Whay would real-life war spacecraft look like?

[FishInferno]

So, you have movies like Star Wars, where there are these epic battleships firing at each other while fighter-let-like spacecraft dogfight nearby. Makes for a good movie, but most on this forum probably know that a real-life equivalent would look much different. I have some ideas on what a realistic space battle fleet would look like, but I am no expert and there are probably some flaws in my logic.

Space Battleship:

A battleship will be in space for extended periods of time, so artificial gravity for the crew is a must. I assume it would look something like the training station in Ender's Game, with a large centrifuge in the middle. Guns also will work in space, so there is no need for lasers. however, you would need some way to redirect the recoil so it doesn't push the ship in another direction.

Fighters:

In movies, Space fighters are often depicted with wings. Well, with no air in space, there is no need for wings. They would just add extra weight. I think that a space fighter would look much similar to any other capsule, just weaponized.

There are probably dozens of flaws in my logic, so fire away

[LABHOUSE]

I think it would have ions and lots of solar panels, greenhouses, and nuclear reactors. It would need to be small so it could be aerodynamic for launching (not too wide). I do not think it would need a centrifuge. And it might have a solar sail.

Edited November 24, 2014 by LABHOUSE

[zekes]

Armor, weapons, and fuel. Much like KSP warships

[Spartwo]

Wings are the best bet for weapons mounting, they're relatively lightweight and have a large surface area.

[Kryten]

^Istrabitel sputnik, the only combat spacecraft yet made operational. The cylinders projecting out of the sides are directional shrapnel charges.

[Jouni]

What kind of technology do you assume? Something that already exists? Something that could exist, if somebody just built it? Something that could plausibly exist a few decades from now? Something that could exist in a few centuries, assuming no new physics? Something based on physical phenomena unknown to us?

What's the purpose of space combat? To destroy enemy satellites, while the war is fought on the surface? To support surface warfare? To control or destroy facilities in orbit, at Lagrangian points, and on the Moon? To control asteroids, planets, and moons? To control star systems?

Generally I'd assume that combat would occur between sparse swarms of autonomous drones. There would definitely be no pilots or crew, because people are obsolete. Armor would probably be minimal, because you'll only need it when you have already failed, and effective armor would be extremely heavy.

[DerpenWolf]

Well I suppose the appearance of the craft depends on the requirements. One thing you defiantly want is a hull that can resist radiation and micrometeorite impacts or at least some kind of big magnetic shield system to keep out radiation and things of the like. Your armament pretty much comes down to projectiles, light beams, and missiles. A lot of laser weaponry could probually be countered with some sort of cloud gel chaff stuff or something to help defuse light. You might even want to coat your ship in some sort of aerogel like stuff if it would help at all (and not burn off). Missiles can probably be countered with other missiles and laser weaponry (Though missiles that turn into a cloud of debris before they are intercepted could be a pain for such systems). Railgun/projectile slugs MIGHT be able to be countered with a magnetic shielding system (Vaguely recall hearing something about the US navy looking into something like this to protect battleships). Apart from that you could have algae tanks as an addition to any temporary food stores (bring a heck of a lot of spices). Propulsion would likely be either an electric thruster, an Orion drive system, or maybe even be a fusion engine. Part from that your going to want a bunch of nuclear/and or fusion reactors.

Of course all of this assumes we just don't drop nukes or big rocks on each-other instead.

Also Here is a wikipedia page about Salyut 3 and its fun surprise

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_3

Edited November 24, 2014 by DerpenWolf

[dbmorpher]

http://phredspace.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54eefe6f88833010535c444e3970c-320wi

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Y3xZldoF-jw/S1x4hFEI-KI/AAAAAAAAAUg/ByTpBuRsl5E/s400/OrionBattleship.jpg

Here are some weaponized Project Orions

[Laie]

As long as spaceships need reaction mass in order to move, the weapons-vs-armor contest is decided from the outset. Weapons win. Antigrav propulsion might possibly change that, but I have my doubts even then: whatever armor you can put into space, the technology that allows you to do that will also allow you to build ever more devastating impactors.

Therefore, real-life warships would be small, (comparatively) simple, and unmanned.

[MockKnizzle]

I feel like robotic missiles would fare far better than any manned combat spacecraft. No life-support mass to carry around, smaller profile, and capable of far higher accelerations.

