Nyrath Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/06/space-warfare-ii-stealth-reconsidered.html On the whole stealth in space is more or less impossible, but there are certain borderline situations... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered Dammit, man! Make up your mind! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted June 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered Heh. Well, my position on stealth in space as currently understood is unchanged. The link just points out some odd cases of quote "stealth" unquote. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundog Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered More like "deception" than stealth - as I shall point out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraven Kor Posted June 22, 2009 Report Share Posted June 22, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered Couple thoughts I had on this for my campaign: Large bodies can be used to hide behind if your prey doesn't have observation points behind as well - come into their system behind a large Gas Giant, keeping it between you and their world. Will at least change when you get detected from "years before you arrive" to "days to weeks before you arrive," depending on what methods of travel are available. Some type of special material or shielding which limits how much particle or radio emissions your craft emits would help against some types of observation, but not all - your craft simply partially blocking background radiation can be enough to give away it's presence to a sensitive enough system (or an observant enough person.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundog Posted June 22, 2009 Report Share Posted June 22, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered No way you could absorb enough of the EM radiation to make you invisible - especially not in the IR spectrum. Worse, that heat has to go somewhere - you'd eventually cook your crew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraven Kor Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered No way you could absorb enough of the EM radiation to make you invisible - especially not in the IR spectrum. Worse' date=' that heat has to go somewhere - you'd eventually cook your crew.[/quote'] Turn waste heat into power? Cool-running Cold Fusion Reactors? But yeah, I was saying that no matter how little emissions you put off, of any spectrum, that simply blocking the background "noise" of space can be enough to detect you (which is more or less how we were detecting planets until recently - essentially waiting for the telltale shadow or flicker against the backdrop.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered No way you could absorb enough of the EM radiation to make you invisible - especially not in the IR spectrum. Worse' date=' that heat has to go somewhere - you'd eventually cook your crew.[/quote'] I came up with a stealth scene where the intruders pop out of FTL in a blind spot and then go "cool running". Which is the opposite of what it sounds like since the interior of the ship, which has been cooled down to sub-zero temperatures, steadily heats up until everyone is on the verge of heat prostration by the time they are ready to launch their surprise attack. The problem with realistic space combat of course is that space is boring and therefore space combat is boring. Oceans have currents, storms, shoals, fog banks, horizons, winds, mines. Space has...nada beyond the occasional rock and a bit of solar flare activity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted June 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered Turn waste heat into power? *sigh* Again I must explain that it is impossible to convert waste heat into power. Thermocouples and the like convert a heat gradient into power. But the original waste heat is still there. http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3au.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted June 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered The problem with realistic space combat of course is that space is boring and therefore space combat is boring. Oceans have currents' date=' storms, shoals, fog banks, horizons, winds, mines. Space has...nada beyond the occasional rock and a bit of solar flare activity.[/quote'] Which is why the better SF authors go to great lengths to invent an FTL system that is very un-boring. The system in the Honor Harrington novels has gravitational shoals and all sorts of peril. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraven Kor Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered *sigh* Again I must explain that it is impossible to convert waste heat into power. Thermocouples and the like convert a heat gradient into power. But the original waste heat is still there. http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3au.html Sigh my arse. You enjoy correcting us fools and you know it Besides, until recently I've been absent from these boards for years, and apparently missed a whole lot of stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajackson Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered But the original waste heat is still there. Well, sort of. If you were able to apply some device to it and generate useful power, it wasn't waste heat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted June 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered Well' date=' sort of. If you were able to apply some device to it and generate useful power, it wasn't waste heat.[/quote'] But if the point of the exercise was to "consume" the waste heat so that your ship didn't show up like a supernova on the infrared detectors, the fact that the waste heat was not consumed will get you wasted by enemy warships. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered *sigh* Again I must explain that it is impossible to convert waste heat into power. Thermocouples and the like convert a heat gradient into power. But the original waste heat is still there. http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3au.html There's certainly no known way to convert waste heat into anything else. I think declaring it impossible is a bit much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered There's certainly no known way to convert waste heat into anything else. I think declaring it impossible is a bit much. If it isn't, then the laws of thermodynamics are just suggestions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraven Kor Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered If it isn't' date=' then the laws of thermodynamics are just suggestions.