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Thread: Military Science Fiction

  1. #341

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Baal View Post
    As for building spaceships, zero g allows a meagerly easier assembly of spaceships. The main advantage is that they don't need as much fuel to travel since they don't have to climb out the gravity well. But guess what? Is more expensive than doing it in the ground, since you still need to move up the building materials and fuel.
    If the final ship you need is too big to move out of the gravity well it won't matter how much easier or cheaper it is to build it on the ground. Reality sucks like that. You take the one-time hit for the ship and fly up the parts and fuel, assemble them in a high enough orbit and vacuum, and start start using the ship there. It's a simple binary equation in this case. You either get the ship or you don't.
    Last edited by Gaidin; January 12, 2013 at 10:24 AM.
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  2. #342

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Baal View Post
    No is not easier. The only advantage that vacuum gives is isolation. That's fine and dandy for a few things, but as I said most industrial process need actually the opposite. Also is far cheaper to create vacuum on the surface of a planet than using the vacuum of space and bring everything else with you. Is equally hard to make a clean environment on space. Hell is even harder to do it that on earth. You are forced not only to put on orbit the facilities but also a constant flow of supplies and materials in ample volumes.

    As for building spaceships, zero g allows a meagerly easier assembly of spaceships. The main advantage is that they don't need as much fuel to travel since they don't have to climb out the gravity well. But guess what? Is more expensive than doing it in the ground, since you still need to move up the building materials and fuel.

    It's possible to make everything we make on a planet on space? Probably yes. Would it be worthy? I doubt it. All in all planetary surfaces offer a lot of benefits that are there for free. It's free! You don't need such great feats of engineering or invent impossible materials to hold huge arse orbital facilities beyond imagination.
    High tech processes usually don't and prefer completely controlled conditions so them taking place in space changes little in terms of that they need to completely control the purity of their produce anyway. So them adding the atmospheric mix they want is just part of the whole idea of producing high quality alloys.

    You are assuming a civilization living on a planet. All the problems you describe the civilization would have to tackle when it went into space in style and breadth. There'd be no reason for a civilization to go into space if they haven't mastered zero G building and exploit the raw resources of an entire solar system or considered it worthwhile. There'd be no point in it if escaping a gravity well is still a major problem logistics wise (that doesn't preclude it being a cost factor).

    But once the civilization starts exploiting an entire solar system the vast majority of their industry and mining will take place in space anyway because there's far more stuff there than we'll find on Earth and there'd have been a reason to leave the planet in the first place that exploiting it is worthwhile. So I think the presumption that the planets are the interesting bits in conquering neighbors begins to fall apart. As you say, suddenly the places where planets aren't are more interesting because you don't have to haul material up and down a planet's gravity or deal with its atmosphere or deal with an ecosystem so doing it in bulk will be more economical there and you only send consumer goods back to a planet's population.

    Maybe they become the rural backwater areas none bothers with because the transport hubs and economy will be where it can easily gather stuff from all around the solar system and beyond; which is not necessarily a planet but maybe simply an orbit around the biggest concentration of raw resources, or a moon with a quarter the gravity and no atmosphere to deal with etc.


    If the final ship you need is too big to move out of the gravity well it won't matter how much easier or cheaper it is to build it on the ground. Reality sucks like that. You take the one-time hit for the ship and fly up the parts and fuel, assemble them in a high enough orbit and vacuum, and start start using the ship there. It's a simple binary equation in this case. You either get the ship or you don't.
    Once you moved your ship building off planet, why would you go back?
    "Sebaceans once had a god called Djancaz-Bru. Six worlds prayed to her. They built her temples, conquered planets. And yet one day she rose up and destroyed all six worlds. And when the last warrior was dying, he said, 'We gave you everything, why did you destroy us?' And she looked down upon him and she whispered, 'Because I can.' "
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  3. #343

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Mangalore View Post

    Once you moved your ship building off planet, why would you go back?
    I'm telling him that price of building on the ground vs flying parts up doesn't matter if your ship design is purposely made to be too large to make it out of the gravity well in the first place. Not an unknown phenomena in sci-fi. It's the cost of doing business.
    Last edited by Gaidin; January 12, 2013 at 11:01 AM.
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  4. #344

