/sci/ - Science & Math

>>2898134
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/
And I think "space superiority fighter" is extremly stupid idea.
Smallest manned ship would be size of "frigate". Rest would be computer-controled drones.

OP here. First off I realize that due to the distances involved the need for space fighters for anti ship operations would be at an absolute zero. But assuming that liveable planets are incredibly rare in the universe it would be a bad idea for the opposing force to indiscriminately bombard the planet from orbit. And with this assumption, it would mean that for the offensive force to succesfully subjugate the planet they would have to land large amouns of personell and materiel relatively close to their objectives. Which is where this fighter comes in.

space doesn't have air; it doesn't have to be aerodynamic.

a sphere would probably be the best design since it has the smallest surface area (target) for maximum internal volume (power units, weaponry, etc) and is always facing the right way to engage the enemy, considering your battlefield is 3 dimensional with no direction that is intrinsically the correct orientation to be fighting in.

>>2898161

OP again. With the assumption that future wars are fought over mineral rights and living space it would be a bad idea to ruin the biosphere of the planet in question. So it would require that the offensive force gain air and space superiority over the planet they were attacking. This also assumes that the war is being fought between two groups of relatively equal military power and technological level. As such you can then assume that after the enemy's space forces have been driven off there are going to be planet based fighters capable of fighting in the upper atmosphere of a planet if not entering orbit outright to engage any incoming attackers.

The attackers fighters (the ones I'm trying to design) would thus have to be aerodynamic able to withstand pressures up to around 1.25 atmospheres, (if liveable worlds are that rare, humans probably aren't going to be too picky about where they live so long as its close to eart. Plus research outposts and isolated colonies on worlds with non earth like atmospheres is also likely). Missiles and bombs would most likely be stored in internal bays to protect them from the heat of entry and any machine guns or cannons would have to include retractable cowlings or other covers to protect them from the heat as well.

more to come

> mineral rights
>biosphere
There are biospheres on every goddamn rock in the space? You can mine every second asteroid..

And are you thinking about ground-to-space and space-to-space defence instalations?

>>2898185
>>space doesn't have air; it doesn't have to be aerodynamic.

I know that, I'm not the brightest lightbulb in the pack, but I'm not retarded.

As for defenses, it would have to be relatively well armored (something light, but strong and heat resistent, or it might even be made out of a stealth absorbent material that otherwise fits the bill). It would also be packing some countermeasures like flares or chaff, as well as ECM (could somebody explain to me how exactly ECM works though, and why some real life fighters require a pilot and a GIBs (Guy In Back) to operate the ECM?). It might even include an EM pulse generator (trigger the electronic triggers of missiles that are in range, as well as repel any other projectiles made of a ferrous material). All while being light enough or have enough fuel and thrust to launch, attack, and then make it back into orbit for pick up if not back to the mothership itself.

>>2898210

if you look up "rods from the gods" you will realise you can quite feasibly destroy a civilisation from orbit without affecting the biosphere too badly, especially considering most of your targets will be in developed (non-natural, pre-fucked up) areas anyway. and since laser weapons are so efficient in space compared to in an atmosphere it would be quite trivial to defend any orbiting bombardment device from planet-launched missiles or other attacks, without much chance of them being able to shoot you down with lasers or something similar.

and considering how different the environments of space and atmosphere are, it's not a good idea to get stuck on the concept of a space-and-air fighter. you would need 2 seperate fighters or the single design would be so compromised as to be severely fucked up by the opponent fielding 2 seperate fighters.

>>2898237

well considering all your ideas are ripped from hollywood bullshit, it doesn't do too much harm to make sure the obvious is being stated.

>>2898233
I'm thinking of both. Mostly ground-to-space, but some space-to-space. Also, wars are being fought over living space as well as the increased likelyhood that any natural disaster elsewhere in a species native space won't be the end of the entire species.

As for protecting the pilot himself the ship would have something similiar to an ejector seat, modified to reduce momentum after a given amount of time (to allow the pilot to be safely removed from the imediate fighting and then be picked up, instead of zooming off into space at an incredible amount of speed) and if all else fails the fighter would be capable of landing on a planets surface (getting it back off again is another matter, if anyone has any knowledge on how it might work with something that looks like the viper please let me know.) The fighter would also boast advanced sensor suites (I'm talking real sensors like IR, not that Star Trek crap).

I think thats everything I've got for it, if there's anything that I might not have coevered that would be important please mention it.

>>2898259
Thought about that, but have read that it would take a while for the projectiles to reach their target (assuming that we're fighting humans we'd probably want to take as much of the infrastructure intact as we possibly could.) However I was still going to use it in my stories because some planets are probably going to be in orbits similiar to mars (very close to asteroid belts, occasionally gravity will draw one in and eventually will crash into the surface) where they would be used as anti-asteroid installations (one of them would be jury rigged for offensive uses when the 'good guys' of one of my stories are on the ropes)

>>2898248
That might be true, but at the same time you have to realise that given enough time in front of a computer even a monkey can type shakespeare. I'm using the stuff that makes sense to me (but considering the fact I don't have a degree in any of the related fields I can't be certain, which is why I ask) and that at least to me looks like it should work. I also chose that design for two reasons, first off, it is rather rocket like, rockets have to be aerodynamic if they are going to work at all. If the wings are too short to provide any lift that should be alright (I'm assuiming that they can get back at least into relatively safe LEO's for pickup if not back to the ship outright after making a strike), because as a retired air force family member once said to me in regards to a very un-aerodynamic aircraft "just proof that with big enough engines you can make anything fly." Plus a design like that should have a smaller forward cross section (I think), and should hopefully be therefore harder to detect and destroy.

>>2898276
>not that Star Trek crap

i lol'd

Bump

Does anyone have any info on my ECM question though?

>>2898134

OP is obviously not an engineer (read genius)

I'm not even going to humour my designs with you because you'll be a moran.

>>2898185


It might not have to be aerodynamic but the moment of inertia has to suit the propulsion system.

Speaking of propulsion, you need to carry your oxidisers with you with current technology. Major drawback.

OP here, if anyone who isn't a troll could help me out it would be helpful.

>>2898489
I'll probably end up figuring this out when I tae physics next year anyway but what do you mean by moment of intertia?

>>2898465
You know what, I'm easily one of the top students in my year and I haven't gone to college yet, try me

>wings.....

Think lunar lander module without the legs, i.e. main engine + groups of thrusters preferably on extension arms

If high tech: 2 laser cannons on turrets to cover both hemispheres

If low tech: 2 laser designators to cover both hemispheres + missiles

>>2898561
> Yeah, read about that. Was going to be the primary design for the small craft that work at orbital ship building facilites, very cheap, very crude, but very effective.

Anything anyone else might have is greatly appreciated.

>>2898583
sorry about that last was going to include the portion about the primary engine and smaller thrusters on a boom.

OP again, I do also have to apologize. I didn't phrase my question related to ECM correctly. I understand jamming when it comes to communiations, and unless I'm wrong I can assume that its a similiar process for radar as well. But I've heard of ECCM as well, how exactly do counter counter measures work?

>>2898553
Harriers don't need wings either. They have them though

>>2898660
wat

>>2898670
Like I was saying before, with big enough ngines you can make anything fly, the only reason missiles have anything like wings is because they help stabilise it during flight. The pic proves that you can still fly sans wings.

>>2898670

lol'd

>>2898684
....you obviously don't know how wings work...
or space for that matter...

>>2898702
If your the guy who wrote this.

>wings.....
>wat

than obviously neither do you.

Now, while he's an idiot he surprisingly does have a point and I need to correct my error. I assume that the only reason that missiles have fins is for stabalization, as I would guess (once again still only a high school student here) the wings are too small to provide any real lift for the main body of the missile.

Generic Science Fiction Space Adventure #38743

>>2898759
I wish it were that simple. Look, I'll make it painfully clear for everyone. I'm incredibly busy, I don't have that much time to study everything else between homework (in fact I'm blowing off a research paper to do research for my story) I promised myself when I started that I was going to write something focused on people, not on flashy technology, and that it would be scientifically realistic. I also promised myself that I would blow just about every overused sci fi cliche out of the water and wrtie something well beyond the crap most peple think of when they hear the words 'sci-fi'. I admit that because I like studying a variety of subjects I don't have much depth in anyone particular area. And that my understanding of certain things is more than lacking, which is why I came here to ask. So does anyone have anything even remotely useful for me, or while I just get another shitload of pithy comments from people who have nothng better to do with their time?

>>2898736
spacefighters doesn't need wings, there is nothing to woosh around them
they don't do shit.
lrn2aerodynamics&&vacuums

>>2898783
Please read the post from the begining.

>>2898736

Firstly you are in high school so you are unintelligent by default. Secondly you are in high school and therefore likely underage. Thirdly, yes objects can "fly" without wings. Way to state the obvious. I could attach F-1 rocket engines to my car and it would "fly". The distinction here is that some systems require wings so the system doesn't function like a sack of dicks. Jets are one of these systems. That F-14 probably wouldn't survive another flight. A harrier could fly very slowly without wings, but it needs them in order to not function like a sack of dicks. The engineers that design these things know quite a bit more than you.

>>2898792
i'm the guy that posted
>wings

spacefighters don't need wings, but op's pic has wings....

>>2898794
Firsty thank you, I actually need more posts like that. Despite the fact that the pic was of an F-15, not a Tomcat he does have a point and explained something to me that I was asking from the begining. Also, if I remember correctly they did in fact scrap that fighter, but it did prove just how tough they could be and that the entire wing wasn't necessary, which lead to me wondering just how little wing would be needed in the first place.

Secondly, as for your first two points, I'll just go with 'no contest'.

>>2898826

True on that count. Didn't look closely at the intakes... And you are correct about the toughness of these planes... Although I get the impression that this particular incident was fairly lucky. It is likely that, had the failure occurred differently (different location on wing, etc.), the plane would have crashed.

>>2898835
Thanks, and just for the purpose of getting my questions answered the entire viper-eqsue design wouldn't work at all?

>>2898259
>>2898802
>have never watched battlestar galactica
aside from babylon 5, bsg has the most realistic treatment of space fighter combat in reasonably well known sci fi.
>wings
the viper the op posted has them so it can maintain some fuel efficiency when its flying in atmosphere

>>2898802
I'd like to point out that the design was supposed to call for atmospheric flight.

>>2898850

Define work?


Would it swoop around like a glorious fighter plane? No way.

It would float lamely around, navigating with thrusters just like any spacecraft around today.
Think Gemini instead of F-22.

With these restrictions placed on its maneuverability ( and that of any spacecraft), why not build a ship designed to do well in this physical environment instead of in a planetary atmosphere?

