For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[DerekL1963]

7 hours ago, ARS said:

Very cool space fighter launching and recovery process from Space Battleship Yamato

Overly nerdy nitpick...  Space Battleship Yamato 2199.  (A reboot of the original series, and a darn fine anime.  Well worth searching out.)

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, ARS said:

Very cool space fighter launching and recovery process from Space Battleship Yamato

Launching:

Recovery:

 

The bottom one was cool but did not get the point of the top launch points. 
Stand by fighters perhaps but then they interfere with the main guns, why not put them on the sides. 
Bonus for dropping them backward and the rotary bay, some bombers has rotary bays for bombs. Bonus for launching backward. 
Yes you could just push them out below but less cool. Recovery was more weird  

[DDE]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

some bombers has rotary bays for bombs

There seems to be a strong correlation between those revolvers and cruise missiles.

But then RuASF seem to have a strong segregation between ALCM carriers and 'semi-tactical' bombers:

Spoiler

 

 

[K^2]

12 hours ago, ARS said:

Very cool space fighter launching and recovery process from Space Battleship Yamato

Problem is that it only works with the kind of arbitrary combination of selectively having gravity and aerodynamic forces that you get in soft sci-fi. And being that kind of sci-fi is not to detriment of Yamato, certainly, but it's also entirely in the realm of, "This looks cool," rather than, "This is practical," because rules for physics are arbitrarily adjusted to fit the sequence to make it look practical.

Though, I agree that revolver style storage is probably way more practical in zero-G and would be a good way to house fighters in that scenario. You do need to consider how pilots are going to get in and out. And the exit can probably be slow, but if you require everyone to get to their cabin in vacuum and zero G inside a revolver system before launch, that's not going to work well. I'm trying to remember which sci-fi had cockpit pods that would get transported to the fighter proper on launch. That can probably work, as the room with cockpits can at least have air in it, and they can be slotted to fighters an instant before launch.

[DerekL1963]

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

The bottom one was cool but did not get the point of the top launch points. 

Basically the original Yamato had catapults in that position (for scout float planes), so the anime one had to have catapults there too.  Plus it meant cool(er) space fighters and a unique launch sequence for the main characters.
 

52 minutes ago, K^2 said:

Though, I agree that revolver style storage is probably way more practical in zero-G and would be a good way to house fighters in that scenario. You do need to consider how pilots are going to get in and out.

In the anime, the hangar deck is indeed zero G during the launch sequence, and the pilots are depicted as "jumping" (for lack of a better term) to their craft.  There is artificial gravity available for maintenance periods.  Vacuum or pressure is never a subject that comes up...  But yeah, soft sci-fi, physics and practical considerations take a definite backseat to "the rule of cool".

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by DerekL1963

[razark]

14 hours ago, K^2 said:

I'm trying to remember which sci-fi had cockpit pods that would get transported to the fighter proper on launch.

Space: Above and Beyond?

Spoiler

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Do discoveries such as this have implications for the galaxy rotation curves and assumptions about DM? 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencefocus.com/news/andromeda-galaxy-has-a-humongous-halo-of-gas/amp/

I'm presuming that if Andromeda has such a large gas halo that it's probably a common feature of most galaxies 

[K^2]

7 hours ago, razark said:

Space: Above and Beyond?

Yup, that's the one. Good call. I must have only seen the first couple of episodes, because I don't remember the show at all, but that scene still stuck in my memory.

[adsii1970]

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

Yup, that's the one. Good call. I must have only seen the first couple of episodes, because I don't remember the show at all, but that scene still stuck in my memory.

I think I only watched one episode of it. Might have to go see if it is on Amazon Prime...

Nope. But I can buy the entire series for $35.00 Is it worth it, @razark?

[razark]

13 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

I think I only watched one episode of it. Might have to go see if it is on Amazon Prime...

Nope. But I can buy the entire series for $35.00 Is it worth it, @razark?

It's alright.  I enjoy it, if I take my mind off the hook and don't get too much into the "pilots being used as ground troops half the time" problem.  It's very much the Pacific WWII theater in space.

 

I do happen to have it on DVD, so that should tell you if I think it's worth it.

[magnemoe]

13 hours ago, razark said:

Space: Above and Beyond?

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that was an cool scene. Now I don't see space fighters as realistic, carriers and fighters make sense at sea as planes are much faster than ships but don't have much endurance. This does not apply in space. 

Now an more realistic setting would be an carrier with larger boats as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_boat_tender
Here the parasites would be ships capable of month long operations but the engines don't have the very high ISP of mothership or an faster than light drive who weight 1 million ton. 
 

[K^2]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Now an more realistic setting would be an carrier with larger boats as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_boat_tender
Here the parasites would be ships capable of month long operations but the engines don't have the very high ISP of mothership or an faster than light drive who weight 1 million ton. 
 

