Kibble

Would Fuji have actually done transposition and docking with the Expansion Module? You'd need a different adaptor from the Minimum System anyway, I don't think there were any plans to launch it with the Propulsion Module, but not the EM. Although having the capsule on top does simplify abort modes. I actually can't find almost any info on the internet about Fuji! Sad, cause like you said its a beautiful machine </3 Oh and I've been following/lurking around this super awesome thread for awhile, it is THE prettiest Stock-alike parts addon! I just wish it was supported by RO :3

Huh, laserstars pushing each other around using solar panels as sails? It would definitely save you some precious toxic explosive, meaning the Killer Bus couldn't run you out. But I imagine anything sitting precariously at a Lagrange point would wait to jink as long as possible, considering how unstable Halo and Lissajous orbits are. On debris clouds, IIRC thats how Istrebitel Sputnikov worked, and was effective up to 1 km away. I think with at least two sheep-dogging vehicles, one could rendezvous within 1 km. I just noticed that I got rep from Nyrath - Atomic Rockets Nyrath! OmigoshOmigoshOmigosh!

Thank you! I've actually been a lurker for awhile, and these forums are awesome. Thanks - it just seemed to me like there are too few discussions of space strategy that don't assume super crazy future technologies. Re: your comment I guess that depends on how effective lasers would be against them. I'm sure most satellite components can be ruggedized against high temperature variations, and we probably won't have lasers that can actually vaporize metal until we have lots of fissioning in space (which I don't think will be for a long while). However if low-powered lasers can fry solar panels, then the Killer Bus would have to have an alternate power source, like an RTG, which IIRC can be fairly heavy, maybe even heavy enough (when you have to launch at least two plus the propulsion bus) that it defeats their main advantage over sending a Laserstar.

