Space Warfare - How would the ships be built/designed?

[Sampa]

I think initially, humans will use weapons which are loosely based on the wwii submarines using missiles. After that... *shrugs* i theorize an energy weapon based on plasmified matter as a,projectile.

[Kibble]

Space warfare would be limited to disabling enemy satellites with your own satellites. No warships needed.

Arguably, a satellite built and flown to disable another satellite could be called a "warship".

[PB666]

Laser vs kinetic for range is an interesting question. Lasers travel at the speed of light making them much more difficult to evade, but they spread out as they travel eventually becoming too diffuse to do ....

Actually I posted a link the other day that took laser light and scattering collapsed the light to a single frequency. This falls to the heisenberg uncertainty principle. Potentially you could reverse this, by scattering the frequency a little you could focus the momentum to a single direction that is invariant. The problem is that the path would have to be isogravitational along its length. IOW you could not shoot a laser through the Suns corona and expect it to stay together if the wavelengths varied, the beam would begin to separate.

[GeneralVeers]

Want to know why a laser weapon might need a large 'barrel', why a neutral particle beam performs better in space but a charged particle beam performs better in air, or how much damage an unladen swallow could do to a spy satellite? EDEW has it.

OK I'm exaggerating slightly on the swallow thing

Why? You've got a very valid point. A satellite in geosynchronous orbit travels around 23,000 miles per hour; imagine colliding with an unladen swallow at that velocity (or, if the bird is orbiting in the opposite direction from the satellite, 46,000 miles per hour!) and you're talking SERIOUS damage.

A dose of politics and economics needs to be administered in order to answer the question of how a near-future space war would be fought. These days, nobody uses space for anything except spying and science--entirely civilian science at that. Well, at least, as far as we know. I suppose there could have been a few top-secret weapons experiments aboard Skylab...... Right now, the only reason for space warfare lies in shooting down spy satellites. And the technology to do that already exists without having to build spacecraft. One of the favored methods in the U.S. arsenal is a guided missile that can be launched from an F16 in vertical flight. However, there's never been anything in the news about nations shooting down each others' spy satellites, so I can safely say the nations of the Earth simply don't consider it worthwhile to be engaging in orbital satellite warfare.

Space warfare simply isn't going to happen in the near future because there's nothing in outer space to shoot at, and there won't be until people start building bases on the Moon or Mars. If and when that starts happening, the most advanced nations on Earth will get out into space first, by quite a wide margin. So if a space war happens, it will be a highly asymmetrical conflict, with the less-advanced combatants resorting to cheap weapons, sabotage, and/or terrorist tactics, and the more advanced party using THEL systems. Which are no longer in early development, by the way--laser weapons have already reached (and passed!) operational testing, having successfully shot down ballistic missiles and artillery shells.

However, probably the most important thing: all the above shenanigans would occur in an environment where the attacked party could retaliate very simply, with much less expense and technological effort, by bombing the attackers' home cities ON EARTH. Any "space" war would most likely end up being decided right here at home.

[PB666]

Why? You've got a very valid point. A satellite in geosynchronous orbit travels around 23,000 miles per hour; imagine colliding with an unladen swallow at that velocity (or, if the bird is orbiting in the opposite direction from the satellite, 46,000 miles per hour!) and you're talking SERIOUS damage.

A dose of politics and economics needs to be administered in order to answer the question of how a near-future space war would be fought. These days, nobody uses space for anything except spying and science--entirely civilian science at that. Well, at least, as far as we know. I suppose there could have been a few top-secret weapons experiments aboard Skylab...... Right now, the only reason for space warfare lies in shooting down spy satellites. And the technology to do that already exists without having to build spacecraft. One of the favored methods in the U.S. arsenal is a guided missile that can be launched from an F16 in vertical flight. However, there's never been anything in the news about nations shooting down each others' spy satellites, so I can safely say the nations of the Earth simply don't consider it worthwhile to be engaging in orbital satellite warfare.