>>2898859
oh, my apologies for starting the shitstorm with that post btw

>>2898861
When I mean work I'm talking about its performence in a atmosphere.

>>2898850

It would work, but it's certainly not optimized. Someone earlier mentioned a spherical shape on the basis of surface area to volume ratio. I completely agree. Additionally, the design would have vectored thrust for maneuverability and probably some kind of meta-material cloaking system. Holy crap I'm getting a boner from how awesome this would be.

>>2898864
No problem, I'm just looking for some second opinions from people that know more about the subject than I do.

>>2898877
Okay, but because its a sphere while it would be aerodynamic it wouldn't have any wings of any size for lift in an atmosphere, how big/powerful would the engines have to be?

>>2898877

I didn't see the atmospheric requirement (late to the party/thread). However, the device should still function very similarly.

>>2898134
/thread

>>2898890

I guess I'm making the assumption that something with enough power to reach space and travel in space has a thrust-to-weight ratio over 1. This is a sci-fi thing after all...

Taiidan Fleet commanders asked for a next generation fighter built around an ultra-high-velocity rail gun. Initial designs placed this large weapon in a spinal mount, but the resulting fighter was slow and easily damaged, with most of its crucial function placed in a thin layer around the weapon. In an innovative move, a rarity among engineers who labored under Imperial tyranny during the pre-Republic era, the designers of the Triikor decided to create a pure maneuvering fighter and then place the weapon on a lateral mount. The result is a unique looking fighter that is tricky to fly but deadly in the hands of a skilled pilot.

The laterally mounted rail gun gives the Triikor a center of gravity shifted a full meter from the cockpit/engine line, and this gives the fighter some very interesting handling characteristics while rolling or turning. Novice pilots are given a wide berth when flying formation, as this arrangement causes the fighter to swing wildly under high-G maneuvers until the pilot is intimate with this unusual center of gravity. But in the hands of an experienced pilot, this initial disadvantage becomes a dogfighter's dream, as the right touch can make the Triikor wheel around nearly twice as fast as standard fighter designs. A wide barrel roll maneuver unique to this fighter is known as "rolling the gun," and is used by Triikor aces to roll out of the gunsights of a pursuer while braking to end up just behind and below them. Many a Hiigaran pilot's last words have been a surprised curse as a Triikor rolls out of her sights and tears the bottom of her ship to shreds a moment later.


If you want to keep things relatively recognisable for the common man as it were then you could just use already accepted concepts.

Or you could come up with some shit like a TIE fighter.

>>2898906
There are supposed to be SSTO shuttles in this story, as well as cargo containers designed for use with launch loops. But the space fighers were supposed to be 100% space based, in an emergencythey could land on a planet relatively safely, but you'd need to attach them to a larger aircraft and get them into the upper atmosphere before launching them if they were ever going to fly again.

>>2898894
I admit I'm a little confused now, the sphereical one would still function fairly similiary or the viper like design?

Bump

just strap a bigass cannon to it, it should be fine

>>2899063
The majority of the stories I'm doing are pretty dark, but there has to be some humor in them, if you can't laugh you aren't going to last long on the battlefield, and that sentence'll probably be making it into a printable draft.

Give one of these guys a pistol.

Pistols at 6,000 miles, we launch as 06:00 GMT.

actually this thought just occured to me, how would the handling be on something that looked like the viper?

>>2899322

In space or in the atmosphere?

In space it's the weight distribution that matters.


In the atmosphere... Well... Luckily it was actually designed relatively intelligently with the wings being in the back to support the massive engines...
With a decent fly by wire I imagine that it would glide like a rock but a landable rock. Much like the space shuttle.

>>2899347
So for better handling and manuevering in an atmosphere would it need larger wings or what?

Also while were on the subject, I remember hearing somewhere that forward swept wings help with manuevering or handling, is that rue?

>>2899426

yes this is why you see so many planes with forward swept wings. it is highly successful.

>>2899439
Look, I'm just asking a question, this would appear to be the first of its kid with this particular concept implemented, but considering it got as far as becoming aproduction model it had to have some advantages.

>>2899093
>LESS
Been on /n/ recently, have we?
Also, LESS (would've) had about three times as much delta-V as a typical pistol has muzzle velocity.
>>2899426
It's true, but the effects are somewhat minor, and aircraft designers have generally ruled that it's not worth the structural difficulties when similar gains can be achieved simply by increasing wing area.

>>2898553
>Handy place to put the radiators you will need for thermal management...

>>2899451

i can tell you the disadvantages; the wings fall off.

actually that works in your favour because you can just assume future material advances mean the wings will stay on.

also wing design depends on a huge number of factors
but something you really need to consider is density of the atmosphere. the density varies with altitude and since your craft is supposed to fight at every altitude you're going to need some pretty fucking special wings. unless it doesn't even need wings because it can hover, fuck the atmosphere, i fly in space and sea level, etc, in which case don't give it wings.

>>2899347

the wing design is severely anhedral... it'd be unstable as a motherfuck. poor old fly by wire system would be working up a sweat

>>2899373


Larger wings.... (See my picture for just a quick redesign from thirty seconds of reflection...)
Better weight distribution.
... Actually. The design on this is fucking retarded for atmospheric flight. Go with a blended body or flying wing dude.


NOT TO MENTION! If this is a rocketplane...
Where the frick is the fuel stored? Certainly not in the wings...
This thing could fly for a couple of minutes (If that) and then it would be empty..

>>2899478
What would be the best wing design for the upper atmosphere?

>>2899495


Forgot the picture.

You get the point I'm trying to make.

if it's supposed to manouvre well in space you're going to need some kind of propulsion in every direction. you need sci-fi boosters forward & back, up & down, left&right, and all of the above at front and rear. you can use little jets of gas like sattelites use to slowly alter their orientation, but you will probably be shot down. the thing needs to be covered in boosters is what i'm saying. also make it gold because lasers.

>>2899500


How fast you planning on flying?

Either a flying wing/blended body or something like the X-43

>>2899500

you will need a huge wingspan to chord ratio for it to stay in the air.

Space fighters similiar in size to modern fighter aircrafts would have a lot of trouble housing sufficient weaponry to be practical.

The most practical weapons in space would be lasers and railguns. Conventional weapons (missiles and chemically propelled projectile weapons) would work very very poorly at distances on which space battles would take place. They can be easily either zapped out of the sky (along with the fighters themselves) before they get even close, or dodged.

And sufficiently powerful lasers or railguns (velocity is word here, if you wish to hit something with that railgun) will require lots of power. Because of this, space fighters would in reality be close to a small battleship to hold enough juice for those weapons, as >>2898157 already stated.

Picture related. It's a 'space fighter', very small, relatively speaking, yet one of the most powerful ships in the Alpha Quadrant.

If you really want something that can be used in the atmosphere as well as in space...

I'd go with the X-33 as a design.

Add a rotating railgun or laser ontop of this summbitch and you are good to go for some space combat. Much more practical than the ludicrous idea of a fighter plane in space.

>>2899562


In case you are unfamiliar with the X-33...

Star Fury from Babylon 5 is the craft that conforms to the physics

>>2899558
They wouldn't even see any action in ship-to-ship combat, the distances are too great and aren't even intended for that purpose, they are there to destroy any conventional fighter-interceptors in an atmosphere, and allow troop transports to safely land.

a hypersonic atmospheric design might be suited to a ground attack role but certainly not air superiority. taking mach 7 as a ballpark kind of speed; that's about 1.5 miles per second. how the fuck are you going to engage anything? a fighter plane is just a platform for sensors and weapons to be delivered into the arena. at that kind of speed the range you'd have to be from anything in order to have time to engage it would be ridiculous and you may as well just stay in orbit and shoot shit down from up there.

>>2899581

you need to read art of war. you're trying to engage the enemy in a way that your enemy has dictated (he launches planes to intercept and you go to meet them), and in a way that doesnt suit your own situation (approaching the battle from orbit). nobody would ever do this, not even a man who lived 3,000 years ago and couldn't even concieve of airplanes.

if your fictional military strategists weren't complete amateurs they would just destroy any ground targets from orbit that can launch planes. then you land in an area you just buttfucked with some space transport or whatever and launch properly optimised atmospheric fighter planes from the ground.

>>2899478
>fuck the atmosphere
Indeed.

>>2899599
Alright, you have a point. But what if, and this is just for the sake of curiosity more than anything else, that the engagement was more than enough warning and there are a) aready planes in the air, b) the same infrastructure that would stop them from launching fighters would cause the same problem for you, until they get fixed at least. and c) that there are too many of these facilities or are adequately defended and that more likely than not at least one or two would survive a missile assualt intact?

>>2899522
Not true.
Aspect ratio helps maximum L/D, but there are other means of achieving greater lift (namely, increasing wing area and airspeed). At high hypersonic airspeeds, L/D ratios of greater than 4 are unreasonable to expect, and a strong, maneuverable low-aspect wing work well for this flight regime, even at extremely high altitudes.

Furthermore, long, straight, high-aspect wings generate obscene amounts of wave drag in the transonic and supersonic flight regime. Stability and balance issues mean that highly-swept wings must almost always resort to a reduced aspect ratio in order to achieve the necessary wing area for a given flight envelope.

>>2899583
Missiles, fool. Missiles.

Dogfights are already pretty much obsolete.

>>2899513
PSST.
Reaction wheels.
Gyroscopes.
Gimballed engines.

All can perform the same task that an array of omnidirectional RCS thrusters can.

>>2899647
First thanks, that pic reminds of another reason for why the ofensive interceptors would be neccesary.

Secondly, every time people have designed a fighter and made the argument against dogfights they've been wrong.

>>2899647
Dog fighting is obsolete, they said...

>>2899495
>Better weight distribution.
You can't possibly know where the CG is, beyond simple conjecture. For all you know, it could have perfect weight and balance as it is.

>>2899662
>Hothead pilots getting greedy and entering turning battles, despite their training, with a jet that clearly has no need to do so
Dogfighting is obsolete. Intermediate-range missiles are far superior for destroying well-matched enemies. When kinematically-superior multi-stage or ramjet-driven hypersonic missiles are developed, BVR combat will become the only way to survive at all.

>>2899666


Oh come on.
Of course it's a conjecture but it's hardly a guess....

Rocket engines weigh a metric fuckton and they are in the back... Therefore in order to even out the weight a bit we need to add a lot to the front.

What could possibly be in the section between the pilot and 0?
Instrumentation and various gadgets? I doubt they weigh as much as three giant fucking rocket motors...
Fuel?
No way could it weigh that much.

>>2899689
>rules of engagement

Nope

>>2899689
What about when you run out of missiles?

