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What future space combat would really look like

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Re: What future space combat would really look like

#171

Post by nl »

meric wrote: post #166
quanticle wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a shotgun approach? Take a comet, accelerate it up to a significant fraction of lightspeed (after all, you you have lightyears in which to do so), and trigger a bomb in the comet to blow it apart into a few smaller pieces, each traveling at a significant fraction of c . Rinse and repeat.

I've made another reply at the site: So the invading force goes into the Oort cloud, picks a chunky rock, attaches a giant thruster to it and begins accelerating it towards c. A day later, the speed of the rock has reached 0.5c. Hours later, a defending fleet arrives, shoots and kills all the invading b ds. The rock however, continues at 0.5c even though the thruster and guidance systems were destroyed. It reaches th…

Generally I agree with this analysis, but I think there is an attack that would work:

Strap small N-bombs (or conventional bombs?) to as many as asteroids as possible, launch them at the target area, and then blow them up ~500,000km away. Suddenly you have thousands (millions?) of significant chunks of rock travelling at 0.5c and spreading out. If you got the explosion point right and had enough asteroids you could cover a reasonable amount of the likely positions, even based on random movements.

It's unlikely to destroy an entire asteroid-belt based civilization, but wouldn't be trivial to evade either.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#172

Post by nl »

makmanalp wrote: post #139
patio11 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics. Attacker gets arbitrary mass (reactant, etc) and time to accelerate. Defender needs same mass/time to decelerate... after discovering the attack. Note that you could literally prep an attack for millennia which would be discovered a matter of hours prior to ending a civilization. Physics makes for sucky narratives. Good thing it also makes for a vast, dead, boring universe.

Well, since you're going to skirt around how the acceleration actually happens, I'm just going to counter with: The defender also has arbitrary time to defend. Couldn't you "store up" a defense over time somehow? Maybe have a counter-projectile orbiting really fast that can be brought out of orbit to hit the incoming one? Or, I know we don't have energy shields, but with the amount of assumption going on in this whol…

The physics on storing kinetic energy like that just don't work.

One intriguing possibility I thought of is the possibility of creating a black hole[1] in the path of the projectile. I have no idea how the energy calculations work for creating a black hole, and what exactly happens to one if a large mass travelling at high speed hits it - I'm guessing if the black hole was small it would just slice the object in half. If it was big enough to "swallow" the object then I don't know what happens - if I'm reading [2] correctly its mass-energy increases, but what that means in practical terms I'm not sure.

Of course, the issue with this plan is before you had a fast moving massive object targeted at planet, but now you have a black hole nearby.

[1] http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/01/22-01.html

[2] http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/BlackHoleThermo/...

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#173

Post by ew »

philwelch wrote: post #149
ew wrote: post #58

It was definitely an interesting read, however, I feel that fundamentally, for humans to reach the point where space combat is even feasible we will have solved so many more important problems that there won't be a need for fighting in the cosmos. Earth, in general, is at peace. We are largely struggling against terrorism, radical groups, and internal genocide rather than full scale, nation-on-nation wars. No two dem…

> No two democracies have gone to war, ever That stirs up a whole new thing, detailed here: http://users.rcn.com/mwhite28/demowar.htm

That was almost as good a read as the main post :)

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#174

Post by nl »

electromagnetic wrote: post #170
stcredzero wrote: post #87

Against space piracy: First, it requires that FTL ships be cheap enough that criminals can acquire them. This is another area in which the analogy between the age of sail and the space age breaks down. Sailing ships were skill-intensive but materially cheap. You had to have people with the right skills, but once you did all you needed was wood, rope, and cloth. But spacecraft are going to follow a post-industrial rev…

Agreed. Piracy denotes the theft of goods or money. When you can print goods, money is worthless. Your soul resources become matter and energy, and most matter is easy to come by. Piracy would likely extend solely to the theft of energy resources. Similarly, so would war but on a bigger scale. Piracy of goods would only extend to things not easily replicable by the present technology, or not easily replicable on many…

most matter is easy to come by

Endless wars over oil, rare earth metals in Africa and the ever increasing price of iron ore would tend to indicate you might be wrong about that.

