For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

@ARS & @Gargamel

Grin - not to be pedantic or anything... but the main reason I even wrote "Pluto" in the first place is to reference how pedantic the arguments got over whether it was a planet or not.  Thus, in the context of communities which have debated that so very hotly, I have to ask whether words and proper names matter so much that we'd have to say the light illuminating Proxima Centauri b would be determined by measuring the inproximation (or perhaps inalphaproximacentauriation given that there's a chance Alpha Centauri might be bright enough to cast a shadow on the surface, as well.)

I could go on: inbetelgeuseation, intaucetiation, inkerbolation...

(insolation being so very, very precise and local, after all!)

Edited July 6, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

inLP145-141ation, inWD1142-645ation...

Humans call "sun" the bright round thing which gives light for harvest, and needs bloody sacrifices for that.

The Sun exists in space, the "sun" in head, so the Proximians will call Proxima just "sun".

P.S.
Btw, Kerbals call their star "Sun", so "insolation", rather than "inkerbolation"

2 hours ago, Gargamel said:

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/plutotime/

Every time when Pluto crosses Illinois, it officially becomes a planet. For several minutes per day.

It's amusing...
Such small Illinois, such far Pluto. And the Earth rules still work at that distance...

Edited July 6, 2022 by kerbiloid

[Pixophir]

17 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Question for the pedantics: when describing the amount of starlight received at any given point on an exoplanet, will we need a different word than insolation?

 

Technically that is a matter of definition. Let's say someone writes a paper, they'll get among other things their terminology right. They may be careful and avoid confusion (random example). As we don't write papers on earth about "insolation" from Beteigeuze for instance because that would certainly be confusing if not invalidating the sense of the writing. So it is automatically clear what the source of the radiation in a given context is and if not it must be described. The reviewers may also have a word and hint to difficulties they feel need clarification.

The rest is up to the reader.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Pixophir

[ARS]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

insolation being so very, very precise and local, after all!

I think it would be reasonable to use the term insolation by itself when we're talking about extrasolar planet. Let's say we're discussing about the characteristic of extrasolar planet of CoRoT 7b, when the topic of insolation being brought up, people would automatically associate it with the star that CoRoT 7b orbits, not our Sun. With so many stars out there, assigning unique term for each of them (which basically means the same thing: the amount of radiation received on a given surface in a given time period) adds unnecessary complexity, especially when we reached the level of InTorcularisSeptentrionalisation, or InCoRoTation. I think the word Sol itself doesn't always have to be specific about our Sun, otherwise when we reached the technological level to send exploration to other stars, the spacecraft's Solar panels would be referred to TorcularisSeptentrionalisar Panel, CoRoTar Panel, Betelgeusear Panel,etc.

[kerbiloid]

Let's recall that "insolation" is an agricultural term.
And nobody cares what is the source of light, while the plowland or the forest is inSOLated properly.

Astronomy operates with "magnitude" and "brightness".

(Sun has them, too. -26.7).

[Gargamel]

6 hours ago, Gargamel said:

That didn’t sit right with me, but I think the answer is actually “sort of”.    As you said it varies, but there is an approximate analog here On earth: 

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/plutotime/

 

This tells you the next time your location under a clear sky will look like Pluto at noon. 

Well, it’s a few minutes past Pluto time ona cloudy day, and it’s surprisingly bright.    I could read a book.    Did not expect this. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

it’s a few minutes past Pluto time ona cloudy day, and it’s surprisingly bright.    I could read a book

I was convinced that it would be like the light around EENT - but was surprised that it's more like the illumination just after sun had disappeared beyond the limb of the earth... (7 minutes after sunset)

Colors still look like colors. 

Neat! 

(also... This gives me that creepy sort of feeling you get when you think about just how big the sun really is). 

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, ARS said:

I think it would be reasonable to use the term insolation by itself when we're talking about extrasolar planet. Let's say we're discussing about the characteristic of extrasolar planet of CoRoT 7b, when the topic of insolation being brought up, people would automatically associate it with the star that CoRoT 7b orbits, not our Sun. With so many stars out there, assigning unique term for each of them (which basically means the same thing: the amount of radiation received on a given surface in a given time period) adds unnecessary complexity, especially when we reached the level of InTorcularisSeptentrionalisation, or InCoRoTation. I think the word Sol itself doesn't always have to be specific about our Sun, otherwise when we reached the technological level to send exploration to other stars, the spacecraft's Solar panels would be referred to TorcularisSeptentrionalisar Panel, CoRoTar Panel, Betelgeusear Panel,etc.