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidin View Post
    I'm telling him that price of building on the ground vs flying parts up doesn't matter if your ship design is purposely made to be too large to make it out of the gravity well in the first place. Not an unknown phenomena in sci-fi. It's the cost of doing business.
    I wasn't disagreeing. While the tech is unknown we know what capabilities must be achieved so it's at least plausible to have a spacefaring civilization in the first place. Not willing or being capable to lift stuff out of orbit would qualify as it being implausible for the space faring civilization to exist.
    "Sebaceans once had a god called Djancaz-Bru. Six worlds prayed to her. They built her temples, conquered planets. And yet one day she rose up and destroyed all six worlds. And when the last warrior was dying, he said, 'We gave you everything, why did you destroy us?' And she looked down upon him and she whispered, 'Because I can.' "
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  5. #345
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    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Mangalore View Post
    I wasn't disagreeing. While the tech is unknown we know what capabilities must be achieved so it's at least plausible to have a spacefaring civilization in the first place. Not willing or being capable to lift stuff out of orbit would qualify as it being implausible for the space faring civilization to exist.
    And that's if there's any powerful country, organization, or corporation that cares about it. What will happen if Russia or China stops sending people and equipment into space?

  6. #346
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    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Baal View Post
    No is not easier. The only advantage that vacuum gives is isolation. That's fine and dandy for a few things, but as I said most industrial process need actually the opposite. Also is far cheaper to create vacuum on the surface of a planet than using the vacuum of space and bring everything else with you. Is equally hard to make a clean environment on space. Hell is even harder to do it that on earth. You are forced not only to put on orbit the facilities but also a constant flow of supplies and materials in ample volumes.

    As for building spaceships, zero g allows a meagerly easier assembly of spaceships. The main advantage is that they don't need as much fuel to travel since they don't have to climb out the gravity well. But guess what? Is more expensive than doing it in the ground, since you still need to move up the building materials and fuel.

    It's possible to make everything we make on a planet on space? Probably yes. Would it be worthy? I doubt it. All in all planetary surfaces offer a lot of benefits that are there for free. It's free! You don't need such great feats of engineering or invent impossible materials to hold huge arse orbital facilities beyond imagination.
    Building ships in Space makes sense, just look at a Saturn Five to have an idea of how much fuel to Use Payload ratio it would take you to get anything out of earth gravity well.




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    Sure manufacturing some stuff might too troublesome in space or microgravity environement, but then you should have to build spaceships like we build Iphones : Build the sensible parts on Earth (Japan, USA and Germany) then ship to orbit to be assembled on the bulk of the "dumb part" of the ship (China). It is interesting that 80% of the Iphone value is not manufactured in China, and assembly itself only contribute 5% of the final product value.

    Also we don't need to build giant space statiots to build ships, in terms of Sci-fi what we are talking about is to manufacture all the "dumb parts" on a body with low gravity like the Moon or Ceres from materials mined from space resources (including the fuel too), anything too sensible to be manufactured in space for Milspecs could be important from earth, high value items like electronics or specific components.

    Heck you could even manufacture the Nuclear Cores of the Spaceships on Mars and then ship them to Ceres or Earth if it turns out that you cannot refine Uranium in Zero-G and nobody would be too comfortable with launching Nuclear reactors.

    Of course this infrastructure will cost in the 100 of trillions in Capital, but once set up you can build ships of almost Any size.
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  7. #347
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    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Simplest solution is to use space elevators to move prefab pieces into LEO. Then we can have cargo haulers move them to the moon for construction. Eventually once the moon is developed we can just build stuff there.

    Saturn V was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to join the air force just for a chance to get behind that kind of power. Shuttle is dinky by comparison. Next time I'm in central Florida I've got to go to Canaveral again. I mean it's a dinosaur, but it's a big dinosaur.
    Last edited by Col. Tartleton; January 13, 2013 at 02:56 PM.
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  8. #348

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Col. Tartleton View Post
    Simplest solution is to use space elevators to move prefab pieces into LEO.
    Wind suggests otherwise.
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  9. #349
    Col. Tartleton's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Whats wind going to do?
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  10. #350

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Col. Tartleton View Post
    Whats wind going to do?
    Mostly varying weather patterns will make dealing with crap at different altitudes(including the jet stream) a bit interesting. Then there's the O3 layer that can eat through some stuff pretty quickly without the right preparation. Failure cascade is also a problem. We also eventually lose the protection of the magnetosphere.

