Could a battlestar ever be built?

[daniel l.]

2 minutes ago, GeneralVeers said:

If/when other nations become capable of manned interplanetary missions, it would still be much simpler, more damaging, and less expensive for them to fight each other ON EARTH. The battlefields of the future will not be in outer space, they'll be right here at home.

What if earth goes to war with a rebellious colony?

Edited March 6, 2016 by daniel l.

[GeneralVeers]

2 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

What if earth goes to war with a rebellious colony?

What do you suppose are the odds of a rebellion aboard the ISS?

Scenario not gonna happen. For the foreseeable future, colonies outside Earth-Moon will be very small, totally dependent on Earth, and therefore basically impossible to "liberate".

[daniel l.]

2 minutes ago, GeneralVeers said:

What do you suppose are the odds of a rebellion aboard the ISS?

Scenario not gonna happen. For the foreseeable future, colonies outside Earth-Moon will be very small, totally dependent on Earth, and therefore basically impossible to "liberate".

The ISS is of course totally dependant and the conditions on board are insufficient to maintain itself as well as that it lacks enough crew to be a government.

Though it could be like the War of Austrian succesion where britain and france fought over each others colonies?

[fredinno]

17 hours ago, GeneralVeers said:

You'd need artificial gravity, otherwise the crew spaces would have to be designed in a fundamentally different way. Making a Battlestar design impractical.

 

You don't have the right to call that "evolution". From a natural standpoint, the evolution of weapons is a good thing--natural weaponry helps a critter survive. From a civilized standpoint, the reason the innocent need weapons is because the guilty have them and will never get rid of them. So it's not your call. Evolution itself disagrees with you.

For whatever it's worth, there won't be any serious militarization of space for quite some time. One nation (probably the United States) is almost certainly going to beat everybody else to flying manned interplanetary missions by a wide margin. When no other nation has a presence in space, there's no reason for your ships to bother with weapons because there won't be anybody shooting at you.

If/when other nations become capable of manned interplanetary missions, it would still be much simpler, more damaging, and less expensive for them to fight each other ON EARTH. The battlefields of the future will not be in outer space, they'll be right here at home.

Would they? I wouldn't expect a Mars Colony to settle disputes by warfare on Earth, if they are fighting over land on Mars.

Edited March 6, 2016 by fredinno

[GeneralVeers]

19 hours ago, daniel l. said:

The ISS is of course totally dependant and the conditions on board are insufficient to maintain itself as well as that it lacks enough crew to be a government.

Yup. And I consider it very likely that a feasible-in-the-non-sci-fi-world Mars colony will be the same way; it would probably never reach a level of self-sufficiency (or population) that it could even consider independence.

 

2 hours ago, fredinno said:

Would they? I wouldn't expect a Mars Colony to settle disputes by warfare on Earth, if they are fighting over land on Mars.

Land on Mars isn't going to be that valuable for quite a long time. Its economic value will be completely eclipsed by the cost of bringing stuff back from Mars to Earth; in our lifetimes and for several more lifetimes after that, the value of Martian landscape will be for science outposts and not much else. In other words, not worth fighting over.

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, GeneralVeers said:

Yup. And I consider it very likely that a feasible-in-the-non-sci-fi-world Mars colony will be the same way; it would probably never reach a level of self-sufficiency (or population) that it could even consider independence.

 

Land on Mars isn't going to be that valuable for quite a long time. Its economic value will be completely eclipsed by the cost of bringing stuff back from Mars to Earth; in our lifetimes and for several more lifetimes after that, the value of Martian landscape will be for science outposts and not much else. In other words, not worth fighting over.

I mean in at least 2 centuries- possibly enabled by partial terraforming (mainly for surface temperature and pressure)

[GeneralVeers]

Well, the starting post did ask "can this be built by 2100".

Given two centuries instead of one? Mmmm....I'm still thinking "no". Probably doable, given a couple centuries' worth of technological development, but not economical unless you want something completely unrelated to economy (such as science). Bottom line, I just don't see anything on Mars that humans would end up fighting over.

[daniel l.]

3 hours ago, GeneralVeers said:

Well, the starting post did ask "can this be built by 2100".

Given two centuries instead of one? Mmmm....I'm still thinking "no". Probably doable, given a couple centuries' worth of technological development, but not economical unless you want something completely unrelated to economy (such as science). Bottom line, I just don't see anything on Mars that humans would end up fighting over.

Thats not quite what i mean afterall Canada really wasnt much more important than the New England colonies (that would later become the US) The thing is, Is that while a war might rage on earth the colonies of the respective combatants would be fighting each other in the name of their mother nation.

[lajoswinkler]

On 01.03.2016. at 0:11 AM, benzman said:

Probably, but I sincerely hope not.  A forlorn hope, I suspect.  My most fervent wish is that humans will evolve past this childish fascination with war and weapons.

 

My thoughts exactly. It annoys me even when SF is tainted with these things, let alone real life.

[daniel l.]

55 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

My thoughts exactly. It annoys me even when SF is tainted with these things, let alone real life.

