/sci/ - Science & Math

>>1435416
I would explain more, but I was starting to run out of room.
The missiles also only have the thrusters on for a little bit, just to gain speed. After they are going fast enough, the engine shuts down and thrusters manuever to the target. The mass alone would fuck it up, the warhead is just for show :D

>I doubt we humans will take war into outer space
Haha, way too optimistic.

>>1435416
Radiators need some fluid to exchange heat with. There is no such fluid in space.

Where are you going to store all the fuel for "thrusters everywhere on the ship"? And why do you need them everywhere? Isn't more than 4-5 well oriented thrusters approaching redundancy?

May I suggest nuclear warheads as standard ammunition. In space , It will be hard to hit someone as they can move quite fast and the ships wont be too easy to hit when they are standing still, so do what the russians did and make your bombs so fucking huge that even if you miss you still damage the target. Or would a nuclear explosion not work? Who will we be fighting, biological weapons like missiles filled with huge amouns of oxygen that would penetrate and release oxygen could kill pilots and such, but we have to know who the target will be and how they work to arm ourselves correctly.

Also, in space we don't need to worry quite as much about fallout. Weapons, far enough from earth to avoid terrestrial damage, will be enormous nuclear warheads.

>>1435429
I've got the thrusters "everywhere" so that it can go in any direction necessary to evade a missile, but 4-5 would be better.

Also, I forgot to mention, there is a third section in the center that houses fuel, and radiator fluid.

missles are hard to reload when the craft is in space. Using some type of laser would be better.

>>1435438
Troll harder. Lasers are too underpowered. Plus, the thing wouldn't be in continuous use. There would only be a couple. There would be a shuttle mission when it needed reloading.

>>1435429
Radiators could just be a surface with a high emissivity. It would radiate IR radiation.

>>1435431

long range sensors and lasers would be 100% effecient. But lasers do have a susceptibilty to meta-material shielding.

This is starting to sound plausible.
A realistic spacecraft would consist of some kind of nuclear rocket, with a small armored crew compartment and a thick radiation shield separating the crew from the hazardous engine.
There would be huge heatsinks like you said, or maybe you could dispose of heat by ejecting hot mass out of the ship.
The ship might use a telescope to plot course for the rockets, and then lead the target by a few hundred thousand miles. Hope they don't have point defenses. Also, nuclear weapons would work in space quite well, they would need to detonate close though.

Would nuclear explosions work in space?

>>1435446
Good idea. I was about to say what kind of heat signature that would give off but, lol, we're in the middle of fucking space. It's going to sense you.

I think guided missiles would work poorly because they would require way too much fuel to be manoeuvrable in space. Very small unguided masses accelerated to relativistic speeds would be more effective IMO.

>>1435448
I don't think there would be a manned crew. You would have to store food and other compartments. A drone is more plausible, although there would be a delay in communications.

>>1435429

Infrared dude, you can get rid of excess heat in space with a radiator if it emits some sort of radiation, but that's about the only way to do it.

Unmanned would probably work. So we got Unmanned, nuclear weapons, no laser b33mz.

>>1435458
Oh yeah, didn't think of that. Unguided might be more efficient, but there's the chance it would miss. Maybe making a larger capacity on the launcher?

>>1435460

Or we could give it artificial intelligence.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Yeah, lasers are a dumb idea. To get one powerful enough to cause actual damage, you would need to make a very long, very fragile, very energy inefficient craft.

>>1435458
Accelerating something to a relativistic speed takes a lot of power, a laser would end up being more efficient I think. Also, consider that a target that travels in a curved trajectory would cause your shots to miss. Ungided weapons have to be plotted according to where you guess the target will be next and at a million miles that can be hard.

>>1435474
I think that if you got the projectile close enough to the speed of light, you could just shoot it in front of their expected course and the enemy ship would not have enough time to react.

if we ever do space combat we're not going to use missiles or warheads or retarded stuff

we'll just use the ion engines as high-powered beams.

>>1435491
Lasers are EXTREMELY underpowered! To get one large enough and strong enough to break the hull of the enemy station/space craft, you would need a MASSIVE laser that consumes HUGE amounts of power! Lasers are retarded! Quit fucking pitching that idea!

>>1435458

In that case you would need fuel to keep the spacecraft from moving during acceleration of the projectiles.

