/sci/ - Science & Math

>>6466843

http://www.eveinfo.net/wiki/shipsc~1.jpg

file too big and im not in the mood to scale it down. The largest eve ships hit 12km

no, there is no point. Smaller is better, because you have less mass to move around. Even the trend in satellites is smaller and smaller, replacing conventional propellant with ion thrusters.

SciFi battleships require SciFi power sources and propulsion… which don't exist and will never be economical.

>>6466907

18km sorry, And >>6466905 is at least a little correct on our scale. I imagine sometime outside of our lifetime though it will work more like boats and they will need to be bigger to staff more people in space.

We may have giant space habitats someday, or giant "colony ships" of some kind.

We will never have giant space battleships.

>>6466917

I feel like before we had invented heavier then air flight the same argument was made about plains.

>>6466843
only if we want to move huge quantities of raw materials, but I that would be awfully impractical.

>>6466907
that kid's bike costs more than everyone else's combined + he's still cheating

Bigger space ship = waste of materials and energy

Even when we will be mining asteroids, the best way to get those ressources home will be to propulse them toward earth orbit, not transport them with huge spaceships.
Maybe gasses will be an exeption though.

>>6468774
also bigger ships = bigger chance of getting hit by space debris

>>6466928
>I feel like before we had invented heavier then air flight the same argument was made about plains.

Huh? Did you reply to the wrong post?

I mean, you could theoretically make a kilometer long ship. It would probably be best not to, though.

Practically all manufacturing processes are Earth-based, and so making something that big and then flying it up is cost prohibitive. Making something in orbit would require a lot of fancy new machinery sent up, and could end up costing even more initially, however it's cheaper for the long run.

So, assuming you refine manufacturing processes in orbit, you could end up with large ships. However, to what end would you achieve making ships that big? For combat purposes? A ship that big is just a bigger target.

ITs called science FICTION you tards

Humanity is staring down the barrel of multiple existential threats... I understand you want to escape... into escapism.

But your purpose for now is to defeat the forces arrayed against us... they are legion, they are powerful. They have our techologies- our physicists have given it to them. Our engineers b uild their war machines of death- the Land Rovers and GMC trucks. Their agriculturalists rape our Earth... the computer Nerd Jockeys self-fellating a cultuer of inbred idiocy, rendering the defenseless masses numb and dumb in thrall to their devices...

The odds have never been longer, the stakes never higher.

So don't even think for a minute that there will be any building of great ships, any sailing beyond this rock. Forget about it- forever. If you fail to understand our situation you might be sucked into a career at NASA, working for the Killing Machines.

>>6469132
What do you think about Breeder reactors?

I hope this species dies long before it is even able to contaminate the rest of the universe.

>>6469938
Maybe the Aliens will except us if we turn into transhuman cyborgs with singularity fueled positronic brains. Instead of squishy little salty Neurons we will have trillions of super entagled quantum computers.

>>6469132

holy shit this is actually the stupidest fucking thing

what ever happened to actually trying to make the world a better place, and hoping for the future?

stupid fuckers like this on the internet, that's what

>>6469985
Fuck that man. We just need to love mother Gaia and shit. She is totally alive and not an asshole that will kill us off like some blind force of nature dude. To the cave!

>>6469938

It's not our species that is bad and contaminating, it is the socioeconomic model we are forced to live under that needs to die before it gets spread to other places.

A human is a learning machine that creates its model of reality as it grows and develops, and this model dictates behaviour/thoughts/feelings/attitudes/the-way-we-interact-with-the-universe.
The model one ends up creating is based on experience and teachings, and therefore if we are all learning destructive behaviours, we'll be destructive to our planet and the universe; but learning constructive behaviours (sustainable relationships to our planet, and others etc,.) then spreading out into the universe might actually be a good thing for the universe!

Capitalism is our current socioeconomic model and it teaches: ‘I think only about myself’, ‘infinite growth is good and we should strive for it’, ‘Externality? Never heard of it’, ‘I don’t care about polluting as I’ll be dead soon anyway’, and other destructive stupidities.

Replace capitalism with a method of Intelligently Managing The Earths Resources For The Betterment Of All Of Earths Life (maybe through Use Of The Scientific Method For Social Concern), and then suddenly we’re no longer a destructive plague that mines planets empty and leaves them polluted and dead, but an angelic force of equity spreading through the universe easing suffering and spreading joy!

>>6469992

>if I make fun of everything I can't possibly seem uncool

I'm not saying everything is sunshines and rainbows, humanity is going to have some shitty times

but saying "hurr everything is doomed don't attempt to do anything because it's futile" is just pants on head retarded

>>6468774
>Bigger space ship = waste of materials and energy
Bigger space ship = More awesome.

Trust me when I say that mighty Murica will never settle for little economical ships. Space HUV fucked space Humvee and injected Mighty GMC hormone straight into the heart. Also double bacon cheesburgers and deep fried pizza with an extra large diet coke.

>>6470004
>Hey look, a thread about rocketry and astronomy!
>Imma shoe-horn in soft sciences because I'm a gigantic tool.

