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Posted by Ken Wallewein on May 11, 2006, 1:30 pm
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Presumably sci.space.tech is not exclusively about propulsion.
Has there been much study about what kind of weaponry a manned spacecraft
might carry with near-current technology? There are a number of things
that would work in vacuum that wouldn't work in air.
Possibilities that come to mind include xray lasers, particle (e.g.,
electron/positron) beam weapons, and electromagnet slug launchers (tiny
antimatter slugs?). Clearly conventional atomic weapons would be far too
massive to be accelerated very much, and therefore pretty useless. A
disk-shaped vessel might have counter-rotating circular particle
accelerators. Hmmm...
Has much been done on this? I don't recall it being discussed here.
/kenw
Ken Wallewein
K&M Systems Integration
Phone (403)274-7848
Fax (403)275-4535
kenw@kmsi.net
www.kmsi.net
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Posted by Mark Adler on May 17, 2006, 2:51 pm
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Ken Wallewein wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> Has there been much study about what kind of weaponry a manned spacecraft
> might carry with near-current technology?
In my experience, the soft underbelly of all spacecraft is their
software. Clearly then the weapon of choice would be the computer
virus. (A la "Independence Day".) Along these lines, we should be
developing and promoting a space-qualified version of Windows for use
in other countries' space programs ...
mark
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Posted by on May 18, 2006, 11:52 am
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Ken Wallewein wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> Possibilities that come to mind include xray lasers, particle (e.g.,
> electron/positron) beam weapons,
Well, we all know that the US miltary has been playing with energy
weapons for a while now, and I imagine they could probably put
something pretty nasty in space on current technology, if they had the
will and the funding to do so. However, laser weapons do require a
pretty hefty power source, so unless someone comes up with a cheaper
way of getting into orbit it probably wouldn't be the most
cost-effective option at the moment.
show/hide quoted text
> and electromagnet slug launchers (tiny antimatter slugs?).
I'd say antimatter is prohibitively expensive to produce, even on
military budgets. I think it will probably be a long while before you
start seeing it in weapons. (Mercifully) However, an electromagnetic
massdriver would be a very effective weapon, and doable on current
tech. Not sure about the energy requirements, but I think it could be
fairly compact. I believe I saw on the internet somewhere someone had
made a hand-gun sized massdriver. Scary.
show/hide quoted text
> Clearly conventional atomic weapons would be far too
> massive to be accelerated very much, and therefore pretty useless.
The main trouble with atomic weapons in space, i believe, is that there
is no medium to propogate the blast. They will do lots of damage if
they score a direct hit, but if they miss by any significant amount,
all they really do is release a lot of radiation, and since your target
spaceship is likely to be radiation-shielded anyway...
show/hide quoted text
> A disk-shaped vessel might have counter-rotating circular particle
> accelerators. Hmmm...
??? Can't comment on this.
I think the most viable weapon on current tech is likely to be some
form of guided missile. You release it, and then it uses its own rocket
motors and computers and whatnot to fly straight to the target, in much
the same way guided missiles work down on Earth, only without such
annoyances as gravity and terrain to contend with. Of course, the
question is, what kind of warhead do you put on it? If you can get
enough velocity behind it, no warhead is necessary, you could just
shape it so that it pierces the hull and/ or explodes from sheer
kinetic energy. Depending on the range, the detection systems of the
target and its maneuverability, these things might be quite easy to
dodge, so they'd either want to find a way of evading detection or
splitting up en-route to cover a wider target volume.
Another option might be some kind of stealthy robotic drone that sneaks
up to the enemy craft, either under its own guidance or by remote
control, latches on to the hull and starts cutting holes in it with
special tools, but that might be a little far-fetched.
David Weber's Honor Harrington books (for all their numerous faults) go
into excrutiating detail on space-age weaponry and warfare-. It's all
set in the far-future with some very very fantastic tech, but the basic
principles of space-based missile combat and so forth seem pretty
sound, and would apply even to current tech. It might be worth your
while reading one or two of them, if you feel like it.
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Posted by Lou Adornato on May 20, 2006, 11:54 pm
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> Presumably sci.space.tech is not exclusively about propulsion.
> Has there been much study about what kind of weaponry a manned spacecraft
> might carry with near-current technology? There are a number of things
> that would work in vacuum that wouldn't work in air.
I don't know about spacecraft-to-spacecraft weapons, but I once held a
declassified document from the early 60's outlining the feasibility of
several conventional weapons for use on the moon.