>>1435447
What the fuck is a meta-material? I thought we were talking about PLAUSIBLE craft, not startrek

>>1435448
>>1435448

We have these things called computers, which can lock onto targets and automatically correct for target motion. Nevermind the fact that things as basic as infrared tracking missiles have been available since the end of WWII.

If you guys want some really interesting theory on space warfare and spacecraft in general, check this site.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

>>1435501
Metamaterials are materials with a refractive index n < 0. Light travels around it causing it to be invisible.

>>1435508
Or, in the case of laser, deflected.

>>1435500
Well, take a look at the site I just linked and maybe you'll change your mind, yeah?

Earth and Mars are, on average, about 78 million km apart at their closest (an arbitrary distance for any combat, and would probably be a very close distance for any space combat if more than those 2 planets are colonized). The fastest manmade object is believed to be the Helios 2 probe at a speed of 67 km/s. Even if going twice this speed, it would take a rocket over 6 days to reach it's target.

A laser would travel at 300,000 km/s and would reach it's target in 260 seconds or just over 4 minutes.

Just thought you all might want to know.

>>1435501
Good input! I forgot about deceleration of the craft. We could put thrusters on the front, but that would consume more fuel. Maybe just have it so the craft is "flying" towards the target, that way the tracking computer could keep in line with the projectile, or maybe have different satellites all over the hull? I'm not sure.

>>1435501
Yeah, computers can automatically correct for target motion, when the target is traveling in a straight LINE.
If a ship fires a round, then the the target ship changes direction, that round ISN'T going to hit, unless it is guided. Your computer can't see into the future.

I read somewhere that the spacecraft in 2001 (book/movie) would be pretty good as a weapon because of its low cross-section in every plane. (it looks a bit like a sphere on the end of a stick).

>>1435539
That's kinda what this one would look like.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Something I should mention: a weaponized laser would not be very difficult to implement, especially regarding the timescales we are talking about.
The hull of a spacecraft would be extremely thin in many places, to cut down on mass and increase acceleration. Even industrial lasers today would be able to punch through metal that thin. The main problems are heat and keeping the beam focused at large distances. Power isn't a concern.

>>1435500
>>1435514

Dude(s), Lasers have come quite a way since you (apparently) surveyed the technology.

even now we are crusin' toward 100kW beam strength.
http://www.darpa.mil/tto/programs/hellads/

With enough beam strength, you cannot 'deflect' the beam, as it will just burn through your mirror.

>>1435587
Fine fuck face. You tell me how to keep it in focus and dissipate the heat, and I'll say "maybe". The fact of the matter is, a launcher would be far easier to maintain and implement, lasers are a fucking waste of time. I know you want to see things explode in a blossom of flame so god damned much, but it's not going to happen.

Lasers are out of question. If we dont have any way of moving faster than the speed of light we wouldnt be doing combat. I dont mean on the fighter ships but on the carrier ships. Alpha Centauri is 4.24 light years away, if there was life there and assuming they are developing technologicaly at the same rate as we are we will have to wait till we get the ability to go a quarter the speed of light and to have an ansible we wont be fighting anyone. If we will be having a war on earth that spills out into space, it would be over too fast to even get something in space. If we are fighting a rebelious colony on mars then we could just send Interplanetary Nukes over.

>>1435595

lasers become useless at any considerable distance; a 10 million watt laser on the earth couldn't even give a person on the moon a suntan.

close range combat maybe but you can't just zap people from a distance

>>1435599

Urm, I believe the USAF (presently!) is planning to cool !deployed! laser weapons with the jet fuel in the airplanes wing tanks (very cold due to the air temp at high altitude).

>>1435599
U mad?
Seriously, you're getting angry over a discussion about things that don't even exist. I never knocked on launchers at all. I'm only pointing out that your aversion to lasers is not well founded.
The ship is going to explode no matter what hits it, hell a nuke would produce much more chaos, a laser would only punch a tiny hole.
The fact that we have an aircraft armed with a laser that can shoot down missiles, TODAY, should indicate that they are a possibility tomorrow.

>>1435629
High altitude!=vacuum.

>>1435599
Look at this guy. He really believes that our modern science and understanding of the universe is as far as it'll ever get.