Space warfare simply isn't going to happen in the near future because there's nothing in outer space to shoot at, and there won't be until people start building bases on the Moon or Mars. If and when that starts happening, the most advanced nations on Earth will get out into space first, by quite a wide margin. So if a space war happens, it will be a highly asymmetrical conflict, with the less-advanced combatants resorting to cheap weapons, sabotage, and/or terrorist tactics, and the more advanced party using THEL systems. Which are no longer in early development, by the way--laser weapons have already reached (and passed!) operational testing, having successfully shot down ballistic missiles and artillery shells.

However, probably the most important thing: all the above shenanigans would occur in an environment where the attacked party could retaliate very simply, with much less expense and technological effort, by bombing the attackers' home cities ON EARTH. Any "space" war would most likely end up being decided right here at home.

GSO is a inertia frame of reference, the only other inertia frame of reference with the same path of travel is 180' rotation. OV at surface 18000 miles at radius of 4000 miles approx, Geo is 22000 + 4000 = 26000. OV decreases with sq rt of radius. This means that at 12000 mile radius OV is 9000. There the highest inclination difference the differential cannot be higher than 18000. What really matters with inertial frames of reference and how fast you can legitimately accelarate a sparrow.

[Torquemadus]

Modern military thinking includes space alongside the traditional land, sea and air battlespace. While a modern military force can function without access to space, their capabilities would be severely reduced (there are backup options available if necessary). Besides that, modern civilisation is much more heavily dependant on access to space than is generally understood, so it pays to be prepared.

While sensationalists like to stir up fears about apocalypse scenarios that play on popular fears, there is little chance that developed nations would actually be stupid enough to start a major shooting war at this point. There is simply too much to loose and too little to gain. We might get a few more Ukraine proxy conflicts, but these are nothing new.

There are some extremist fascist groups that want to take over the world in the manner of kitsch (and somewhat old fashioned) James Bond villains. In practice, they have too many mutual enemies. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".

The other apocalypse argument is based on completely artificial scenarios based on "resource depletion", "overpopulation", and scary anti-science thinking. These essentially recycle the old "lebensraum" argument that there are "too many foreigners around" and that humanity is doomed to fight over "dwindling" resources. These have been thoroughly debunked by Carl Sagan, Robert Zubrin and the multitude of science advocates that they have inspired over the years.

A far more relevant question is concerned with how mining claims and property rights will be dealt with in a legally confused solar system. Earth nations are banned by treaty from claiming sovereignty over extra-terrestrial bodies, but private individuals and companies are not. The first human settlement on Mars will be populated by people who have far more technological and scientific understanding and far more courage than "ordinary" stay-at-homes could ever dream of. A tenacious young nation of Mark Watney thinkalikes would be formidable indeed!

It has already been predicted that the rapid economic growth of the space sector in the "New Space Age" will become the next "Dot-Com Revolution". Just as in the age of sail, new worlds will be developed and invested in based on their perceived future value.

[Skyler4856]

Almost entirely automated, unless distance proves to be an impossible barrier.

Perhaps a manned carrier vehicle, operating drones

[Bill Phil]

It's a cool idea, but probably not correct. Stealth in space is generally regarded as very difficult if not impossible. Spacecraft will be warm and their radiation visible, and when engines are thrusting that's massively multiplied. Observing an exhaust plume allows the mass and course of the spacecraft making it to be inferred even if the spacecraft itself isn't directly detected.

Yes...

But stealth is doable. If you can thermally isolate to a high efficiency your vehicle, and put it inside an asteroid, making course changes with pressurized gas, or a circular mass driver with a tangential escape, then it's pretty hard to detect. If you make the thermal signature similar the asteroid's.

They might never see you coming... And once you're a few thousand klick a out, you rotate and Fire the mass driver. Good bye target.

It's more of a disguise, but it could work.

[Rune]

Yes...

But stealth is doable. If you can thermally isolate to a high efficiency your vehicle, and put it inside an asteroid, making course changes with pressurized gas, or a circular mass driver with a tangential escape, then it's pretty hard to detect. If you make the thermal signature similar the asteroid's.

