just wait decade for LEO to be clean as the debris orbit could be eccentric or change anytime a large debris hit another and is thrown on a lower orbit.

Even assuming you have enough sensor to track all debris with enough precision you'd have to work on predicting how their orbits will change as more collision happen.
In fact let's even say you still have industries around the moon still working to help you. The best they can do is build millions of lasers and those won't vaporize debris into nothing, they'll just slowly deorbit the small stuff.
Putting enough power you might melt the bigger stuff in the hope that it keep them from fragmenting, even armoring your ship against the small stuff might still produce debris every time they are hit.


In short cleaning-up a Kessler syndrome would become the focus of your civilization even if you have dozen of space colonies to help.

>>11254857
See the filename of your image and how it reads "7kms"? That's kilometers per second. The further away satellites are from Earth, the slower they are orbiting. The ISS is orbiting around 7.82km/s and everything out from there is far slower. *Just added info.*

>>11254875
>the slower they are orbiting
That's definitely not how it work.
They are actually going faster, escape velocity is around 11km/s and what matter is RELATIVE velocity, so unless you are on the exact same orbit they'll be coming at you with "only" 3km/s if you are lucky, or far more if you had things out of planes, in that case the velocity even add together.

>>11242612
>Imagine space troopers battling it out with swords within ships because they can't use guns lest they blow a hole out into space.
Already done by Hadelman in his Forever War cult SF classic

>>11254913
ISS orbits at at 408.77km distance at 7.82km/s.
Geostationary objects orbiting at 35,786km distance will travel at 3.07km/s.
Moon orbits at 405,696km distance at 1.02km/s.

This is because of the inverse square law. The closer you are to a body of gravity the more velocity you need to keep in orbit around it(outside of the atmosphere). The escape velocity you refer to (11.186km/s) is the Delta-V needed from the surface of the Earth at sea level. That velocity does not need to be maintained for orbit. If you did maintain it then you'd continue away from earth instead of orbiting it. There's less gravity further away, so you can slow down out there to reach a preferred orbit.

Yes, relative velocity between two objects is the main concern. Debris from destroyed equipment may become slower than orbital speeds or even have reversed direction. Thus, they may be only the slightest bit of a tiny bump against another object or blast through it at 20km/s. It just depends on what happened to them as they were ejected from the original destruction.

>>11254924
You are playing on words and your number use the ground as source of reference, which is not useful. Also even 1km/s is enough to go into anti-tank projectile.

Still my words need more context.
The figure for escape velocity is what will define the maximum relative velocity possible between two object in orbit, if something is not in orbit but passing by Earth the number can go up but then some debris may escape orbit and not result in a Kessler syndrome.

Considering the context of space warfare we can't assume everyone to have nicely matched velocities at sightseeing distance, firing slow bullet made of luminous foam. The Kessler syndrome is one of the reason space war may be only genocidal in goal, wishing to forbid space to your enemy forever.

Context also don't include the shape of your infrastructure, wether you have thousand of independent satellite, gathered everything in megastation, ring...
If your cheap launch system use Launch loop, Tether, Orbital ring, Space elevator.
A few of these require a clean orbit to exist in the first place, other will become gigantic space scourge if you loose control.

>Thus, they may be only the slightest bit of a tiny bump against another object
...if they are exactly in the same altitude, same plane, same eccentricity. As said, not everything happen in ecliptic orbit even if it will mighty popular.

>blast through it at 20km/s
While not likely it's still far more than the above happening naturally.

>>11254916
Forever War also did this because in a later "vietnam in space" they invented shield that need to be traversed first.
What have yet to be done is to do that on a realistic setting, or at least "The Expanse" realistic.

>>11242604
>>11242741
The problem with kinetic weapons is that we need that tungsten. Eventually you will have to pull apart your space ship, which requires tungsten heat protection, to build kinetic weapons.

>>11255011
I think you are confusing the intent of the conversation. It was just extra data, not a slight. I'm a 3rd anon to the conversation and only posted >>11254875 & >>11254924

>blast through it at 20km/s
>While not likely it's still far more than the above happening naturally.
It should be noted that general explosives can range from 1.8km/s to 10.6km/s depending on the type (gas/solid). Thus, such a projectile traveling at 10km/s might slam into a rocket coming up into orbit at 8km/w or escape velocity at over 11.2km/s. So, they can hit at near 0km/s up to 21.2km/s.

Here an interesting read,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision
>On February 10, 2009, two communications satellites—the active commercial Iridium 33 and the derelict Russian military Kosmos-2251—accidentally collided at a speed of 11,700 m/s (26,000 mph; 42,000 km/h) and an altitude of 789 kilometres (490 mi) above the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia.[1][2][3] [4][5][6] It was the first time a hypervelocity collision occurred between two satellites – until then, all accidental hypervelocity collisions had involved a satellite and a piece of space debris.[7]

To prevent war time problems, one time use lasers/masers would probably be used instead.

>>11255021
>not making steel-jacketed osmium core railgun projectiles
>osmium is $400 per troy ounce
>tungsten is $23 per troy ounce

>>11245905
All you typed is garbage. You literally couldn't have a fight like this in the space between the earth and the moon because there aren't enough materials on earth to create a cone big enough that the other guy can't get out of it. You're a mental midget with no understanding of the scales involved. Clown.

>>11255187
Just make them out of iron, increase the velocity to compensate.

>Children of a Dead eart is like $3 on steam right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZm9DWIYXOk

>>11249214
boring

Physical armaments are gonna be less useful because of Newton's 3rd, so I anticipate more lasers and plasma

>>11255242
>he missed the part about missles
>he can't close the distance

>>11255248
The main problem with that is the increased size of the projectile. You are more apt to sneak in a tinier projectile than one 3.4 times larger.

>>11255143
Actually I didn't expect the first person to answer, someone bringing data was assumed to be new.

>It should be noted that general explosives can range from 1.8km/s to 10.6km/s depending on the type (gas/solid). Thus, such a projectile traveling at 10km/s might slam into a rocket coming up into orbit at 8km/w or escape velocity at over 11.2km/s. So, they can hit at near 0km/s up to 21.2km/s.
Nothing to add, I only considered kinetic impact as part of the discussion for Kessler.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision
Good example as the parameter are half way to the worse you could have (90° plane collisions)

>>11242587

>>11255463
> Mmmh, we've gotta celebrate. Worf, La Forge: escort Dr. Crusher to my room and wait for me. You know the drill, hehe.

Space debris will hit you with bullet speed or faster and your rocket is vulnerable. It's literally machine gun vs propane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCl98-xL2Os