[FishInferno]

I feel like robotic missiles would fare far better than any manned combat spacecraft. No life-support mass to carry around, smaller profile, and capable of far higher accelerations.

A robot will never be better than a human's quick reaction. Interstellar has a scene where they talk about

our survival instinct, and how that is what allows us to be better than robots. Robots can only be programmed to respond to specific things. A human can improvise.

[Kryten]

A robot will never be better than a human's quick reaction.

^would disagree with you. A space environment would barely be less predictable than the one that deals with just fine.

[Soda Popinski]

A robot will never be better than a human's quick reaction. Interstellar has a scene where they talk about

our survival instinct, and how that is what allows us to be better than robots. Robots can only be programmed to respond to specific things. A human can improvise.

Remote controlled drones? No need for life-support, much armor, fast acceleration, etc. Yet with a human in control (or at least partial control).

Earlier point:

Guns also will work in space, so there is no need for lasers. however, you would need some way to redirect the recoil so it doesn't push the ship in another direction.

Naval ships also have recoil with guns, that's not really an issue. Space battleships, or whatever, would simply use thrusters to maintain attitude control. The guns could be put in line with the center of mass to reduce rotational recoil. The mass they're pushing is generally insignificant compared to the mass of the ship. It just needs to have enough energy to pierce the hull of whatever they're shooting at. Even more so if it's an explosive shell.

Edit: Though it'd be nice if it looked like this:

Edited November 25, 2014 by Soda Popinski

[*Aqua*]

A robot will never be better than a human's quick reaction. [...] Robots can only be programmed to respond to specific things. A human can improvise.

AI can do that, too. There are quite a lot of intelligent algorithms (artificial neuronal networks, genetic programming, genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, etc.). But up to now there is no hardware which allows for a similiar processing power like our brain. In the future this will be different.

@topic

If it's 'just' an interplanetary war laser orbit is more than enough to destroy all orbital defense within minutes or hours. Ground targets can be bombarded with missles (ground or orbit stationed).

If it's an interstellar war there'll probably only send drones with lasers and missles or just missles.

[Jouni]

A robot will never be better than a human's quick reaction. Interstellar has a scene where they talk about

our survival instinct, and how that is what allows us to be better than robots. Robots can only be programmed to respond to specific things. A human can improvise.

That's just wishful thinking. Humans are extremely slow and very heavy. They die easily, grow bored quickly, require all kinds of activities, and have short attention spans. They can handle only a few things at once, basing their decisions on first impressions and intuition instead of a detailed assessment of the situation. Even worse, they have all kinds of stupid cognitive and sensory biases that are well-known and easy to exploit.

[Tommygun]

Something with current or near term technology:

Unmanned Soyuz with laser:

Conventional missiles in vertical launch tubes, rotary Vulcan cannons and spaced armor plates etc:

[zekes]

and then we have 2001's orbital launch platforms:

[magnemoe]

http://www.doolwind.com/images/blog/phalanx.jpg

^would disagree with you. A space environment would barely be less predictable than the one that deals with just fine.

Robots react fast, very fast.

Downside is that they are stupid and has serious problems learning.

Yes the opious exploits like having it run into the same trap over and over as today might be coded around, however this only work for traps like ambushes it understand is a trap, changing the trap a bit and it can be reused.

Best solution would probably be to have robots at the front and humans behind to control, not direct control but more like officers today.

[ZedNova]

It would basically look like a telescope and fire lasers and/or missiles.

They would be expendable and cheap to build. They would be unmanned.

The lasers could be mounted on a turret ball and be used to destroy incoming missiles.

Edited November 25, 2014 by ZedNova

[magnemoe]

AI can do that, too. There are quite a lot of intelligent algorithms (artificial neuronal networks, genetic programming, genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, etc.). But up to now there is no hardware which allows for a similiar processing power like our brain. In the future this will be different.

@topic

If it's 'just' an interplanetary war laser orbit is more than enough to destroy all orbital defense within minutes or hours. Ground targets can be bombarded with missles (ground or orbit stationed).

If it's an interstellar war there'll probably only send drones with lasers and missles or just missles.

Yes AI will be smarter, however we don't know how easy it is to make something as smart as a human. Again as other pointed out space is simple for AI, ground combat is far harder. Yes its some tricks you can do but they would be strategy not tactic.