They might never see you coming... And once you're a few thousand klick a out, you rotate and Fire the mass driver. Good bye target.

It's more of a disguise, but it could work.

There is no stealth in space. It's been discussed so much, it's become it's own trope. If you move, you can be seen, and if you don't move, you are useless. If you fire then you are the most conspicuous thing in the freaking system besides the Sun. Consider that we routinely pick out pitch-black inert asteroids AUs away today, from behind Earth's atmosphere... no freaking way a warship under deployment hasn't got all matter within a few light-seconds in every direction tracked, classified, and accounted for to the last gram.

Lasers disperse. By the time a laser fired from Earth reaches the Moon, it has dispersed so much that it covers a huge area. Also lasers can be blocked by cold plasma 'shields', but those have a harder time intercepting guided railgun projectiles at extreme speeds.

Lasers can consistently hit a target much, MUCH farther away than what is required for dumb kinetics to hit before a ship can sidestep, even with extremely weak RCS. At the same time, lasers can fry sensors and blind ships even farther away. 1m mirrors would be enough to threaten thousands of kms of space around you with mere MW to kW-class fiber lasers. Lasers can also shoot down smart guided missiles that can actually connect at these high ranges much more easily and economically. And the US Navy already fields 100kW lasers that can fry mortar shells with much smaller reaction time in a much more occluded environment, so saturation is dubious when you have tens of times the kill range. Saturation is doubly dubious because in space mass is at a premium, and what do you know, laser "ammunition" is massless. Conclusion? If you can afford laser weaponry, you win over any kinetic-equipped opponent with fancy flak railguns, MW for MW. And guided missiles are just a joke people play on each other, or more sensibly, disposable sensor platforms to target lasers before opening the shielding ports.

I'm with Nibb31. Anything remotely realistic would not use manned craft. Assuming a sufficiently advanced society that actually uses manned craft which might become targets, then I'd likely put countermeasures on those and have drones for active combat.

Drones will need tenders to rearm/remass/repair, plus C4IR to direct them, not much farther than a few light seconds away, given the engagement times in intercept orbits (I.E: the battle can be made as short as you can track targets and intercept speeds can be on the order of kms/s). Hence, manned "command" ships even at low tech levels. Plus, "boots on the ground" (or in this case helmets on the airlock): you are always going to require human presence if you want to conquer inhabited territory. Thus, big, juicy, slow, high value targets. Which in turn, bring in point defense and interesting tactics, like how to get your drones to engage someone in a low orbit while keeping the horizon between you and his drones.

Rune. Deep space combat will be a lot more boring and slug-festive with screens of drones deciding the outcome by numbers alone.

Edited September 7, 2015 by Rune

[cantab]

And guided missiles are just a joke people play on each other, or more sensibly, disposable sensor platforms to target lasers before opening the shielding ports.

The idea of a missile that itself fires a laser or similar, though, is a fairly common one and I feel pretty sound.

[Rune]

The idea of a missile that itself fires a laser or similar, though, is a fairly common one and I feel pretty sound.

Isn't that a drone, by any other name? The minimum size, I suspect, is the power system to keep that laser happily fed and cool. You still need someone around to tell it who to shoot and when.

Rune. Sensor drones would be much more missile-like, and radiator-less.

[Bill Phil]

Rune, it's not exactly stealth. It's a disguise.

Yes, they have all objects of certain sizes tracked at a certain distance, but nonetheless you can change your velocity slowly enough that they don't recognize it as a proper threat. Just another roid out there. Then, it rotates and shoots a projectile, rapidly. Not enough time to react.

This can work, but it isn't easy, since matching thermal properties and a whole slew of other things isn't a simple task.

[RainDreamer]

Rune, it's not exactly stealth. It's a disguise.

Yes, they have all objects of certain sizes tracked at a certain distance, but nonetheless you can change your velocity slowly enough that they don't recognize it as a proper threat. Just another roid out there. Then, it rotates and shoots a projectile, rapidly. Not enough time to react.