Just because a single 3D printer won't use much won't magically make resource constraints disappear.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#175

Post by ew »

sliverstorm wrote: post #129
ohyes wrote: post #88

Space combat seems pointless to me. What exactly would they be fighting over? Presumably you want to reach space for resources, so asteroids, planets and moons with minerals, stuff like that. You might also want planets/asteroids/moons that are 'good' for colonization (easily terra formed or already life sustaining). You probably wouldn't see many fights where you are firing at the resource itself. No one with the mo…

You can argue this over in your head a lot, but it's really quite simple in my mind. If we assume space travel becomes relatively easy (that is to say it is used for more than initial colonization) there will be interstellar commerce. If there is unprotected commerce, there will be pirates. Any time there are pirates, protection will develop. Let us call these peace-keepers the Navy. If you engage in commerce and you…

Unless we can effectively teleport, there won't be any interstellar commerce. Everything is too far away.

Interplanetary, maybe, but within our solar system.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#176

Post by ohyes »

baddox wrote: post #163
ohyes wrote: post #88

Space combat seems pointless to me. What exactly would they be fighting over? Presumably you want to reach space for resources, so asteroids, planets and moons with minerals, stuff like that. You might also want planets/asteroids/moons that are 'good' for colonization (easily terra formed or already life sustaining). You probably wouldn't see many fights where you are firing at the resource itself. No one with the mo…

Why are you always supposing that ships would be firing at valuable planets, then debunking that? Just extend the idea of a nation's airspace to a planet's "spacespace." Establishing space supremacy around a planet would obviously be a useful military tactic. You can stop extraplanetary supplies and commerce (think the blockade from Star Wars) and eventually take over a valuable planet by starving them out (assuming…

Well, let's say I want to gather minerals from an asteroid.

My primary defense would probably be to paste a big honking weapon on the asteroid and shoot anyone who wants to take over my valuable mining facility.

If I put my defenses on something next to my planet, I'm an idiot. If he destroys my defenses, I want him to also have a high chance of destroying whatever he's attacking me for.

So I build a big weapon as well as commensurate defenses. It isn't unimaginable that the destruction created by future weapons in order to penetrate future defenses would be immense. High velocity and mass will be the only way to do this... mostly in order to prevent deflection/destruction. You have accelerated a projectile to significant fraction of the speed of light in order to get it through the target's point defenses (think missile defense shield). Anything that can penetrate the missile defense system will have extreme destructive force, without needing a warhead.

Generally the point of a blockade/siege is to starve out the opponent so that you can eventually take whatever they are squatting on. Your opponent has a big weapon that you don't want to shoot at (you aren't looking to destroy what you are fighting over). Your blockade would be a sitting duck unless you destroy the weapon, and you significantly reduce the value of the planet/asteroid if you destroy the weapon.

In addition he also has perfect visibility due to the empty nature of space... he can see and shoot at you whenever he wants. If you intercept his transports, he shoots at you. If you stop to refuel, he shoots at you. If you start taking out his less valuable assets, he shoots at you. He can shoot your other assets too. Your space armada has to refuel at a fixed point in space... likely visible to his weapon.

If there were a fight, it would likely be very short and involve both sides having their logistical assets completely annihilated... Which ultimately would defeat the purpose of attacking in the first place.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#177

Post by ohyes »

stcredzero wrote: post #161
ohyes wrote: post #88

Space combat seems pointless to me. What exactly would they be fighting over? Presumably you want to reach space for resources, so asteroids, planets and moons with minerals, stuff like that. You might also want planets/asteroids/moons that are 'good' for colonization (easily terra formed or already life sustaining). You probably wouldn't see many fights where you are firing at the resource itself. No one with the mo…

You probably wouldn't see many fights where you are firing at the resource itself. No, but if you can control travel to and from the resource, then you can park your forces there, and say, shut off the population's air supply. Better yet, threaten to do so, unless they all get onboard a shuttle. A far more likely scenario would be to simply drive your competitor out of business. If they keep getting sabotaged, it bec…

No, but if you can control travel to and from the resource, then you can park your forces there, and say, shut off the population's air supply. Better yet, threaten to do so, unless they all get onboard a shuttle.

