tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post3135369483376091893..comments2024-03-28T00:43:37.279-05:00Comments on Future War Stories: FWS: Ships of the Line- Space CarriersWilliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-53255159156456030642024-02-19T23:49:21.956-06:002024-02-19T23:49:21.956-06:00<a href= "https://uk49smresult.info/2024/0...<a href="https://uk49smresult.info/2024/02/17/uk49s-teatime-prediction-for-today-13-february-2024/ </a><br /><a href= " rel="nofollow"><br /><a href="https://uk49smresult.info/2024/02/13/uk49s-teatime-result-for-today-12-february-2024/ </a><br /><a href= " rel="nofollow"><br /><a href="https://uk49smresult.info/2024/02/17/uk49s-teatime-prediction-for-today-13-february-2024/ </a><br /><a href= " rel="nofollow"><br /><a href="https://uk49smresult.info/2024/02/15/uk49s-lunchtime-prediction-for-today-12-february-2024/ </a><br /><a href= " rel="nofollow"><br /><a href="https://uk49smresult.info/2024/02/16/uk49s-teatime-result-for-today-11-february-2024/ </a><br /><a href= " rel="nofollow"><br /><a href="https://uk49smresult.info/2024/02/16/uk49s-lunchtime-prediction-for-today-12-february-2024-2/ </a><br /><a href= " rel="nofollow"><br /><a href= "https://uk49smresult.info/2024/02/17/uk49s-lunchtime-results-today-13-february-2024/ </a>uk49smresulthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03901416116154210390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-2070937131121174892017-01-17T10:20:51.573-06:002017-01-17T10:20:51.573-06:00The concept of Carrier is seriously considered whe...The concept of Carrier is seriously considered when only a small squad of fighters with anti-ship weaponry can and had blew up dreadnoughts with very heavy armor and powerful guns.<br />I would like to think that Fighters would be a lot more relevant in space when exotic weaponry is the name of the game. When 1 anti-matter torpedo is enough to glass an entire fraking planet, when a few fighters that managed to survive the point defense screen can turn a big battleship into a wreck while their bigger brothers and sisters distracted their enemies with slug-fest.<br />Or defend the ships from enemy fighters and projectiles like missiles and torpedoesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-42532019640997493012015-12-22T04:50:59.343-06:002015-12-22T04:50:59.343-06:00Trong vô vàn các cơ sở thẩm mỹ đang cung cấp dịch ...Trong vô vàn các cơ sở thẩm mỹ đang cung cấp dịch vụ khiến bạn đau đầu, mỏi mắt tìm kiếm câu trả lời cho <a href="http://greentara.vn/nhan-mi-mat-gia-bao-nhieu-la-hop-tui-tien-GT145.html" rel="nofollow">nhấn mí mắt giá bao nhiêu</a>.<br /><br />Hãy đến Thẩm mỹ viện Green Tara để trải nghiệm dịch vụ và được tư vấn tận tâm nhất. Với đội ngũ y bác sĩ nhiều năm kinh nghiệm Green Tara sẽ mang đến cho bạn đôi mí mắt đẹp và hoàn toàn tự nhiên nhờ <a href="http://greentara.vn/bam-mi-han-quoc-PO53-10.html" rel="nofollow">bấm mí hàn quốc</a><br /><br />Không chỉ thế, Green Tara sẽ giúp bạn giải đáp mọi thắc mắc liên quan đến <a href="http://greentara.vn/uu-nhuoc-diem-cua-bam-mat-hai-mi-han-quoc-GT153.html" rel="nofollow">bấm mắt hai mí hàn quốc</a>.<br /><br />Với ưu điểm lợi thế công nghệ được chuyển giao 100% từ Hàn Quốc, <a href="http://greentara.vn/bam-mi-han-quoc-PO53-10.html" rel="nofollow">bấm mí hàn quốc</a> sẽ khiến cho bạn hoàn toàn hài long với diện mạo mới. Đến với Green Tara, bạn sẽ không phải lo lắng về <a href="http://greentara.vn/90-khach-hang-thac-mac-nhan-mi-duoc-bao-lau-GT126.html" rel="nofollow">nhấn mí được bao lâu</a> hay bận tâm đến <a href="http://greentara.vn/bam-mi-han-quoc-xuyen-sun-giai-ma-hien-tuong-khien-chi-em-phat-cuong-GT132.html" rel="nofollow">bấm mí hàn quốc xuyên sụn</a> hiệu quả ra sao<br />thẩm mỹ việnhttp://greentara.vnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-24672570035882573852015-11-04T13:08:09.845-06:002015-11-04T13:08:09.845-06:00Manned dual atmospheric craft will be needed for s...Manned dual atmospheric craft will be needed for space transport systems between star-side and dirt-side. The main issue is expense and the starlift power of VTOL thrusters, Also, if and when an tactical transport shuttle took damage, it could effect its ability for atmospheric reentry and/or orbital accented. Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-21897022022383529692015-11-03T19:05:13.994-06:002015-11-03T19:05:13.994-06:00why do people keep making the mistake of assuming ...why do people keep making the mistake of assuming that manned endo/exo atmospheric attack craft are a bad idea? in any plausible future war story the grunts will need air cover when fighting on a planets surface, getting to the planets surface, and evacuating wounded off of a planets surface. you cannot perform these critical missions with missiles(you also can't replace infantry with missiles as the pentagon is learning in Syria). likewise a small fighter is a harder target than a huge battle ship and if you're using realistic designs have a better chance of getting in close enough to hit a vulnerable spot on a much larger ship or space station ensuring it is at least disabled if not out right destroyed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-45449311000385542522015-08-10T00:10:27.608-05:002015-08-10T00:10:27.608-05:00Two minor quibbles at first:
1. The Robotech &quo...Two minor quibbles at first:<br /><br />1. The Robotech "Hermes" class ships are more accurately classified as 'arsenal ships'- as they carry purely expendable (though apparently very sophisticated) munitions, rather than anything that could be considered "recoverable" or "manned".<br /><br />2. The Imperial-class SDs are carriers... to a point. A better example would have been the older Venator-class, as the Imperial-class placed much more emphasis on its battleship and assault ship characteristics, thus requiring it to make considerable sacrifices.<br /><br />Consider that the Imperial-class ships are ~1600 meters long, and only carry about 72 TIEs. Which sounds like a lot, until you learn that a Venator was about 1000-1100 meters long (can't remember off-hand what the precise number is), has a *much* thinner profile, and carried 192 Eta-2 Actis interceptors and 192 V-Wings (or V19 Torrents)... each of which is comparable in size/tonnage to the TIE fighter.<br /><br />And that's not counting the ARC-170s that it carried, or the planetary assault forces and gunships.<br /><br />In any case, carriers in an actual "scientific" representation of space warfare are really just a fancy name for particularly large and well-equipped arsenal ships and missile cruisers, given that manned space fighters are a terrible idea... if you're working under the assumption that space carriers are deep/interplanetary/interstellar craft.<br /><br />OTOH, if you instead work with the assumption that carriers are used to support surface operations, then you end up with carriers functioning in the "brown water"/"littoral" environments of orbital space, where there suddenly is a horizon and being able to see beyond it is both useful and important.<br /><br />In the open void, there is no horizon- space fighters, ergo, don't have much of a reason to exist. Of course, such a measure does totally throw out the traditional depictions of fighter carriers... mostly.<br /><br />Surprisingly enough, a few carriers on the list *do* fit such a task- the UNSC Infinity, the Imperial-class SDs, the Halcyon-class cruisers, and I'd argue the Covenant CAS/COS class vessels as well... in part because carrier functions are merely one role these vessels fulfill, and most/all of them are also designed to carry a meager-to-ridiculously-well-equipped planetary assault group (PAG?).<br /><br />This does bring up an important point: while dedicated carriers are unlikely-to-idiotic, what about space *fighters*? Personally, I consider them a "brown water" asset, used in a role more akin to a Coast Guard cutter than a dedicated attack platform. Which makes fighters a weapon of coercion- you use them for show-the-flag duties (assuming they or their transport can take them places), as well as customs/inspections and "anti-piracy" duties (the latter of which would likely consist more of inspecting suspicious ships while in orbit).<br /><br />Of course, all those tasks rather require a ship that *looks* more like a cutter than a fighter, so it might very well be that our basic conception of a "space fighter" is entirely wrong for the needs and roles undertaken by such a craft in the first place.<br /><br />Makes me wonder just how much we've gotten right about space warfare, because it's probably zero-to-none ;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-56816275410035319832014-10-20T07:56:23.379-05:002014-10-20T07:56:23.379-05:00If the rest of the ship is build correctly the onl...If the rest of the ship is build correctly the only weakness is potentially only launching up to 180 degress from teh ship center in one direction. You could always also project the energy to shoot the ships in any other area besides straight forward. but it could be good for getting the ships in formations without having to use fuel. You could use the energy to do different formation from different angles of launch also. Add a carrier surface to the opposite and and you have potentially 360 degrees of coverage.<br /><br />And as someone else mentioned landing procedures and trajectories could cover not smacking into the ship.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-17738084860633591052014-10-20T07:50:52.895-05:002014-10-20T07:50:52.895-05:00I think I have one idea as to why a traditional ca...I think I have one idea as to why a traditional carrier design might be good. What about magenetic or other propulsion setup and landings. Say if you can let them land like on a modern carrier lessen the affects of speed so it's a soft landing and use a magnetic coupling on the surface you could land with a lot of surface space for landing simultaneously. Same with take of. If you can propel them like modern ships forward you can aim and shoot many ships off and have them simply be brought to the surface and connect energy and shoot them one by one off the surface. Heck use it right and they can all launch together and not hit each other. then they land go back to their bay door and are brought into the carrier. then you have repair bays for the ship under the carrier surface with full functionality for each ship potentially. Fast repair fast launch.