Can we get back on track? What would be the point of a larger ship? Do the engineering challenges warrant the conceivably lower costs of megaships?

>>6470014
But America is adopting the lower-cost, smaller ship design now! Why do you think the shuttle program was discontinued?

I think it's a good turn. Now there are chances for newer, more innovative designs.

>>6469985
I think he may have meant something like "Stop being a sheeperson who lives in the fantasy that your owners feed you (thinking about wee-fun-space-battles), and instead start directing your mental efforts towards ending whatever the fuck is causing all the current earthly destruction that will stop ANY space ships from being built in orbit etc."
He might be talking about capitalism...

>>6469992
Well sort of, Gaia is just a metaphor, but hiding in caves doesn't get the mercury out of the fishes nor the sociopaths out of power…

>>6470009
I was lampooning the guy you responded to in order to show my support for your statement. Earth can suck a dick for all I care. I love Nuclear power plants and almost every other power technology that is more complicated than burning shit. By the time we ever figure out breeder reactors that don't have sodium fires or whatever some jerk will just figure out fusion reactors but that's only because green peace assholes and oil interest keep us from investing in the technology.

>>6470019
That is not a good thing. We need a private company or NASA or someone to build a giant Nova rocket.

>>6470004
>It's not our species that is bad and contaminating
>just our ideas which are a product of us
LOL

>Capitalism is our current socioeconomic model and it teaches: ‘I think only about myself’
Good, other people don't deserve my consideration
>‘infinite growth is good and we should strive for it’
More money for me the more shit I can afford.
>‘Externality? Never heard of it’
Did, but it's a joke.
>‘I don’t care about polluting as I’ll be dead soon anyway’
Exactly

But these aren't the problems, rather Christinsanity and it's just as retarded offspring socialism which preaches you have some obligation to others is the cancer. This feel good bullshit is the problem. It's because of this crap that we have the ethical bullshit that prevents medicine from developing at its optimal rate because 'boohooo all human life is scared' so I can't test on some hobo who is only a drain on society to develop medicine for me and my family and any of the other producers.

But this is derailing the thread so I apologize to everyone else. I'm just getting tired of listening to this anti-progress hippie blabbering.

>>6470070
It's a good thing. Bigger rockets are too expensive and not very efficient. The goal is to make things cheaper so that we get more things into space.

It's getting to the point that private universities could almost be sending satellites into orbit.

>>6466843
We've already built multi-kilometer long spaceships:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tether_missions

The reason why you make them so big is so you can interact with a planets magnetic field for propulsion

Longest so far was 31 km

>>6466843
>>6466843
>>6466843

Anon remember the titanic? Or the Spruce Goose? Or Hindenburg? We can't even build big earth ships, so how do you think we are going to manage with big spaceships. And when we do build big movable ships of any kind they are usually relatively slow and often serve as some sort of static base; ie carriers or the ISS.

And unless we start thinking about dyson spheres or some fucktard alien decides to declare war then we have no real reason to go to space anyway. There are so many untapped reserves of all sorts of shit under our feet that nobody has decided to look at mining or can't get to yet or hasn't even found. Look at Africa, those nignogs are living on potential goldmines of precious minerals and metals and shit.

We will go to Africa before we go to space.

>>6470185
That's a fairly simplistic way of looking at it.

A large orbiting body is always in constant danger of collisions. Of course, large is relative, so what I'm saying is that any orbiting body is in risk of collisions. Scaling it up gives you worse odds against getting hit, but a kilometer long ship would necessarily be built further away than most satellites if only to decrease drag.

You have a very misguided view on why we go to space. We aren't looking for materials there, we're looking for knowledge. The space program has yielded not only the most accurate view of the cosmos, but also practical gadgets and gizmos. It also has proven its use in telecommunications, but you already know that.

Besides, you're not representing the side of gaining materials from space at all reasonably. Nobody owns space, so there's no problem with us exploiting any and all asteroids or what have you we find there. But if we were to just up and steal from Africa? That's the kind of PR nightmare that I'm glad we don't have to deal with. (Heads up, Putin.) And we won't be building large ships to get to orbit or even to the asteroids. It's easier to move the asteroid than it is to process it up there, so I think a more reasonable solution would be to break it into manageable chunks and send them to get captured in an orbit around Earth.

>>6468797
You can't have that much shielding on a 1,000 kg satellite, but you can on a 1,000,000 kg one. And by making a large compartmentalized structure you can greatly increase survivability.

Plus, why not make it like a hermit crab, and just drill a hole in an asteroid, and put your system vitals inside. Boom -- big space ship.

>>6466843
The size of ships doesn't matter as much in space unless you make it of such significant mass that is messes with planetary orbits or plan to try to land it. For generational ship and other deep space it has some advantages, but for most things I find 0.5 km is plenty big if not too big depending on what you are doing.