The Pentagon authorizes all sorts of "blue sky" studies like this, and back
then everything about space exploration was an unknown. But it seemed that
whoever authorized the study wanted to look into what kind of weaponry and
what kinds of modifications to existing weapons would be needed if it came
down to armed conflict between Americans ans Soviets on the moon. As I
recall, there was a fairly large section on modifying existing projectile
weapon technology for use in vacuum; something about changing the bullets to
include an oxydizer, and using graphite lubrication in place of gun oil
(which would boil away in vacuum or burst into flames in a pure O2
environment). I think there was also some stuff about needing to make the
gun from materials with very similar coefficients of thermal expansion to
deal with the wide thermal ranges expected, but I don't recall seeing any
mention of how to handle recoil in a 1/6th G environment. If I recall
correctly, there was also some stuff about modifying the sights to work with
a spacesuit helmet, and the trigger to work with pressurized gloves.
I also remember hearing about a plan to put up a cloud of copper BB's in LEO
in case an ICBM attack became imminent. The thinking was that any ICBM
warhead reentering through the cloud would come out with it's ablative
shield covered with a layer of highly conductive (thermally) copper, and
would burn up. The fact that radio teloscopy or human space travel would
then become impossible for about a thousand years was considered an
acceptable tradeoff (and I have to say that I agree with that asessment,
harsh as it seems).
As far as technology for use against a manned spacecraft, both the US and
the Soviets had farily active anti-sattellite programs in the 80's, and
killing a robotic craft isn't that different from killing a manned vehicle.
I guess there are two schools of thought - one is that if you blow something
up in orbit, the pieces will sooner or later (probably sooner) become more
of a menace to your own spacecraft than the original threat. In this school
of thought, EMP (like an x-ray laser) would be a better bet; wipe out the
electronics and you've turned a manned spacecraft into a travelling tomb,
with no messy space junk to clean up. Of course, the other school of
thought is that you stick with known technology, and that means projectile
weapons and explosives. In that school of thought, you blow them up and let
other people worry about space junk.
Personally, I'd be surprised if the Boys in Blue hadn't already come up with
something like a cross between "brilliant pebbles" and a cluster bomb; small
but massive (as in heavy) objects with a rudimentary propulsion and GNC
system, possibly carried in a cluster munition (ok, a "mother ship"),
deployed in either a retrograde or polar orbit. In time of war, the mother
ship could release clouds of these things at several useful altitudes, and
from there they'd wait until activated from the ground to maneuver in front
of a bogie heading in thier direction. Basically, you're talking about a
bullet with an impact velocity of 34,0000 MPH, hitting a vehicle that
doesn't have any systems that aren't critical. In a pinch they could even
be used against ground targets.
Oh, by the way, X-Ray lasers need an atomic detonation to "pump" the
particles, and having a nuclear warhead in orbit is a violation of a LOT of
international treaties.
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Posted by Mike on May 21, 2006, 10:15 am
Please log in for more thread options Torpedoes make a lot of sense, as they can leverage the kinetic energy
inherent in being in a different orbit. You probably don't even
benefit much from explosives; the sheer mass should be pretty damaging.
Take a sizable chunk of metal, and attach the DART systems to it,
without the 'slow end approach' code. (heck, it's ready to go for your
purposes; the slow approach is the only part they're still debugging :)
Any kind of beam weapon requires line-of-sight and so is less useful.
(unless you're near a black hole, which creates other problems) I
would expect (for no particular reason) that spacecraft combat in a
gravity well involves two wildly different orbits and sniping at
targets of opportunity.
other thoughts? Is this trending in the direction of
sci.fiction.space.tech?
Ken Wallewein wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> Presumably sci.space.tech is not exclusively about propulsion.
> Has there been much study about what kind of weaponry a manned spacecraft
> might carry with near-current technology? There are a number of things
> that would work in vacuum that wouldn't work in air.
> Possibilities that come to mind include xray lasers, particle (e.g.,
> electron/positron) beam weapons, and electromagnet slug launchers (tiny
> antimatter slugs?). Clearly conventional atomic weapons would be far too
> massive to be accelerated very much, and therefore pretty useless. A
> disk-shaped vessel might have counter-rotating circular particle
> accelerators. Hmmm...
> Has much been done on this? I don't recall it being discussed here.
> /kenw
> Ken Wallewein
> K&M Systems Integration
> Phone (403)274-7848
> Fax (403)275-4535
> kenw@kmsi.net
> www.kmsi.net
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> might carry with near-current technology?