Questions tagged [spaceships]
For questions involving implemented theory or technology for travelling through space. Consider also [space-travel]. See also the tag information (click "info") for more details on when this tag applies.
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How can a tractor beam only pull but not push matter in space? [closed]
Set in a distant future, assume civilization is transitioning to a type 3. A tractor beam uses energy beam to secure and slowly reels in the target such as an asteroid or a small space vessel, I am ...
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What crew positions there would be on a space debris collection ship? [closed]
In my story, I have a spaceship orbiting Earth, collecting space debris and taking it to a recycling facility (also an orbital installation).
The ship has a five-person crew, all of whom are equal ...
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How would you get a ship out of a gravity well?
Context
I'm helping a friend with a hard sci-fi story and we ran into an issue. In this setting the technology for absurdly powerful and efficient fusion drives which seem not to have heat managment ...
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Avoiding time travel or causality stuff
How to avoid blatantly time traveling or breaking causality in a big way when getting my characters to places quickly (Faster than light)?
The method used is a tunnel in some sort of different space ...
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Necessity of army and navy in a space warfare setting
I'm writing a realistic sci fi story involving interstellar conflict , where space warships (assume something like star destroyers from star wars) are the norm, These warships are capable of orbital ...
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How much liquid hydrogen is required to veer a manned probe off course into an escape trajectory in deep space?
I am working on this horror-scifi story based on the lost cosmonauts theory, where the Judica-Cordiglia brothers detected an SOS from a manned probe veering off into space before Yuri Gagarin ahem... ...
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What would it take for a spacecraft to travel to the sun's nadir and stop?
In a science fiction future universe, spacecraft routinely travel from a distance "above" a star's north or south pole to rendezvous with planets orbiting in the star system's orbital plane. ...
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Possibility of solar powered space stations around a red dwarf
I have an earth-like world orbiting an M7 red dwarf on the outer edge of the habitable zone(0.0443AU). Since red dwarfs emit more infrared light than visible light, solar panels would probably not be ...
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Space-ships and stations...made from cast-iron?
If there's two things i love, it's space-flight, and late 19th century technology, and i hope to implement as much of the latter into as much of the former in my current setting. And one thing that ...
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How would a species without optical vision navigate a spaceship? [duplicate]
I wanted to create an alien species with an interstellar civilization, but the twist is that they never developed eyes, due to evolving on a planet far enough away from its star that it’s shrouded in ...
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How to protect against laser blinding warfare?
Here is the problem:
You have a spaceship, with cameras and view ports, and there is a new laser technique going around: Simply shoot cameras with your laser, and blind anyone who tries to peer ...
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Viability of lasers in space [duplicate]
Specifically, if lasers were to be used as a weapon, or as a mining tool, for a spaceship, would it be at all practical? Most spaceships in my world are made of aluminum and/or titanium, at least ...
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Amount of antimatter needed to propel large spacecraft?
Okay, So i'm not really into physics or mathematics but i'm trying my best to learn some bit of how the calculations needed for the amount of antimatter needed to propel a spacecrafft to relativistic ...
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Spacecraft Design of a Cold-Blooded Humanoid Race
I was talking with a friend recently and he reasoned that a cold-blooded race would take longer to get to space, but survive more easily once the technology progressed enough. The rationale was that a ...
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Minimum circumference of a rotating spacecraft with artificial gravity [duplicate]
In a rotating spacecraft that can generate artificial gravity similar to Earth’s, what would be the minimum circumference of the rotating system that would allow humans to comfortably live and work ...
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Engines capable of surviving a highly destructive space battle
Context: It is set 50 000 years from "now" in no-FTL interstellar setting. The idea is that active defences and armor of spacecrafts have obscenely advanced to the point that any projectile ...
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Feasibility of “invisible” orbital bombs
The fleet is in orbit around the planet. The enemy is in a similar orbit, and they vastly outnumber the allies. The allies have a plan, ‘invisible’ bombs, incapable of being seen will float in orbit ...
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Practical effects of Torchship-strength Magnetic Nozzles [closed]
In a sci-fi universe with high-end interplanetary torchship technology (think the Expanse), high-speed space travel is normalized, with ships of all sizes regularly traveling between planets on the ...
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What kind of interior doors make sense on a space station?
We are on an orbiting research station in the near-ish future (100-200 years from now?)—like the ISS but bigger and with a little more space for comfort and convenience.
My protagonists have been ...
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Can it make sense for a spaceship to be crewed by many individual AI, rather than a handful with all the processing power?
Related to my previous question regarding fine dining for computer processes.
Background
We've got a spaceship sailing through the ocean black, crewed entirely by self-aware artificial intelligences. ...
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Seeking chart of nebula particle density vs. ship velocity
The traditional Sci-Fi nebula is thick as ketchup (I'm lookin' at you Star Trek!) but the reality of nebulae we know about is that a pilot wouldn't even notice that they're in one due to particle ...
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Would a nebula cause resistance and disrupt sensors on a space ship?
If a ship is moving through a nebula, would it slow down due to the gases and dust in the cloud, and would it prevent things like radar from having as much range as they usually could?
I want to ...
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What would stop a large spaceship from looking like a flying brick?
In the far future, galactic space travel is now a common reality, and spaceships reach sizes of over 1 kilometer in length.
Any capital ship in existence would therefore be designed for functionality, ...
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Alt-history continuation of Dynasoar program
Just hopping over from SpaceExploration
I'd like to know how realistic a use-case the DynaSoar spacecraft would be for a Titan descent craft, in terms of in-universe realism.
I'm assuming no far-...
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Would a life support system designed for space be practical on a planet?