[Guest]

Generally, I think that any space warship will be operating in low orbit. There's no point operating in empty space, and interception in a transfer orbit is hard. As such, I imagine that "space fighters" would actually be orbital spaceplanes, capable of fighting in space, but primarily optimized for atmospheric combat. The mothership would have nuclear missiles and lasers for space to space combat, and will likely be a mess of radiators and a huge reactor to keep it all going, with the payload section crammed somewhere in between.

As for human operation, remember that a command link can be jammed (rendering a remote drone useless) and you should not let any AI control your nuke deployment. I think that combat spacecraft will be piloted by humans for this reason, a drone is vulnerable to cyber-warfare and jamming, which will actually be the top concerns in future warfare. Why kill people when you can render the enemy helpless by turning off all the computers controlling just about everything (already the case in some places, and it'll only increase)?

[Bill Phil]

It'll probably be a miniature version of the ISV Venture Star with some sort of propulsion system. Maybe GCNTR? Now that would be something...

Actually, come to think of it, a highly elliptical orbit has more energy at Pe than a ~circular orbit, so if you perform a rendezvous like that, it could be used for space "dive bombing". The craft would probably be buses that carry super dense chunks of metal that is released a la MERV. Your station probably wouldn't survive that...

[Aethon]

Well, orbital combat will be different from deep space combat, but communication lag will make humans a necessity.

Most of what I've learned about the physics of real life space battles, I learned from this guy. Some really great stuff here.

http://josephshoer.com/blog/2009/12/thoughts-on-space-battles/

A short story using these concepts.

http://josephshoer.com/blog/2009/12/high-orbit/

And space battles, future tech.

http://josephshoer.com/blog/2010/07/projecting-space-battle-physics/

Edited November 25, 2014 by Aethon

[Hary R]

Generally, I think that any space warship will be operating in low orbit. There's no point operating in empty space, and interception in a transfer orbit is hard. As such, I imagine that "space fighters" would actually be orbital spaceplanes, capable of fighting in space, but primarily optimized for atmospheric combat. The mothership would have nuclear missiles and lasers for space to space combat, and will likely be a mess of radiators and a huge reactor to keep it all going, with the payload section crammed somewhere in between.

As for human operation, remember that a command link can be jammed (rendering a remote drone useless) and you should not let any AI control your nuke deployment. I think that combat spacecraft will be piloted by humans for this reason, a drone is vulnerable to cyber-warfare and jamming, which will actually be the top concerns in future warfare. Why kill people when you can render the enemy helpless by turning off all the computers controlling just about everything (already the case in some places, and it'll only increase)?

Yep, I agree with you, and I add that space battle ship will be huge (well not that huge... just as big as an aircraft carrier) not because it will be bad-ass (but still) but it will be required for heat sink purpose. A huge vessel with a lot of radiator can bear more guns than as smaller compact craft that will overheat after using it main guns, assuming the gun will produce a lot of heat.

As for fighters,indeed to, I see them as space capable but mostly atmospheric and low gravity craft so they will have wing, maybe some more advance propulsion like the one in kspi, thermal jet that can fly in any atmosphere. It will also make space carrier useful as those fighter will have to keep their DV to return to orbit after a mission on a planet.

[*Aqua*]

Yes AI will be smarter, however we don't know how easy it is to make something as smart as a human. Again as other pointed out space is simple for AI, ground combat is far harder. Yes its some tricks you can do but they would be strategy not tactic.

It is easy to make a human like AI. The problem is just that we need dozens of supercomputers to let an AI think as fast as a human does. An artificial neuronal network works basically the same as a human brain. They already use them today for OCR and image analyzing because neuronal networks are very good at pattern recognition.

Mix it with a semantic web (structured knowledge database) and an suitable ontology (for processing the knowledge database) and it will eben be able to draw conclusions out of data and gather new knowledge.

Finally add a rule engine & rules or a Bayesian network or an evolutionary algorithm (or all of them) to lay out tactics and strategies.

We already have what it takes to make an AI. Even human like. But do we really want a human like AI? A human has flaws.

you should not let any AI control your nuke deployment. I think that combat spacecraft will be piloted by humans for this reason, a drone is vulnerable to cyber-warfare and jamming, which will actually be the top concerns in future warfare.

Computers and hardware can be hardened. Jamming and hacking won't be a problem.

If it really is a serious problem a hacker would already launched a nuke by now.

Edited November 25, 2014 by *Aqua*