>>2899713
Leave. Escape. GTFO. You have lost your tactical advantage, and it's time to get out of there.
Continuing to fight would be like continuing to fight during WWI after your Vickers .303 ran out of ammo.
>>2899704
IFF, how does it work?
>Interrogate target
>Target doesn't respond
>Intel says no friendlies in the area
>Cleared hot
That's how it usually works. Pierre Spey is a clueless faggot with a vendetta, you really shouldn't listen to his mindless ramblings.

>>2899692
>add a lot to the front
>Clearly adding more lifting area than weight

>Fuel?
>No way could it weigh that much.
AAHAHAHAHAHA
Lrn2rocketry, bro. The shuttle is ~80% propellant at takeoff.

>>2899747
That thought actually occured to me after I posted that question, and it would make sense, but every military plan goes to hell the second combat begins there are absolutely no exceptions to that rule, and there's a military term for the ones that go particularly wrong, its called a clusterfuck

>>2899769

No shit.

Pic related.

Also,

>Implying a fully fueled shuttle is designed for atmospheric flight and not a direct course to orbit...

OP here, what about using some liftin body techniqes in the design?

>>2899928

Definitely.

We've actually been suggesting it for a good deal of the thread..

Don't mind me, just posting some lifting body inspiration for OP.

>>2899989
The fact that I feel like an idiot can go without saying.

>>2900017
Thanks for that, heh, at this rate I'll need a new flashdrive just for the stuff in my stories.

Looking back at the other pictures I noticed that alot of the other ones, which I ca only assume were using lifting body designs, were very large with stubby wings. What would these design techniques look like in a narrower aircraft like a fighter?

Also looking back I recognize a couple of the X-30's and know that NASA produced them wihout engines, flew them up attached to larger planes and dropped them, how powerful would the engines have to be to get these things off the ground?

>>2900061
>>2900061

The same. But fighter planes in space is fantasy. Nothing more. It's not realistic at all because physics just doesn't work like that.

Really powerful but those are designed for LEO operation ONLY. They provide reasonable structures for a spacecraft/aircraft hybrid. The engines a true deep-space faring craft would use would be so vastly different from those used today they we couldn't even help you.
Maybe VASMIR or ORION might give you some ideas though. Look them up on wikipedia.

OP again, considering the subject I was wondering if anyone could tell me how feasible/stupid a design in the pic would be. Never intended on using it, I like having the little bit of money I have, but idle curiosity is taking over again.

Fighters wouldn't be used in combat because of the extreme speeds would not allow maneuvering like in Star Wars and other sci-fi dramas. Using anything other than lasers would also be useless because of the speeds involved. Also, if for some dumb reason fighters would still be used then they would be unmanned and would look nothing like an aerodynamic atmospheric fighter of the present era.

>>2900089
Please for the love of god or whatever diety you may or may not believe in, read the entire thread.

>>2900130
>>2900130

You sure you quoted the right post? What in particular are you talking about?

>>2900089
>But fighter planes in space is fantasy.
WHERE IS YOUR <deity or what have you> NOW?

>>2900130
Sorry, meant to click on >>2900117

>>2900116


Now onto your post...


FUCKING QUIT IT.
Seriously.
Stop it.
No. I'm serious.
We're not going to help you with the practicality of a design like that because it's just dumb. We've already established the reason why.
No more fighter planes.


If you want to know if something like that would fly, the answer is maybe. It depends on its flybywire. Sure it could fly. Is it ideal? Fuck no. Not by a long shot. It's a work of fiction.

>>2900163
I alreay figured that between what I'v read elsewhere and what I've read here today, maybe it was a stupid question, especially when i didn't even have any intent on using anything similiar in my story, but when people started mentioning flying wing designs and melded body designs this popped into my head for a moment, it's just idle curiosity.

>>2900177


That design would certainly fly. It would certainly be able to be used both atmospherically and in space. I like how it has a jet engines as well as a rocket engine.
It could never make it from the ground to beyond (Or even to) LEO with today's engines.

One thing however, is that this design is WAY more practical than the Viper in your OP.

>>2900194
I appreciate the constructive reply, but Im wondering what >>2900163 was for, what the fucking hell.

Also I still have an unanswered question on the ECM/ECCM thing, if anyone could help me out...

>>2900144

The F-104 is not a spaceplane.

>>2900231


Because you keep clinging to this retarded idea.

Even though you CAN push a cart with octagonal wheels doesn't mean that there aren't better idea out there.

What's you unanswered question? I seem to have missed it.

The guy in the back is the RIO (Radar Intercept Officer/Operator) ECM helps by blocking radars from locking but with enough time they will "burn" through and establish a lock.

>>2900257
I went with the first idea, needle like design, more a rocket than anything else. And since then I've moved closer to the second design, which is more in line with the lifting bodies that everyoe is talking about. What I was asking about is the comparison between them and the X-30's and X-40's that had short stubby wings and long thick fuselages. I was wondering whether the flying wing-eque design would be a better idea was all or if it had to look more like the X-30's.

Also while I get how chaff and flares work to fool missiles and I asked on here once before how to jam radio communications, and I also understand how most stealth design concepts work. What I don't get are how electronic countermeasures work. I have also heard of electronic counter counter measures, what are they and how would they work. While were on the subject how do you jam radar, or is it the same as jamming radio communications where you just 'scream loudly'?

Manned fighters are becoming obsolete NOW.

>>2900301
>>2900301


You want a design that is able to distribute heat appropriately on reentry and at high speeds. That's one reason for the lifting body design.
Another is that it's not wasteful of space.

As far as jamming shit goes, while I honestly have no clue beyond conjecture, I'd assume that it's all a variation on the "screaming loudly" tactic that you mentioned.
As far as counter-counter measures, these could involve strategic changing of frequencies or ways to sort out the "screaming loudly" by isolation and elimination.

>>2900337
Talking with an air force ROTC officer I actually asked about that, he said that while they would see more use for dangerous operations, but that the delay between what's happening and what the remote operator sees and then does finally the fact that there is the slght risk of unmanned aircraft being hacked and taken over that manned fighters would probably see a reduced role but not no role at all. It made me feel safe in my future 'job security', but looking back on it I'm wondering just how much of the time he spent talking out of his ass.

>>2900369


Coming from a pilot,
It's going to be a long while before the air superiority role is taken over by teh MACCHIIIINEEEZ.
Ground assault and surveillance will (and are) the first to go because they require no reaction.
Various other roles will take longer to assimilate because at the moment only pilots actually on the scene have the capability to assess a good deal of situations.

Well, if you want low to mid atmosphere flight, you'll need stabilization, so wings are something you'll need. How many people are these things going to hold? As you've implied, OP, larger ships such as cruisers, battleships, frigates, what we may call ships of the wall, are too large to make atmospheric entry an easy or practical feat. Do these 'superiority fighters' also need to double as personnel/cargo shippers?

I think directed-energy weapons are going to make space warfare a DPS oriented battle ... armor is heavy, and lasers can damage space-armor enough to cause problems outside of the atmosphere pretty easily. Hence, space fights are going to be like mage battles ... very fast, both sides take heavy damage, etc.

And with kinetic weapons such as railguns, you'd need a fair amount of mass to keep from shooting off in the opposite direction (I suppose with lasers as well.)

So ... I'd guess that the "fighters" are going to be sort of a natural evolution of a drone + smartbomb remote or AI controlled, expendable, swarm-attacking kamikaze bots. Probably remote-commanded, but AI controls the individual bots to act in a swarm. Big ships launch drone-swarms at each other ... and defenses are aimed at stopping those... countermeasures in drone bots are for dodging directed energy weapons.

I'm kind of thinking kinetic weapons like railguns won't work... at least if you shoot a kinetic weapon in space, you have to fire the equivalent rocket in the opposite direction or it seriously screws up your position.

>I'm kind of thinking kinetic weapons like railguns won't work... at least if you shoot a kinetic weapon in space, you have to fire the equivalent rocket in the opposite direction or it seriously screws up your position.
I'm thinking the same, but I know nothing of 'directed energy weapons' and feel that missiles might be better for things like that. Given correct programming, you could have them explode -- this can effectively turn tides of battles because of the explosion, or even have them function as a support role, adding in more point defenses for a limited time.

>>2900369
They are developing AI controlled planes to deal with those issues.

About the space fighter thing, I'm wondering how that would end up playing out. There would be huge distances involved, any kind of dumb projectile could probably be avoided, so lasers make sense, but couldn't those be disrupted by throwing up some kind of reflective smokescreen? If that would work, that leaves missiles, which might be able to be designed to avoid counter-missile systems long enough to get a few in. That would maybe be countered by increasingly distributed systems like groups of semi-disposable drones.

>>2900528
The thing is, they'd just be too small for extended firefights. Counter-measures would be mostly useless unless they destroyed missiles, but since the resulting explosion from such a missile would potentially destroy another, or even a group, you might benefit more from that.
After all, firing solutions would be based on the velocity of the target, and with missile to missile combat, the timing is a little easier to work with. Further, lasers, unless significantly strengthened from what is possible now, would be for short range use only -- more of a last resort as countermeasures, and due to the immense distance between two ships, space superiority fighters would have significantly lessened effectiveness until you get closer...which would give your countermeasures less time to react, raising casualties and damage the longer it goes on. We're talking tens of thousands of kilometers, here or MORE, I would guess.
Maybe it's just my idea of strategy working upon ideas of practicalities.

Space fighters do make sense in terms of orbital combat. They're less massive than a true battleship so they can push farther down the gravity well and use the atmosphere for trajectory adjustment. Being small, they can spot for the kinetics of larger ships while being too inexpensive to warrant a missile of comparable cost.

Drones are out due to both the inflexibility of modern programing and the weakness to EW. Tight beam lasers could be used, but that limits mobility as the receiver's position has to be known down to a few inches so the signal doesn't miss, to say nothing of the mechanical issues of reliably aiming at a transceiver thousands of miles away.

Another issue with destroying ground based targets is finding them. Okay, fine, a typical factory is easy to find even from orbit but if the designer had placed everything under a mountain to take advantage of geo-thermal power and utilize the space left by mining then entire infrastructures can be concealed. Welcome to fucking Jamburo.

Ballistic kinetics do have one tactical advantage over missiles detection. Pack a small can of CO2 to chill the round after launch and the projectile no longer has thermal emissions. Add some radar absorbing paint and it's a bitch to pick up on active sensors. It can't be shot down because it can't be seen. It can be dodged but without a good fix on it's trajectory, all you can do is waste delta V in hopes that they haven't saturated you're options.

>They are developing AI controlled planes to deal with those issues.

AI RIGHTS! VOTE NOW BEFORE SKYNET DECIDES TO ENSLAVE US ALL!

