An Osmium plated N52-NIB round firing Coil gun would be the theoretical best idea for an orbital defense network of space stations. As being the most dense element Osmium would atone for the frail N52-NIB. Wolframium is an arguable substitute for Osmium due to scarcity of Osmium. However, due to its outrageously high melting point, bonding it with the N52-NIB core could be problematic, and at the end of the day, do you want to risk Earth's sovereignty for saving a few trillion dollars? I know I don't.
Coil gun defensive space stations are optimal compared to explosive powered, tight-beam plasma or laser weaponry. This is because with proper shielding from sunlight, which would be required anyway to prevent damage from solar radiation, the coil would remain super cooled. Remaining super cooled increases performance of the coils and leads to a faster velocity. explosive powered rounds would require larger shells; this would likely strain the space fountain/elevator used to transport material to the stations. Tight-beam plasma is problematic due to the energy required to sustain fire is high and it also produces a higher sustained recoil. Laser is, in my opinion, the only only viable alternative. However, it would require higher energy to sustain a beam, and kinetic energy is harder to deflect / absorb. ...going to samefag the rest as a reply
Powering the Os N52-NIB round coil gun space platforms is mildly problematic, as one or more centralized power supplies stationed on earth and transmitted via a microwave tight beam and daisy-chained between stations creates a cascade failure scenario. This would happen if station 0 in the chain, the one who the primary tight beam is directed to, suffers failure, and cannot relay energy to the other platforms. It also leads to a grid of high energy tight-beams that if blocked would prevent power transfer. My proposed solution to this involves keeping a nuclear reactor[similar to the ones used on nuclear submarines] on board that platform. This reactor will also feed a backup array of batters in the event of reactor emergency shutdown. Each platform will have it's own power supply, thus it would not be compromised in the even of other platforms suffering a failure [either structurally or malfunction].
Recoil can be counteracted with the use of the EM Drive. The EM Drive is ideal in this application as power is always required for firing, and therefore would always be available at that time to counter act recoil. Because the EM Drive only uses electricity to produce thrust, there is 0 need for frequent refueling missions to the station.
That is why Osmium plated N52-NIB round coil gun geosynchronous space stations make for the best orbital defense network. Thank you for your time, and hopefully the Orbital Defense Network will be in place by the time we need it.
Logan Richardson
Are you autistic or something?
Brandon Robinson
Maybe, but I just am trying to spread awareness of the need for a geosynchronous defense network of Os-NIB firing coil gun space stations
Gavin Flores
Image from B5. Satellite orbits known exactly. Invading fleet accelerates to 100 km/sec while headed toward Earth, dumps a load of sand and buckshot, then changes course. This is done while they're still 360,000 km away, around the Moon's orbit. One hour later a meteor shower rips your platforms into mincemeat.
Very velocities and times to suit. Very hard to stop such an attack.
Nuclear plants maybe 30% efficient. 70% of their output has to be dissipated through large fragile radiators. Submarines have an entire ocean to use as a heat sink. Spacecraft are in a vacuum.
Lasers also quite inefficient. But suppose you had one which converted 99.9% of the input power into the output beam. You fire 1e20 watts at the enemy. Some hits, some misses. You now have 1e17 watts of pure heat inside your own station! (E.E.Smith got around that by technobabble in the Skylark series and simply ignored it in Lensmen)
I don't believe in the EM drive either, but I guess I can let that pass if the alien invaders are going to suddenly break out of hyperspace.
Wyatt Morales
wtf kinda autistic short story is this?
Charles Watson
Valid point on the heat issues
However unless you store massive quantities of energy from solar, you would quickly deplete the energy pools.
As for the buckshot anti-stations attack: that tactic could be used against any defense network, the only counter is unmanned stations and hope to shoot down the enemy craft before the station is destroyed.
What's with y'all and hating on my Aspie
Lincoln Martinez
Not trying to pick on your particular concept, Just pointing out that defending a planet is nigh impossible -- unless your technology includes force shields.
Remember though, if both sides are using energy weapons, the defenders have an entire planet to absorb their thermal losses. That's an advantage. Assuming the weapons are either on the ground or on a massive natural satellite. Poul Anderson used this to write a "Berserker" story. (Berserkers were automated robot killing machines left over from a long long ago war. They were programmed to destroy life and wound up annihilating their Builders as well as the Enemy. Now they're a threat to Humanity. Fred Saberhagan built an entire career around them.) In the Anderson, humans prepare a trap for a Berserker, one which will enable them to capture and reverse-engineer one instead of simply blowing it up. The idea is to study their technology, improve on it, and build our own fleets of counter-Berserkers (hopefully with better safeguards than the original Builders employed.)