<br /><br />The rest of the ship would be crew and mostly either storage and or fabrication abilities. And obviously energy for the ship.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-12116074076871539852014-07-22T15:24:55.928-05:002014-07-22T15:24:55.928-05:00(Same guy as immediately above) Thought I should ...(Same guy as immediately above) Thought I should note that the author is correct about the EDF Omega and similar B5 front line warships appear to launch their fighters via some sort of catapult system (although older EDF ships appear to lack catapult launch capability and the fighters simply fly out of the side hangers at low speed under their own power as seen in the B5 movie "In The Beginning")<br /><br />Although never seen in the series. Logically a true "carrier" type EDF warship would most likely for purpose of both maximum capacity and redundancy use a combination of both "centrifugal release launch system" with fighter bays in the outer layer of the rotating sections as is done on the B5 station itself and also have a forward hanger bay like the Omega class with catapult launch capabilities probably in a larger expanded form.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-22464599524774896222014-07-22T01:31:18.275-05:002014-07-22T01:31:18.275-05:00Just a FYI note for the B5 universe concerning &qu...Just a FYI note for the B5 universe concerning "Launch and Recovery" the B5 station itself launches its fighters through what could be called a "centrifugal release system". Or in other words the fighters are housed in the outer layer of the spinning artificial gravity section with their launch doors “in the floor” below them which is actually a door in the outside surface of the spinning section.<br /><br />There is no catapult of any sort the launch doors simply open the fighters are pivoted downwards pointing nose out and then their docking clamps are simply released and the centrifugal force of the spinning section flings them out into space.<br /><br />It’s just like swinging a ball on the end of a string around in a circle above your head and then suddenly releasing the string and the ball goes flying outward.<br /><br />No catapult, magnetic or otherwise required and it’s a “free” launch boost since your already using rotating sections to produce artificial gravity anyway.<br /><br />Source information for that is the auto commentary from the producer and visual effect directors on the DVD series explaining that the external shots of the fighters being launched in this manner are correct and their trajectory and speed as seen is mathematically correct for this kind of launch system. You will also notice that the fighters do not fire their engines to accelerate further until they are a little distance a way from the station after their launch. A logical procedure for the reasons you point out.<br /><br /><br /><br />Now as to recovery, fighter recovery procedure of the B5 station was never really explored in the series but at least among fan discussions online it is believed that since the fighter launch bays do not seem to be designed to be easily and readily “reloaded” from the back end, the most likely and logical scenario following in the simple elegance of the centrifugal launch system would be tangential course intercept retrieval in combination with central docking bay retrieval.<br /><br />Tangential course intercept recovery procedure would be that the fighter would set its course and speed on a tangential line with the stations rotating section at a speed matching the rotational speed and thus upon reaching the outer edge of the stations rotating section in that moment would be moving parallel and at the same speed as the rotating section. Docking clamps simply extend clamp on and pull the fighter back into its bay. As an added bonus if anything goes wrong and the fighter strikes the station it is only a glancing blow at very little speed differential.<br /><br /><br /><br />Why an internet game based on the B5 universe that features a “carrier” warship would not use the same type of sophisticated simplicity of centrifugal release launching and possibly also tangential course recovery is beyond me. Perhaps they never listened to the DVD commentaries where at least the launch system is fully explained.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-21604346679199406292014-04-07T09:08:34.963-05:002014-04-07T09:08:34.963-05:00Wow! That is a great question! There is some simil...Wow! That is a great question! There is some similarity in both of those ships that had not considered before you asked that. Interesting. The UNSC Infinity as a more divisive weaponry package, but the SDF3 has lots of fighters and experienced fighter pilots. Plus, if the Infinity was able to deploy boarding parties into the SDF3, the REF would be fucked. Between the ships slugging it out, I think the Infinity...by a hair. Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-42269352547127016752014-04-05T01:10:41.342-05:002014-04-05T01:10:41.342-05:00Dude who do you think would win ? The infinity vs ...Dude who do you think would win ? The infinity vs the sdf3<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-6116299640517832632013-01-08T16:56:15.936-06:002013-01-08T16:56:15.936-06:00I agree with you that Star Trek and Star Wars are ...I agree with you that Star Trek and Star Wars are responsible for softening modern science fiction. They have become such cultural icons that most people think of them if you mention the words "science fiction", and on the whole such movies don't give the most accurate picture of space travel. I think a lot of issues- especially those regarding the ethics of space colonization and alien contact and the biological issues of space travel- offer as yet underutilized story telling potential.<br /><br />The reasons why the Discovery 1 from 2001 could not land on a planet were because its plasma rockets could not generate enough thrust for landing, and the ship was not designed to take a full G of acceleration and would fold and break if it were subjected to a planetary gravitational field. However, if you specify that the 27th century starship can accelerate at ten Gs and accelerate to 1/6 the speed of light, the ship has more than enough thrust and structural integrity to land on Earth many times over!! <br /><br />The delta-V requirements of high speed space travel call for torchships that won't even notice the delta-V of a take off, and a properly designed nuclear powered engine could probably generate enough thrust for lift-off, the biggest concerns may be practical ones- the starship might vaporize anything underneath it!! Radioactive exhaust is another problem. A nuclear or antimatter rocket engine will emit dangerous radiation. The local inhabitants may not appreciate the fallout and backwash of neutron radiation your torch engines leave behind you. Bad for property values. But, it is POSSIBLE for a ship equipped with a high-thrust nuclear fusion or mass-conversion torch engine to land.<br /><br />Probably, the answer to this question of whether a starship should land depends on the actual design of the starship and where you intend to land. It may be safer to leave the starship in space and use shuttles instead, even if it could. If a starship does land, it will most likely descend tail-first like a classic rocketship, and possibly land in oceans well way from inhabited areas. Not belly-first and right on top of alien archeological sites like the starship in Prometheus. A mass-conversion drive that emitted neutrinos as its exhaust (I've seen at least one paper on this concept) could land on a planet without melting down the landing site- this would be the most practical interstellar drive for landing the starship other than an antigravity engine. <br /><br />Landing a starship is not much of a mistake, compared to portraying interstellar travel as being much like a week-long cross country drive. Landing a big starship only calls for liberal application of unobtanium, not for handwavium with a generous helping of technobabble like superluminal flight. :,D I can imagine a realistic scene where a far future starship lands on its tail in an alien ocean. Shuttles are still more practical for most purposes. And, most starship designs I have seen are not equipped to land.<br /><br />One paper I have read stated that it is very hard to build things in space, especially if you are in a spacesuit getting your knuckles skinned, so we should not make a mega-construction project like a starship any harder by decreeing we construct it in space. Instead, we will build ultra-heavy lift launch rockets to put fully assembled components in space. Perhaps the orbital docks will only assemble components, or we might even boost a fully assembled starship into orbit, fuel it, and send it on its way. <br /><br />This makes some sense- after all, we have not BUILT anything in space yet, only sent up modular components and assembled them like a cosmic lego set. For really big O' neil type colonies and multigenerational starships, though, in orbit assembly may be necessary- even if it just putting together components launched from a nearby planet.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-5107377546774106772013-01-08T07:48:32.001-06:002013-01-08T07:48:32.001-06:00There was a time in sci-fi that hard science space...There was a time in sci-fi that hard science space travel was seen, and 1968's 2001 showed us that not all ships are the Enterprise. <br />I personally think that Star Trek and Star Wars are massive responsible for the softening of science fiction, but the treatment of starship has space-going boats is a mystery to me. It could be related to ancient mythos...or Starblazers. <br />One of my favorite mistakes made by sci-fi is the landing starship. Any real hard science ship would like the ISV Venture Star from Avatar, constructed in space for space. Trying to get that thing through the atmosphere would result in an very expensive fireball.<br />I agree with you, any combat starship would be fighting three enemies: the nature of space, the enemy, and life aboard a metal tube.Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-51196479800783564852013-01-07T18:26:47.956-06:002013-01-07T18:26:47.956-06:00There haven't been many "realistic" ...There haven't been many "realistic" or believable starships in fiction, and I can't recall any in combat- but there may have been a few somewhere. It would be interesting too imagine. The craft might find that their own propulsion systems are deadly weapons, at least at short range, and I wouldn't be surprised of people who could launch starships could also field multi-terajoule gamma ray zappers and clouds of antimatter as weapons... XD I suspect "realistic" space combat will be far more operatic than we might imagine at first.<br /><br />It seems to me that most authors nowadays don't spend much time thinking about the challenges of real space travel, or simply dismiss it as impossible for humans and write about such absurdities as "mind uploading" (which is impractically difficult for many of the same reasons as a transporter transfer is, and would not preserve the original brain's consciousness even if it was possible). Hardly anyone since the 50s seems to spend much time thinking about pertinent BIOLOGY of space travel, like the threat posed by cosmic rays or the difficulties of adapting to a planet hosting an ecosphere based on an alien biochemistry. Neither has anyone given much thought to the social issues of space travel in recent years.<br /><br />For example, the only mention of cosmic rays I can recall was in James Blish's "Cities in Flight" series, where spindizzy screens are polarized to stop cosmic rays, and a character who had flown on starship-cities before the technique of polarization was invented is riddled with cancers but still lives due to anti-aging drugs. The only mention of the importance of designing a functioning microsociety for star travel was in AE van Vogt's "The Voyage of the Space Beagle", where we spend a lot of our time dreaming up new social structures for starships in an attempt to not lose as many ships. The 1000 chemically castrated men of the Space Beagle spend their entire voyage to the Andromeda Galaxy fighting over who is in charge, so clearly their society did not work. :P<br /><br />Thermodynamics as an important issue for any area of engineering, but it is important to remember that there is more than one way to deal with waste heat. A heat sink, like that used on the Eagle lunar landers, can absorb heat from a laser, although this will limit the number of shots you can fire. Expendable coolant is another possibility. And, you must know how much waste heat you must deal with- modern lasers are VERY inefficient, but future lasers could be far more efficient than todays.<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-26071198300645954322013-01-07T18:22:24.540-06:002013-01-07T18:22:24.540-06:00Well, to be honest, my comments above were more mu...Well, to be honest, my comments above were more musings on the differences between space travel and ocean travel, in the context of SF books and shows that portray spaceships as something like boats. In particular, it seems to me that isolation of deep space travel and the difficulty of resupply and support are rather unlike modern sea travel. Far future space flight may be better compared to the exploits of the early humans as they spread from one continent to another, or the Polynesian people's colonizing islands in the Pacific Ocean, perhaps.<br /><br />Another interesting difference between spaceships and boats that I forgot to discuss was that spaceships cannot sink. You cannot overload a spaceship. A certain rocket engine will simply have less thrust when pushing a bigger payload, but the whole mess will never sink like an overloaded boat will- in fact, the same rocket engine uses on an interplanetary spaceship could be used as a maneuvering thruster on a huge space station!! And, in combat, the battleship of space can never sink. <br /><br />If the space battleships are designed to be compartmentalized and contain many redundant systems, such ships will be harder to kill than modern boats. Even if it is sliced in two, the two halves of a battleship may be able to survive and continue to flight and maneuver if the battleship was designed to be able to maintain maneuverability and firepower even when whole sections have been blown away. Read the excerpt of John W. Campbell's story "The Mightiest Machine" at the link below for an early SF discussion of this.<br /><br />http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardefense.php#id--Compartmentalization<br /><br />It does make some sense to design a large mothership that carries much smaller fighting vehicles into battle. The smaller vehicles can outmaneuver and out accelerate the larger mothership, and be sent on short-term missions and combat runs and then return to the mothership for resupply and transport from one part of space to another. I can also imagine a mothership carrying craft for planetary assault. It is up for grabs whether the mothership will carry space fighters, small assault rocket craft, or fairly large space warships, though!! XD<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-4587100254240556862013-01-05T07:12:00.536-06:002013-01-05T07:12:00.536-06:00I have to admit, I cheated on this article. I went...I have to admit, I cheated on this article. I went to the Quantum Rocketry Blog and read your comments and his post, and 'shaped' my article around it. He really did a nice job on that post. <br />There really has yeah to be a sci-fi work that shows hard science starships in realistic combat, and you make some good points about the future of military space travel. <br />I liked that BSG covered the stress of the supply line and how critical the basics would be in space.