>And with kinetic weapons such as railguns, you'd need a fair amount of mass to keep from shooting off in the opposite direction

Fuck that, use the recoil to cancel out you're approach velocity. Now you don't have to waste fuel braking.

>What I don't get are how electronic countermeasures work

Imagine to people having a light hearted conversation. You have an air horn.

>>2901197 Drones are out due to both the inflexibility of modern programing

lol?

>>implying the air-force and every single defense contractor is not spending billions on UAV technology

>>2901197
I think the cost dynamics (in terms of whether a missile is cost effective against a particular target) would be completely different than what we're used to if what is at stake is entire planets.

I'm thinking that if a fleet had any ships that were truly indispensable to its purpose (supplies, surface invasion force, etc.) those ship would be firing and detonating powerful explosives in a spherical perimeter around themselves for the duration of any fight. There's always going to be a missile that can destroy a large craft outright, and there's going to be a lot of them, so larger ships would be liabilities more than anything.

The density of missiles fired in general would be limited by how close together they can be without risking a chain reaction upon exploding, not their supply. Decoy ships would probably play a big role.

If it is possible to fire projectiles that can't be easily detected and shot down, projectiles that in turn contain their own weapons systems would be standard.

I'm not sure how you think a spaceship could function if an EM attack could take out any onboard electronics systems. Spacecraft rely on some of the most intricate software systems out there, and it seems to me that if the thing is going to work at all, it's going to be able to be running some automated decision making processes. It probably wouldn't make much of a difference either way though, since the effects of an EMP rely on the earths magnetic field to work.

>>2898134

Alright, I'm ignoring the grotesque amount of comments to read through and just making my immediate post based on the handful I've skimmed through.

Concerning the design of the Space Fighter, the need or rather the want of any form of wing is quite arbitrary. Simply because a winged-mass is what we all know today as a plane (consider the bi-plane, any current publicly-known jet or plane design), it does not mean that that is what is required for spacial navigation. Consider what we currently have mobile in space: satellites and ships, all of different designs (for brief missions and work). Now, are what we know as "space ships" built because they are the most mobile designs engineered as of late for spacial navigation, or are they simply designed in that method for Earth-bound flight (proprietor to and after spacial navigation). The amount of energy stored in the thrusters propelling a "space ship" is typically beyond what the ship itself can truly carry; therefore, it is removed and recycled (perhaps) after its use has been terminated. The ship itself can be relatively small in size, as long as it manages to reach the limits of zero-gravity (or limited gravitational pull) space. The devices we've used to transport fewer astronauts to and from the Moon is a much more suitable device for spacial navigation, now consider its design. Was it winged? Did it conceal giant turbine-like engines? In zero-gravity space, it's not whether or not how much heat you can exhaust in any direction to move, it's rather can you find something that will sufficiently propel you (considering you've fashioned something to propel from).

cont...

>>2901605

The idea of using turbine-like engine in space is null in use compared to propellant force. The wing of a plane or jet has been engineered for better efficiency of increasing lift and reducing friction/drag. It does this via methods as what we would commonly call it aerodynamics. Of course, it's not as simple as I've explained it, but my basic point is that the wings are developed to acquire lift. Now, lift from what? A commercial plane is lifting off of the Earth, it's lifting against gravity. A space craft (once in space) does not need to lift; therefore, it does not need wings. Even if wings are considered to be null in what truly lifts the fuselage, they were put there for a reason, so do the research and figure out what that reason is. My point here is that you can fold up the finest paper air plane around town, but in zero-gravity space, it will experience the same characteristics as a considerably sized boulder.

cont...

>>2901610

Now, OP, I believe your point was that these space fighters require to both reign superior in space & gravitational environments for "mineral rights." Now, something to bother yourself with, consider that Earth's gravitational pull is 9.81m/s/s (32.2ft/s/s), what if Planet Abbido XI (fictional planet) has a gravitational pull of 71m/s/s? Do you believe we would have manufactured our space fighters with the idea that it can resist ANY extent of gravitational pull or are we going to find our pilots crash landing and being squashed against the great force of gravity in other planets? This is of course a WHAT IF question, but you must consider it. Applying the understanding that all larger masses have an increasingly larger gravitational pull, if a single space fighter managed to even reach the distance of Jupiter, it'd be absolutely smothered. We can simulate anti-gravity; however, we cannot truly reverse gravity, yet. My argument here is that, these "space fighters" must come with somehow an ability to resist extreme forces of gravity, therefore the material used to build said "space fighter" must be that of the absolute strongest material (perhaps not that of Earthen creation) else the design will cripple against the force of gravity. For the pilot his or herself, they must have some device as to resist the gravitational strain he or she may experience when inside the cockpit else be squashed from the insanely brutal pressure.

end

Thread still here.. lets bury it.
.. hey OP. How are gonna handle FTL?

>>2901612
>>2901610
>>2901605

I want to tear your posts apart for being so much tl;dr;bs but it's not worth the time because I know you will continue with more tl;dr;bs

>>2901612
Honestly, if the interest is pursuit of "mineral rights" or habitable planets, there's no need for the fighters to be able to resist gravity in excess of the largest rocky planets. Now, I honestly have no idea how large those planets are and what the gravitational constants are, but they're certainly much smaller than, say, Jupiter, or any gas giant with huge gravity. Honestly, putting aside the stupidity of the concept of a manned space fighter, there would be little reason to use a fighter in an environment with enough gravity to be uninhabitable by humans, because there would be little reason to fight over one outside of a purely robotic scenario.

>>2901425
That's generally because of the current political climate. The enemy lacks any electronic warfare capacity so drones are effective for now. Given even a WW2 level of transmission warfare, those drones would be useless.

1: No fleshbag pilot limiting maximum G forces, piloted by a sapient quantum computer or something.
2: Doesn't need to be sleek and aerodynamic, although it will need to be micrometeoroid resistant if it is intended to travel long distances at high speed.
3: Most of the fight will involved detecting the enemy first in the vastness of space, so fighters will just be motherships which send out stealth probes to find the enemy then launch missiles.

>>2902136
Being aerodynamic is a necessity so they can fly in atmospheres, nebulae or if it's a huge fight then the atmosphere and shrapnel from destroyed ships

OP, if you really want to be "scientifically realistic" fighters just fucking forget everything, you have ever seen or head of in common TV/movie sci fi. They aren't like manned airplanes engaging each other in close/visual range, there's nothing like a dogfight because no matter where you're going or how fast you're going you can just thrust some verniers and turn around to shoot someone chasing you, and that's assuming that the weapons weren't mounted on turrets/pivots to simply turn back and fire.

There is zero need for aerodynamics. To evade enemy lasers they'd have to be maneuvering ungodly fast, fast enough to take advantage of what would at most be split-second reaction time differences to evade. Armor = mass = slow, and so they'd probably be unarmored and self-piloted by computer to achieve these super-maneuvers.

Your fighters should be really fucking cheap too, barely posing enough of a thread to count as targets worthy of the enemy, because the only real use fighters have in space combat would be to frustrate the enemy weapons targeting.. literally getting in the way of the major carriers/battleships, possibly just crashing themselves into enemy turrets on capitol ships or loitering around in front of them... overall constituting a giant swarm spread over too large an area to deal with at once.. basically designed to fly to the enemy battleships and disable them as much as they can/get them to waste as much missiles/rounds/time/energy as they can. It's a little disenchanting because it's not all flashy and heroic like you see in the movies, but that's what fighters will probably be like and you can either fucking deal with it or just bullshit some sci-fi crap to make excuses to be unrealistic.

>>2902107

The first things the U.S strikes before they go in are enemy radar/EW capabilities; they wouldn't send in the drones until they had air superiority anyway, and there are (and in the foreseeable future, as in looking at their planned budget/fleet status over the next 50 years) a buttload more manned fighters than there are drones. Drones free up the ability for the strike groups to move into contested territory while leaving the drones circling overhead to hold claimed territory. This of course in addition to any necessary precision strikes.

Also electronic warfare in its current state just wouldn't even affect the real drones we'll be hearing about in the next year or two, the X-47B, a stealth, carrier-based autonomous bomber drone. The key word there is autonomous, even if everything in the air is being jammed it can still decide and function on its own (and hopefully evade enemy detection and return to its carrier anyway, even if it had lost contact with the carrier for most of the mission).

>>2902136
To your first pointAI RIGHTS! WAR DRONES ARE SLAVERY! DOWN WITH SLAVERY!

To your second, aerobraking maneuvers are allot cheaper than propellant so space fighters might have limited aerodynamic features just to use the upper atmosphere to maneuver.

To your third, build the fighter around a coil-shotcannon using thermite rounds. Add a CO2 can and radar absorbing paint and the enemy isn't going to know that they are being shot at until they're already hit. The rounds aren't going to pierce all the armor, but thats why they are loaded with thermite. The thermite continues to add heat to the enemy, overloading radiators and wasting coolant. If the ship accelerates, the thermite runs along the hull, finding its way into moving parts and electronics. The recoil also adds the fighter in getting back to the mothership.

As for G forces, suspend the pilot in fluid with the same density as human blood. With that, the pilot can keep pushing until the bones rip free from the tendons.

>>2901673
OP here, I've narrowed it down to two methods, the first would be wormholes the only possible form of FTL travel that an Einsteinian universe would seem allow. The second was the Alcuibierre drive, which I actually prefer because of the fact that from what I understand of it anyone inside one of these fields wouldn't have to worry about the effects of time dialation. I've done my homework.

>>2902173
I am well aware of the majority of what you said. I know that most of what you see in scifi today is a load of unrealistic crap. And as for the cheapness, in the military everything you use is made by the lowest bidder, and that will hold true well into the future. These aren't meant for ship-to-ship combat,the distances involved would be too great. There are drone frigates in my story which see regular use because while armed all of the manned vessels in my story are more or less just glorified troop transports.

>>2901612
They wouldn't be intended for that purpose, in fact, considering that the only things I at least know of with that kind of mass (Jupiter) also puts out an assload of radiation anything that anything as small as these fighters would stay away because common sense dictates that without enough radiation shielding you want to stay the hell away.

>>2902189
Actually, in a theoretical wargames simulating a armed conflict over taiwan (USA vs China) the chinese would use powerful EW to pin down the US millitary.

Anything that works well for atmospheric dogfights would be complete crap for orbital dogfights.

What OP is asking for is like requesting a fighter jet that would also work well for deep sea diving. It's completely ridiculous and even asking for it implies a deeply flawed comprehension of the subject matter.

