ARS

What's the design consideration specific for aircraft operating at extreme altitude? Because one one hand, we have the slow-moving aircraft with near-glider like characteristic such as U-2, but on the other hand, we have a literal speed demon with overkill engines like SR-71 or MiG 25/31 Also, does this statement correct?: "A material with high melting point is stronger in terms of mechanical characteristic than material with low melting point"

Is it possible to make a helicopter carrier accomodate fixed-wing carrier based aircraft by outfitting the ship with catapult (to compensate for shorter runway on deck)? That way they can act like WW2 light carriers, lower number of aircraft onboard but can still do carrier duty

I've seen multiple times on works set in WW2, be it games or movies, that everytime there's a soldier carrying a flamethrower, if a bullet struck a backpack he carries, it usually blows up in a massive fireball, engulfing the user and anyone nearby. Is this true to real-life? Because AFAIK, military grade-flamethrowers does not use gas-based fuel, only liquid (because it sticks better to enemies), and liquid is not compressible, so if a bullet pierced the tank, the contents inside is not under pressure, so there's no sudden expansion that can cause the whole backpack to rupture. And if I remember, military flamethrowers are specifically designed to be slow-burning and hard to ignite to maximize the burn effect and only burns when you want it to burn

While browsing the web,I found some very amusing tank designs, it's either hillarious, absurd or ouright cursed. Here, take a look and find everything wrong with the following tank designs (or for challenge, find the practical use of such design) :

I wanna ask some stuff about Outer Space Treaty: 1. If country A build a moonbase, then country B landed a rocket nearby and also build their own moonbase. Both (technically) didn't violate each other's territory since it was a neutral territory to begin with (and as long as they behave peacefully with each other) 2. Since the OST only specify WMDs and nukes that's prohibited to be placed in orbit, that means regular ballistic weapon (cannons, railguns, autocannons) and non-WMD weapons (missiles) are still allowed right? 3. If a country didn't participate in the OST (non-parties), does it mean they are exempt from the WMD rule? (aka, they can place nukes and WMDs in orbit) 4. What actually constitutes as contaminating space? Does a spent shell casings, discarded booster rockets, defunct satellites and missed railgun shot that continually travels out of solar system count as 'contaminating' it? 5. If we take a sci-fi tech such as phase technology (i.e technology that allows phasing between realspace and phasespace) and place a nuke in phasespace, technically it isn't a violation of OST right? (since the nuke isn't in realspace (actual space))

Suddenly Armageddon's quote makes much more sense now: 'being a driller is more difficult than being an astronaut' (as long as it's in space)

In many sci-fi settings, there's a lot of plot points of mining asteroid or planet to satisfy the demand of precious metals, and just now, I saw an article about 2 high-density ore asteroid that's supposedly could satisfy global demand of precious metal. If we take a real-life logic to this situation, is it worth setting up a space mining operation (orbital operations, spaceflight, the mining, and logistic transport) for ores with jacked up market price just to satisfy economic demand? (assuming that space travel is still limited, like today)

I know that setting a system on high-performance (the usual setting for playing high-end games)demands more power, does it means supplying more power can compensate for low-end hardware? (within a certain limit of course)

How does software optimization actually works? I played a game back then in 2019 on my laptop and it's laggy as hell, with stutters and choppy framerate that makes it nearly unplayable even at lowest setting, but 2 years later, a definitive edition came out and I tested it on the same laptop. A same game, same laptop but it's far smoother than the 2019 version, even at medium setting. How does the optimization worked?

Why I felt this starts to look like WW2 German wundewaffe project in a nutshell, history repeats itself

For me, the thunderous roar of SRBs during a liftoff or the roaring plasma during reentry still gives me satisfaction comparable to watching artillery battery going off. I rarely make military stuff in KSP, but if I make something, it has to be BIG (dunno why, but I always find it fascinating to build big stuff)

Just need one tower visible, it doesn't have to chain into an entire network

LMAO you got me there

Okay, I should add other things to consider about my question. Assume the earth-sized planet, with little to no variations in geographical features. Line of sight is defined from the top of the tower From practical, safety ad economic standpoint, which one is better? A network of 10 towers with height of 50m or a single 500m tall tower? If we just assume an earth-sized planet with smooth surface area, how many towers it takes to do it? (basically ignoring the variable terrain topography) let's just say I'm writing a semi-realistic sci-fi story where in a nutshell, space launch has become impossible due to... Over-kesslering the planet?