<br />To me...the critical missing element from most hard science starships is the heat radiators. In my own book, they are big factor in ship-to-ship combat. <br />You should read the latest issue of National Geographic on space travel...really amazing!Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17218428427067689631noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-10856445359437979722013-01-03T20:07:43.730-06:002013-01-03T20:07:43.730-06:00Another vital aspect of space travel is planning o...Another vital aspect of space travel is planning out the size, social structure, and leadership of the crew, especially on long flights like that of the terraformed asteroid ship. <br /><br />A colony ship also needs a reproductive program that avoids overpopulation and inbreeding, and provides the necessary environment to raise and educate children. This is still important even if we have fast continuous acceleration starships, since we must found a stable society when we reach our destination.<br /><br />Many SF stories, especially MSF, show spaceship crews that have a military style command structure, as most of the ships are warships. Most early space missions by the US and USSR were crewed by military personnel, which proved successful at dealing with crisis on short missions. Even in Star Trek, everyone on board the Enterprise is a member of a quasi-military organization. <br /><br />However, military style authority structure probably will NOT work on long duration exploration and colonization flights made of non-military personnel. Even with great advances in technology, interstellar flight will be a risky and time consuming affair. As in the terraformed asteroid ship, the crew will have to be a self-sufficient microsociety able to maintain the ship over a decades or perhaps centuries long flight. The entire cycle of human life, from birth through death, will play out on such a ship. New, novel social structures will be needed for such a flight.<br /><br />A social structure and leadership adapted to such a flight may, perhaps, be based on the human family rather than military authority structures or the bizarre contortions seen in some SF novels. This will be both familiar to the crew, and well suited to raising children on multigenerational flights.<br /><br />It seems quite likely that our first starships will be something like the airborne seed pods of terrestrial plants. An entire human society in miniature will be encapsulated by a starship's thin shell, carrying the elements of humanity out into the galaxy.<br /><br />The differences between modern day boats and a plausible starship go beyond the total differences in layout and design, but extend to logistics, anthropology, and genetics. These are issues that are frequently distorted or simply ignored, especially by so-called hard SF authors. <br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-48630624517092195792013-01-03T18:39:58.793-06:002013-01-03T18:39:58.793-06:00A big difference between rocket travel and ocean t...A big difference between rocket travel and ocean travel is related to logistics. As Chris Weuve notes in his article, a modern day naval fleet goes to sea for six or nine months at a time, with continuous logistical support, and returns pretty beat up. They need a refit. This support extends to satellite communications, metrological support, and land based aircraft. Campaigns are planned on shore. Most SF writers don't seem to understand these issues- and how truly alone Captain Kirk is on that five year mission. Even on a voyage to nearby Mars, the communication lags and lack of logistical support from Earth- at least on those initial flights- is utterly unlike anything modern fleets encounter. <br /><br />In a rocket flight across the cosmos, you must bring everything you require with you- air, water, the means to recycle them, and all your space parts, especially if you will be out of range of resupply and assistance for years (or perhaps indefinitely). A hydroponics section will be required to provide food for a rocket ship. The crew must have a workable social structure, and be capable of solving problems and making command decisions without relying on a mission control, which may be hours away by radio contact- or perhaps totally unavailable.<br /><br />It may make sense to send multiple interstellar ships to a faraway destination, rather than than just one, so if catastrophe strikes one ship another is close enough to help it. Perhaps each ship could be self sufficient in themselves, or a crewed ship could be accompanied by a robot supply ship that could be converted for habitation if the first becomes uninhabitable.