For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

44 minutes ago, Rutabaga22 said:

That was outside of her spaceflight career. I mean two astronauts who hated each other.

No one puts two people into a can that are not professional enough to overcome minor differences.

There are plenty of trained people to take up a spot if necessary

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Look into the woman who drove x number of hours in her Space Diaper to yell at another woman over a man.

The famous KSP classics, Planetes.

Spoiler

 

5 hours ago, Rutabaga22 said:

Question from non-forum goer friend.
" What would happen if one astronaut really p'd off one of their crewmates and they were like REALLY mad. Like, deep hatred between them. What would NASA do? Would they switch the crew? What if they didn't have backup crew?

The zero-g combat has similarity with the underwater one.

A reactionless medium and superviscous one. That's why they train in a training pool, to improve their space combat skills.

Edited November 16, 2022 by kerbiloid

[wumpus]

On 11/15/2022 at 8:10 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Well, either the aggressor or both (if both are the instigators) would probably be dismissed.

Such a scenario is nigh impossible, however. Astronauts specifically train to work coherently together. Think the level of professionalism *cough cough* seen on nuclear powered submarines. That's how disciplined astronauts are*.

I coughed because an extremely disturbing article emerged not too long ago regarding the behavior of seamen on British submarines. That's a discussion for another forum though.

*Are supposed to be.

I'd assume that if the Gemini crews could tolerate each other, future spacecraft will have enough separation to prevent such things.  Those capsules were *tiny*.  Apollo capsules may look big in movies, but they are tiny in person at a museum.

There was a famous science fiction story* with a backstory involving a double-murder-suicide.  The author had been a career (US) naval officer.  And part of the backstory was careful psychological compatibility of the crew.  So at least one guy with similar experience assume such things were possible.

And while I've never heard of a "intra-crew fight" in space, there has been a rebellion against ground control: https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-that-day-three-nasa-astronauts-20151228-column.html

* Stranger in a Strange Land, of course.

[kerbiloid]

It had been once or twice, afair.
And several psychological conflicts and boycotts.

Including significant reasons 
https://www-gazeta-ru.translate.goog/science/news/2021/09/30/n_16616827.shtml?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[ARS]

Question: Is it possible for a submarine to do standoff active sonar search by using separate sonar emitters outside of the ship (as in, in the form of buoys, underwater emitters, etc.). Let's say for example submarine A is defending an area, and it already pre-place these emitters around. Then, enemy submarine B is entering A's patrol area. If A knows that B is entering the area, could A detect B simply by staying on passive sonar while periodically pinging the active sonars from the buoys and listening to the echoes to locate B? (could either do sonar pings from the buoys one-by-one or several of them at once)

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, ARS said:

periodically pinging the active sonars

By "Ping! Ping! Ping!", shocking the B acoustics.

(Like in the movies with subs and depth charges.)

I just mean, can they ping in other way underwater?

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, ARS said:

Question: Is it possible for a submarine to do standoff active sonar search by using separate sonar emitters outside of the ship (as in, in the form of buoys, underwater emitters, etc.). Let's say for example submarine A is defending an area, and it already pre-place these emitters around. Then, enemy submarine B is entering A's patrol area. If A knows that B is entering the area, could A detect B simply by staying on passive sonar while periodically pinging the active sonars from the buoys and listening to the echoes to locate B? (could either do sonar pings from the buoys one-by-one or several of them at once)

Yes.  Similar is done with RF energy where a stealth station can use existing RF sources, like radio stations, at known locations, to image aircraft.   Cell phone tower signals have been used in warfare to detect and locate aircraft (Bosnian conflict in the Clinton years?).  As long as you know the location of the "ping" source in relation to the receiver math can do the rest 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

Yes.  Similar is done with RF energy where a stealth station can use existing RF sources, like radio stations, at known locations, to image aircraft.   Cell phone tower signals have been used in warfare to detect and locate aircraft (Bosnian conflict in the Clinton years?).  As long as you know the location of the "ping" source in relation to the receiver math can do the rest 

But can the radio pass underwater?