Jaxson Clark
i almost never post here but just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying reading you dudes' ideas and counter-ideas, keep it up. any good hard sci-fi you'd recommend with these themes? looking up Poul Anderson now
Asher Collins
>EM Drive
Please refer to the following thread -->
Jack King
That thread is pure click b8
Threads like this are why I use to main /sci
Matthew Price
wat. >>Osmium would atone for the frail N52-NIB wow that's awfully specific. You must have done tonnes of hypervelocity impact studies to figure out that this was the best thing to use against enemy space ships right?
>>compared to explosive powered, tight-beam plasma or laser weaponry. This is because with proper shielding from sunlight, which would be required anyway to prevent damage from solar that's a pretty bad argument. The soviets put a regular gun on their space station, it worked. Solar radiation was enough of an issue to cause the rounds to cook off. >> space fountain/elevator used to transport material to the stations. assuming a space fountain/elevator is a pretty big assumption
>> as one or more centralized power supplies stationed on earth and transmitted via a microwave tight beam and daisy-chained between stations creates a cascade failure scenario. uh ok... why the fuck would you even consider beaming power from earth? Shit man, you could just use solar power and accumulators, the coil guns aren't going to be firing all the time. >> My proposed solution to this involves keeping a nuclear reactor[similar to the ones used on nuclear submarines] on board that platform. a triviality. I'm still trying to figure out why you even considered having a centralized power supply. The only centralized power supply satellites have ever used is the sun. >Recoil can be counteracted with the use of the EM Drive if the EM drive works, then why the fuck do you need coilguns? Just make a bunch of EM drive driven missiles. Reactionless drives are basically superweapons
you're gonna need radiators no matter what. There is no getting around this. Your coilguns are still gonna generate heat.
Chase Reed
>implying N52-NIB magnets aren't frail
>Implying the shielding from solar radiation shielding is the reason traditional weaponry is inferior and not a perk of the coil gun
>Implying we couldn't construct a space fountain today if we had funding
>>you could just use solar power and accumulators, the coil guns aren't going to be firing all the time. When firing large quantities of energy are used, quickly depleting any power reserves
>once again implying power is not a major factor
>>if the EM drive works, then why the fuck do you need coilguns? Just make a bunch of EM drive driven missiles. Reactionless drives are basically superweapons Are you clinically retarded?
Caleb Jackson
>>>implying N52-NIB magnets aren't frail Why the fuck are you using osmium and N52-NIB magnets? Could you justify why you are using these exact materials?
>>>Implying the shielding from solar radiation shielding is the reason traditional weaponry is inferior and not a perk of the coil gun you said that. >>Coil gun defensive space stations are optimal compared to explosive powered, tight-beam plasma or laser weaponry. This is BECAUSE WITH PROPER SHIELDING FROM SUNLIGHT THE COIL WOULD REMAIN SUPERCOOLED.
>>space fountain We can't make a space fountain, the superconducting magnets would explode due the rapidly changing magnetic field islandone.org/LEOBiblio/SPBI117.HTM
>>When firing large quantities of energy are used, quickly depleting any power reserves that depends on how exactly how much energy you need to use. Perhaps you're only firing one projectile or a bunch of small projectiles. You didn't provide any information on the mass of projectiles or their velocity.
Are you clinically retarded? Do you not realize that a reactionless drive would basically be a superweapon? How the fuck are you going to hit a target at say L5 or a wide polar orbit with unguided projectiles? If you have reactionless drives, you could put them on a nuclear powered missile and intercept an incoming spacefleet. Just continuously accelerate until the missile hits the target, the missiles KE alone will be enough to destroy the target. Of course the enemy no longer needs a space fleet if reactionless drives exist. They can just send something big with a reactionless drive far away from earth, then point it to earth and accelerate to some percent C causing massive damage on earth.
