Re: TVTrope's Infodump page

On Jun 30, 8:11 am, David Johnston <da...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:11:20 -0700 (PDT), Jordan179

I also notice that David Johnson's "big" space doesn't seem to have
the lightspeed signal lag issue that real spacetime possesses,

Sure it does.  It just doesn't matter.

What, there's no advantage having the decision-making minds in a
position where _their_ signal turnaround to the robotic enemy is a
matter of seconds while the enemy's decision-making minds are minutes
to hours away? Or are you simply assuming that all battles are
forever to be fought within a light-second or so of the Earth.

maybe he assumes that no one's ever going to have anything worth
destroying or escorting beyond Low Earth Orbit?

If you want to destroy something, _shoot missiles at it_.  

If you want to protect it, shoot missiles, lasers, or cannon shells at
the missiles. Which you can't do unless you have the defense platform
near the object being defended. And which you can't do in a _timely_
fashion unless the sapient mind making the targeting decisions is
within a LS or less of the defense platform.

Again: are you assuming that nobody's ever going to have anything
worth destroying or escorting beyond Low Earth Orbit?

A "warship" in space is going to be terribly vulnerable, because
defenses and lifesupport cost too much mass and evasive manuevering
costs too much propellant.  

It's true that at _present-day_ levels of technology life support
costs a lot of mass, making unmanned battle platforms mroe efficient
than warships. But as technology advances, we're going to build
bigger and bigger spacecraft, until we reach the point where the extra
mass for life support becomes a less and less important factor.

Defenses do and always will cost "mass." Whether this is "too much
mass" depends on the ship's propulsion capabilities and the sort of
combat it's designed to survive.

As for "evasive maneuvering" costing "too much propellant," again this
depends on the ship's propulsion capabilities.

You seem to be assuming spaceships no larger than the Shuttle Orbiter,
being limited to chemical rocketry, or at most to solar or nuclear-
powered ion engines, forever. Is that your assumption?

<i>Escorting something is pointless.</i>

How so? Presumably these missiles you're firing are pretty damn easy
to track, because "stealth is impossible," and they can't evasively
manuver because this would cost "too much propellant," and they must
be rather flimsy because defenses would cost "too much propellant" too
-- so they'd be pretty easy to shoot down. An escort would thus make
the difference betwen survival and destruction for the object being
escorted.

Come to think of it, why can't the warship easily defend _itself_
against these missiles, given your physical and technological
assumptions?

Intercepting things in deep space doesn't work. The relative velocities are going to be too different. You'll just zoom past each other.<

You're assuming that the warships have no significant delta vee
superiority over their opponents, and that (despite the fact they have
been tracking these un-hideable opponents every step of the way) there
is no way that they could try to match vectors a _long_ time before
they got close to one another.

There are in point of fact a number of fairly good space-combat games
that use Newtonian maneuver mechanics -- have you ever tried to game
this situation out? Or would the use of such a plebian technique as
_actual EXPERIMENTATION IN A SIMULATION_ be too low for your lordly
Platonic ways?

Furthermore, "intercept" could simply mean interposing an object into
the course of an enemy object in such a way as to cause a kinetic
kill. For that, the higher the closing velocity (within the limits of
the computers controlling the astrogation of the interceptor vehicle)
the _better_.

- Jordan
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: TVTropes Infodump page
    ... If you want to destroy something, _shoot missiles at it_. ... costs a lot of mass, making unmanned battle platforms mroe efficient ... Defenses do and always will cost "mass." ... totally imaginary propulsion systems and it's OK for them to do that. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: New space settlement article
    ... >> SPS to be greater than the mass of space habitats. ... >> a wholew different area of topic, but I think all colony designs ... The other side is the cost ... of materials and their processing. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Branson and Bigelow to team up for a space hotel?
    ... obtaining the minimum cost for doing so. ... physical reality of what it takes to launch payloads into space. ... launches - that adds $60 million to the cost of getting up given mass. ... Since NASA is already running a refueling depot competition then let ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Low Cost Interceptor
    ... >>> Even simple cruise missiles like the V1 cost a lot more in materials ... Step it up to a nominal fifty or hundred pound warhead with guidance ... does not mean that it won't be a potential threat in the future. ...
    (rec.aviation.military)
  • Re: We can meet all our needs through space development
    ... mass of solar cells has not been dicussed. ... the lab with quite a large mass per surfae area. ... The key factor is cost per watt electrical since that determines the ...
    (sci.space.policy)