[/quote'] All Scientific Laws are Working Theories just waiting to be proven wrong. Not to say that laws like the Conservation of Energy and such *will* be proven wrong or inadequate, but to say they cannot be wrong or inadequate is folly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajackson Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered All Scientific Laws are Working Theories just waiting to be proven wrong. Not to say that laws like the Conservation of Energy and such *will* be proven wrong or inadequate' date=' but to say they [b']cannot[/b] be wrong or inadequate is folly. The case for the second law is stronger than most (it comes from mathematics), but when you're talking about hard SF, you pretty much have to discard convenient mistakes, because, while there's a high chance of errors in current theory, there's a low chance of those errors producing any particular outcome, and the errors, such as they are, will almost always be in places that are currently inconvenient to impossible to observe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted June 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered All Scientific Laws are Working Theories just waiting to be proven wrong. Not to say that laws like the Conservation of Energy and such *will* be proven wrong or inadequate' date=' but to say they [b']cannot[/b] be wrong or inadequate is folly. You are forcing me to sigh again. Scientific Laws are totally unrelated to Scientific Theories. A law is a description of observed phenomenon. A theory is a scientific explanation of an observed phenomenon. So the laws of thermodynamics are "waiting to be proven wrong" in the same way that you can prove the law of gravity wrong by letting go of a 500 pound anvil over your foot and watching it float into the air. It's not the way to bet. But you are using two of the tired old fallacies SF authors resort to when science denies them what they want: "It's Just A Theory" and Maybe A Scientific Breakthrough Will Let Me Have My Way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraven Kor Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered I tried a quick google search (believe it or not I am working and thus have limited time to discuss this) but I know for a fact that there have been several instances of Scientific Laws that were held up as universal truths for some some time were then proven wrong or inadequate. Any scientist who suggested any theory that went against such a law or "known truth" were mocked, ridiculed, called fakes and phonies and liars; or, worse, blasphemers. But then the new theory was proven true, the old law was retired or rewritten, and then generations later when someone challenged the new status quot, the new Law, the new known truth... they were treated the same way only to be vindicated when their new theory proved to hold water. However, there have been many more claims that violated the Laws of Physics which were ultimately disproved. The weight of evidence is in favor of the current Laws; but that does not mean that what we know now is 100% accurate and inclusive. If we aren't brave enough to challenge conventional wisdom, we will never discover anything new again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted June 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered I would be interested to see examples of such refuted laws. If you can find them. As for disproving theories, you are aware, are you not, that there is a 50% chance that the new theory could make things worse? There was an amusing SF story by George R. R. Martin called "FTA" where scientists discovered how to enter hyperspace. They were initially jubilant, with visions of FTL starships and Nobel prizes dancing in their heads. Their hopes were quickly dashed when they found out that the speed of light in hyperspace was slower than in our universe. Theories are only rarely disproven, usually they are just modified. Newtonian theories of motion are still used, its just that they had to be modified by Einstein's relativity to apply to velocities above about 14% of light speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraven Kor Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered I'll look it up in my Einstein: 100 Years of Relativity book tonight, if I get a chance. But I know that both relativity and string theory and later quantum mechanics all faced a wall of "but that's impossible" arguments relating to Scientific Laws. Again, I'm not trying to say "FTL is in fact possible without time travel" - I'm trying to say "It is possible that there is something we don't yet know" that could both be supported by current observations and known 'laws' while also opening up new possibilities by redefining what we know about the universe. Which, last I checked, was surprisingly little. There will be another Einstein, some day, who will turn the world of science on its head once again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundog Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered Without a doubt. However, just as Einstein did, he will change our way of looking at why the universe acts as it does - not what it does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yansuf Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered *sigh* Again I must explain that it is impossible to convert waste heat into power. Thermocouples and the like convert a heat gradient into power. But the original waste heat is still there. /url] I admit it has been 48 years since I did any work with thermodynamics, and I haven't pulled any old texts out of storage, but what about using the heat to boil a working fluid and spin a turbine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted June 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered I admit it has been 48 years since I did any work with thermodynamics' date=' and I haven't pulled any old texts out of storage, but what about using the heat to boil a working fluid and spin a turbine?[/quote'] The original heat is still there, but the heat gradient is not. The temperature of the room has risen as the heat boils the water. It's like a hydroelectric power plant. It converts the gravity gradient of the falling water into electricity. But the water is not annihilated by the plant, it still pours out the sluices and flows downstream. In technical terms, the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy always increases. Turning heat into useful work would reduce entropy, which is forbidden. Turning a head gradient into useful work is allowed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 Re: Space Warfare II - Stealth Reconsidered The original heat is still there, but the heat gradient is not. The temperature of the room has risen as the heat boils the water. It's like a hydroelectric power plant. It converts the gravity gradient of the falling water into electricity. But the water is not annihilated by the plant, it still pours out the sluices and flows downstream. In technical terms, the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy always increases. Turning heat into useful work would reduce entropy, which is forbidden. Turning a head gradient into useful work is allowed. What bugs me, a lot actually, is when someone says "that would be impossible because it would violate the second law blah blah blah" about some novel effect that no one has actually tried to accomplish. Take for example a membrane that is permeable in one direction by gas molecules above a certain energy, and in the other direction by gas molecules below a certain energy (I think that's how it goes, bear with me). The assertion usually made is that it's not even worth looking for such a thing, because it "violates the second". How about we actually find out what's possible? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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