Sure, but the important part is perfect visibility. You and your opponent know exactly where each other are at all times. If you blockade, you will be a sitting duck for surface to ship weapons. You have to maintain a high velocity to avoid this. The alternative then is to intercept their transports, and even if you do that, you still have to refuel somewhere. (It seems like it might be better sending unmanned missiles to 'intercept' the transports anyway). And the refueling platform or space ship or missile platform will probably be a sitting duck at some point.

Maybe someone can weaponize psychological disorders or sociological pathologies this way? It's harder to make a group work well together than it is to make a group that is dysfunctional. Maybe this is already happening?

I think this is quite likely, you could even engineer people who are simply annoying and send them to cause trouble within in a small mining colony. For example, a person who chews loudly, has bad breath and terrible BO would put a huge strain on a group if you had to share sparse quarters and limited oxygen.

Throw in a sociopath with a strong will to power and you've at least got an 8 part miniseries.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#178

Post by gerggerg »

zeteo wrote: post #75
rbanffy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why do you think they would be remote controlled? If you put a smart enough brain inside it, you could just upload a copy of the crew (assuming you can digitize and run human minds, of course, something that seems easier than interstellar travel). This way, the ship would not be limited by its crew. The crews responses would also only be limited by available processing speed. And, instead of lifeboats, you could…

"Unmanned" can mean many things, but considering the OP's quote "when we're already flying unmanned vehicles on earth", he clearly meant remote control.

I meant something like a combo of AI with orders beamed every now and then.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#179

Post by dspeyer »

zeteo wrote: post #78
amalcon wrote: post #63

There are three fundamental problems I see here: 1) Why put humans on warships at all? Algorithms are probably better at it. Computers would obviously do the heavy lifting anyway (calculating burn times). An algorithm knows no fear, shows no mercy, and does not flee or surrender unless programmed to do so. The only thing left is target selection, and it doesn't seem worth bringing a human along just for that. 2) If y…

> Why put humans on warships at all? The whole idea of the article is to explore what's possible with current technology, and general-purpose AI is not part of that. Guided missiles are routinely defeated by counter-measures even when the flight only takes minutes.

Are you sure about that? Last I knew, interceptors hardly ever succeeded against guided missiles unless the missiles actually had locater beacons on them. Defenses that work are to create decoy targets (against simple guidance systems like heat-seeking) or to spoof a cancel order on the control channel. Neither seems likely to hold against a really capable attacker.

Re: What future space combat would really look like

#180

Post by tuppy »

zeteo wrote: post #128
tuppy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, why does it require general purpose AI? The two examples you cherry-picked are the furthest objects in our solar system. You've literally picked the outlying examples and made them the rule. The same "problem" could be solved by sending a bunch of what are essentially missiles-carrying-missiles with algorithms that boil down to orders to shoot at any objects that are hot or fast moving or match certain radar s…

The point is that the 10-20 seconds latency that was mentioned is not even close to covering the next planet, much less the entire solar system. Yes, you can send off a bunch of heat-seeking missiles, but, as I mentioned in my original post way up this thread, these missiles are routinely defeated by counter-measures even when seconds away from the target. So, in the absence of strong AI, it's vastly more efficient t…

How does a human-operated ship mitigate anti-missile counter-measures better than an AI operated ship, assuming the same munitions? You have yet to give a single concrete example. If anything, a human-operated vessel would have a worse reaction time than a machine-operated vessel (or AI-operated if you want to be romantic). This is simply due to the physics of operating a biological construct to mechanically manipulate things instead of an electronic construct to manipulate much smaller things on a much smaller level.

And to sum up, you've used these as synonyms in the argument:

strong AI

general-purpose AI

human-like AI

These are completely different things. What, exactly, are you referring to?

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