New answers tagged space
1
Shipping lanes
You can tax people for going through your "trade route", which has been done for centuries here on Earth. Set up space buoys to warn people they will have to pay a toll, or not, then enforce the toll. Not many governments would care about empty space, so they aren't going to war over the toll. They'll just go around it.
Well, that is ...
0
They're outlaws
A race of people who make a living via piracy, raiding, smuggling, or other illicit activity might choose to hide out in the emptiness of space. The void is so large, it's just wildly impractical for the Space Police to even try to search for them in such a large empty region. It may not even be possible to reach those regions if your FTL ...
4
By far the best natural resource is to be found in empty space is emptiness.
The French tested nukes in the Algerian desert. Americans decided to nuke their own desert. Apparently deserts are fun to nukes. Well empty space is the desert of the universe. You can test all sorts of weapons, maneuvers, and other schemes far from prying eyes, and far from ...
2
Computation is more efficiant at lower temperatures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle
So lets just say you are running tons of simulations you might want to get as far away from a heat source you can
5
The Electric Universe people were right. There are plasma filaments connecting all the stars, carrying incredible amounts of electric current. Only between the stars is it possible to tap into that energy, so the areas in the middle of the filaments are hotly contended.
2
Hiding valuable assets
In a sufficiently populated galaxy, there could be countless potential threats and attackers in all directions, too many to keep track of or anticipate. Space is just too big.
So instead of expensive force fields and hyper-sensitive early warning systems, every civilization will locate important installations in large regions of empty ...
1
I think the biggest advantage of empty space, is that it is empty space. Obviously, it is not actually empty, as most space has some amount of stuff in it like very dissipated hydrogen gas.
That being said though, empty space is important, as especially deep space, in-between stars, is lacking in interference. Interference takes all sorts of forms that you ...
2
Matter generation
What we think of as empty space is full with activity. Thanks to fluctuations of the quantum field virtual photons pop in and out of existence, one positive and one negative, which cancel each other out. With light these can be turned into real photons, which means you can create something out of basically nothing.
Uf you push this real ...
3
Vast voids which are devoid of gravity, particulate and radioactive interference are the perfect place to grow the flawless crystalline structures needed for the post-singularity level artificial intelligences. The computing power of any AI is strongly correlated to the size and purity of the circuitry that it lives in.
Every supreme intelligence at the ...
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Energy generation
In the vastness of space there is something. We don't know what it is or how to see it, but we can see it's effects. It pushes whole galaxies apart, while seemingly invisible. This is dark energy. There is a great abundance of it to be so powerful and most is likely in the vast emptiness of space between star systems and galaxies.
Stars, ...
1
They can't be stealthed.
Each collision with a proton generates (1.6726219*10^-27 kilograms) 30000000^2= 1.510^-12 joules of energy. Assume a projectile of area 100cms, and 3 projectiles per cubic centimeter. Every thirty million meters of motion, every second they'll heat up 45 joules.
20 watts is enough to detect Voyager 1 from 18 billion kilometers away. ...
1
In addition to the already existing proposals of magnetic deflection and/or refrigeration, a much simpler cooling scheme can be used.
Coolants (e.g. liquid helium, nitrogen or any other good evaporative coolant, depending on the requirement of surface temperature) can be directed to the "front" of the projectile, absorb heat and be ejected from the ...
4
No.
they can't make a airtight container big enough for weeks of travel, especially not one that can withstand vacuum. Even a day of travel is probably impossible. You need a shipping container worth of air per person per day. Since it needs to have doors it gets even less likely they can make it airtight.
The only technology they had for making airtight ...
6
If airtightness is the only requirement, then yes, medieval people could create such vessels
By middle ages, creating watertight ship hulls was a very common task. Yes, ships leaked, but that could be successfully mitigated.
Also, diving bells were known since antiquity, and fully isolated "dry" bell is not very different from a spaceship. 1 atm ...
0
Using Goliath to move David:
If I'm following your system, you create a sort of artificial gravity in simulations of miniature solar systems. So if this is how your magic system works, can't you use it to create a simulated solar system with one of the "planet" nodes as a ship? This would allow your ship to essentially undergo a slingshot effect ...
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The first uses that come to mind would just basically be to use the clay to make models and simulations to better understand gravity and the solar system and stuff. Uses outside of that requires interpretations of the limits of the system.
Assuming that the gravity from the clay and star only influences only the clay, and if the magic person can choose ...
4
The particles you will be impacting are of two types: charged and neutral.
Providing the bullet with a magnetic field will deflect the charged particles and leave you only to impact the neutral particles.
This will result in a lower fingerprint and a more difficult detection.