That said a ship over 2 - 5 km will start having significant scaling issues with users. People are quick to point out how turbo-lifts and such fix that, but I see that as additional complexity which I wouldn't want on my ship. It makes more sense to me to have a fleet of ships no bigger then 1 km long that share resources and redundant functions, sure it cost more but I find reliability in space is worth paying for.

tldr : Maybe a few for very special tasks like deep space colonization efforts, but for the vast majority I would say no, and most certainly not for war.

if we ever want to go to another star, we may have to build multi-kilometer long vessels. pic related is a realistic design that is 1.6km long, and if you took out the fictional room-temperature superconductors then it would be something like four times as large.

obviously the tech for this shit is decades if not centuries away though.

>>6471856
how will that solar panel work in interstellar space?
Will it come packed with decades of energy via a nuclear plant or something?
Also, why not spin it to get artificial gravity?

>>6471882
thats not a solar panel, thats a protective mirror for the laser sail in our solar system.

it has a fusion plant for power

the human cargo is in cryogenic sleep, the crew cabin is on a rotation boom (you can see both ends of it just along from the mirror)

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Interstellar_Vehicle_Venture_Star

as i said, decades/centuries away in terms of tech, but its actually plausible.

>>6471886
>laser sail in our solar system.

i worded that poorly, the sail is on the front (stowed away in image) and is pushed by lasers in our solar system.

>>6471886
Except it isn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6H1TxRGLUc
Cool as shit, but not plausible.

>>6473979
End part is dead right to be honest, to say it will never happen is ridiculous though even with the laws of physics and material limits, considering most of the flaws or bottlenecks are dependant on the engine design in the first place. You will need to get creative or look at the problem differently I guess.

>What's the point of making them that big?
To fit in more reaction mass. If you want to go anywhere interesting within the span of a human lifetime you will need shitloads of reaction mass

>>6474266
Something akin to what magnetic confinement was to fusion is what I'm getting at.

Unless we discover a way to produce artificial gravity(note: not centrifugal force), then there will be a need for larger crafts in order to create a comfortable environment during longterm travel.

The available material and the stress it can withstand will set the limits for size of the vessel.

The propulsion system used will determine whether the size is practical or not.

>>6476141
>The propulsion system used will determine whether the size is practical or not.
can't we just add multiple systems anywhere? It's not like we need it to land on a planet.

>>6476141
>Unless we discover a way to produce artificial gravity(note: not centrifugal force), then there will be a need for larger crafts in order to create a comfortable environment during longterm travel.

Or just put the passengers in stasis somehow.

People tend to think of space as all one kind of place, as long as it's zero gravity or microgravity, and no breathable air. And then we imagine a single vehicle that goes to every space possible, because that's the easiest kind of science fiction related.

One thing Kubrick got right: five kinds of spacecraft for 5 kinds of mission.

Pic related: the Aldrin cycle ship can be as huge as you like, it never needs significant delta-vee. It's basically a planetoid in a very convenient orbit.

>>6476317
Neat

>>6476214
What's wrong with using centrifugal force for artificial gravity?

>>6476317
Trust me..

>>6466905
Mass is irrelevant to some degree in interstellar/intergalactic space. The closer to c you get mass becomes negligible until you hit tachyonic state. Mass does make a difference though when you're trying to slow down as onece a ship starts to approach a system the more time will need to be spent deccelerating.
>inertia

>>6476346

the constant load on the structure and the rotating sections.

Also, you would need a counter-rotating drum to keep the rest of the ship from spinning.

It's just not going to ever be practical, what you see in science fiction.

>>6476521

mass increases the closer to the speed of light you get. What deepak chopra relativity have you been reading?

;_;

>>6476187
>It's not like we need it to land on a planet.

I agree with this.

I really don't see the issue with creating a ship that can house the entire human population; said ship would be a lot smaller than the Earth and we'd easily be able to fit landing craft on it.

I'm not saying we've got the raw materials for something like this, but when we do, what's stopping us?

>>6476674

I cannot fathom the confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

>>6476187
When we add mass, we lose maneuverability. If you only have one main engine, you will have to turn around the entire ship in order to perform a retrograde-burn.

This can of course be solved by adding more or powerful thrusters, but you will still be limited by the maximum amount of stress the ships construction can withstand.

>>6476214
>Where we're going, we don't need bones!
DAA DAAAA DA DAA DADADAADADAAAA

>>647653
>what is vacuum?

>>6466843
>What's the point of making them that big?
It's intimidating as fuck.

>>6466843

OP, it's not the size, it's the technique.

>>6476807
I don't know. The way I see it anyone stupid enough to waste that much resources building a ship like that is just asking me to conquer them. I'd be doing them a favor toppling the incompetent government that built such things, likely at a high cost to their population.

It is like threatening a tank with a bipedal mecha, their only hope is I laugh so hard they get the first shot, because they sure as heck aren't going to have the element of surprise.

>>6476991
>The way I see it anyone stupid enough to waste that much resources building a ship like that is just asking me to conquer them.
Anyone with the kind of resources to waste on building a fucking massive warship can be assumed to have significantly more resources available.

>>6476998
If they have all those resources available, it is all the more reason to take their stuff.