ECM is things like radio jamming, (closely related) radar jamming, as well as things like flares and chaff. ECCM includes things like frequency hopping, chirping, and other ways of working around jamming, as well as techniques like having a missile that gets jammed simply retarget the jammer instead, plus things like having missiles that recognize chaff or flares and ignore them. Basically it's an arms race back and forth, one side improves the data the guidance systems use to lock on, the other improves their ability to fake that information.

>>2904805
Won't be as much of an issue when each missile has an onboard computer and sensor array to make independent decisions.

>>2904865
Except for the fact thats what is done already.

Infact loading a computer and sensor suite onto a missile is hediously expensive. Consider that a missile is going to be destroyed in the end, does it make ANY sense to put a high end guidence system on it if the system will work once and Only once irregardless of weather or not it works?

Besides, you're missing the point. Both radar and radio use the same kind of physics and properties. A radar is actually a specialized radio, essentially.

>>2904991

Tomahawk cruise missiles cost around a million bucks each.

Also

> irregardless

>>2904991

Radar is a radio like a flashlight is a microwave oven.

lol @ lasers.
ITT: sci-fi dorks
Lasers require shitloads of energy and the minimum waist size is inversely proportional to wavelength, and believe it or not, lasers DO diverge.
tl;dr, using lasers in space is a fuckstupid idea.

>>2902163
Guess wat? Nebulae are not that dense.
Jesus christ it sure is popsci in here.

>>2905490
...a little rough, but you have a point.

Lasers are just plain inefficient weapons. They generate as much heat as light and don't have the output to defeat armor other than wearing though it gradually. For every laser mounted on a warship, and entire rack of missiles or even half a dozen cannons can be mounted.

This is not to say lasers are useless. A ray of light moves very fast and is very accurate. This makes laser weapons ideal for point defense, destroying the guidance systems on missiles and dominating civilian traffic. However, against a true warship, the only way for a laser armed capital ship to match another laser armed capital ship is for the first to be bigger than the other. This turns into an economic matter of "who can put more mass in orbit" and if a nation has the resources to win like that, they can win using any other tactic. As such, the capital grade laser cannon offers no tactical advantage.

>>2905650
I guess I should have been more elaborate. At short distances, lasers would be fine. You could get away with a relatively narrow aperture (less than a metre) with (assuming improved energy sources) decent power delivered to the target. By short distances I mean a few km or the distance that those 747 lasers are designed to shoot. What I was addressing were large scale fleet engagements, which in space I would imagine would be conducted at very long ranges. An earth radius or more at least. At those ranges, lasers will diverge a lot. I also forgot to mention that a collimated laser beam's divergence is also inversely proportional to the width of the collimated beam - a larger dia. beam (collimated) will diverge much less than a narrow beam. That's another obstacle to contend with at larger rangers. The spot size of a beam (when focussing it) affected by the diameter of the beam before entering the lens, and the focal length of the lens. assuming a well collimated beam, a large diameter lens with a really short focal length is the most ideal. but focal lengths that are less than the diameter of a lens are extremly hard to make (because you'd need to bend the light very sharply). yes i have the fomulae for these but don't feel like typing out all the eqns. Wave Optics was also the most difficult course I have taken to date (it was a 400 level course)
For instance, that laser that they shoot to the moon to measure distance... it is kilometres wide once it reaches the moon, and guess what that means? a very small amount of light returns from the retroreflector on the moon

This thread has been going for days...

What the fuck.

The space-ball is the most efficient and defensible space-fighter shape.

Personally, I find that a shot-coilgun would be far more effective than lasers. The shot is CO2 cooled (kills infrared emissions), RAM coated (defeats radar), and thermite loaded (adds thermal energy to liquid metal and gets stuck under the whipple shield). The idea is to saturate a large volume of space, limiting the evasive options for the target. The enemy then has two options. First, tank the shot and hope the damage isn't too bad. The other is to burn fuel like mad and hope to get out of the kill zone.
>>2905699
space combat is a facinating subject.

Am I to conjure that the Deathstar is the perfect space killing machine? it can readily move in any direction because of its shape. Put a grating over that exhaust pipe and you're good to go, right?

Take a ball, fill half of it with propellant, add main engine to the rear, retros, possible warhead and instrumentation to the front and maneuvering thrusters to top, bottom and left and right sides.

There is no cockpit. You wanna ride a missile, you do it on the outside.

>>2906981
>You wanna ride a missile, you do it on the outside.

>>2906981
Missile meet point defense grid. Point defense grid, meet missile.

>>2905714
Why does everybody think a sphere is a good defensive structure? You're giving a perpendicular angle to everybody.

No, it makes far more sense to give the ship a wedge or dagger like shape and simply maneuver to keep enemy ships from getting good angles on the armor.

>>2907251
>Five hundred missiles, meet point defense grid. Point defense grid, meet five hundred missiles.
FTFY

The point about ball(heh) is that you get maximum space with minimum materials and that the more spherical the design is, the more maneuverable it is.

And that perpendicular view? The target could very well have drone defenses or sensors, making ANY shape give a perpendicular view to at least some of them.

>>2907264
How is a sphere more maneuverable? its space, everything should be equally maneuverable.

also the gradual slope will make a sphere more susceptible to space debris and micro meteorites. a sharper slope should deflect things better.

>>2907251
Two square feet of 10" thick armor weighs the same as ten square feet of angled 2" thick armor. Angled armor is only really useful when you simply cannot find a chunk of material thick enough, or when you know which directions you're gonna be attacked from and are trying to shave weight by reducing thickness.

>>2907288
>How is a sphere more maneuverable? its space, everything should be equally maneuverable.
Heh. Are you serious? I'm not talking about drag, I'm talking about simple rotational inertia.

And >>2907291 answered your point about deflection.

Better to build them cheaply in bulk and saturate the defenses, than trying to be cute with technology by building a dozen over-engineered missiles just to get out-gunned by the cheap&cheerful opponent.

>>2907298
rotational inertia should only matter for calculating shear point? if the ship is structurally sound, you can rotate it at the same speed regardless of its shape.

As for the other post, I'm not sure how the math was done. because steel is steel. it weighs the same no matter how you bend it, so I don't understand why changing the shape supposedly increases weight so dramatically

>>2907264
Does the term "cost effectiveness" mean nothing to you? If you spend five hundred missiles, each costing around $200 each (which is a bit on the cheap side) on a ship costing only 75 thousand, then you've essentially lost.

As for armor, stealth doesn't matter due to operational heat. An active ship is always going to be generating heat. No, what matters is reducing armor penetration. the idea is two fold. First, an incoming attack will tend to deflect against angled armor. Second, the angle of the armor will force incoming attacks to go through more material than a direct attack.

Furthermore, unless you've made the entire armor out of insulated material, you should be able to radiate some heat out of the surface of the armor. Therefore, limiting surface area really doesn't make sense.

>Heh. Are you serious? I'm not talking about drag, I'm talking about simple rotational inertia.

Irrelevant. Having thrusters as far away from the center of mass as possible gives them more mechanical advantage for rotation.

>>2907317
The fuck? Are you trolling or do you really have so much trouble comprehending text?

The less rotational inertia the missile has, the more maneuverable it is. When the closing speeds are only constrained by the amount of propellant and the exhaust speed and the offensive window can be milliseconds, maneuverability becomes rather fucking important.

>>2907391
>you've essentially lost
No.

The rest of your points: see other posts ITT.

>>2907391
>Stealth doesn't matter because you can't ever completely eliminate your own signature hurrdurr
You're missing the point of stealth. No stealth system COMPLETELY eliminates detectability. All it does is reduces your detectable profile (usually by quite a large margin), to decrease your chances of being detected and tracked. If a B-2 bomber flies 2000 feet directly over a common radar system, it WILL be detected. However, if it keeps its distance and flies low to help obscure its own signature among the radar return of the ground, it will stand a much better chance.

These principles still apply for spacecraft - in fact, very much so. We have a hard enough time detecting smaller asteroids within a single AU with the most sophisticated and powerful instruments available. What makes you so sure that space fighters will be easily detectable at such long distances among the vast sky?

Keep in mind that chaff, jamming and decoy flares can be powerful tools as well. Much more effective than attempting to stop a orbital-velocity rocket with fucking armor.

>>2907407
Different matter. As long as the mass is held near the center, rotational inertia is unchanged.

Additionally, if the missiles in question are too cheap, then long range lasers can burn out the sensor suite even through diffusion. (the diffusion would turn the laser into more of a shotgun than a rifle round, but the missile is so cheap it's not going to matter).
>>2907425
Also irrelevant as chaff and flares would be far more effective than the profile of the hull. Furthermore, spheres are easily detected by radar and offer no stealth advantages from any angle.

>>2907407
I thought we were talking about the ship not incoming missiles. But either way, rotational inertia does not effect rotation speed, it just limits maximum rotation do to structural integrity.

>>2907425

>These principles still apply for spacecraft - in fact, very much so. We have a hard enough time detecting smaller asteroids within a single AU with the most sophisticated and powerful instruments available. What makes you so sure that space fighters will be easily detectable at such long distances among the vast sky?

The most common method of detection in space would easily be heat detection.

Asteroids are cold. A spacecraft would be HOT.

And no, don't even fucking say your spacecraft could run cold. Heat exhaust is >THE< problem with space faring vehicles. A vacuum is a MASSIVE insulator: don't exhaust your heat somehow? You'll flash boil in minutes.

Most people think space is cold, when the biggest problem is cooling down in space. All but certainly, spacecrafts will vent their heat, and that'd be a shining beacon in regards to detection.

>>2907487
Giant ice cone infront of ship, protects against heat, and micrometeorites

>>2907526
Which is all well and good until you melt through the ice.

The kicker? In space water boils at a much lower temperature. Even a small amount of heat is going to thaw that block.

>>2907569
At first I thought good we need hydrogen for our drive

Then I realised STEAMPINK SPACESHIP

>>2907602
>steampink
Sounds like a dirty movie.

>>2907487
>And no, don't even fucking say your spacecraft could run cold.
My
Spacecraft
Could
Run
Cold.
I don't know why you think a spacecraft must constantly be generating copious amounts of heat, and I don't know why you think this heat couldn't be masked. Directional radiators aren't all that absurd a concept. Insulation exists and can be made very effective in space. In inertial "silent" cruise, I could easily reduce my ship's thermal signature in almost every direction to well below that of an asteroid. If both of us employed these techniques, we could pass within a few hundred thousand kilometers of eachother easily and never know the other was there.

It's not that complicated a thing to manage.

>>2907703
Short answer, read this
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacewardetect.php
long answer
it's because directional radiators don't radiate fast enough. It's because everything, from the engines, to the power plant, to the computers, to the very crew is generating heat. In atmosphere, this isn't an obstacle because of the air forming convection currents. In space, all you have to cool the ship is radiation which is by far the slowest means of heat transfer.