So I got something to ask... Build towers across earth. Each tower must have a line of sight to at least 1 other tower and 1 tower must be directly on south and north pole, whether the tower is placed on ground or sea doesn't matter, each tower has a height roughly 50m Considering that earth's surface area are roughly 510 million km2, and the distance to the horizon is roughly 5 km (which means there must be another tower within a radius of 78.5 km2 for each tower), the formula for the number of towers required would be: 510,000,000/ 78.5=6,496,815 towers Is this correct?

Because... Why not? FOR SCIENCE!!!

On WW2-era vehicles, especially tanks and ships, we can see coincidence rangefinders mounted on it, from small, portable unit used by tank crew, mounted on tank's cupola, integrated on tank's turret, and then we have the one mounted on fire control unit on destroyers, all the way up to a massive duplex rangefinder mounted on Yamato's fire control tower. All of those are from the smallest to the largest, so what I want to ask is, does the length of the 2 viewports (aka the width of the unit) corresponds to the maximum range that can be measured? (thus the effective firing range of the unit using it) Because the small ones are mounted on tanks since it's expected to engage other tanks at an average range of 1-2km , while the larger ones are mounted on ships because destroyers might engage each other at 5-10km+ range while battleships at over 15-20km+ range

Is there any specific reason why Soviet/ Russian Navy have a habit to paint the deck of their warships red? (Most of the time, especially on post-WW2 and cold war-era warship)

Wait, so there's a difference on what appears on radar screen between 'looks like nothing there (because there really is nothing)' and 'looks like nothing there (because something is stealthing from radar detection)'?

I doubt it'll help. Fire suppression system are usually mounted on the engine nacelle simply because that's the area that's more likely to catch fire and the inward air movement into the engine usually enough to put off any fire after the system is activated. If the aileron actuator cable melted but the fire has been put off before spreading too far, best case scenario, you can still glide away to land, but considering the circumstances of this crash, it's likely the pilot tried to turn back to land the plane, but only one aileron are functional, causing an uneven lift on one side and send the whole thing crashing down

So I got few things to ask... and it's about stealth, specifically radiation-absorbent material (RAM): 1. If RAM can reduce a radar-cross section of an object, does it also works when applied on non-stealth design? For instance, using RAM on 747 instead on B2, does it reduce 747 radar cross-section even though the 747's design is a non-stealth design? 2. Does the radar cross-section reduction effect is affected by the size of an object? Let's take an example, if there's a RAM that 100% absorbs any radiation emission (including all spectrum of radar), and apply it on independence day city killer mothership (or any other gigantic flying object), would that object invisible to radar? (even though it would be obviously visible to the naked eye)

If there's no oxygen in space, does it means a corrosion will never happen on spacecraft? What about corrosion of metal by strong acid? Does it still work without oxygen?

Funnily enough, Apollo Program was born because USA's previous proposal to one-up the Soviets was considered nuts, since after the Sputnik debacle, USA was desperately searching for ways to top the Soviets in the space race, and a proposal was made that an atomic bomb be detonated on the Moon (just to send a message). Fortunately, they decided to send astronauts to the moon instead after they realized the difference between legitimate science and cartoonish supervillainy

So... while browsing for an idea about sci-fi vehicles, I saw a quote which basically sums up like this: "Though the bomber is unlikely to be shot down, owing to it's heavy armor and redundant backup flight systems, the highly classified nature of it's existence means that the enemy must not be allowed to recover any remains of it should one of these get shot down. As such, this aircraft is fitted with sophisticated systems that it is designed to detonate and combust on impact, should it crash, melting the structural airframe and destroying any hardware designated as classified asset. Guaranteeing that none of it's remains are left in a condition that allowed the enemy to obtain any information about it." Now, logically speaking, does it make sense to put such a system on actual top secret military hardware? The one that completely destroy the asset to prevent the opposing side to gather intelligence of it? (not counting espionage and defection of course) Because AFAIK, even the modern day stealth bomber like B2 doesn't have a system like that (mainly from that 2008 B2 crash near the runway, the wreckage is still there after it went lithobraking)

Does ballistic weapon the worst choice for space-based weapon compared to energy and missile based? Since it needs physical projectile (more mass to carry), generate heat (especially for railgun, since in space you really need highspeed projectile to hit anything) and the need for counter-thruster to mitigate recoil (more propellant dedicated for the gun). Compared to the guidance capability of missiles and sustained use of energy weapons