Coolest/Dorkiest Essay Ever

  Quote

I: THE ENVIRONMENT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

 

First and foremost, we must realize that space will present a new unique environment with new and unique challenges for any military operations in it. Space warfare will not resemble sea warfare or air warfare; it will be its own thing (this is really where most depictions of space warfare in SF go wrong, from a realism perspective). What are the major environmental factors in space that will influence combat?

 

Well, the thing you really have to remember about space is that it’s big, dark, cold, and empty, and, paradoxically, you have perfect visibility. This brings us to our first realization: there will be no stealth in space. Any source of radiant energy in space will be very obvious. Since any spacecraft will be emitting a lot of radiant energy (your vessel will usually need to keep its habitation module several hundred degrees warmer than the external environment to prevent your crew from freezing to death for starters) it will stick out from the cold darkness of space like a campfire in the desert at night. Surprise attacks will be rather difficult, to put it mildly, when the enemy can see you coming halfway across the solar system. One possible solution is to try radiating all your heat in the opposite direction from whatever you’re trying to sneak up on. The problem with this is that it can easily be countered by the enemy scattering monitoring stations (basically just satellites with infrared scopes in them) throughout the solar system, something that would cost relatively little and that a militarized spacefaring civilization would be foolish not to do. A better idea is to try storing your waste heat in an internal sink until you’re on top of your target. This might work, but this approach runs into another problem: in order to sneak up on your target you will at some point have to put yourself on an intercept course with it, and when you do so you will reveal your position and your enemy can determine exactly where you’re going and when you’ll get there with a little college level math.

http://forums.spaceb...ad.php?t=131056

There's an entire forum for discussing this stuff!

lol

Why don't the spaceships just have some kind of cooling apparatus surrounding the external hull, so that all of the heat energy is cloaked? Like in Predator when he covers himself in mud?

  On 12/28/2011 at 12:00 PM, Braintree said:

Why don't the spaceships just have some kind of cooling apparatus surrounding the external hull, so that all of the heat energy is cloaked? Like in Predator when he covers himself in mud?

Because that would be stupid and nerdy

So those forum people wouldn't be interested in it

Nobody?

Damn.

This stuff is blowing my mind. I'm giddy reading all of these theoretical strategies as they are detailed; especially since it's such a unique and unexplored field.

It's be interesting to see these concepts introduced into storytelling over the next few years. I think the first filmmaker to realize it could have a nice impact, in a way that's gonna make movies like Star Wars and the like look dumber than they already do.

Wow, I'm really glad i'm not a member of THAT forum. Is the essay actually good, as in, well written and varied? I'm not even going to start reading that monster of a post.

To each his own, i guess...

Yes it is. I read it in two sittings and was thoroughly engaged the entire way.

It's nice that although the author is citing numerous principles of physics you do not need to have an understanding of them because he spells it out in a way that laypeople can comprehend.

they should watch Battlestar Gallactica. i reckon the space battles in that are what they describe, innit?

hm so these guys seem to put some thought into their thinkings...

but that dude seems to be still caught up in contemporary metaphors of scale (time and otherwise) and structure of things that will traverse space?

isn't it highly unlikely that space battles will be fought out by manned vehicles at all, for instance? now already it looks like unmanned space travel is far more effective than trying to keep a bunch of meat bags alive during a mission.

why not propel unstoppable big rocks towards the enemies' vital organs, and hide massive defense systems behind them?

Once something the size of our moon is on its way towards you, it should be hard to come by..

  On 12/30/2011 at 5:34 PM, phling said:

isn't it highly unlikely that space battles will be fought out by manned vehicles at all, for instance? now already it looks like unmanned space travel is far more effective than trying to keep a bunch of meat bags alive during a mission.

this basically. I really don't think people would actually be piloting these things. more then likely it will be remote and that essentially nullifies his entire argument

it IS like battlestar galactica but we're the cylons

also i have a feeling AI will take this entire field over. military strategists will be replaced by programmers trying to one up each other with algorithms that will make direct human warfare primitive in comparison

In the sixth section The Myth of the Space Fighter he alludes to the fact that human crews would likely end up being obsolete for reasons of inferior computational ability and the fact that life support systems would no longer be a factor in ship design.

This guy doesn't even talk about using massive inanimate ballistic objects to rod planets, as in Anathem. What a loser.

Hopefully by the time any of this is possible, we would have overcome our petty tribalism and warmongering that the whole discussion is moot.

  On 12/30/2011 at 10:23 PM, baph said:

This guy doesn't even talk about using massive inanimate ballistic objects to rod planets, as in Anathem. What a loser.

I believe he does, in passing. He also points out the increasing similarities between ships with engines big enough to compete in this manner and the missiles they are likely to carry and how said ships, with their tremendously powerful reactors, may very well end up being the missiles themselves.