This can work, but it isn't easy, since matching thermal properties and a whole slew of other things isn't a simple task.

Reminds me of this thing for tanks:

It is just for IR vision right now, but I imagine in the future we can get better type of camouflages. And since this is in space where battles can take place at interplanetary distances, the stealth system can probably just a really huge screen pointing at the direction of enemy's sensors. Still have to find some ways to mask engine firing, but after that, you can just shut things down and let the ship ride along the orbit to destinations.

That said, it is still very impractical to go stealth in space, for little gain.

Edited September 7, 2015 by RainDreamer

[gooddog15]

*Boop*

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

[Nibb31]

Rune, it's not exactly stealth. It's a disguise.

Yes, they have all objects of certain sizes tracked at a certain distance, but nonetheless you can change your velocity slowly enough that they don't recognize it as a proper threat. Just another roid out there. Then, it rotates and shoots a projectile, rapidly. Not enough time to react.

This can work, but it isn't easy, since matching thermal properties and a whole slew of other things isn't a simple task.

How close is "not enough time to react"? How close do you think a sci-fi warship would allow an asteroid to get if they know that the enemy uses this tactic? Wouldn't you just blow up every asteroid that gets close enough to be a threat ? And any asteroid that changes its orbit would be pretty suspicious.

Edited September 7, 2015 by Nibb31

[shynung]

How close is "not enough time to react" ? How close do you think an sci-fi warship would allow an asteroid to get if they know that the enemy uses this tactic? Wouldn't you just blow up every asteroid that gets close enough to be a threat ? And any asteroid that changes its orbit would be pretty suspicious.

Yep. Disguising a warship as an asteroid is too risky. As a freighter ship, on the other hand...

Though, hiding weapon systems might be a rather complicated task by itself. A freighter ship carrying a particle cannon would be pretty suspicious.

[jwenting]

Ah, for some reason I thought that they could only reach up to LEO, and not up to GSO.

none have ever been fielded that work in GSO, but it's feasible and the Soviets certainly had the capability to mount their ASAT on a rocket capable of reaching up there. The US system of course didn't, it was aircraft launched with very limited fuel and barely made LEO.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes...

But stealth is doable. If you can thermally isolate to a high efficiency your vehicle, and put it inside an asteroid, making course changes with pressurized gas, or a circular mass driver with a tangential escape, then it's pretty hard to detect. If you make the thermal signature similar the asteroid's.

no, it's not doable. There's nowhere to dissipate heat, so your ship is going to stand out in infrared like a massive red warning sign.

Heat sinks buried deep inside your vessel will only do so much, they're not going to prevent the ship from heating up to higher than background radiation. Radiator panels? Big red warning signs on any IR detector.

Your active sensors? Same as on earth, big red warning signs on any detector.

Those gas plumes from your RCS? Can be detected a very long way away.

You simply can't hide in space.

Space battles aren't feasible, period. Sorry SciFi fans (and I'm one) but there won't be massive battle fleets slugging it out with turret mounted turbolasers while Starfighters sweep along in tight formation doing instant U turns and dumping missiles into thermal exhaust vents to blow up death stars.

Any space warfare will effectively be a siege operation. A group of ships and battle stations in orbit dumping nuclear warheads and asteroids on a planet, the defenders sending up missiles in an attempt to shoot down anything that gets too close (and those incoming warheads).

The winner will be whomever can hold out the longest. Will the planet's infrastructure be destroyed before the attackers' food and fuel supply runs out...

[GeneralVeers]

A far more relevant question is concerned with how mining claims and property rights will be dealt with in a legally confused solar system. Earth nations are banned by treaty from claiming sovereignty over extra-terrestrial bodies, but private individuals and companies are not.

Lol. Treaties. News flash, folks: the dirtbags of the Earth (yo! North Korea? Iran? Russia? China? Listen up!) are already violating various treaties left and right. If there's good stuff to be had in space, it's a safe bet treaties will get violated. Sure, they're banned by treaty; but they'll do it anyway.