>>1435610

I think you have a point here. At the point that we have achieved space travel, and basically have unlimited physical resources at our disposal, what is there to fight over? (beyond nazi style extermination just-for-the-hell-of-it)

>>1435630
And I'm saying your fixation on lasers is retarded! You would need an incredibly powerful laser to even hit out to the distances that the craft would be at. Lasers are a fucking stupid idea, drop it.

Hack them.. If they're AI-run, find a way in (they must be sending/receiving signals from somewhere) and blow it up or something. If it's run by humans, they're still receiving and transmitting signals so just find a way inside and then open the airlocks. The 'combatants' would probably be techies on the ground trying to find a way to tunnel in to the other system.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

>>1435674
>You would need an incredibly powerful laser
Is that a problem?

>>1435674

Look, turn the adaptive optics on today's telescopes around and perhaps you can push a laser out to incredible distances.

Jesus, there is work going on today to adapt for the aero-optic effects around airplanes.

>>1435675
>automated drones receive instructions from a remote source

>Communication frequencies, or any transmitted frequencies can somehow be used to control a ship

Go easy on that low budget sci-fi.

>>1435692
>>1435692
Yes, yes that is a problem. A launcher would be more efficient and take up less space. A huge laser would require massive amounts of space and energy. Energy isn't a huge factor, but a large generator takes up more space, and the size of the laser is a big problem. Remember, this thread is about PLAUSIBLE. By that, I mean achievable with today's technology.

>>1435708

Wat? You are indeed talking about a _spacecraft_ that can presumably travel inter-planetary distances on human-useful timescales. You must already have a frickin' massive power generator. Shut down propulsion/life support/(and everything else) for the few seconds you are blasting the enemy. (Pew, Pew).

>>1435708
None of the ships in this thread are achievable with today's technology. Even the proposed propulsion system would have to be invented first, no engines we have support enough exhaust velocity, impulse, and fuel efficiency for real combat.
That said, missiles are slow and can be shot down. You can only carry a limited number.
A laser goes faster than anything, and cannot be shot down. But it requires a power source (the ship's engine). Also, if the engine is nuclear it will never run out of 'ammo' until the ship runs out of energy.
I'm not trying to be a "lazr fanboi" but you have to accept that weapons of the future will not correspond to today's ideas. 100 years ago, cruise missiles and fighter jets would have astonished people, and so this will as well.

>>1435750
I just don't see the point in lasers. If you ask me, the technology will never take off.

The only way I can see launchers being practical is if the missiles are deployed in the thousands against a target. This is assuming they are using some kind of guidance system to steer them. Otherwise I'd suggest shooting millions of "bullets" at high speeds.

Just litter everywhere within a million miles of the thing with projectiles. At large distances, even a laser wouldn't be accurate enough. And of course, who ever gets the first hit is probably going to win.

okay so instead of one really really powerful laser how about

an array of really really powerful lasers all aimed at a single point smaller than a atom. it would be so much stronger and indeflectable because its coming in at different angles pic related.

The author (I think) said plausible with todays technology.

>>1435783
Hell, it's so hard to shoot an enemy spaceship at huge ranges, the most effective approaches would be to either get closer, or start drafting a peace treaty. Because war in space sounds like a huge pain in the ass.

>>1435764

Dude, they have tested laser systems against on-coming artillery shells and can detonate them mid-air. (talk about changing the balance of power on the Korean peninsula over the next 20 yrs.) So much for your 'launcher' concept when the projectiles can be vaporized along their trivial-to-compute ballistic trajectories.


Not to say the US Navy is foolish for investing so much in railguns, but there the idea is to rid the ship of much of their magazine contents. (and the navy has a thing for indirect fire with that whole curvature of the earth thing)

>>1435816
Easy. Mirror plating on projectiles. YOUR LASERS ARE USELESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>1435831

dude, learn optics. see

>>1435595

>>1435799
If the lasers could be made powerful enough to be shot in quick succession, that would be a much easier way to spam the enemy. The point remains that the ship that gets hit probably won't win, so shooting early is a plus if you spot them (cause they see you).

I wouldn't be surprised that ~if~ space combat happens, it would just be each side deploying millions of drones in a "wall" towards the enemy, shooting anything they can get their hands on. The winner would be purely whoever could deploy the most drones.

Just make Vipers from Battlestar Galatica.

They incorporate every good idea in this thread.

>>1435429
>Radiators need some fluid to exchange heat with. There is no such fluid in space.