>>2907703

>I don't know why you think a spacecraft must constantly be generating copious amounts of heat,

Because thermodynamics?

>and I don't know why you think this heat couldn't be masked.

Because thermodynamics?

>>2907703
If you are in your ship, you would generate enough heat to kill yourself.

I had idea about cooling the day back.
If we are talking about sci-fi.
Maybe introduce some "magic" coolant, that will be able to cool ship for some time internaly, without need to radiate it outside.
To make it realistic, introduce need to replace this coolant periodicaly. This introduces different problems. Especialy in logistics for big fleets.

And you should think of some different kind of propulsion, that current standard reaction based ones. But thats IMO too sci-fi in this case.

Why are we assuming asteroids run cold? I thoight the parts in fitect sunlight wre warm. Arent ice comets conatantly melting and leaving parts behind? Dont our ships use insulation to kep the sun heat out?

>>2907809

If you'll read the last 100 years of good sci-fi (perhaps even since the start of the genre), you'll notice that the author only creates one style of science fiction, and one marvel or discovery which the characters deal with. For example, Neuromancer only deals with cyber-punk elements, and only dealing with "hacking".
You won't find a well-known book that has both elements of Mass Effect and Twilight.

>>2907809
No magic about it.

Endothermic chemical reactions. Essentially chemical reactions that absorb heat. Perfectly plausible, but tricky and expensive. Not something you want for a ship of the wall.

>>2907815
Asteroids aren't doing anything but sitting around. They've got no crew, no computers, no power plants. The only heat they receive is via radiation and said heat leaves via radiation at about the same rate.

Ships do NOT have that luxury. Ships need crews, ships need radios, ships need engines. All these things create heat.

or have you not done the research like a noob.

>>2907857
I dont read much sci-fi. And I dont know what the heck are you talking about.

>>2907863
The "magic" part would be to make it effective. You would need the material to absorb enough heat for your ship to work for few weeks or months, but still dont hog all your cargo space.

>>2907863
Why does the heat radiate back out? I tjoight the entire problem was space being a god insulator

Tip here. Fighters are not going to exist. If we live long enough to get into space we will definitely have drones to kill for us. Stealth will be the first line of defense. but you could litter a battle field (plane) with mines and turrets. We will always have good old nukes but they will be slow compared to rail guns and used as EMP if there is not adequate lead lining. EMR focusing may be used if we can get really dense energy storage. Hope this helps. Hard science is rarely as clean and interesting as the plot points of startrek and other pop science fiction. Most likely if we live to be interstellar civilization we will be peaceful.

>>2907932
Why not use railguns to fire the nuke?

Use applied magic to create Alcubierre drive, attach to multi megaton, multi warhead nuke. fire. take out all your space forces before they can even detect it. fuck you science.

have a funky engine that uses some clever fields to seperate out virtual particles in a vacuum into matter and antimatter before they self-annihilate, then use that to power the ship.

also a jet of antimatter particles fired from something like an ion thruster would be a pretty awesome weapon. it would just wizz through space at super high velocities and then blast the fuck out of whatever it hits.

it's an idea you could develop anyway.

>>2907737
>it's because directional radiators don't radiate fast enough.
You can't possibly know that. Hell, the Shuttle's radiators are essentially semi-directional (you sure as hell can't see them from the belly), and they do just fine. And you KNOW the shuttle runs hot as hell.

Even if my radiator was undersized, I could add a refrigerant cycle to drive its temperature up and increase the heat rejection from its surface until it finally did the job.

Or, for short-term solutions, I could vent cryogenic fuel, rejecting heat without producing elevated temperatures (heat of vaporization; sound familiar?).

And of course, running minimal systems at highest-efficiency levels will work the best. Nuclear generator? Turn it off. Use my fuel cells instead.

And that link - I've seen it before. And again, they have a very poor understanding of what stealth actually is. It's REDUCING your signature, not eliminating it. They're (and your) mentality is "DURR, I can't be completely invisible so I might as well stand out in the open waving a big-ass flag." So yeah, go ahead. Wave that flag. I'll detect and track you from 4 AU away and place myself at a huge tactical advantage long before you even notice I'm there.
>>2907763
Nice try, but I'm pretty sure I understand thermodynamics better than you do.

Mass Effect drives errywhere.

>>2908006
>Oh no, a proton. I sure hope it doesn't hit me in the eye.

>>2907943
Not sure if serious. We could from earth if we had a huge fucking ramp or barrel. But in respects to a fighter class (which this thread is about) Rail guns could only accelerate briefly to full speed. I doubt that internal mechanisms would survive that. Battle fields are huge and we already have computer assisted missile defense. It is hard to believe that anything slow moving can survive future battles.

>>2908067
Oh right fighters. I keep thinkin about biggwr ships.

>>2907815
>Dont our ships use insulation to kep the sun heat out?
To a small extent. But for the most part they rely on reflective coatings, such as titanium dioxide paint or that gold mylar you often see wrapped around flexible components, to reduce the amount of heat absorbed from sunlight.

fair enough

>>2908052

>it's an idea you could develop anyway.

>>2907918
Heat radiates out as infrared radiation\light. Everything with any thermal energy (i.e. heat) radiates infrared.

>>2908021
...not so much. The heat from the space shuttle can be seen from any angle. The entire surface radiates heat. Generally, heat isn't an issue because, for the most part, the shuttle isn't doing much but sit around. Still, the shuttle is not invisible to thermal sensors. it's always radiating heat.
>Or, for short-term solutions, I could vent cryogenic fuel, rejecting heat without producing elevated temperatures (heat of vaporization; sound familiar?).

CO2 heat flush, yes. unfortunately, that's too short term for hiding. it may give you a few seconds, but unless you want to cart around a gigantic tank of Coolant, you're not going to last more than an hour.

>And of course, running minimal systems at highest-efficiency levels will work the best. Nuclear generator? Turn it off. Use my fuel cells instead.

Burning fuel creates heat. Moreover, a perfect 100 percent efficient machine has never been created. Energy is always lost and this energy tends to become heat.

>And that link - I've seen it before. And again, they have a very poor understanding of what stealth actually is. It's REDUCING your signature, not eliminating it.

No, stealth is about not standing out. In space, the temperature is only a hairs breath from absolute zero. In order to blend in, the ship has to be near absolute zero. Human beings can not live at anywhere near absolute zero.

Now let me peel back to the stealthiest ship possible.

A rock. No more than a piece of ceramic floating in space. Entirely useless. Lets add something to make it useful! A camera? Needs electricity and wiring generates heat. A computer? Same thing and semi-conductors generate heat. A radio? same thing. And engine? Forget it. So you see, it's actually easy to be invisible in space, you just have to be completely useless.

>>2908423
Ahahaha, you're really desperately clinging to this notion, aren't you?
>The entire surface radiates heat.
The bottom of the shuttle is MUCH cooler than the radiators, and there is FAAAAR less heat flowing out of it. If you were to cover it in just a few layers of simple foil insulation, you could effectively eliminate heat radiating from the orbiter in the ventral direction. It would, for all intents and purposes, be EXTREMELY hard to detect from that aspect, as the topmost layer of insulation will indeed be extremely cold. You'd have a better chance at detecting diffracted radiation from around the perimeter of the shuttle's outline.
>for the most part, the shuttle isn't doing much but sit around.
The shuttle's doing more than my spacecraft would be doing during inertial cruise...
>CO2 heat flush, yes.
HELL no. CO2 is a terrible option. Water's great, but in space LH2's probably your best bet.
>Unless you want to cart around a gigantic tank of Coolant
I kinda have to carry shittons of propellant everywhere I go anyways...

>you're not going to last more than an hour.
I will easily if I run only necessary systems and reduce all unnecessary power usage.
>In order to blend in, the ship has to be near absolute zero.
THE FUCKING SHIP DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE UNIFORM TEMPERATURE
FUCKING INSULATION, HOW DOES IT WORK?!?
If I pile insulation on the side of my vehicle that's pointing towards my contact, I can maintain a black-body temperature of THAT INSULATION SURFACE that is damn-near absolute zero. My biggest concern at that point is radiating my (minimal) waste heat away from him without it diffracting around towards him again.

FFS, you guys suck at thermodynamics.

>HELL no. CO2 is a terrible option. Water's great, but in space LH2's probably your best bet.

CO2 is non-reactive and cheaper than noble gasses. You don't have to worry about the radiators corroding under high concentration enviroments.

>I kinda have to carry shittons of propellant everywhere I go anyways...

You BURN propellant. Otherwise fuel efficiency drops like a stone and the ship ends up taking months to get anywhere.

>THE FUCKING SHIP DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE UNIFORM TEMPERATURE
FUCKING INSULATION, HOW DOES IT WORK?!?
If I pile insulation on the side of my vehicle that's pointing towards my contact, I can maintain a black-body temperature of THAT INSULATION SURFACE that is damn-near absolute zero. My biggest concern at that point is radiating my (minimal) waste heat away from him without it diffracting around towards him again.

No insulation is perfect. Insulation can be warmed. Warmed insulation radiates infrared.

>I will easily if I run only necessary systems and reduce all unnecessary power usage.

you need to keep the cabin at about 273 Kelvin to keep the crew from freezing, bare minimum. You could go remote, but then you're either constantly trying to hit a moving target with a com laser or broadcasting your position.

>The bottom of the shuttle is MUCH cooler than the radiators, and there is FAAAAR less heat flowing out of it

...the bottom of the shuttle is the best, heat retardant ceramic we've got. Even that isn't blocking all the heat because the tiles have a temperature.

What I have learned today.
1 space rocks radiate heat
2 spaceship cant,pretend to be rock because it radiates heat

>>2907943
mostly because nukes aren't as good outside the atmosphere.

Without air for a blastwave or fireball, all you're going to get is a Really bright flash. Granted, this flash will be bright enough to vaporize the hull of a ship, but the lethal radius won't be as big as it normally would be.

Really, it would make more sense to load fragmentation or buckshot.

Space =/= fighterjets.

Its utterly pointless to shape it for manouverability (to a point obviously not making it a bitch to turn by having all your mass at the edges) but still. Any turning will have to be done by engines all over the place.

So go with something efficient for space like this bad boy. Star Trek aren't a million miles away you know.

Flying saucer or some other efficient shape like a sphere with an engine bolted onto it.

You can basically make it look however you want, and explain it away with technobabble quickly (Oh it needs those nacelles to maintain a stable warp field blah blah). Just don't go down the fighterplane route.

>>2908574
>hydrogen
>corrosion
Derp harder. I dare you.
When it comes down to it, I'm looking for certain thermal properties in my coolant. It MUST have a low-enough boiling point to not produce it's own strong IR signature when vented. Hydrogen fits this bill quite well. It's also extremely light, which cannot be stressed enough.