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Install a powerful refrigerator in the projectile. Cold refrigerant coils cover the forward surface. The heat from molecular collisions is pumped from the front to the back, where it is radiated away. If the heat generation rate from collisions matches the rate at which heat is radiated away, the projectile won't reach excessive temperatures. The ...
3
The answer by thewildnobody gives the best explanation of what would be different. I thought I would try and take those points and synthesise them into a conclusion as to what a war would actually be like:
It would be a cold war
(Pun intended)
The most similar "war" fought in history is the cold war:
There would be no direct action involving large ...
1
Given the distance to any likely military manufacturing sites or bases with reinforcements (apart from the Moon), it would seem that one side or the other would end up with orbital superiority for a significant time period - and on relatively small radius bodies even a single spacecraft orbiting would be able to scan and track enemy forces in the open fairly ...
7
There are three main traits that make these places different warfare-wise: the horizon, the air(or lack thereof), and gravity.
The horizon: on a flat area of Europa you'll get a horizon at around 2 km, depending on how tall you are. This effects all modes of spotting and detection including radar. (Most of these don't have a magnetosphere to bounce radar ...
0
If your people live in both environments it would be pretty great to be able to adjust their centre of gravity and maybe even their weight to whatever environment they are currently in, which could be done by an ability to retain water in different areas of the body for example, making them and yourself heavier or lighter depending on the environment. The ...
-1
NOTE: below scenario would not require magic. Maybe it can be done easily.. certain cettle breeds have already been bred back to restore ancestor size and strength. I'm not sure about the implications for humans, such as brain size, so let's suppose there is genetic engineering able to do a selective mix of properties..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
0
Where is that fleeing ship going to get supplies? Food, water, fuel, medical, you name it.
It needs to land or dock somewhere to get all that.
Unless your universe is rife with pirate bases and other outcasts that don't obey the powers that be and are too hard for those powers to track down and destroy or make submit (in which case, are they really in power?)...
1
And unlike cars, spaceships can produce their own energy, without ever needing to stop and refill
Energy doesn't come from nowhere. Nuclear fuel decays and produces less energy over time. A fusion reactor requires stuff to fuse. Solar panels degrade over time, and produce less power the further you get away from the Sun (or whatever star you're orbiting)....
1
Something similar already happened in the 16th to 18th centuries. At the time the reach of the authorities was limited by the technologies, but ships often travelled to the other side of the world. With no other authority around the captain of the ship had absolute power and with the wrong captain conditions for the crew could be harsh. That is why mutinies ...
2
Sure (eventually) Mars runs itself and Venus runs itself, but what happens when Mars wants to trade with Venus? Sure ships can start moving goods between the planets but someone will come along complaining that those Venusian's are under cutting the local Mars built products. Thus people will demand that something should be done about it.
The usual way then ...
2
Consequently, each State handles its issues with the laws that pertain to its jurisdiction, except monetary issues, such as the printing of money. Other examples of decentralized governments include the governments of Australia, Canada, Germany, and India.
As no one recalled about decentralized government examples, seems it needs a reminder.
In some sense ...
4
For a government to exist, it needs to have power over people, or to provide them with useful services (or both).
If the people on the spaceship can't be caught, they might still want to make use of government services, for the education of their children, or healthcare, or providing a safe place to trade / take holidays / hire crew. In order to enjoy these ...
6
a space chase never ends
That's not entirely correct, a ship presumably goes from somewhere to somewhere else. If it doesn't, then it truly doesn't matter what they do, they're effectively their own sovereign nation outside of anybody's effective control. It's when a ship shows up to a spaceport with a dead body, a cargohold full of drugs, or outstanding ...
6
We have an analogous situation with the internet. Which is to say, it is possible to anonymize and encrypt your traffic with several hops through VPNs to make you unreachable physically by people you are communicating with, creating pockets of ungovernable space. We see ransomware attacks on the news with official government responses along the lines of &...
3
Sure a space government can make sense IF they control the means of production for creating critical systems and materials. Sure space vehicle EU W2775LV can take off and avoid taxation, until it needs fuel that is. It was carefully built to be dependent on outside manufacturing for that, so was the mothership for that matter. They also don't have the gear, ...
6
Mothership (full of fuel and supplies close to the transport’s destination) to space vehicle EU W2775LV be like "pay taxes!"
Space vehicle EU W2775LV (near its destination, needing to slow down (not speed up) to enter orbit, almost out of fuel for maneuvers, and running low on other resources) : yes, please
There’s a narrow range of velocities to ...
12
It Will ... Eventually
Space as of now, 2021, is pretty much a lawless place. We might think of it as the period before the "Wild West" era of American history. Think of the Moon landings as Leif Eriksson landing in Canada. Think of the various probes from Voyager right on up to the most recent Chinese rover on Mars as De Soto and Lewis & ...