War isnt exactly done for fun, Its a matter of many things, Trying to take something you want or need by force, Defending yourself from those who try to take things from you, Or simply Hate.

Unless we change ourselves to lack emotion and allow machines to maintain our every need, I doubt will be eliminated, Especially considering such changes would make us no longer human.

And in a worst case scenario we have to fight rebellious machines (Like the Cylons) who can infiltrate the simplest computer networks forcing a downgrade in order to survive.

[Bill Phil]

10 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

My thoughts exactly. It annoys me even when SF is tainted with these things, let alone real life.

But even the animals fight. It's not childish or even purely human. It's an extension of the tribal conflicts experienced for hundreds of thousands of years, maybe millions.

Not to say it's a good thing, though...

And what happens if someone happens to attack your utopia with no weapons or war? Then goodbye utopia. Weapons and war are necessities, but not all the time. Especially in the modern era. Death tolls from war are getting smaller, and war less common. It's still around, but not as severe as it could be.

[fredinno]

Just now, Bill Phil said:

But even the animals fight. It's not childish or even purely human. It's an extension of the tribal conflicts experienced for hundreds of thousands of years, maybe millions.

Not to say it's a good thing, though...

And what happens if someone happens to attack your utopia with no weapons or war? Then goodbye utopia. Weapons and war are necessities, but not all the time. Especially in the modern era. Death tolls from war are getting smaller, and war less common. It's still around, but not as severe as it could be.

But the total damage is getting worse...

[Bill Phil]

Just now, fredinno said:

But the total damage is getting worse...

Nope. That's going down, too. Ever since WWII, at least.

[GeneralVeers]

It's not just sci-fi that has violence and war and weapons in it, folks.

All fiction has this stuff in it. You can't have a murder mystery without a murder, and the best murder mysteries revolve around a murder that seems impossible. Murder mysteries aggressively promote imagination and creativity in thinking up new ways to kill people. We wouldn't have a Deadpool movie without violence (and lots of it, at that!), we wouldn't have Star Wars without violence (the original Star Wars, if you please), we wouldn't have Kerbal Space Program without the danger of your ship exploding and killing Kerbals if you screw up. Which to be perfectly frank is usually funny. Kurtjmac's first attempt at a space shuttle was hysterical!

Face it, people. Violence is entertaining. Our tolerance for/enjoyment of violence is not by accident; we evolved that way. Violence became a part of our evolution as soon as some critter figured out that it was much easier to eat other critters than to be rooted in the ground and photosynthesize sugar all day long. Once that happened, the only ways to protect yourself against that one critter-eater were to run, hide, or fight. Guess what, evolution decided in favor of those who fight. The reason we're so violent is because it works.

 

10 hours ago, daniel l. said:

Thats not quite what i mean afterall Canada really wasnt much more important than the New England colonies (that would later become the US) The thing is, Is that while a war might rage on earth the colonies of the respective combatants would be fighting each other in the name of their mother nation.

A few scenarios come to mind here--but none of them involve a Battlestar.

As I mentioned earlier on, colonies in the Sol system will almost certainly be too small to have the economy to field a Battlestar on their own--so they'll be shooting each other with smaller, simpler, and cheaper weapons. They also probably won't be valuable enough for the Homeland to send a Battlestar to defend them. (from what we know of the Solar System thus far, I don't see any colony anywhere in the system being able to find all the raw materials it needs to be truly independent)

So, to develop into an economic powerhouse, a colony would have to be extra-Solar. Then the game changes completely. Unless some kind of FTL existed (and I'm assuming it won't), rather than depending on Earth, a successful colony would have to be entirely INdependent. An outpost on Kepler 186F couldn't rely on Earth to send a replacement reactor core, because it would take 500 years to arrive (even Federal Express isn't that good!). Extra-Solar colonies will out of necessity have to be able to produce absolutely everything they need on their own.

And then we get back to the same way we wage war on Earth. Competing colonies on a single extra-Solar planet will fight the same way we do: on the ground. Competing colonies on different planets will have the afore-mentioned problem with battle fleets taking 500 years to reach each other. Same result either way: Battlestar not practical.

But, really, the most likely scenario is this: the pace of technology is much faster than it was in all humanity's past wars. The nation that makes it into space first (probably the United States) will do so by a wide margin and be far ahead of its competitors technology-wise. It will simply be impossible to challenge them on any battlefield but one: Earth.

[Angeltxilon]

Probably not, but in the past a "orbital battleship" was proposed in 50-60 decade, in basis "orion project".

