Space Articles

[FIREST0RM000]

This topic is just for some links to articles about space travel, space combat, and anything else pertaining to realistic space phenomenon, whatever. anything interesting is fair game, be it biology, weapons, propulsion, or physics, I don't care.

also feel free to discus them, or give me more stuff to post up.


Good Sites:

http://www.nasa.gov/
official nasa site, lots of space resources.

http://www.thespacesite.com/space_contents.html
many interesting articles about the history of space travel, and it's potential future.

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/
awesome site with a little bit of everything space

Biology:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006 ... omeres.htm
The effects of cosmic radiation on DNA

Theoretical Physics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity
Wikipedia article on special relativity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity
Wikipedia article on general relativity

Weapons:

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2 ... ic-railgun
pop sci article on the US navy's mega joule rail-gun

http://www.powerlabs.org/railgun2.htm
article covering the building of a homemade 20 kilo joule rail-gun. very impressive. Also, coil-guns, Lasers and other fun stuff here too.

Nanotechnology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology
general Wikipedia article on nanotechnology

http://www.nano.gov/
US government website on nanotechnology

http://www.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology.htm
very good article explaining nanotechnology in depth

Sci-Fi

http://www.merzo.net/10mpp.htm
size comparison of various different sci-fi ships and earth structures. should give a nice sense of scale.

http://www.moviemistakes.com/top_sci-fi.php
pointing out common mistakes in sci-fi television/movies

http://www.shipschematics.net/
has lots of great schematics for ships from many different sci-fi shows.

http://www.tvtropes.org/
Points out common misconceptions in television in general, as well as other reasons why producers might chose to portray something in a less realistic way in television.


Books, Non Fiction:

In Search of Schrodinger's Cat - John Gribbin
A history and walk through of quantum physics, without much math.

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
and
The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene
Well-known books about theoretical physics, quantum and relativistic. Greene's book is about String Theory and hypes it massively, FYI, though.

Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan
a book subtitled "Visions of a Human Future in Space" can't be bad.

Death by Black Hole - Neil deGrasse Tyson
it's a book about a whole ton of physics and space stuff, well written, by the guy who demoted Pluto. Also highlights Hollywood mistakes.

[Anna]

Atomic Rocket:
It has a lot of everything.

[LukeRM]

A special type of laser is the bomb-pumped laser. This is generally found as a missile warhead. A "submunition" is a warhead that is a single-shot bomb-pumped gamma-ray laser. The original concept was developed by Edward Teller under the name "Excalibur." Teller and Excalibur were later discredited, but the basic idea wasn't.... *snipped*

Now I know why it's called a Teller torpedo.

[th15]

Yeap, I think I read the exact same article when I was researching about bomb-pumped lasers. My first contact with it was in a game called Alien Legacy where you ships can launch missiles with bomb-pumped laser warheads.

[AidanAdv]

10 Pixles Per Meter

10 PPM offers a comparison of some famous starships, at the bottom are some real-world buildings for comparison.

[Darlos9D]

Yeap, I think I read the exact same article when I was researching about bomb-pumped lasers. My first contact with it was in a game called Alien Legacy where you ships can launch missiles with bomb-pumped laser warheads.

Wait... I thought the point was to detonate the bomb in a chamber to pump a super-powerful laser at a distant target, not to send the bomb to the target first. Those missiles sound like they kinda missed the point.

[Siber]

the idea is that you get the missile close to the target, then set off the bomb(which pumps the laser). In space combat, the lag time between when you last saw your target and when your weapons reach them can be a significant, and so can focusing the beams themselves. So putting your lasers on missiles might be a worthwhile way of reducing targeting lag and improving beam performance without exposing your own ship.

[Draco18s]

10 Pixles Per Meter

10 PPM offers a comparison of some famous starships, at the bottom are some real-world buildings for comparison.

Wow, they had Titan AE. Like, everyone's forgotten that movie.

[M123]

Wow, they had Titan AE. Like, everyone's forgotten that movie.

What're you talking about? Titan AE's awesome!

[Aaganrmu]

... Teller Torpedoes ...

The missile can also be used to circumvent (Aegis) defenses. Though that wouldn't make much sense in reality.

As for useful links: http://www.moviemistakes.com/top_sci-fi.php

It explains both how things should be and how they often are depicted. You can then take pick either the dramatic/cool or the real/boring way.

[Draco18s]

Wow, they had Titan AE. Like, everyone's forgotten that movie.

What're you talking about? Titan AE's awesome!

I didn't say it wasn't, I said people forgot about it.

[th15]

Man, I liked Titan AE too.

Oh and Alien Legacy is a fantastic game. Yes that was entirely how they used their missiles. Using a bomb-pumped laser warhead allowed them to circumvent point defences by having the missile detonate just out of PD range. Which is exactly how the Teller Torps are meant to be used.

[Malahite]

http://www.shipschematics.net/

[Exethalion]

For any techincal stuff related to Star Wars, and for explanations to all the SW nasty lies like the bridge-mounted star destroyer shield domes, use http://www.theforce.net/swtc/index.html. The author has a PhD in theoretical astrophysics (what I'm aiming to get) so he knows his stuff.

[bien4500]

Off Topic: Perhaps the reason behind the shields failing is that the shields are deactivated, then when the sensors pick up incoming fire, they 'tell' a certain portion of the shield to activate.

And Titan AE is uber!

On Topic: Those are some nice articles. Though I can't seem to find anything about ramscoop drives. That and wormhole generators.