I'm not reading you're post beyond this. You're talking out of your ass here. Learn physics and come back.Homer wrote:Space has no gravity or inertia...
Space has gravity. All of spacetime has gravity. But it doesn't really matter in space combat unless you're fighting close to a planet/moon, in which case maneuvering would be a matter of changing orbits and the such. It matters a hell of a lot in space travel though, unless you're using an antimatter-driven torchship capable of using Brachistochrone trajectories. Torchships are out of the tech level we're talking about.
And ALL MASS has inertia. Regardless of where it is. You DO move backwards when you're ship accelerates forwards. So, please, SHUT UP until you know what you're saying.
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If you're using an advanced engineered cooling substance, then you'd probably be using some kind of very cold liquid, and you'd be using a closed-cycle system with heatsinks for combat and acceleration and droplet-type radiators while you're in transit or idle orbiting between missions. I for one, would not be venting expensive coolant into space.Sponge wrote:I'm not speaking of just cooling. Power consumption and whether or not they could actually track quickly enough to do damage to armored targets are also serious issues. Also, water ice would make for, as far as I know, a terrible coolant. It may work for terrestrial structures, but that's because replenishing coolant is as easy as having some more delivered. Space ships would often not have that luxury. Water is not very compressible at all. It also doesn't absorb all that much energy. I'm talking about coolants that have yet to be invented. Either a very fine particulate solid or some sort of gas would likely be best.
For open cycle, I'd still prefer water/ice, because it's easily available(Saturn's rings, Kuiper Belt, ice asteroids, comets) and disposable - you can use it as propellant for NTR propulsion or vent it into space if you're heatsink is full and you don't have the time to deploy your radiators and sit around.
That's the thing. Radiators would be too slow and fragile for combat, so you'd be able to duel only until your heatsink fills up, after which you have to get away or die.I'm not convinced that radiators would be very effective. They would work, but slowly. Again, armoring them would be terribly difficult (at least by today's standards. I could be way off here, please correct me if so). Because they need to have as high a surface area as possible, they're going to be pretty fragile. Lasers could just melt the shit out of them unopposed. Yeah, it'd be a good idea to have them, but a fully integrated coolant system is all but required. That means LOTS of coolant, or some way to produce it on ship (plant based? I can hardly speculate).
For civilian ships like explorers or freighters, radiators would be standard always-deployed and non-retractable. Like big wings, but not aerodynamic.
I just remembered something.I've also been meaning to do some research on this, but have been pretty busy lately. Is it not possible that armor in the realistic near future might stand up to a nuclear explosion? I don't know. It would have to somehow spread the energy out. It's also worth noting that nukes in space are not as potent as those in an atmosphere. You don't get the pressure wave, which does a ton of damage.
It IS possible to stop nukes using armor.
It is the basis of Orion Drive.
Orion Drive uses a large heavily-armored pusher plate to deflect nuclear explosions out the back of the ship and move the ship forward with the gained kinetic energy.
So maybe, if a ship could be completely fitted with some kind of pusher-plate armor, it could stand up to nukes. Somewhat. Or if the ship is an Orion ship, they can turn their pusher-plate towards you're nukes and weather the attack. The nukes would push the ship away but that's a much smaller problem than taking a straight hit.