[DDE]

5 hours ago, ARS said:

Question: Is it possible for a submarine to do standoff active sonar search by using separate sonar emitters outside of the ship (as in, in the form of buoys, underwater emitters, etc.). Let's say for example submarine A is defending an area, and it already pre-place these emitters around. Then, enemy submarine B is entering A's patrol area. If A knows that B is entering the area, could A detect B simply by staying on passive sonar while periodically pinging the active sonars from the buoys and listening to the echoes to locate B? (could either do sonar pings from the buoys one-by-one or several of them at once)

Some air-dropped sonobuoy variants are combined with "emitters" that are literal explosive charges, so, yes.

[ARS]

3 hours ago, darthgently said:

Yes.  Similar is done with RF energy where a stealth station can use existing RF sources, like radio stations, at known locations, to image aircraft.   Cell phone tower signals have been used in warfare to detect and locate aircraft (Bosnian conflict in the Clinton years?).  As long as you know the location of the "ping" source in relation to the receiver math can do the rest 

55 minutes ago, DDE said:

Some air-dropped sonobuoy variants are combined with "emitters" that are literal explosive charges, so, yes.

Yes, that's what I mean: detecting a target underwater using active ping, except you're not the one doing the ping, but preplaced active pingers placed beforehand (and you already know the locations)

[kerbiloid]

(wrong thread)

Edited November 18, 2022 by kerbiloid

[lrd.Helmet]

2 hours ago, ARS said:

Yes, that's what I mean: detecting a target underwater using active ping, except you're not the one doing the ping, but preplaced active pingers placed beforehand (and you already know the locations)

I would assume that you yourself are also reflecting the ping from the remote emitter. So you'd be painting yourself as well. 

pov of "attacking" sub:
1st ping: active emitter
2nd ping: reflection of defending sub

1st ping gives direction of emitter, 2nd ping gives direction of defending sub. I would think that people smarter than me can do some magical math and calculate the location of both objects. 

[darthgently]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

But can the radio pass underwater?

No, I was writing analogously.  Same applies to soundwaves

Though varying pressure wave propagation characteristics of regions of water would make the analogy wander, it basically works

[ARS]

1 hour ago, lrd.Helmet said:

I would assume that you yourself are also reflecting the ping from the remote emitter. So you'd be painting yourself as well. 

pov of "attacking" sub:
1st ping: active emitter
2nd ping: reflection of defending sub

1st ping gives direction of emitter, 2nd ping gives direction of defending sub. I would think that people smarter than me can do some magical math and calculate the location of both objects. 

But the problem is, the defending sub already knew the location of the emitter and already expect a return when they trigger the ping. The defender knew where the location of the emitters, where to look at the moment they trigger a particular ping as well as the underwater topography of the area they defend. On the other hand, the attacking sub is clueless and has no idea about the pingers' placement or even if there's such a thing in the area in the first place and expect there's only defending sub in the area. They are not expecting an active ping, much less a return from pingers they don't even know the location about (they might even mistake a ping from a buoy as defending sub's ping)

[Gargamel]

Why even have a defending sub on station at all?     Why not have a series of both emitters and microphones, SOSUS style, along a ‘choke point ‘ in the area you want to patrol, tied to a shore station.      When the shore Station detects an intruder, it can dispatch a fleet of ASW aircraft and small boats to handle the issue, all of which combined would be far cheaper than a single sub.      Keep those assets for force projection rather than defense.  
 

 

[ARS]

5 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Why even have a defending sub on station at all?     Why not have a series of both emitters and microphones, SOSUS style, along a ‘choke point ‘ in the area you want to patrol, tied to a shore station.      When the shore Station detects an intruder, it can dispatch a fleet of ASW aircraft and small boats to handle the issue, all of which combined would be far cheaper than a single sub.      Keep those assets for force projection rather than defense.  