    Or we can fly the parts up. If we've got the fuel to get a capital ship too big to take off from ground started, we've got enough fuel to fly the parts up and build it at a space dock.
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  11. #351
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    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    One thing I am considering for planetary defense from ships in any level of orbit would be mass accelerators. Think of the HARP project back in (was it the 60's?). Just take that to its natural evolution as a last ditch defense of anything in orbit.
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    We just don't get films which accurately portray military decision making like Dr. Strangelove anymore these days.

  12. #352

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    HAARP, assuming it has military/climate applications, would be restricted planetside, facilities identified and likely knocked out from orbit.
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  13. #353

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Condottiere 40K View Post
    HAARP, assuming it has military/climate applications, would be restricted planetside, facilities identified and likely knocked out from orbit.
    How long would it take to scan the entire surface area of a planet to identify the location of the weapons systems?


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  14. #354

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Google Earth, Google Streetview, or their interstellar planetary equivalents.

    Though likely advanced recon and the usual espionage would have pinpointed most of them.
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  15. #355
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    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Let's say for reasons that I have yet to develop, the planet-based guns can't be easily destroyed and are grouped in batteries that are placed a safe distance apart.
    Quote Originally Posted by Carl Jung was right View Post
    We just don't get films which accurately portray military decision making like Dr. Strangelove anymore these days.

  16. #356
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    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Henry X View Post
    Let's say for reasons that I have yet to develop, the planet-based guns can't be easily destroyed and are grouped in batteries that are placed a safe distance apart.

    The whole problem of this discussion is that we have to define what is there to be defended, which depends on how much of your economy is in space itself and the nature of your FTL or lack of it.

    If most of your economy is planet bound then defending stuff on the ground with low key fortifications that can't be easily nuked from orbit without destroying everything, such as a city wide underground nuke proof bunker network, would make sense. But most of your defenses would be space stations around your planet, because unless the enemy can JUMP! in orbit like BSG then they have to come in an insertion orbit which means they can be fried.

    If most of your economy is space bound then the defense is likely going to be static orbital defense and mobile ships that protect other interests when not protecting your planet.

    Also if you have interestellar travel of the traditional kind but fast, along orbits, then mobile spaceships that could be deployed to intercept enemy insertion orbits makes sense.
    « Le courage est toujours quelque chose de saint, un jugement divin entre deux idées. Défendre notre cause de plus en plus vigoureusement est conforme à la nature humaine. Notre suprême raison d’être est donc de lutter ; on ne possède vraiment que ce qu’on acquiert en combattant. »Ernst Jünger
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  17. #357
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    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    A simple "shield" technobabble on the ground protecting the guns would suffice for most people (a la The Empire Strikes Back). I dislike such non-sense but you are free to include it on your sci-fi.
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  18. #358

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Condottiere 40K View Post
    Google Earth, Google Streetview, or their interstellar planetary equivalents.

    Though likely advanced recon and the usual espionage would have pinpointed most of them.
    You realize how long it took Google Earth to build up that snapshot of earth? And a lot of that is out of date. To say nothing that blending something in with the ground around it if you really want to is very doable especially if the enemy from orbital height doesn't know more than what state to look.
    One thing is for certain: the more profoundly baffled you have been in your life, the more open your mind becomes to new ideas.
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    Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

  19. #359

    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Generally, defense installations and their placements follow some form of patterns, which are optimized for the roles they were constructed for. Travellers had Meson Guns that could fire through solid matter, something most other authors tend to avoid. Ordnance that can take on battlewagons will tend to be rather massive in scope, and require line of sight when activated.
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  20. #360
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    Default Re: Military Science Fiction

    Quote Originally Posted by Henry X View Post
    One thing I am considering for planetary defense from ships in any level of orbit would be mass accelerators. Think of the HARP project back in (was it the 60's?). Just take that to its natural evolution as a last ditch defense of anything in orbit.

    This is Basically what they did in Halo. A low-yield MAC Blast destroyed a CCS-Class Battlecruiser by hitting the Concentrated Plasma Plume on the ship's underbelly. They also had large Magnetic Accelerator Cannons in Orbit.

    In Reality a High-Yield Guided Missile would be more effective though, because when dealing with long distances it can correct for delay by making adjustments to it's course. If a laser takes 8 minutes to go 1 AU, it can miss if the ship turns slightly to the left.

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