Super long post divided into neat little chunks! I’d imagine a real space war being kind of like our methods of detecting dangerous asteroids, if we started putting a bunch of money into it. Asteroids and spacecraft that aren’t actively talking to you have a lot in common – they are small, radiate softly in the infrared spectrum, and often on unstable, not-entirely-predictable solar orbits. You would probably launch telescopes a lot like the proposed Sentinel Space Telescope, with liquid helium-cooled sun-shaded detectors hunting the sky for anything that stands out. If they spot something, mission control will track it, figure out its orbit, and judge whether it’s a bad guy’s spacecraft. Alot of these telescopes will be in similar positions to Sentinel – i.e. a low enough solar orbit that it can look away from the Sun to see things, because you can’t look at or around the Sun without your temperature-sensitive telescope optics burning out. But the best place to be is at the Sun-Badguyville L1 point – you’re always looking away from the Sun, and always looking right at all the fishy things the bad guys are doing on orbit. So that spacecraft you detected heading for you might be a telescope headed for your Sun-El-Wun. What about all the violent parts? Well this is where it stops resembling combatting dangerous space rocks. We can assume functioning spacecraft are flimsy (not made of rock) and in one piece. First of all nobody is never going to come anywhere near low orbit of an enemy planet, unless they absolutely have to. If you’re in LEO, you’re going to be ASATed by Earthicans. We have launched ASATs practically for fun. If you’re in LMO or LVO, you’re going to be ASATed by Martians or Venusians (Venerians?). If you’re in LLO, you might be ASATed by Moon men, but without an atmosphere to hide in or send airplanes thru, it might not be entirely practical. It is extremely likely that ASATs will be launched from airplanes, so that you can match the enemy inclination, and there is precedence for air-launched ASATs. These airplanes might even be manned! “But that’s not space combat!â€Â, you may be complaining. Well you’re right, its not! The good news is, that probably won’t happen very often, there is no real reason to go into Low Badguyville Orbit. So how do you deal with that baddie headed for your Butt Lagrange? Earth’s SEL1 is 1.8 million kilos away – ASATs are no-go. Well you have a few different options, but the most likely one I will call by Rick Robinson’s wonderfully evocative name – Killer Bus! It will be on a solid-fuel air-launched rocket like Pegasus, again to match inclinations, avoid bad weather, all that stuff. It consists of three major parts: a little hypergolic tug like Fregat to put it on a trajectory that will roughly intersect with the enemy. Mounted on top is a modified P-Pod, built to carry at least 4Us of Cubesat. And then the Killer Buses themselves, at least two Cubesats, probably at least 2U each to carry enough maneuvering fuel to rendezvous with the bad spacecraft. With multiple operating in tandem like sheepdogs, likely at least one will get really close. Then it detonates a charge, becoming a small cloud of lethal space debris. This is just to really make sure you get em – you’ll be as close as possible, but even docking with a cooperative target is hard! Much less docking with an uncooperative target at high relative velocity. Another option is pre-positioned Laserstars, a laser emitter looking thru an infrared space telescope with the biggest mirror you can afford. These will look a lot like James Webb Space Telescope, but with bigger solar panels and bigger radiators to power the laser. If you had infinite money and infinite rockets, the best way to use these would be the way you use Killer Bus, but without having to have near as precise aiming. Unfortunately these things are probably way to expensive to regularly eject onto solar orbits. But even at low power, laserstars are the natural enemy of telescopes (including other laserstars). It eats flimsy, temperature-sensitive, finely tuned mirrors for breakfast. (If low power lasers are also good at frying solar panels, laserstars rule the solar system until we start regularly launching nuclear-powered spacecraft, but I don’t know if they are.) This is where it starts to get complicated. We can assume the ultimate targets are the enemy’s space infrastructure, which varies with each planet. Earth has that awesome (water-rich?) Moon for some complex weak stability trajectories and stuff, but most or all infrastructures will probably center on Keck Institute-style redirected asteroids. Little Philae-looking Kuck Mousquitos will drill for water ice to keep as drinking water, crack into oxygen for breathing, crack into hydrogen to resupply Sabatier reactions, crack into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel, and to make hydrogen peroxide. They will also drill for ammonia ice, and using the peroxide process (with that hydrogen peroxide), to make hydrazine, and with catalytic oxidation, to make nitrogen tetroxide. For rocket fuel. Hydrogen doesn’t keep for very long, so any maneuver not falling under the category “rocket stage putting something on a transfer trajectory†will be done with hypergolics. The Kuck Mosquitos will probably be teleoperated by astronauts in a space station somewhere in the vicinity of Keckistan. Mining is a difficult and unpredictable process, and mining in space will probably require constant supervision, and ocaissionally quick reactions to imminent problems. It is also one of the few cases in which it is probably easier to send astronauts to fix the probes that break, rather than just launch new ones. It is natural to assume that this is where the probes return to offload their freshly extracted ices, and where those ices get turned into something useful. It is equally natural to assume that there will be many of these stations, each supervising a rock, or a set of rocks. It is possible that this station will actually be on the surface. This simplifies protection against radiation, if most planetoids end up having enough regolith to make Mooncrete with. Those rocks will be fiercely protected, there might be some big fighting landers, and maybe Laserstars keeping station. They would be regularly serviced by the nearby astronauts, as station-keeping requires non-trivial amounts of fuel. Once you have reliable data from L1 telescopes (protected by friendly Laserstars?), you need to immediately launch a large expedition, before this advantage gets Killer Bussed away. Ultimately the goal is to get your astronauts to those asteroid stations, and get their astronauts out, so this expedition will be manned. It will probably consist of a big central command spacecraft with a habitat, ferries, landers, and enough delta vee to brake onto orbit. The rest of the constellation will probably include some more telescopes, maybe some Laserstars, and lots of Killer Bus. The latter will stay on hyperbolic trajectories, and impact as much of the bad guy’s stuff as possible. If they aren’t successful enough, the manned segment of the mission might be aborted. Otherwise the command spacecraft brakes onto High Badguyville Orbit, and launches astronauts to start boarding and taking over the bases. Depending on how successful this part is, their space infrastructure is taken over, and the interplanetary war is won!