>You BURN propellant. Otherwise fuel efficiency drops like a stone and the ship ends up taking months to get anywhere.
This boiloff procedure is only an intermittent measure for when I REALLY need the cooling; i.e. when I'm running many systems at once or at high-power/low-efficiency levels. Under normal operations, my directional radiator will do all my cooling.

>No insulation is perfect.
Technically, you're right, but in space you can get SO INSANELY FUCKING CLOSE TO PERFECT that your enemy's sensors won't know the difference. It'll be about the same as if there WERE some cold, dark mini-asteroid that you were hiding behind.

>you need to keep the cabin at about 273 Kelvin to keep the crew from freezing, bare minimum.
Insulation, insulation, insulation insulationinsulationinsulation!!!!! For about an ounce per square foot, you could put so many layers of reflective mylar insulation on that the outside temperature of your spacecraft is in the neighborhood of 3 kelvin, with the inside at a balmy 300 kelvin. No problem.

The only REAL issues are a) limiting the excess heat produced, and b) radiating it in a direction where your enemy is unlikely to detect it.
>...the bottom of the shuttle is the best, heat retardant ceramic we've got.
For preventing heat CONDUCTION, yes. But heat doesn't conduct through a vacuum anyways. In outer space, a simple space blanket provides many times more insulation than the shuttle's TPS.

>>2909645
whats the smoky clear substance that can be heated to thousands of degrees on one side, but will be cool to the touch on the other? aerogel or something?

>>2909148

I like the look of the enterprise D, but you realize it's completely infeasible, right? That its shape is completely reliant upon the mobility that warp drives and magic deflector shields give, and that the entire hull is held together with magic forcefields? or that the amounts of energy they get out of the matter/antimatter reaction are higher than relativity states?

THIS is a realistic space ship. The only one i've seen in a movie/tv show since 2001: A Space Odyssey. (a pity that the rest of avatar was garbage)

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/realdesigns.php#Avatar_ISV_Venture_Star

>>2909667
Yep, aerogel.
Again, another insulating material meant to inhibit CONDUCTION and CONVECTION, but not radiation. One that, mind you, has far lower conductivity (in air, as well as a vacuum) than the shuttle's HRSI tiles, but is far more brittle.

>>2909645
>When it comes down to it, I'm looking for certain thermal properties in my coolant. It MUST have a low-enough boiling point to not produce it's own strong IR signature when vented. Hydrogen fits this bill quite well. It's also extremely light, which cannot be stressed enough.

First off, even gas can emit infrared, just like any other matter. Second, hydrogen easily combusts. Given battle damage, or even malfunction, a hydrogen tank is a time bomb for any ship with oxygen. Third, you do know how acid forms, right?

>This boiloff procedure is only an intermittent measure for when I REALLY need the cooling; i.e. when I'm running many systems at once or at high-power/low-efficiency levels. Under normal operations, my directional radiator will do all my cooling.

Your dodging the question. Fuel is burnt in an exothermic reaction for a reason. That stealth ship will never have the fuel to get anywhere by the time it matters.

>Technically, you're right, but in space you can get SO INSANELY FUCKING CLOSE TO PERFECT that your enemy's sensors won't know the difference. It'll be about the same as if there WERE some cold, dark mini-asteroid that you were hiding behind.

>The only REAL issues are a) limiting the excess heat produced, and b) radiating it in a direction where your enemy is unlikely to detect it.

Heat production is a byproduct of every activity a ship does. Of the 2000-3000 calories a human body needs on a daily basis, three quarters of this is turned into heat.

Also, if you can get a stealth system working, how do you know your opponents haven't done the same thing. If this is the case, how is any direction "safe"?

>Insulation, insulation, insulation insulationinsulationinsulation!!!!!

You do know by the time you get enough insulation to block all that heat, you won't have room for anything else, right?

>>2909667
Yeah, aerogel is the shit. It's like 95% nothing, that's why it's such a good insulator. It's very brittle though, so not good for a space ship

>>2909877
>First off, even gas can emit infrared, just like any other matter.
Which is why I picked hydrogen, derp. It's boiling point (in 1 atm) is a mere 20 kelvin, allowing an extremely low-signature way to dump heat when you really need to.
>Second, hydrogen easily combusts.
FFFFFFFFF-
Go take a fucking chemistry class or something. There's no oxygen in space, nor anywhere in my coolant loop. Hydrogen can't burn without an oxidizer; the only reason we view it as "reactive" is because we're so used to living in an oxygen-rich environment (wherin, when it comes down to it, OXYGEN is actually the more reactive element).
>Third, you do know how acid forms, right?
Hydronium activity. Which brings me back to
>No oxygen
>No nasty caustic reactions

>That stealth ship will never have the fuel to get anywhere by the time it matters.
FUCKING-
I'm NOT going to be running the evaporator all the time. The radiator will remain my primary means of heat rejection, until it becomes saturated and I need to resort to other means.
And if I'm loaded for combat, I'm going to have a shitton of extra propellant anyways.

But if it really bothers you that much, forget about it. I'll just run low-power all the time, or at least until my location has been compromised and stealth can no longer help me hide.

>>2910113
>>2909877
>how do you know your opponents haven't done the same thing.
If he's smart, he WILL be doing the same thing. But I'm not about to go out and blast away with my radar to try and hunt him down. I'm perfectly fine with never seeing the enemy, just so long as he doesn't see me either.
>If this is the case, how is any direction "safe"?
Any direction is safer than every direction. This is the principle behind modern geometry-based stealth technology as well; by only reflecting radiation in a select few directions, there's FAR less likelyhood of a detectable radar return being bounced directly back at your target. Likewise, by radiating my waste heat in a two-degree-wide beam, I've cut the odds of projecting a heat signature directly at a threat by nearly four orders of magnitude.

And I must say, I rather like those odds.


Also,
>battle damage
Face it, with the insane relative velocities of orbital combat, combined with the necessarily low weight & armor of spacecraft and the harsh environment of deep space: if you're hit at all, you're toast. Done. FINITO. Much like with airborne combat, your best bet is to kill your enemy before he kills you.

I think alot of the issues I have with the entire concept is that I have no idea what you're supposed to do with a slow moving, fuel wasting, gigantic mass of insulation and coolant tanks. Really, it's no good at recon, being so slow that the data is outdated by the time it gets to report in. It's too well insulated to be a warship. It's too fuel inefficient for a merchant ship. With so much wasted space, it's just too expensive for refugee or colonial missions. With all that insulation and propellant storage, it's on the "List of Things that Can and Will Kill a City" and any orbital guard will blow it out of the sky if it gets within a light second range of any civilian facility just because it's a navigation hazard. It's not going to sneak within a light-second of a facility due to traditional radar. The only plausible case for this ship is to hide some VIP for a few months

>>2910113
>Which is why I picked hydrogen, derp. It's boiling point (in 1 atm) is a mere 20 kelvin, allowing an extremely low-signature way to dump heat when you really need to.

Irrelevant, the hydrogen gets heated into gas state quickly and the ejected gas can be very warm. Because it vaporizes so easily, it absorbs no heat before turning into gas. Also, hydrogen doesn't like to stay in liquid form so you've got it in gas already or hydrogen crystals are now building in your pipes.

>>2910517
cont.

>Hydronium activity. Which brings me back to
>No oxygen
>No nasty caustic reactions

NO. Acid does not require water to form. There are, infact acids that are INSOLUBLE in water. The mere fact that pressurized reactive gas is coming into contact with warm, thermally conductive material means that inevitably, some reactions are going to occur.

>There's no oxygen in space, nor anywhere in my coolant loop. Hydrogen can't burn without an oxidizer; the only reason we view it as "reactive" is because we're so used to living in an oxygen-rich environment (wherin, when it comes down to it, OXYGEN is actually the more reactive element).

Oh? And yet, the crew breaths oxygen.

>And if I'm loaded for combat, I'm going to have a shitton of extra propellant anyways.

>>2910523
cont

...no, you're not. First off, propellant must be burned to get the maximum energy out of it. Otherwise, you have to generate enough energy to propel the propellant. Now, you are dead set on being stealthy so the propellant must be cold. Furthermore, since launching the propellant for thrust takes energy and no machine is 100 percent efficient, some heat is going to transfer to the propellant. Now this can be minimized by limiting the power input of the thruster, but that means you have to throw even more propellant for the same effect.

>. Likewise, by radiating my waste heat in a two-degree-wide beam,

...That is not a radiator. that is a fucking Heat Ray.

>>2910132

>kewise, by radiating my waste heat in a two-degree-wide beam, I've cut the odds of projecting a heat signature directly at a threat by nearly four orders of magnitude.

PFFFTTT hahahha oh boy. You do know transferring the waste heat into a device that can focus it and radiate it within exactly two degrees is going to produce extra heat, right?

Fucking Nicoll's Law. It's unavoidable.

>>2899426
>>2898794
>>2898684
>>2898660

I like this thread but there's some strong fail here.

FSW allows ailerons to remain effective in a stall.

That's an F-15 and a lot of its lift comes from the fuselage. That doesn't mean it doesn't need the wings, and fighters don't follow many of the same rules relative to normal planes in regards to stability requirements, etc. so the aerodynamics are beyond anyone here.

Missiles have a ludicrous thrust to weight ratio so a very small component of exhaust is required to offset weight. The fins are obviously for stabilization and maneuvering.

>>2910530
cont

>Face it, with the insane relative velocities of orbital combat, combined with the necessarily low weight & armor of spacecraft and the harsh environment of deep space: if you're hit at all, you're toast. Done. FINITO. Much like with airborne combat, your best bet is to kill your enemy before he kills you.

Not unless you've properly compartmentalized. Unless you're hit by an especially heavy hit (in which case, your enemy would have to generate an absurd amount of energy), a spaceship should be able to deal with a comparable degree of damage as their wet navy counterparts. Kinetics can be defeated with a Whipple shield. Lasers with chaff and refractive armor. Fuel can be vented, reactor mass dumped. What kind of designer would have their ship destroyed by a minor hit? (well, gundam excluded).

>>2910582

>chaff

Chaff is little bits of foil deployed to provide an overbearing signature to radar. The lasers would have to be radar guided.

I think his point is that in space you can accelerate a teddy bear to indecent speeds with no air resistance and have it cause severe damage. Space agencies monitor shit like large paint chips because that shit'll fuck up the Orbiter. The same Orbiter that survives a zillion degree reentry.

>>2910601
fine, smoke screen.

Whipple shields are good against micrometeors traveling up to 18 km/s

>>2910559

Trekkie detected.

