For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[SunlitZelkova]

I have built a replica of the satellite (called VALIS) in KSP1, in case anyone is interested.

It is based on the cover art of the first couple editions of Radio Free Albemuth and thus does not conform to the characteristics it would need in real life to remain undetected for so long 

 

[DDE]

Anti-air blackouts.

They were only somewhat effective by WWII as more elaborate means of aerial navigation than the Mk 1 Eyeball were being developed.

However, if we turn the question away from navigation and towards manually-targeted ground-to-air fire... did it help or not? I recall several instances where the backlighting of the clouds made matters far, far worse for the bombers, and for that, you'd want more light pollution, not less.

I'm asking because history is apparently fond of circling back, with low-speed, low-altitude drone targets:

[SunlitZelkova]

11 hours ago, DDE said:

However, if we turn the question away from navigation and towards manually-targeted ground-to-air fire... did it help or not? I recall several instances where the backlighting of the clouds made matters far, far worse for the bombers, and for that, you'd want more light pollution, not less.

From what I’ve read the goal was to prevent the enemy from finding the target in the first place. No consideration was given to helping down the attacker if it actually found the target.

11 hours ago, DDE said:

I'm asking because history is apparently fond of circling back, with low-speed, low-altitude drone targets:

In the case of the modern day, you might want to keep the lights off.

I’m not sure about the launch parameters of EO weapons like the KAB-500Kr, but if the opponent did happen to attack with such weapons, you wouldn’t want to illuminate the target for them.

I wonder just how vital the targets the DShKs are defending. If the really important stuff is protected by Gepards, it seems like it wouldn’t be worth it to risk an TV guided weapon attack (as unlikely as it is).

[steve9728]

Turning off lights, releasing decoys, and preparing false targets will always be the basic things for preventing your enemy from blowing up somewhere you don't want them to. I bet in the future it will still be like this after there really are space fleets and interstellar colonies.

[K^2]

On 9/24/2023 at 10:32 PM, steve9728 said:

Turning off lights, releasing decoys, and preparing false targets will always be the basic things for preventing your enemy from blowing up somewhere you don't want them to. I bet in the future it will still be like this after there really are space fleets and interstellar colonies.

At some scale, you do have to start coming up with something different. What are you going to do against a mass driver strike on a colony? Turn off the Sun and release a fake Mars? I can already write a Horizons query that will tell me where any given crater on Mars is going to be at any specific point in time for the next century, and there is no reason to believe that protection of fixed assets is going to become less relevant.

[steve9728]

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

At some scale, you do have to start coming up with something different. What are you going to do against a mass driver strike on a colony? Turn off the Sun and release a fake Mars? I can already write a Horizons query that will tell me where any given crater on Mars is going to be at any specific point in time for the next century, and there is no reason to believe that protection of fixed assets is going to become less relevant.

You just remind me how those Brits hiding the Alexandria in WW2 hahaha

[DDE]

"They're upgrading"

[SunlitZelkova]

https://x.com/rcsboii/status/1708850971332510102?s=46&t=Jd73T2beq0JLNtwTy1uR5A
 

@Beccab @tater thank you for sharing some of your NASA NTRS files with me in the past.

EDIT- I hope this properly embeds. X embeds don’t work on mobile for me when I myself put them in.

Edited October 4, 2023 by SunlitZelkova

[darthgently]

22 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

EDIT- I hope this properly embeds. X embeds don’t work on mobile for me

I've found that after posting an embed it is best to wait for it to reformat as an embed before doing any navigation or scrolling else it will tend to not embed.  Maybe this will help, no guarantees

[tater]

Yeesh:

 

[StrandedonEarth]

That’ll buff out…

And where’s the OSHA guy?

Sorry for the stock responses 

[DDE]

Of bulldozers and snowploughs

It's a well-known fact that tanks often remember their humble origins as tractors and carry dozer blades

My question is, why aren't those blades V-shaped? It originates from the design of Soviet BAT and IMR-family engineering vehicles, whose permanently mounted dozer blades can do this:

I understand that the tank-mounted designs wouldn't be as elaborate.

Spoiler

However, the only vehicle I can find with a V-shaped blade design is a snowplow. A search, indeed, turns up the STU snowplow series for T-34 through T-55:

However, later "snowplow-dozer" designs are flat and simple, e.g. BTU-55

and BTS-86, which AFAIK is current

So, it's more of a question about bulldozers in general than specifically tanks.