4
Government makes sense only to the extent that control can be maintained. If your propulsion is such that only single-body colonies can be controlled that will be the extent of your government. If instead somehow your propulsion is extended such that entire solar systems can be reached in reasonable times then government will extend to fill that niche. And ...
19
Yes, it makes sense for several reasons:
trade
Even if each settlement and ship are fully self-sufficient trade between them will eventually be established. The only exception is when distances are so huge that trade is absolutely impossible. Please note, trade does not have to involve material goods.
It is much easier to develop and protect trade when ...
3
None. SETIs latest estimate puts total scrambling of non-targeted radio and television signals at slight less than 1 light year. It's not that the energy of the signals doesn't keep travelling but beyond 1, maybe 2, light years the amount of interference makes the signals undetectable as anything but a tiny bit of extra noise.
However
They do estimate that ...
0
On average a digitigrade "foot" has a lower contact area than other types.
A lower contact area coupled with a lower weight (because of the lower gravity) means also a lower friction, which is essential for actual motion control.
I have the impression that, unless the ground has some very special conditions, a digitigrade foot won't be that much of ...
0
Life doesn't only need energy to sustain itself.It also needs supplies of sort to build up its structures.
I.e. plants do not need only sunlight to thrive, they also need water, CO2 and other elements they absorb.
Energy without a mean to use it is pointless.
Without getting nutrients somewhere you creatures cannot do anything: laying eggs requires the ...
1
For all we know organisms living on planets with no atmosphere could be the norm in the universe. However this creature sounds like one of the less probable ways to do so.
Gathering its energy while in egg form is not easy as it can't move to take advantage of any temperature changes as it grasps at the slightest temperature gradient on this shell. It ...
12
Safe distance estimates vary
50-100 LY
100 LY
25 LY
Now, if you add a glassy shield, it would depend upon how effective this shield is. Blocking 75% of radiation means only 1 part in 4 harmful radiation gets past your shield - this would allow you to be twice as close since the radiation falls off proportional to distance squared.
If you had a 100% effective ...
57
The actual explosion of a supernova isn't really all that much "entertainment." It's an extremely bright flash. The formation of the nebula might be interesting. But that is a much longer process, starting at months and upwards to 100s of years. And, if you are far enough away as not to be fried by the initial flash, you will need very good ...
0
I don't know if it is possible for a double planet to have 2 Earth like planets as close together as you want. Being separated by about the Earth-Moon distance seems more plausible to me, so you might need to get someone to do calculations. There would be great views of one planet from another if they were as close as you want them to be, but I don't ...
7
Earth's magnetic field is generated by the spinning of our iron core, not by the spinning of Earth in space. Theoretically, you could have a non-spinning planet with a spinning iron core, which would still have a strong magnetic field. On the opposite side, Mars is a planet which spins almost as fast as Earth, but without that spinning core, its magnetic ...
2
I assume that the problem you want to solve is that the cybernetic brain could somehow be corrupted or deleted entirely. (Whether or not that's plausible doesn't matter because this is your world).
One option could be automatic backups to a storage medium which is immune to solar flares. When the cyborg gets knocked out by a solar flare, their mind gets ...
3
First of all, let's refresh what a solar flare is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare
It EM flash with or without coronal ejection. Without there is nothing special about it, more or less.
With mass ejected it a bit more interesting.
But the point is it not an emp blast next to a robot, so EM part does nothing.
And particles they are not gammarays and ...
2
What is a solar flare?
A solar flare is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. Flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events. They are seen as bright areas on the sun and they can last from minutes to hours. We typically see a solar flare by the photons (or light) it releases, at most ...
0
Magnets.
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/get-naked/experiments/magnets-and-tvs
This is relevant to the old style deep box TVs and monitors. And video games.
If you put the magnet near the TV, if it is strong enough you will see
strange patterns appearing on the screen, that move with the magnet.
The picture is formed by firing a beam of electrons (a ...
4
Actually, you do NOT need to reach 'escape velocity' through reaction mass to get beyond the atmosphere. Space elevators do the trick perfectly. A slow and steady pull on a cable. The inertia/momentum of the platform itself provides the energy to accelerate the elevator cabin to the orbital velocity of the platform through the cable.
However, once you get ...
3
Yes, that is possible. The reason it is not done is that it would be very awkward.
To get "out" of Earth you need to reach its escape velocity, which is around 11km/s (~7 miles per second) at sea level. It is smaller at low Earth orbit (LEO), but not much. Getting to that speed inside the atmosphere tends to start a fireball around you due to all ...
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