<br /><br />I should note, however, that as a civilization settles and industrializes the space around it, bases, colonies, and other facilities will spring up that will provide services to spacecraft- we might see fuel stores in orbit or oxygen and hydrogen depots on the Moon, for instance. Shuttling around Earth orbit may be routine, for instance, and help nearby. Within a few light seconds of Earth, communications can be mostly real time. Even over longer ranges, civilized destinations and space infrastructure will make space travel somewhat easier. It is the long-range pioneering expeditions that are really alone.<br /><br />I read an old NASA paper recently, detailing a hypothetical interstellar flight to the Alpha Centauri star system. Antimatter engines and artificial gravity that does not require rotation were assumed to be available. The paper details a scheme to take a stony chondrite asteroid about two kilometers across, contain it in an artificial shell with the engines at one end and a spaceport at the other, and terraform the asteroid's surface with gardens and living space. In this ship, the crew will live during the thirty year flight to Alpha C- even raising a whole generation of children shipboard. This is not a SHIP per say, it is a traveling mini-planet!!<br /><br />As this paper states, "Interstellar space exploration is at once profoundly exciting and profoundly frightening. The isolation and vast distances along the paths of these starlines are beyond the understanding of today's civilizations."<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-243613923544460592013-01-03T18:37:14.436-06:002013-01-03T18:37:14.436-06:00Hi, William!! :-) Happy New Year- and I hope you h...Hi, William!! :-) Happy New Year- and I hope you had a good Christmas. The new Ships of the Line series is pretty fun. I've read the article Nyrath suggested- it is pretty amusing, and a rather interesting read.<br /><br />On the whole, a lot of SF authors have chosen to portray spaceships as being something like boats in their layout, and borrow various naval metaphors for space wars. This extends to laying out spaceships like boats, with the decks laid out like an airbus and the engines in the back. SF writers borrow various models of combat from wet navy fleets, ranging from the age of sail, WW1 or WW2 surface action, subs in space, and most recently carriers in space. This silly, really (and rather lazy), but it is easy for a lot of people to think of a spaceship as being a like a ship that floats on water, and use historical analogues to describe it.<br /><br />But, it is rather interesting to think of what real space travel is like, and see how different it really is from sailing on an ocean. Obviously, a spaceship operates in a 3D vacuum, not on a 2D ocean, and is not ruled by hydrodynamics like a boat- so the craft will not be laid out like one. A carrier need only provide docking areas or a hatch for smaller craft to depart. This has all been discussed elsewhere, though.<br /><br />Another interesting fact about space travel relates to energetics. Simply put, travel in space requires ascending up gravitational wells and attaining great speeds in an environment ruled only by the laws of orbital mechanics. A boat just crawls around on the ocean's surface. It doesn't need to loft itself out of a gravitation field, or accelerate to speeds measured in km/sec. Ultimately, energy is the main defining factor of space travel. Achieving higher and higher speeds requires ever greater sources of energy.<br /><br />Spacecraft have limited carrying capacities, making it necessary to find compact fuel supplies. A rocket, also, must carry all the reaction mass- the exhaust accelerated out of the engine- in order to operate by the law of action-reaction, which is strictly enforced by universal physical law. All this adds up to vehicles that are totally dominated by fuel/propellent mass in a way not seen in terrestrial craft. It might be possible to avoid the restrictions of the rocket equation by utilizing lightweight sails that can capture sunlight, or beamed energy from back home, or perhaps to use a ramjet made of electromagnetic fields to sweep up the traces of hydrogen found in interstellar space for use as fuel and/or remass. These schemes have their own technical challenges.<br /><br />In a novel I have finished recently, "Return From the Stars" by Stanislaw Lem, the interstellar spacecraft Prometheus would weigh 300,000 tons on Earth- but carries only twelve men, as 9/10s of its mass is devoted to propulsion and the rest to instruments, probes, landers, and habitation areas and supplies!! This is perhaps a more plausible vision of an interstellar spacecraft. A similar craft is shown in this video on the "science" of Star Trek, with the conclusion that the Enterprise is completely out of proportion in regards to propulsion vs. habitation areas!! :-)<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0It3ERZzzY<br /><br />Christopher PhoenixAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-726484495782035142.post-43151588292425714872012-12-25T17:48:06.505-06:002012-12-25T17:48:06.505-06:00The Foreign Policy blog had an amusing article by ...The Foreign Policy blog had an amusing article by Christopher Weuve about the Battlestar Galactica. You may or may not find it useful.<br />http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/28/aircraft_carriers_in_spaceNyrathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11528898889244833751noreply@blogger.com