Quote

The Orion orbital battleship was post to use a massive nuclear pulse rocket engine that used fission material bombs to power the giant spacecraft. Original plan was to launch the spacecraft to orbit using its nuclear-powered rocket from bases in Southwestern United States or from special launch platforms in the ocean like aircraft carriers or modified ships. However, due to safety reasons and nuclear fallout, they’ve decided to launch it instead using chemical rockets to Earth’s orbit. Orion was a giant massive spacecraft which was 286ft which was taller than most skyscrapers in that era and 164ft in diameter. It would had a crew of close to thirty people onboard that would have operated the orbital battleship. The spacecraft would use a special damper or shock absorbers and shielding to protect the crew from radiation from the ship’s engines and space. Nevertheless a unmanned variant of the Orion orbital battleship was planned too Furthermore, Orion also carried five smaller spaceplanes for resupplies, crew replacements, and emergency life boat in case the Orion was having problems or was getting attacked. It was also quite possible that those small spacecraft were used in defensive and offensive roles including protecting the Orion from Soviet spaceplanes and satellites along with providing reconnaissance and strike roles if necessary

Nevertheless though, the main mission for the Orion battleship would be nuclear deterrence against nations like the Soviet Union, China, and Warsaw Pact nations. The orbital battleship would carry up to 500 20MT nuclear warheads in the frontal part of the spaceship which can be fired downwards while orbiting above a target.

Quote

However, another radical, but pretty much a doomsday device was an unmanned variant of the Orion battleship armed with a single 3GT (possibly the largest nuclear warhead ever proposed by any nation) nuclear warhead! The ship would fire the warhead or use the ship itself as weapon to strike at its target. Along with its nuclear warheads, the Orion orbital battleship carried massive array of defensive weapon systems like direct-energy weapons, five Mark 42 127mm naval guns, and ten, but mysterious Casaba howitzer which fired a special shaped rounds. The Orion battleship would have lived up to its name since it was armed like a naval battleship on the high seas. The United States Air Force was planning to have a fleet of these orbital battleships in space as a deterrent against the Soviet Union and his allies.

 

 

 

[daniel l.]

7 hours ago, Angeltxilon said:

Probably not, but in the past a "orbital battleship" was proposed in 50-60 decade, in basis "orion project".

 

 

 

0.0 Dammit why the heck wasnt it built! (I know why but its dissapointing.) We could have had this!

[wumpus]

On 3/5/2016 at 9:02 PM, GeneralVeers said:

What do you suppose are the odds of a rebellion aboard the ISS?

Scenario not gonna happen. For the foreseeable future, colonies outside Earth-Moon will be very small, totally dependent on Earth, and therefore basically impossible to "liberate".

There *was* a rebellion on Skylab.  Or more like an astronaut strike.  I thought there were a couple more (of course, one was on the shuttle where they did all the experiments [which had been canceled] instead of sleeping like they were supposed to).

[lobe]

I don't think space battles, battleships, or the consequences are going to happen the way you guys think it will. At most it will be totally assured destruction (TAD) in the case of asymmetric battles (think Spanish colonizers versus the Aztecs) or it would be mutually assured destruction (MAD), at most pyrrhic victory in the case of symmetric battles. Considering the state of affairs now in the world, warfare, if it can be called that, would probably be protection against pirates.

 

Haha, space warfare is a TAD MAD.

[daniel l.]

10 minutes ago, lobe said:

Haha, space warfare is a TAD MAD.

Tell that to the Grand old Lady.

[Angeltxilon]

May be space war would be very different to the popular idea of "near spaceships vs spaceships". A realistic space war would be very slow, with attacks of extremely big distance, with difficulty to move the spaceships due to  the orbit, a space war would be based in big part in "orbit-earth attacks".

Real designs of war-spaceships:

Thor project.

The orion battleship of before.

German sun gun.

Space-based interceptor.

Soviet fractional orbital bombardment system.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2016 by Angeltxilon

[Bill Phil]

Can we ever build a battlestar? Yes. We can do it now, in fact. It won't have FTL, of course, but we could build it. We have 100,000 ton aircraft carriers. The largest ship ever was over 600,000 tons. If the battlestar is in that range or less, then we could build it on earth. In space, it'll have to use resources in space. Unless we build a million ton Orion launcher to put it in orbit...

[SargeRho]

28 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Can we ever build a battlestar? Yes. We can do it now, in fact. It won't have FTL, of course, but we could build it. We have 100,000 ton aircraft carriers. The largest ship ever was over 600,000 tons. If the battlestar is in that range or less, then we could build it on earth. In space, it'll have to use resources in space. Unless we build a million ton Orion launcher to put it in orbit...

Galactica is 1.5km long and over half a kilometer wide. That's 5 times bigger than our aircraft carriers.

[Kerbart]

6 minutes ago, SargeRho said:

Galactica is 1.5km long and over half a kilometer wide. That's 5 times bigger than our aircraft carriers.

Which puts it in the "not out of reach" category. Especially since aircraft carriers are large but by far not the largest ships sailing the oceans.

[SargeRho]

Which puts it in the "not out of reach" category. Especially since aircraft carriers are large but by far not the largest ships sailing the oceans.

Well, right now it is out of reach. We'll at least need asteroid or lunar mining operations, and in-space manufacturing to build something like that.

Edited April 15, 2016 by SargeRho

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, SargeRho said:

Well, right now it is out of reach. We'll at least need asteroid or lunar mining operations, and in-space manufacturing to build something like that.

Oh, you mean the in space part. Yes. Definitely. I thought the discussion was initially about the size of the structure in the first place. Heck, size-wise even the Liberator from Blake's 7 is out of reach right now.