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A rant on physics, and "science" fiction
14 years ago
Anyway, so, I'm a fan of science fiction. More importantly, I'm a fan of hardcore science fiction: I.E. No force fields, no FTL, no mystery energy weapons, no random teleportation. Basically, I like it so long as you don't have to "invent" new forms of physics to make it work.
Now, one big debate has been over fighters in science fiction. Specifically, space fighters. Now, there are several complaints about this: First, drones would be more durable, cheaper, and disposable (Which is a big deal when you need fuel to speed up AND slow down), and they wouldn't have to worry as much about their pilots being crushed by G forces.
Of course, using drones assumes that you haven't just gone with hundreds of missles instead, but I digress.
Now, most of the arguments in space combat revolve around the cube squared law, IE volume of an object increases as the cube of it's side length, and surface area as the square (Well , 6 times the square assuming a cube, but this becomes negligible pretty quickly). Basically, 20 square feet of plastic wrap can hold more than twice as much as 10 square feet. This of course means you get more fuel for less hull to contain it, and thus better mass to fuel ratios, and a faster overall ship. In theory.
HOWEVER, this neglects the role of surface area in movement. IE thrusters are a function of the cross section of a spacecraft, with bigger thrusters being able to expell more fuel at any given moment (assuming equal speed of exhaust). Hence, a smaller ship is able to accellerate faster (though this will be limited by human durability, but still.)
Anyway, this faster accelleration means that between two ships travelling the same speed, the smaller one will, for a limited window of time, be able to outrun the bigger one, and as such will have complete manuverability advantage over the larger one. IE, it can move while the big ship essentially stands still.
Now, this gives an advantage to fighters assuming they get in close. But why would you need fighters at all? The biggest argument is that fighters go where big ships can't, and that they can go over the horizon to see where other ships can't. Now, most people argue that in space, excepting a nebula, there is no *horizon*, and that fighters could be seen lightyears off and thus be useless. However, what people neglect is that there is a movement horizon. In space, you can see things much sooner than you can reach them, and thus anything other than lasers will basically miss until you get to spitting distance. (Unless you want to spend a few planets worth of fuel on missiles) So, fighters could be moved ahead of the main ship, and be used to attack within range, while the large ship is still hanging back out of fire range. (To be continued.)
Now, one big debate has been over fighters in science fiction. Specifically, space fighters. Now, there are several complaints about this: First, drones would be more durable, cheaper, and disposable (Which is a big deal when you need fuel to speed up AND slow down), and they wouldn't have to worry as much about their pilots being crushed by G forces.
Of course, using drones assumes that you haven't just gone with hundreds of missles instead, but I digress.
Now, most of the arguments in space combat revolve around the cube squared law, IE volume of an object increases as the cube of it's side length, and surface area as the square (Well , 6 times the square assuming a cube, but this becomes negligible pretty quickly). Basically, 20 square feet of plastic wrap can hold more than twice as much as 10 square feet. This of course means you get more fuel for less hull to contain it, and thus better mass to fuel ratios, and a faster overall ship. In theory.
HOWEVER, this neglects the role of surface area in movement. IE thrusters are a function of the cross section of a spacecraft, with bigger thrusters being able to expell more fuel at any given moment (assuming equal speed of exhaust). Hence, a smaller ship is able to accellerate faster (though this will be limited by human durability, but still.)
Anyway, this faster accelleration means that between two ships travelling the same speed, the smaller one will, for a limited window of time, be able to outrun the bigger one, and as such will have complete manuverability advantage over the larger one. IE, it can move while the big ship essentially stands still.
Now, this gives an advantage to fighters assuming they get in close. But why would you need fighters at all? The biggest argument is that fighters go where big ships can't, and that they can go over the horizon to see where other ships can't. Now, most people argue that in space, excepting a nebula, there is no *horizon*, and that fighters could be seen lightyears off and thus be useless. However, what people neglect is that there is a movement horizon. In space, you can see things much sooner than you can reach them, and thus anything other than lasers will basically miss until you get to spitting distance. (Unless you want to spend a few planets worth of fuel on missiles) So, fighters could be moved ahead of the main ship, and be used to attack within range, while the large ship is still hanging back out of fire range. (To be continued.)
Fighters in space for the same reason as fighters on aircraft carriers.....ever hear of a swarm of angry hornets with missiles on them....cause that's what happened to several major battleships in World War 2.
This means that the bigger the ship you send out, the more you stand to lose, with the enemy not nessesarily facing a similar loss as a smaller ship could kill your big one in mutually assured destruction. So you probably would see little streams of fighters and frigate class ships who's sole job is to scoot around and keep space lanes safe, given the huge time and energy investments in accelleration.
modern disabled ships in battle groups are about the same way except they have only one plane of existance to travel instead of 360* to spin....as i recall battleships usually have secondary bridges....in case the first one goes....i don't know about smaller ships...or carriers but i do know battleships did....after all they had to make sure to be able to keep pounding the enemy, i am pretty sure carriers do too.
That said, I'm a lot better informed about biology, and I do love me a bit of Sci-Fi.
I hope, at some point in the future, to re-take my physics, maths and chemistry GCSEs and actually enjoy learning about the subjects. Until then, I can't really say much in response to posts like this.
Oh, and thank you for Watching me a few days ago.
And yeah, to this day I'm still giving thought to space combat. Really, the problem is that space combat gets going very fast, and requires so much fuel to manuver that there's no analogue in real life... except perhaps dueling in wheelie chairs propelled by fire extinguishers on opposite sides of a skating rink with darts.
Assuming darts are even the best weapon, which is a whole other debate right there.