>>1435437
>radiator fluid.

i can't tell which is the idiot and which is the troll.

potato

Aspie haet lasers

>>1437069
Vipers are horrible idea

1. Human pilot - Cannot tolerate high gee forces, requires life support, cannot go on extended missions, needs to return to base.

All of these things massively increase mass. You could get a dozen space missiles for the same price as a manned space fighter, and you don't have to worry about doubling up their fuel so they can RTB because they're going on a one way trip.

>>1437365

No, not if the pilots of the ships are beautiful teenage girls who don't wear pants.

THAT USE MAGIC TO FIGHT ALIENS.

Then it'll work just fine, 1550% better than missiles.

Lasers!

>>1437381
Do you have any pictures of these... space... girls?

Pray to god an he will make america rule the universe

>>1437365

yeah you have lower fuel requirements, less resources etc going with missiles.

but then you would have starbuck perioding all over your battleship fucking shit up instead of destroying cylons. thats got to be at least twice as bad as just running teh vipers.

>>1437405
Space starbuck.

He was better as a man anyways.

>>1437411
>175mm RHAe

You could probably pierce that hull with small arms. Spacecraft may as well not have any armor at all.

I think Eve has it down for the most part. Drones, large missiles with huge warheads that track (and even dummy missiles without tracking), lasers and blasters and railguns. Everything done by sophisticated hardware and software.

The "guided" kinetic energy missiles can't be going too fast. The faster you go - the longer it will take for your thrusters to significantly change your direction.

However - if your missiles arn't going as fast as they can - you'll have the very real and embarrassing problem of ALL space-ships being faster than ALL guided missiles.

Remember - on Earth missiles can go fast because they are very short range and have a small aerodynamic cross section. In space - they have no such advantage, spaceships will be faster.
Missiles in space will effectively be just small, slow, dumb, spaceships. Normal spaceships with larger and thus more sophisticated engines will outrun them.

>>1437442
Eve fails to take into account proper armor and newtonian physics.

Also, engagement ranges are pathetically short, and weapons travel very slowly.

Eve is a poor example of realistic space combat.

Are there any other forms of energy weapon that could be used?

Or are they all out of the question, never gonna happen?

>>1437451
Not true at all. It depends on what kind of ship you're firing upon. Something like a battleship class will never be able to out maneuver a missile though a fighter class may be able to.

lightning rods.

that shoot lightning, at other ships

>>1437453
no YOU

/thread

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3as.html

There are 7 more articles on "Space War". Check it out for designs.

>>1437459
Bee hives.

That shoot bees, at other ships.

>>1437472

volcanoes.

that shoot lava, at other ships

>>1437458

wouldn't it make sense for the engines on a space-ship to be proportional to the mass of the ship?

>>1437481
depends on how large we make our ships.

>>1435416
IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE TAKE THIS:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/

Covers pretty much everything, but specifics.

>>1437472
How about launching a swarm of missiles instead from a beehive shaped missile launcher?

>>1437491

I take that backwards to you.
Bigger ships will be able to use more bulky thrust engines, such as a fusion rocket.

Smaller ships and missiles won't be able to.

kinetic energy weapons. high acceleration rockets with penetrating warheads.
assuming you are fighting human piloted craft then all you need to do is hole the hull. you can't parachute out in space.

>>1435415
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>>1437473
Missles

That shoot ships, at other missles.

>>1437540
How about bullets that shoot bullets that shoot bullets like pic related. (red arrows indicate movement vectors)

Fuck plausible this is all I need for some space combat.

I thought that the main thing that caused a laser to lose focus was atmosphere?

>>1437635
I have superior.

ITT: hey guys we are going to fight in space but we are only allowed to take one weapon.

how about taking lasers for some purposes and missiles for others. you could fire a missile or something at an enemy, and use lasers to fuck all exposed instruments and whatever so that they can't avoid it or launch countermeasures.

i think it would end up being like battlestar galactica where you would have capital ships fucking each other up with massive nukesand missles and shit, while the vipers and raiders intercept ordinance in the middle, except it would be less fighters and more lasers and countermeasures on the big ships

>>1437750
Nope. diffractrion causes dispersion in all lasers, in the atmosphere or otherwise

the obvious weaponisation of space would be that of nuclear weapons mounted on directable satellites (if this hasnt been done already)

allows for untraceable/undetectable nuclear strikes