Agree, now it might be relevant if you are on an planet in orbit around Alpha Centauri B as I assume A will be pretty bright at least then closest, its still 11 AU away so Saturn distance so no power but if its up during night it would be no need for outdoor lightning. Still insolation would makes sense for B as you orbit it even if A is larger. 

[ARS]

So I'm making a worldbuilding concept for my works, and I have some stuff to ask

Spoiler

-Should military spaceship crew wear spacesuits? Not the kind of full-EVA suit, but an airtight suit that's adequate to keep the crew alive when there's a hull breach. In some sci-fi works (Star Wars, Star Trek), the warship crew (especially bridge personnel) only wears their regular military uniform, while on some works (some Gundam series) have the bridge personnel wear spacesuits (at least when it's in active combat situation)

-Does terraforming a planet outside of the goldilocks zone pointless endeavor? (at least on giant money waste level) Like, it's literally trying to fight the nature of the planet's location itself

-Which one is harder? Launching a missile from the surface to hit something in orbit, or launching a missile from orbit to hit something on the surface?

-Does nukes have shockwaves in space? If so, could you thwart a missile barrage by detonating few nukes to clear them out?

-As a spacefaring civilization, what kind of resources that's vital for sustainable space conquest? (aside from fictional resources like power crystals for FTL reactor),  stuff that's necessary for large-scale manufacturing of space warships

For some information about my works:

Spoiler

-Space war setting, the tech level is like more grounded version of Star Wars (there's still FTL travel, but no such thing like planet-killing battlestation, just plain good'ol orbital bombardment if you really want a planet dead)

-No force, but there's psychic power (which is just limited to typical ESP ability you would expect such as telekinesis, precognition and mind-reading, not to the extent of shooting lightning or more elaborate stuff)

-No aliens, just various factions of humans in the sector, ranging from pirates, mercs, military dictatorship, fanatical psychic cult up to megacorporations with private army (oh, and hostile rogue AI leftover from previous great war)

-Energy weapons are as commonplace as kinetic weapons and missiles

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, ARS said:

So I'm making a worldbuilding concept for my works, and I have some stuff to ask

  Hide contents

-Should military spaceship crew wear spacesuits? Not the kind of full-EVA suit, but an airtight suit that's adequate to keep the crew alive when there's a hull breach. In some sci-fi works (Star Wars, Star Trek), the warship crew (especially bridge personnel) only wears their regular military uniform, while on some works (some Gundam series) have the bridge personnel wear spacesuits (at least when it's in active combat situation)

-Does terraforming a planet outside of the goldilocks zone pointless endeavor? (at least on giant money waste level) Like, it's literally trying to fight the nature of the planet's location itself

-Which one is harder? Launching a missile from the surface to hit something in orbit, or launching a missile from orbit to hit something on the surface?

-Does nukes have shockwaves in space? If so, could you thwart a missile barrage by detonating few nukes to clear them out?

-As a spacefaring civilization, what kind of resources that's vital for sustainable space conquest? (aside from fictional resources like power crystals for FTL reactor),  stuff that's necessary for large-scale manufacturing of space warships

For some information about my works:

  Reveal hidden contents

-Space war setting, the tech level is like more grounded version of Star Wars (there's still FTL travel, but no such thing like planet-killing battlestation, just plain good'ol orbital bombardment if you really want a planet dead)

-No force, but there's psychic power (which is just limited to typical ESP ability you would expect such as telekinesis, precognition and mind-reading, not to the extent of shooting lightning or more elaborate stuff)

-No aliens, just various factions of humans in the sector, ranging from pirates, mercs, military dictatorship, fanatical psychic cult up to megacorporations with private army (oh, and hostile rogue AI leftover from previous great war)

-Energy weapons are as commonplace as kinetic weapons and missiles

1. Depends on the nature of the military and the history of its traditions. All air forces today have pressure suits for their pilots in case they need to bail out at high altitude. But if a space force branched out from a navy, maybe the thinking is different and they don’t do that, like in submarines.

2. Depends on the reason why they would do that. People will go to great lengths and costs if they feel something is important enough (the R-7 ballistic missile development, intended to create sure-fire nuclear deterrence for the USSR, took up an absurd portion of the defence budget in the 50s, despite being a poor weapon system, they needed anything and went for it).