An expanded question is whether a dozer blade specifically optimized for tearing down barricades would look any different (e.g. see "teeth" in the 40k image above), or is the same achieved just by angling the blade with hydraulics?

[kerbiloid]

They say, the Americans have Grizzly, and the British have Chieftain.

https://technology-snauka-ru.translate.goog/2017/05/13255?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=ru&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Spoiler

Probably, some Western fetish from the medieval culture, lol.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

They say, the Americans have Grizzly, and the British have Chieftain.

https://technology-snauka-ru.translate.goog/2017/05/13255?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=ru&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp

  Hide contents

Probably, some Western fetish from the medieval culture, lol.

Oh, I saw that article, but those too are specialized engineering vehicles - and AFAIK those dozer blades are part of a mine plough system that's been mostly superceded by rollers (which , as I hear, were at one point simply copied from a Soviet specimen supplied by Israelis).

[kerbiloid]

11 hours ago, DDE said:

Oh, I saw that article, but those too are specialized engineering vehicles - and AFAIK those dozer blades are part of a mine plough system that's been mostly superceded by rollers (which , as I hear, were at one point simply copied from a Soviet specimen supplied by Israelis).

Interesting, whether Grizzly and Chieftain were inspired by WH40k, or vice versa.

[SunlitZelkova]

On 10/6/2023 at 11:02 AM, DDE said:

Of bulldozers and snowploughs

It's a well-known fact that tanks often remember their humble origins as tractors and carry dozer blades

My question is, why aren't those blades V-shaped? It originates from the design of Soviet BAT and IMR-family engineering vehicles, whose permanently mounted dozer blades can do this:

I understand that the tank-mounted designs wouldn't be as elaborate.

  Reveal hidden contents

However, the only vehicle I can find with a V-shaped blade design is a snowplow. A search, indeed, turns up the STU snowplow series for T-34 through T-55:

However, later "snowplow-dozer" designs are flat and simple, e.g. BTU-55

and BTS-86, which AFAIK is current

So, it's more of a question about bulldozers in general than specifically tanks.

An expanded question is whether a dozer blade specifically optimized for tearing down barricades would look any different (e.g. see "teeth" in the 40k image above), or is the same achieved just by angling the blade with hydraulics?

Random guess- you wanted snow to stay in front or go under the vehicle, not pushed off to the side- right in front of the infantry walking alongside the tank.

[magnemoe]

On 10/7/2023 at 11:05 AM, DDE said:

Oh, I saw that article, but those too are specialized engineering vehicles - and AFAIK those dozer blades are part of a mine plough system that's been mostly superceded by rollers (which , as I hear, were at one point simply copied from a Soviet specimen supplied by Israelis).

Excavator buckets has tooth to but they are much broader, their main purpose is replaceable tips who hit rock and conserve the bucket. 
I guess these tips are to lift up anti tank mines and if they explodes the spikes are narrow having an small profile towards the explosion, downside it that they look like easy hut if hitting large rocks. 

[monophonic]

On 10/7/2023 at 12:05 PM, DDE said:

Oh, I saw that article, but those too are specialized engineering vehicles - and AFAIK those dozer blades are part of a mine plough system that's been mostly superceded by rollers (which , as I hear, were at one point simply copied from a Soviet specimen supplied by Israelis).

Dozer blades on battle tanks have mostly been superceded. Rollers have much less resistance while protecting the tank itself, allowing the tank to retain its mobility. Mine and obstacle clearance has been mostly delegated to the specialized engineering vehicles with their dozers and explosive ropes. What clearance MBTs need to do they can do with their main gun and regular or specialized HE rounds, but mainly with the mechanized infantry hauling demolition charges.

[SunlitZelkova]

Are hypersonic glide vehicles mounted on intermediate range ballistic missiles effective?

Wouldn’t they be flying at pretty leisurely speeds when mid-course interceptors start hitting them?

Wouldn’t HGVs only be effective against terminal defences, which can’t do much against IRBMs in the first place?

Or am I misunderstanding the flight profile of an HGV.

[monophonic]

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Or am I misunderstanding the flight profile of an HGV.

Yes. Traditional ballistic missiles have tried to maximize range by lobbing the warhead in a high ballistic trajectory. This means the warhead is relatively slow at the midcourse phase. HGV trades range to minimize time-to-target. The booster tips over very hard very early and pushes the warhead to very high horizontal velocity while still in the lower atmosphere. Mid-course interceptors are useless here because the exoatmospheric kill vehicle has no aerodynamic cover and thus cannot even survive flight inside the atmosphere.