There is no stealth in space. It's been discussed so much, it's become it's own trope. If you move, you can be seen

"Begging your pardon, sir, but it's a big-*** sky!"

--That guy in that movie

Sure, if you move, you CAN be seen--if somebody has the infrared scanner pointed in the right direction. Doable on Earth. Space is a lot bigger.

[SargeRho]

You can point an array of infrared scanners at every point in the sky at once, you know?

[baggers]

You can point an array of infrared scanners at every point in the sky at once, you know?

At what sort of distance could you detect an automated and armed probe?

Especialy if in a incoming trajectory like a whole bunch of asteroïds. Using small ion-like thruster for rare small adjustement, should'nt it be indistinguishable from any inert object?

[SargeRho]

An idle space probe, if it's close enough to the sun, is probably not distinguishable from an asteroid at the same distance, however, asteroids don't change course, and ion engine plumes are not every cold.

If I recall correctly, the RCS puffs of the space shuttle can be detected from Mars, the SSMEs firing from any one of the outer planets. Since space doesn't have a temperature, anything that does will stand out like a magnesium flare in the middle of the night.

[GeneralVeers]

You can point an array of infrared scanners at every point in the sky at once, you know?

Yup. And each one of them costs money and resources to build. Forcing the enemy to overspend on defensive measures is a great way to win a war (Reagan did it with SDI; the cost to keep up was a big contribution to the collapse of the Soviet Union).

[Rune]

Yup. And each one of them costs money and resources to build. Forcing the enemy to overspend on defensive measures is a great way to win a war (Reagan did it with SDI; the cost to keep up was a big contribution to the collapse of the Soviet Union).

IR sensors and optics are dirt cheap, actually. Much cheaper than warships. You can in fact buy yourself a telescope that can probably spot meter-sized satellites more than a few thousand kms away. You just gotta do a whole-sky survey every... day or so? Anything closer than an AU, you classify and keep track of, and ig it has moved from it's planned trajectory, or the IR emission changes, zap it.

Some of you guys have a wrong concept of how cluttered space is. I mean, that video of IR spoofing is cool and all, but in space there is no background forest to hide against. The nearest rock to your ship will be several million kilometers away, most likely, and its activities constantly monitored as a matter of course. Hell, we already have classified and tracked all the cm-sized stuff around the Earth, which mostly consists of what we ourselves put up there.

And of course everything that moves betrays itself as powered, plus giving out a pretty accurate estimate of its mass and power output.

Mind you, there will be misses. Space is a very conductive environment for electronic warfare, spoofing sensors and such at stupendous range. Warships will probably start blasting each other with ECM and lasers from very far away, trying to get the sensor advantage, and the first ship that loses sensor capabilities is probably the screwedest.

Rune. And you know, remote sensor nets to take care of blind spots.

[cantab]

Isn't that a drone, by any other name? The minimum size, I suspect, is the power system to keep that laser happily fed and cool. You still need someone around to tell it who to shoot and when.

To an extent. If there's a distinction I'd say that a missile is expendable while a drone is reusable. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pumped_laser is a common idea, but I'm sure there are other plausible ways to make an inexpensive, powerful, limited-firings laser suitable for a warhead.

Any space warfare will effectively be a siege operation. A group of ships and battle stations in orbit dumping nuclear warheads and asteroids on a planet, the defenders sending up missiles in an attempt to shoot down anything that gets too close (and those incoming warheads).

That seems a short-sighted view. From that kind of warfare it's a simple step to start putting defensive weapons in orbit, where they can engage hostile ships and missiles before they get too close to the planet. And then hey presto, space battles!

As for the other topic of discussion, it's an observed law that any discussion of space warfare inevitably degenerates into a discussion of stealth in space.

[Kibble]

You can point an array of infrared scanners at every point in the sky at once, you know?

You can't look in the direction of the Sun - not only would you not see anything, you'd burn out your sensitive infrared telescope! I can't remember the name of the space telescope that accidentally jettisoned its cover too early, while it was still pointed at Earth, and went thru its entire helium coolant supply in seconds.

Things aren't always as simple as "look every direction".