3. Well, both are hard. In real life, direct ascent ASAT has been around since the 70s-80s. Hitting a precise point from orbit hasn’t seen nearly as much focus because orbital bombardment isn’t a thing (yet) and with crewed spacecraft and sample return probes you don’t need to be that accurate. BUT, China has recently changed their minds and ended up landing with a few hundred meters of their predicted landing sites. So it probably isn’t too hard.

4. Probably no “shockwave” because there is no air, but regardless of kinetic damage, the EMP would fry the electronics of the missiles and prevent them from detonating or guiding themselves.

5. Well, based on Earth based shenanigans, apart from the obvious basic materials for the hull, rare metals would be vital for electronics. I am not knowledgeable enough about that topic to go into detail further.

Edited July 7, 2022 by SunlitZelkova

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, ARS said:

Should military spaceship crew wear spacesuits? Not the kind of full-EVA suit, but an airtight suit that's adequate to keep the crew alive when there's a hull breach. In some sci-fi works (Star Wars, Star Trek), the warship crew (especially bridge personnel) only wears their regular military uniform, while on some works (some Gundam series) have the bridge personnel wear spacesuits (at least when it's in active combat situation)

Depends on the ability of gathering and delivering them to a safe place until the rescue spacesuit gets out of oxygen, which is typically less than two hours.

So if they can get themselves to an emergency capsule, or a rescue ship arrives and takes them all on board (which takes time, and probably anyway requires them first getting to the built-in rescue capsule themselves.)

So, unless they are fighter pilots, who needs a rescue spaceuit anyway, they probably need a breathe mask with air balloon for 15 min and some pressure bands in the combat unform (like the fighter pilots wear), to let them crawl to the nearest safe room in case of sudden depressurization.

As the depressurization of a whole compartment unlikely can happen in seconds (because such big hole in a wal means that the crew inside is already killed), so probably portable breathing masks at the workplaces is enough.
They should put them on in combat mode, or keep at the table other time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-contained_self-rescue_device

2 hours ago, ARS said:

Does terraforming a planet outside of the goldilocks zone pointless endeavor? (at least on giant money waste level) Like, it's literally trying to fight the nature of the planet's location itself

Yes, pointless.
Because you will need to either produce and remove heat, or just remove the excessive heat.
And as you can remove it only to space (in the planetary scale), and the planets have the most compact form they can (a sphere), so the planet outside of comfortable equilibrium temperature will get overheated.

The same with orbital habitats, but much quicker.

1g -rotating habitats in orbit, and agriculture and industry on surface. The agriculture should be in natural equilibrium with the insolation.

2 hours ago, ARS said:

-Which one is harder? Launching a missile from the surface to hit something in orbit, or launching a missile from orbit to hit something on the surface?

Deorbiting takes much less delta-V than launch and insertion (100 m/s vs 10 km/s), unless you want to hit the surface point exactly below the current position of the ship.

But it takes from twenty minutes to more than hour to fall down (or many hours from GSO), can hit only targets close to the orbit plane, and has poor accuracy.

So, the deorbitable missile should be either a hypersonic glider like HTV-2 deorbited from LEO (to maneuver a couple of thousand kilometers sideways from the orbit plane, and to be homing at the final approach),
or a stealth, sharp-shaped, and heatproof to dive from GSO.

2 hours ago, ARS said:

Does nukes have shockwaves in space? If so, could you thwart a missile barrage by detonating few nukes to clear them out?

In vacuum  - very weak and so close that everything will evaporate before feeling it.

At distance - only from the gas cloud of the evaporated ship wall, expanding through the ship corridors.

2 hours ago, ARS said:

-As a spacefaring civilization, what kind of resources that's vital for sustainable space conquest? (aside from fictional resources like power crystals for FTL reactor),  stuff that's necessary for large-scale manufacturing of space warships

Everything lightweight (Li, Be, B), all actinoids, all platinoids, all lantanoids.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, ARS said:

-Should military spaceship crew wear spacesuits? Not the kind of full-EVA suit, but an airtight suit that's adequate to keep the crew alive when there's a hull breach. In some sci-fi works (Star Wars, Star Trek), the warship crew (especially bridge personnel) only wears their regular military uniform, while on some works (some Gundam series) have the bridge personnel wear spacesuits (at least when it's in active combat situation)

As a counterpoint to @SunlitZelkova, submarines have the EAB:

The major difference is that it's primarily to combat submariners' other nightmare - fire, and corresponding air contamination. I don't think they can use it to last through severe flooding.

Surface ship crews also don anti-flash protection gear and, under some circumstances, regular ol' combat helmets. Not to mention life vests.