>>2910582
I think you're severely overestimating the types of hits that a space warship could take. I doubt there is a whipple shield capable of defeating a large high velocity orbital weapon. Rather, space combat will likely be fought at extreme ranges with target acquisition being defining factor. The potential of destruction that a high velocity orbital weapon needing a minimal launch velocity is much greater than a passive defense could provide.

You only hope is that you can intercept incoming weaponry long before it reaches you.

>>2910650

why the FUCK would you do this. everything will be BVR: radar, sound, IR, MAYBE TV guided a la Mavericks. worst case fucking nothing, best case "hey look at me I blinded myself."

>large high velocity orbital weapon.

...how large? It's not like you can put a 120mm shot coilgun on a fighter.

...scratch that, designers would build a fighter around the gun.

there's also the case of over penetration. A high velocity round wouldn't have time to fragment properly so for the most part, a kinetic might end up just blowing a thin tunnel of DOOM through the ship.

Also, don't count on shooting down dumb fired kinetics. They've got nothing generating heat and can be cooled upon release from the sabot.

>>2910703
Your up against a laser armed warship five times your size. Fuck detection, put up a smokescreen, light some flares, and pray to god that they don't take pot shots at you.

If you still want to see whats going on, launch a tethered camera.

>>2910741

You're FUCKING retarded. Go back to /v/.

>>2910875
Can you explain how? No? then fuck off.

>>2910904

Sure.

How do you take pot shots with a laser from dozens of miles away?

What the fuck would smoke even do? Like I said, most shit would be radar or IR guided, and even TV guided shit wouldn't be fooled that easily for that long.

There's nothing particularly retarded about the remote camera. Well actually there is, but not compared to everything else.

1:Speed Is going to be Important, having 4 inches of depleted uranium armor won`t mean SHIT if you`re enemy ca`nt get a lock on you,but a spaceborne fighter can still be heavily armed/armored,remember, having no gravity can be an advantage.
2.lasers/railguns/coilguns are going to be you`re best weapons,NO argument.
3.fuck the pilot.

>>2910944
Lasers are composed of light. Smoke blocks light and hides the ship. The enemy knows approximately where the ship is, but they can't pin point it. The smoke also blurs the IR signature. Flares add to the confusion. Radar is jammed with metallic particles mixed in with the smoke (Hence chaff).The camera is tethered so it has a hardline connection that can not be jammed.

And the pot shots are from the kinetic weapons.

>>2911182
Yes, definately and
>3.fuck the pilot.
I'm going to have to disagree there.
Without a pilot, you've got two options. One, pilot it by remote. However, it's likely that the enemy is going to be closer to the fighter than you are. This means they can broadcast louder to the fighter than you can and that means that the signal can be jammed or garbled. this is to say nothing of the light speed lag which factors in even at quarter-light second ranges.

the other option is an AI driven fighter, but besides having a typical computer driven foe being dumb as a high explosives in vacuum and lacking any initiative or adaptive thinking, any computer smart enough to compensate for this is either A) way too valuable to waste in a fighter jockey seat or B) demanding rights and pay and considering their intelligence and capacity, it's going to be a whole lot cheaper to just put a warm body in there.

The G force issue can be dealt with by suspending the pilot's body in fluid that matches human blood in density. This would be good until about the 46 G mark.
Citations!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force
Preventative surgery may help counter the side effects for professional pilots.

inb4 mass effect drives, mass relays, SSV normandy

OP have a future with no wars! :D
everyone learns to treat their fellows in the same way that they would want to be treated

problem solved

>>2911337
That shit about the computers being too advanced is retarded, by the time we have the tech to build MOTHER FUCKING STARFIGHTERS we will definitely have advanced enough computers to fly them, probably on our cell phones. And there's no reason to program any sort of desire for rights or compensation into a starfighter computer.

>>2912576
It's not the speed or power of the computer that's the issue. It's the flexibility of the programing. On one hand, in order to even compete with a human's level of flexibility, a computer has to be smart enough to question orders. The ability to tell that it's current orders are either illegal or pants on head retarded, for example. On the other hand, if you give something, which is now a someone, the ability to question, how do you get them to stop.

Ultimately, the whole concept of AI is a finicky buisness which is not well understood.

lol bump

>>2911337
what about gravitics? how do you stop those from sensing you?

>>2913155
not an issue unless your as big as Honalulu.

...no yo'mama jokes, please.

>>2898538
Lol.

NEW QUESTION:

A lot of abstract terms such as "bubbles" and "vacuum levels" are involved, but in layman's terms, this means the universe was built from dodgy parts and ended up with an energy level too low for more than temporary sustenance. Therefore, at any given moment, it could call it quits and succumb to the pressure, only to be replaced by higher energy levels.

This was quoted, as surely some of you know, from a cracked article. I don't understand though why the universe would be replaced by higher energy levels. I always thought that everything tried to get to a lower energy state, hence why thermodynamics works. Does this vacuum theory stuff not contradict that?

>>2910559
>You do know transferring the waste heat into a device that can focus it and radiate it within exactly two degrees is going to produce extra heat, right?
Why the hell would it?
>Parabolic reflector around my radiator
Done.

Hey, to all the retards who think the concepts of stealth don't apply in space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_(satellite)
>Misty is reported to have optical and radar stealth characteristics, making it difficult for adversaries to detect (and thus predict the times it would fly overhead).

And I think the DoD probably knows a LITTLE BIT more about stealth technology and where it does/doesn't work than some arrogant fuck on the internet whose only qualification is a high-school integrated science class and years of watching Battlestar Galactica.

>>2913300
Oh yeah, that spy balloon that ended up getting CANCELED.

Not a very good example.

>Parabolic reflector around my radiator. Done.
Of course, this is ignoring the fact that the parabolic mirror reflects the heat back into the radiator, or back into itself, and cooling is down to useless levels.

Really, all you need to be stealthy is an inert chunk of radar absorbing material. And Nothing Else.

>>2910682
If that's true, then thats a pretty plausible reason to be running around in fighters.

>>2913335
that would keep you stealthy in radar, you would still be visible in other wavelengths obviously. Just like you can still see stealth fighters in visible light.

stealth spy satellites like Misty are stealthy in the radar wavelengths used to detect satellites right now, but they still need to radiate heat from power production, so they would be visible in infrared. and if they're not visible in infrared they're visible in some other wavelength.

>>2913335
>Misty
>spy balloon
>cancelled
It's a stealth satellite, dipshit. And it's operational. My pic was only tangentially related.

STEALTH
WORKS
IN
SPACE

Deal with it, fags.

>>2907485 rotational inertia does not effect rotation speed

Rotational inertia does affect energy required to reach a desired speed.

>>2907943 Why not use railguns to fire the nuke?

Because railguns fucking destroy anything that gets shot out of them?

How old are you pascal?

>>2898134
>scientifically realistic ... sci fi
>realistic sci fi
>FICTION

>>2916010
And the longer moment arm of the wider-spread thruster means greater (MUCH greater, as it turns out) efficiency of your thruster.

It makes me wonder why spacecraft never have their RCS thrusters on the ends of a boom.

Why would any futuristic space fighter be manned? remote controlled, or better yet, ai controlled fighters would be capable of manuevers and accelerations that would turn any human pilot into a red paste to the g's involved. Plus on that note, why would you even use fighters? I think space battles will consist of swarms of automated manuverable smart bombs ( even better if they are carrying nuclear payloads) that are as small as possible to avoid detection by radar, emit as little heat as possible, etc. Both ships will send out thousands upon thousands of these dronebombs hoping a handful reach the target as automated railgun or laser turrets attempt to shoot them all down. Putting pilots into ships and expecting them to fight it out like a ww2 dogfight is just fucking retarded due to the distances and dangers involved.

>>2916089

Bending moments, structural integrity, mass etc

>>2916196
This always annoyed me about BSG. Why weren't the Cylon ships running circles around the human fighters? Without bodies they could have been doing 10x the speed, turning at right angles, all kinds of crazy shit.

>>2916214
Sorry, can't answer that. I don't watch BSG so I don't know what you're talking about.


But, when it comes down to it, Anon is right; an elongated design will have higher moments of inertia. This, of course, will be offset by the greater leverage of the attitude thrusters along the longest dimensions. It's just a matter of which effect is pronounced more.

>>2916214
Cylon ships were still controlled by biological creatures, they should've been all electronic for maximum efficiency.

>>2916209
RCS thrusters are very low-thrust. We're talking, hundreds of pounds for something the size of the Shuttle. Not exactly demanding on structure.

It's additional structure which means additional weight. You can't just have it on the end of a bendy pole, accuracy is very important.

Are they going to be deployed the entire time or do you need a mechanism to pull them in for atmospheric flight?

>>2916879
>accuracy is very important
At the thrust levels you're going to be making finite adjustments at, it will be. For gross rotational maneuvers, it won't be.

Nevermind the fact that increasing your thruster's moment arm will decrease the needed impulse (and thrust) proportionately.

And my bringing it up was merely a tangent, about pure spacecraft (as in, 100% exoatmospheric) being used today. RCS propellant is a major constraint on the operational lifetimes of many satellites; it only seems logical that they would make a concerted effort to reduce consumption.

Besides, a starfighter (if such a thing were even plausible) would most likely be thrusting quite often, and could control attitude most of the time with simple thrust vectoring.

>>2915877
No, the system still has no means of stopping IR. Furthermore, the satellite was tracked by amaturs with telescopes. This was something without crew or engine and it still Failed.

So no, the misty project was a failure and was not stealthy. Your argument is invalid.

>>2912696
See>>2916196

>>2918053
>Satellite spotted twice, trajectory backtracked from launch vehicle
>Lost both times not long after; couldn't be reliably tracked
>Misty I still in orbit, whereabouts unknown
>Misty II has never been spotted at all due to more secret launch parameters and more careful orientation to ensure no reflections touch the surface
>Both are a mere 300-600 km up, rather than several AU away
And again you fail to understand that no stealth system is perfect. Most satellites in LEO can be EASILY tracked by visual OR radar (note, NOT thermal, because thermal imaging technology inherently lacks the resolution to spot objects that far away unless they are running several thousand kelvin).

And if you did your research, you'd know that not even HOT asteroids such as Mercury-crossers are detected thermally - most are detected through visible or near-IR. Furthermore, most known Mercury-crossers are also Earth-crossers, and are only known because they've made close passes to Earth in the past.

>>2918620
>are not detected thermally
Ahem.

>>2918620
The whole misty project is one big failure seeing as hobbyists were able to spot them. Multiple times.

It was never shown to mask it's IR signature.

>Furthermore, most known Mercury-crossers are also Earth-crossers, and are only known because they've made close passes to Earth in the past.

...citations?