Just wanna ask if you can detect other sub by using that method (active ping far away from the sub)

[Gargamel]

1 hour ago, ARS said:

Just wanna ask if you can detect other sub by using that method (active ping far away from the sub)

Well, yes.    As mentioned above, like modern radar systems that use ambient radio noise to pick up aircraft, a passive stationary sonar array would be able, with the right algorithms, be able to “map” the ocean around them if there were loud noise sources available.      The theory is pretty trivial, but the practical applications are trickier, along with the ecological and environmental impacts of sonar equivalent of a lighthouse.  

[kerbiloid]

A countermeasure.

To bring penguins from Antarctics to Arctics, and let them colonize it.

1. Polar bears will be fat and happy.

2. The penguins' permanent tramp, splashing, screams, and hubbub will kill SOSUS-like systems efficiency at the root.

2b. The SOSUS sonar tecnicians will learn the bird language. The most advanced of them even speak in it. To nurses.

3. A new technics will arise: ship pinging penguinging by penguin pinguin screams. 

Edited November 19, 2022 by kerbiloid

[wumpus]

20 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Well, yes.    As mentioned above, like modern radar systems that use ambient radio noise to pick up aircraft, a passive stationary sonar array would be able, with the right algorithms, be able to “map” the ocean around them if there were loud noise sources available.      The theory is pretty trivial, but the practical applications are trickier, along with the ecological and environmental impacts of sonar equivalent of a lighthouse.  

I worked for a US defense contractor in the 1990s specializing in Navy contracts.  They had at least one project doing this, at least close to US shores (and it was a small company, I'd suspect the Navy had lots of such projects).  Also told that active "pinging" SONAR was pretty important onboard destroyers (small surface ships) to find submarines.  In general, the more microphones you can string along (especially if you have a microphone or two per wavelength) the better a map you can get.

13 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

3. A new technics will arise: ship pinging penguinging by penguin pinguin screams. 

I'm sure someone has tried modulating messages into synthetic whalesong.  That stuff travels nearly around the world.

[DDE]

Are torn wires a problem for ground-to-ground wire-guided missiles? I'm wondering because in the late 1980s the Soviets began to switch over to laser or radio-command guidance (sometimes both) but nobody else seems to have followed suit, either staying with TOWs/MILANs, or going fire-and-forget (which primarily addresses a different problem).

Spoiler

The reason for the question is the Bulat, a new complimentary mini-missile for the Kornet ATGM, which seems to inherit the big brother's datalink system. The Soviets previously built the Metis as the smallest of a trio of infantry ATGMs, and they made the missile extra-cheap by stripping it of any electronics - the wires control the fin motors directly. Since the Bulat appears to be there to address the problem of "I've seen ATGMs get fired against everything except actual tanks", I'm beginning to doubt its economics.

 

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Are torn wires a problem for ground-to-ground wire-guided missiles? I'm wondering because in the late 1980s the Soviets began to switch over to laser or radio-command guidance (sometimes both) but nobody else seems to have followed suit, either staying with TOWs/MILANs, or going fire-and-forget (which primarily addresses a different problem).

  Reveal hidden contents

The reason for the question is the Bulat, a new complimentary mini-missile for the Kornet ATGM, which seems to inherit the big brother's datalink system. The Soviets previously built the Metis as the smallest of a trio of infantry ATGMs, and they made the missile extra-cheap by stripping it of any electronics - the wires control the fin motors directly. Since the Bulat appears to be there to address the problem of "I've seen ATGMs get fired against everything except actual tanks", I'm beginning to doubt its economics.

 

Yes. South African MILANs would get their wires torn/caught in the bush which lead to the development of the indigenous ZT3 laser guided ATGM.

[kerbiloid]

It can start flying around the tank, winding the wire, and capture it.

[Gargamel]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It can start flying around the tank, winding the wire, and capture it.

Spoiler

 

[monophonic]

17 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Yes. South African MILANs would get their wires torn/caught in the bush which lead to the development of the indigenous ZT3 laser guided ATGM.

Water shorting the connection can also be a problem. TOW has a limited range when fired over water due to this. Of course, only if you are not using the new RF variant missiles which replace the wire with a radio link.

[DDE]

6 hours ago, monophonic said:

Of course, only if you are not using the new RF variant missiles which replace the wire with a radio link.

Now that is an interesting "datapoint".