2 hours ago, ARS said:

Does nukes have shockwaves in space? If so, could you thwart a missile barrage by detonating few nukes to clear them out?

No. But yes. Instead of shockwaves, high-altitude nuclear weapons are, one and all, enhanced radiation weapons. Endoatmospheric interceptors like Sprint carry neutron warheads that would cause significant surface charge and fry the electronics of the target warhead, and potentially cause partial fission of the nuclear weapon itself. LIM-49 Spartan was an exoatmospheric interceptor (roughly comparable to the latter-day GBI), and it carried the 5-megaton W-71 with a gold tamper which instead moved the peak of energy release into X-rays. It was expected to eliminate all warheads in a 16 mile radius upon detonation. However, eventually MIRVs achieved far greater scattering and so the concept (along with a significant pprtion of the US missile defense program) was shelved.

[mikegarrison]

Maybe, you know, there shouldn't even be military spaceships with military crews?

[TheSaint]

20 hours ago, ARS said:

-Should military spaceship crew wear spacesuits? Not the kind of full-EVA suit, but an airtight suit that's adequate to keep the crew alive when there's a hull breach. In some sci-fi works (Star Wars, Star Trek), the warship crew (especially bridge personnel) only wears their regular military uniform, while on some works (some Gundam series) have the bridge personnel wear spacesuits (at least when it's in active combat situation)

So, in terms of science fiction, this one really depends on one question: Does your setting have force fields? That's the reason why settings like Star Wars and Star Trek don't worry about explosive decompression. Their explanation is that if their ship experiences a hull breach they just project a force field and prevent the air from escaping out of it. If that's not an option in your setting, then, yes, anyone with half a brain is going to be wearing a pressure suit in a combat situation. If a weapon strike blows a meter-wide hole in your compartment you aren't going to want to waste time fiddling with a rescue ball. Especially since, if your ship is still functioning, and you miraculously don't have any holes in you, you may want to be focused on trying to make meter-wide holes in the other guy.

[kerbiloid]

The next question: should a crewed spaceship have so large rooms that a meter-wide hole doesn't mean a total crash inside.

[ARS]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Maybe, you know, there shouldn't even be military spaceships with military crews?

Well if the setting has AI technology that's advanced enough to mass-produce sentient warships with enough intelligence for considering tactical options and make a combat decision in real time, then yeah, crew is just a liability at that point since any space you can put additional weapons now being used as crew accomodation and life support (and essentially turning interplanetary war into glorified battlebots arms racewhere both sides are sending increasingly advanced drone warships until one of them is overwhelmed). Or maybe the AI is being prohibited (at least on sentient level) so living crew are still needed to have a functioning ship

42 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

The next question: should a crewed spaceship have so large rooms that a meter-wide hole doesn't mean a total crash inside.

I don't think large room is gonna help much with decompression, especially since large room also takes a lot of space inside the ship. It might make decompression slower, but once it happen you essentially lost a large portion of the ship. A more sensible solution would be heavy compartmentalzation. Space warships should have more bulkhead than regular spaceship, aside for increased hull integrity and mass, a hull breach could be isolated in a more specific manner (only affected room are sealed for damage control), so you only lose rooms that's totally unusable, not an entire section of big room that only have minor breach on it's corner

Now that makes me wonder, since duct tape is always an adequate improvised repair tool, if your glass helmet on your spacesuit have cracks, could you seal the crack in improvised manner by covering the crack with space-grade duct tape? How about a tear on the spacesuit? Could it be fixed (at least temporarily) by using duct tape?

[mikegarrison]

Just now, ARS said:

Well if the setting has AI technology that's advanced enough to mass-produce sentient warships with enough intelligence for considering tactical options and make a combat decision in real time, then yeah, crew is just a liability at that point since any space you can put additional weapons now being used as crew accomodation and life support (and essentially turning interplanetary war into glorified battlebots arms racewhere both sides are sending increasingly advanced drone warships until one of them is overwhelmed). Or maybe the AI is being prohibited (at least on sentient level) so living crew are still needed to have a functioning ship

I think you missed my point. I guess I was over-specific. How about if I shorten the question to "Maybe there shouldn't be military spaceships?" I suppose there is no real evidence that people have ever stopped or will ever stop making war on each other, but sometimes it is nice to read stories that aren't about fighting.

But you do you, I guess.

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, ARS said:

I don't think large room is gonna help much with decompression

I mean the opposite. The combat room should be small and well-protected, so the 1 m wide hole would mean its destruction.