Traditional ballistic missiles could be used in a similar fashion. This is called depressed trajectory. HGV "just" optimizes the warhead for this profile and usually provides it with some maneuverability at the same time.

[SunlitZelkova]

“Monolithic” or “system of systems”- which is better for a lunar base crew transport?

In the world I am making a history of space missions for, the Integrated Program Plan succeeded, but due to the low number of Saturn Vs, no American Moon base was built due to the focus on Mars. By the time they were ready to, the USSR and US combined their space programs to build a joint Mars base, joint lunar base (built off of the DLB, which was the first lunar base), and future joint mission to Callisto in the 90s.

In 1989, the Space Tug had an accident in which it exploded while en route from the Moon to Earth, killing all crew (the Soviets and Americans still maintained their independent launch systems).

So a joint replacement will now be built.

The question is, what design philosophy to go with? Should it be a small, modular craft that refuels at a space station before journeying to the Moon, or something the size of a space station itself, which would be refueled by commercial spacecraft but otherwise not dock to anything. It would be a one a done lander, as opposed to the modular design that would probably have a separate crew transfer vehicle and lander for safety reasons Apollo 13 style.

The monolithic design would be built to last decades, and be serviced on the Moon or on orbit. The modular design would probably be thrown away every couple years.

Because the Reusable Nuclear Shuttle ate into Space Shuttle mission availability due to how many flights it took to refuel, ideally they would want something that doesn’t need a lot of launches to keep operable, like the monolithic design. But the modular design is more safe.

What would you choose?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

17 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

what design philosophy to go with

How well integrated are the Soviet / US teams?  Do they have a competing viewpoint on one side of the argument or the other?  (could be an interesting side story - the argument and resolution) 

Isn't the design problem,

Monolithic = many launches to build, but less cost later 

Modular = fewer launches to build, but extended service launches required? 

Is there a pressing need to get it done soonest?  Or all in one go? 

[SunlitZelkova]

10 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

How well integrated are the Soviet / US teams?  Do they have a competing viewpoint on one side of the argument or the other?  (could be an interesting side story - the argument and resolution) 

Isn't the design problem,

Monolithic = many launches to build, but less cost later 

Modular = fewer launches to build, but extended service launches required? 

Is there a pressing need to get it done soonest?  Or all in one go? 

Technically it’s an all new team doing it together, but the institutional know how of how to do a joint project is there, because the organization known as ICE-J (International Coalition for the Exploration of Jupiter) has been working together for nearly a decade by the time the call for the new design comes around.

The Soviets tend towards the “modular” mode because their space programs are still managed by the military, which resulted in the designers inheriting the artillery engineering mentality of “fire it off a bunch of times to make it work”.

The monolithic design has been raised as a possibility by the Americans because that’s actually what’s being done for the Mars base transport spacecraft that replaced the expendable designs from the 1970s.

There’s a goal of getting it up and running by ‘97. Development starts around 1991 or so.

If they don’t get it done by then, the US will end up being reliant on older all-Soviet spacecraft for flights to the Moon. Which isn’t a problem politically, but is a prestige no no.

[SunlitZelkova]

John Bell once said interpretations of quantum mechanics were “like literary fiction”.

But I’m curious, if I was to create a fictional interpretation of quantum mechanics, would there be any guidelines I would need to follow? Or could I just make it up pretty much?

I’m thinking of simply having the hidden variable lie within live human brains, which as far as I can tell (but please correct me if I am wrong) have not been observed at the atomic level while live.

A new particle, which I have dubbed the myalon, was detected by nanosensors injected into the bloodstream of a test subject in 2088. Myalons carry mental force, the fifth basic force following gravitational force, electromagnetic force, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force. Myalons only exist in live brains, deep within the pons.

An extract from the faux Wikipedia article I am writing about it-

“…In other words, while a glass and the soda in it exist [physically], when the glass is tipped, mental force travels through myalons, activating the parts of the brain responsible for generating reality [the cortical parts of the brain responsible for processing sensory input and the hippocampus]. The activity of the brain then produces the quantum effect of the soda exiting the glass. This is action at a distance: non-locality.”

[kerbiloid]

So, that's what the E-Meter is measuring...

Then the particle could be called "theton", but then the free operating thetans may sue for the copyright violation.