Honor Harrington series by David Webber covers this topic pretty well. The universe has interesting fiction for how both sublight propulsion and FTL work that actually does well to justify tactics similar to line of battle, and how development of such carriers changes the balance.

[kerbiloid]

200 years passed, the sergeant is still the same.

[DDE]

4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

200 years passed, the sergeant is still the same.

Spoiler

 

Problems?

 

 

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Now an more realistic setting would be an carrier with larger boats as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_boat_tender
Here the parasites would be ships capable of month long operations but the engines don't have the very high ISP of mothership or an faster than light drive who weight 1 million ton. 

This just entails the Millenium Falcon becoming the standard size of attack ship, and you can cram a lot more weapons into such an envelope:

Even for soft sci-fi this makes a lot of sense, unless your FTL is stupidly fast like it is in SW. My reference for the minimum standard of habitability onboard a snubfighter has always been the Su-34:

Spoiler

Also, you can't say it's not futuristic

 

[kerbiloid]

Does it have?

Spoiler

 

[K^2]

14 hours ago, DDE said:

Also, you can't say it's not futuristic

You can't say that with a straight face while showing an instrument panel with literal nixies and VFDs.

[DDE]

Drop pods: single-seat or squad-sized?

In a counter to the disadvantage of putting more eggs in one basket, I do note that on a multi-seat vehicle there's room to place retrothrusters where they won't get crushed:

Spoiler

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

Drop pods: single-seat or squad-sized?

In a counter to the disadvantage of putting more eggs in one basket, I do note that on a multi-seat vehicle there's room to place retrothrusters where they won't get crushed:

  Hide contents

 

Seeing as the strength of the squad is combined action... I'm a proponent of the squad lander - despite the inherent risk. 

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Seeing as the strength of the squad is combined action... I'm a proponent of the squad lander - despite the inherent risk. 

Yes, you operate as an squad and that make then deploy as unit, also an squad lander will be much lighter for each soldier than single man lander. 
This allow for more countermeasures as decoys, jamming and armor. 

Parachutes are single man as its the best option with them even if this spread out soldiers and it take time to organize after landing. 
During WW2 gliders was preferred if you was landing on an active defended position as you landed organized. 
 

[kerbiloid]

17 hours ago, DDE said:

Drop pods: single-seat or squad-sized?

What's easier to loot?

[DDE]

47 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

What's easier to loot?

[kerbiloid]

It's the active adaptor of the Common Berthing Mechanism.

(The part installed on the station side, not on a ship).

Spoiler

 

Before the docking, it opens the protective covers to release the petals.

Spoiler

 

We can see the rounded-cross-shaped cover.
The petals of the CBM mating ring are at the angles.

Behind the cross-thing there are four controllers. They belong to  the CBM and look attached.

Spoiler

As we can see, the hatch door is behind them. And it doesn't belong to the CBM, it's a part of station hull.

Spoiler

As we can see, the hatch is obstructed with these electronic blocks.
 

At the video of the cargo ship unboxing we can see both doors (the station's and the ship's) get slided aside.

Spoiler

 

 

The question: where do the whole cross-shaped thing and the underlying electronic blocks magically disappear to deobstruct the hatch?
And reappear then, too.

They look wider than the hatch, and they are a part of CBM, not of the hatch door.

I can imagine the cross can be a flexible piece of cloth attached to the door, but the controllers...

Are they folded into the hatch opening? We can see something blue there on the video screenshot.
But the petals look closer than this blue.

Edited September 14, 2020 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

So. The controller things are named CPA (for Control Panel Assembly), and they get temporarily cleared away because they indeed obstruct the hatch.
The covers get temporarily removed also.

Other elements of CBM can be temporarily removed as well.

https://www.wikizero.com/en/Common_Berthing_Mechanism

And the whole unboxing operation can last about a day, including the leakage checking.

[Spacescifi]

If all stoplights on roads were replaced with roundabouts it would be chaos.

 

Yet I really do think at least some races in scifi have behavior that could actually make roundabouts work.

And I don't mean AI.

I mean scifi races with behavior that is such that they won't have any issue avoiding traffic accidents while driving cars and using roundabouts only instead of stop signs 

 

Who do you think?

Vulcans? Anyone else?

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

If all stoplights on roads were replaced with roundabouts it would be chaos.

 

Yet I really do think at least some races in scifi have behavior that could actually make roundabouts work.

And I don't mean AI.

I mean scifi races with behavior that is such that they won't have any issue avoiding traffic accidents while driving cars and using roundabouts only instead of stop signs 

 

Who do you think?

Vulcans? Anyone else?

In Europe roundabouts has mostly taken over on most roads where its room for them. Say main issue with them is that they tend to be larger. 
Not suited for all settings because an busy road with an road in from the right tend to choke the main road. Much the same but more so if strait trough has much traffic  but less traffic in opposite direction often take left. 

With low traffic taking left tend to add significant g forces, groceries is now at the side of car