So, they should have enough time for several steps to the neighboring room and trhe door unlock/lock.

[TheSaint]

7 hours ago, ARS said:

Well if the setting has AI technology that's advanced enough to mass-produce sentient warships with enough intelligence for considering tactical options and make a combat decision in real time, then yeah, crew is just a liability at that point since any space you can put additional weapons now being used as crew accomodation and life support (and essentially turning interplanetary war into glorified battlebots arms racewhere both sides are sending increasingly advanced drone warships until one of them is overwhelmed). Or maybe the AI is being prohibited (at least on sentient level) so living crew are still needed to have a functioning ship

Well, you don't really need that either. We don't have that level of AI, but we're already fielding drone aircraft and tanks that are remotely controlled by human pilots. No reason to think that space warfare will do any different.

Really, it comes down to how much science you want in your science fiction. On the Star Wars/Star Trek/space opera end of the scale you can have your characters standing in shirt sleeves next to a massive hull breach, tut-tutting about how much more uncivilized the universe has become since they were kids. At the other end, your warships will probably be unmanned drones with no humans onboard that therefore don't care about decompression. But, if you're somewhere in the middle, where your gallant adventurers still sit on a ship that goes into harm's way but are not protected by magic force screens, then they're probably going to want to wear some form of vacuum protection.

I have seen it in some settings where, when a military ship is going into combat, the crew puts on suits and then decompresses the ship completely, Prevents cabin pressure from making hull breaches worse.  I would have to think more about that than I have time to this morning before I actually endorse it.

7 hours ago, ARS said:

Now that makes me wonder, since duct tape is always an adequate improvised repair tool, if your glass helmet on your spacesuit have cracks, could you seal the crack in improvised manner by covering the crack with space-grade duct tape? How about a tear on the spacesuit? Could it be fixed (at least temporarily) by using duct tape?

Suit repair kit, standard issue in any science fiction setting. Bunch of peel-off-stick-on patches in an external pocket of the suit. Or, you can make the suit self-sealing. Or both. When it comes down to feeding my oxygen addiction, I would vote for both.

7 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I think you missed my point. I guess I was over-specific. How about if I shorten the question to "Maybe there shouldn't be military spaceships?" I suppose there is no real evidence that people have ever stopped or will ever stop making war on each other, but sometimes it is nice to read stories that aren't about fighting.

But you do you, I guess.

There's room for that too. I seem to recall a certain video game discussed here occasionally that has no conflict or weapons at all in it that some folks enjoy.

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

I mean the opposite. The combat room should be small and well-protected, so the 1 m wide hole would mean its destruction.

So, they should have enough time for several steps to the neighboring room and trhe door unlock/lock.

Well, yes, but actually no. You want it to be well protected, but you want it to be large enough that everyone who needs to be able to communicate with each other can communicate with each other, unless you plan on sealing each crew member in their own individual cockpit and only communicating electronically. And you want your systems to be redundant so that a single hit probably won't take out your ability to fight. That would be the point.

And, if my plan for vacuum protection in the event of a breach involves moving there, or putting this on, or activating that, then I'm setting myself up to fail. I want to be as protected as possible before disaster strikes in that sort of situation.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

14 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

There's room for that too. I seem to recall a certain video game discussed here occasionally that has no conflict or weapons at all in it that some folks enjoy.

Very true. 

... 

... 

<remembers the mod that let you put fireworks launchers on things...>

<anticipates multiplayer with those >

... 

Yeah. 

People will be people 

[tomf]

For the suits question it's going to come down to the types of damage typically sustained by the ships.

Of you ships frequently end up after a fight with lots of small holes from being blasted for example with orbital velocity shrapnel, or ships go "down" slowly enough that you have time to get to a lifeboat then suits are going to be recommended.

If weaponry is such that ships tend to face total existence failure and help is far away then you may as well be comfortable in shirt sleeves.

[ARS]

In aircraft design, what aspect of aircraft's aerodynamic performance being affected by the wing area and fuselage length?

[kerbiloid]

Several, but they are basically integrated as the "lift-to-drag ratio", L/D.

[ARS]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Several, but they are basically integrated as the "lift-to-drag ratio", L/D.

Ah I see. Thanks for the answer

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Whatever happened to wax and other hybrid fuels in rockets? 

https://news.stanford.edu/pr/03/rocketwax115.html#:~:text=Liquid rocket fuels include kerosene,where they mix and burn.