Considering the:
required reflectivity and insulation from heat from a star,
heat dissipation capability (radiators, other methods),
general conductivity of the skin,
of a modern spacecraft e.g. ISS,...
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What parts of a spaceship would still work 100 million years later?
A spacecraft designed for interstellar travel is discovered 100 million years later. What pieces of it still work, what parts would be easily repairable, and what would still be even vaguely ...
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How does a Person survive an intergalactic voayage?
Intergalactic voyages are long, they go over quite large distances, but you, a human in the Milky Way, want to see a galaxy beyond our own with your own eyes and live there. At 99% the speed of light, ...
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How Much of the Universe Could Humanity Conquer?
Imagine that less than a million years from now, probably in the hundreds of thousands, humanity has spread throughout the galaxy. There are afew aliens here and there, but that is insignificant, they ...
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Would this design for a generational star ship be realistic for traveling to Alpha Centauri?
https://www.tinkercad.com/things/6hFXA0L0dOW
I am writing a story with where the main character discovers this ship traveling to Alpha Centauri because our solar system has been devoured by a black ...
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Near-instantaneous inter-star communication utilising wormholes
This is my first question on the worldbuilding stack exchange, I discovered this place last night when double-checking that my world's river-carving-through-a-mountain-range is possible (it was, which ...
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Survival in a low-oxygen environment
I have a small group of astronauts in a damaged vessel, adrift for days with a non-functional environmental system/scrubbers. Ambient oxygen levels are low, but they have some emergency tanks of ...
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Could standard aircraft(planes, helicopers, etc.) work as spacecraft in this world?
Ok, so I have this world(or maybe it will just be a dimension depending on how things pan out) called 'The Weird' that has air in space, like Earthlike air(for the most part). Also, the 'planets' or ...
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Alternatives to electricity for energy distribution in a spaceship?
Basically, I want the aesthetics of "EPS conduits" without the soft-sci-fi handwaving of actual Star-Trekian EPS conduits. Is there some system for distributing large amounts of power around ...
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Is a "20th century" spacefaring civilization plausible?
This civilization has computational technology roughly equivalent to Earth's in the late 20th century. We're talking post-moon landing, but pre-Internet (roughly 1969-1983). They may or may not have ...
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Interception of missiles in space combat
How to approach this problem!
Numerically. Trying to find some closed form equation to spit things out is extremely difficult, especially in the face of how well this lends itself to numeric methods. ...
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How fast can a cylinder spin, with a human on its inner wall, to NOT experience motion sickness?
Context
I'm working on an interstellar Ark made of a few (probably 3 to be more specific) layers of cylinders (modified O'Neil's concept), while trying to get the station to be as compact as possible. ...
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Why would a sublight Alcubierre drive be more useful for braking than for propulsion?
To get to the point, ships in the setting I'm working on still use a conventional, albeit very advanced, form of rocket propulsion.
However interstellar ships also use a sublight Alcubierre drive ...
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I have an unlimited supply of antimatter -- how do I actually make my spaceship go?
I'm making a book series set in the medium and far future of humanity, at various stages. Some elements are based in harder science than others. Throughout the timeline, Dyson swarms serve as the VIP ...
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How would a multipurpose railgun work
In my game, spaceships need to have weapons with more than one purpose, due to the cost of hauling extra weight across interplanetary/interstellar space. My railgun needs to be able to fire plasma ...
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is wood a viable material to build space craft?
So, Im writing a sci-fi universe, and a species in said universe is a low-population fox-like humanoid race who live on a forest-covered world. With a society that's like a summer camp and a tech ...
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Designing a portable space elevator
So, I have been trying to come up with ideas for space launch without rockets for this sci-if project, but then something occurred to me: rather than have craft jumping off and onto a planet’s surface,...
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How long would it take for an AI to build spaceships if it starts from 0? [closed]
I am writing a story were an AI, 1000 years in the future, wants to build spaceships to go into deep space.
It has all the information available for humans until the year 2100, when the global ...
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What is the best design for trans-atmospheric cargo ship?
Backdrop
This is set in a world after an empire-state that controlled the entire solar system fell. They have incredibly efficient catalyzed direct fusion drives, which powers the heavy mining and ...
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What is the difference between space-planes and rockets? [closed]
The Background
Well... for the first time, sort of, I have a question that doesn't tie directly into anything else. To define what I'm referring to, because I don't actually know the correct ...
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Orbital mechanics- 2 objects, different mass same trajectory
I have a multi-ring space station built around an asteroid, but not physically connected. Station has significantly more mass than the asteroid.
As the two approach a star and swing around it, will ...
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What is the minimum specifications for a ship to survive propulsive reentry?
Backdrop
In the ending of my book, the closing scene is the control room of the mangled and torn-up starship diving into the atmosphere (maybe not so dramatic) on its fusion engines, slowing down and ...
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How to harvest/produce industrial amounts of metallic hydrogen
For those not versed in theoretical states of matter, Metallic Hydrogen is a semi-fluid phase of hydrogen that acts like a metal, able to conduct electrons. It's also theorized to be potent rocket ...
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Maximum speed of 100% reflective light sails
So, it’s the 23rd century, and due to the cost of fuel these days, people are exploring new methods of interplanetary travel that does not require reaction mass. Light sails spring to mind.
Modern ...
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What would be the most effective shape for interlocking starfighters? [closed]
This is a question relating to my Safespace sci-fi setting, in which the Unified Intergalactic League attempts to keep peace between the litany of sapiods (a classification for intelligent creatures ...
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What would a laser-powered interstellar cargo ship look like?
Blurb
What would a ship with a 100 thousand tonne budged that needs to carry cryo-frozen cargo through 20 lightyears of interstellar space at 0.35C coasting velocity, using laser sails at both ends of ...
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