Jace Wilson
>>Why the fuck are you using osmium and N52-NIB magnets? Could you justify why you are using these exact materials? Because it's the most magnetic substance short of an electro-magnet. Lrn2physics
>>you said that. Grammatical error. I meant that shielding required for any orbital defense would require shielding, and such shielding would benefit the coil gun more than anything else Once again lrn2physics
>>We can't make a space fountain, the superconducting magnets would explode due the rapidly changing magnetic field One link doesn't change my mind, senpai
>>that depends on how exactly how much energy you need to use. Perhaps you're only firing one projectile or a bunch of small projectiles. You didn't provide any information on the mass of projectiles or their velocity. Why in the holy fuck would you only use one shell to stop an invasion dumbass
>Implying I don't plan on every station that can get a line of fire to shoot in a shotgun spread to cover all possible trajectories guaranteeing a least one hit
Connor Price
Sorry for delay, Comcast did it's every other year frying of my modem
Eli Davis
The Berserkers began, really, as a fleshed-out version of a Martin Gardner column in Scientific American. He demonstrated how a simple set-up of colored marbles and matchboxes could "learn" to play a simple game; more complex than tic-tac-toe but less so than checkers. Fred Saberhagan stretched a thin plot over the basic idea. It proved popular. The first few stories were collected as "Berserker". There were additional collections, some novels, and even "sharecropped" stories (a writer letting other authors play with his characters). One of those sharecropped collections is "Berserker Base". The Anderson I described is "Deathwomb". If you're looking for War in Space, you might like "Seven Conquests" by Anderson. Larry Niven wrote several stories about the Kzinti, hostile aliens. A good introduction to Niven's "Known Space" series is the collection "Neutron Star". For Aliens Invading Earth, "Footfall". If you just like "hard" (scientifically correct) SF, you can't do better than Hal Clement. "Mission of Gravity", "Needle", "Iceworld", or "Small Changes" (a collection of shorts which also appeared as "Space Lash") Hope suggestions are of help. :)
Chase Clark
I'd guess you became fixated on Osmium plated coil guns after reading David Drake's "Hammer's Slammers"
Michael Nelson
I don't know what that is. I am making a homebrew tabletop RPG that at one iteration took place in the Halo universe. I did some research on dense metals with some magnetic properties and discovered Osmium. I chose the two pictures I posted, because they are what I picture in my mind when I hear orbital defense grid, I felt like the Halo universe's where too far spread apart. Which goes with the lore of the 3 stations from the first mission of Halo 2 being part of a 'cluster'
Jeremiah Thompson
tl;dr: I'm a massive Tabletop RPG and Halo nerd, and that's where I got the idea
Jacob Collins
It's an SF novel. Halo and similar games probably lifted a lot of tropes from it and from "Starship Troopers" (the book, not the hardly-related movie.)
Thanks, I'll check out the link tomorrow when I'm not on cell data.
I loved Starship Troopers, the first was a true classic. We don't talk about the second...
Logan Torres
>>I meant that shielding required for any orbital defense would require shielding, and such shielding would benefit the coil gun more than anything else prove it then. Pic related, it's the almaz space cannon. It didn't need any solar shielding. Second, you'll need to actively remove heat from your coils when the gun starts firing, which will negate any advantages from 'solar shielding.' lrn2physics
>>Why in the holy fuck would you only use one shell to stop an invasion dumbass Because maybe you only have one invading ship. No constraints were placed on how big the invasion was. orbit plotter earth >>>Implying I don't plan on every station that can get a line of fire to shoot in a shotgun spread to cover all possible trajectories guaranteeing a least one hit Show me some math that you can actually hit a 60 meter in diameter target over relevant distances for defending a planet from whatever fucking invasion scenario doesn't involve launching a bunch of rocks at earth's major cities. Don't forget about earth's variable gravity and deflection due to radiation pressure.
Jonathan Davis
I sense some rustled jimmies.
Sebastian Mitchell
you've not done a single bit of math to prove your assertions in this thread. Without doing math, you're really just fapping about gaylo shit.
Ian Foster
I came up with this concept for a tabletop RPG. Crunching numbers wasn't a priority [and still isn't]. If you feel like stroking your numbers cock to it go for it. I'm satisfied with my proposal.
Easton Lopez
well if you aren't crunching numbers then why not use magical fucking pixie dust? Just magic all the enemy space ships away with a wave of a wand.
Dominic Martin
I see the rustling of the jimmies is an exponential function
Joseph Jenkins
This would have a negative impact on the world. They'd be directed at other orbiting bodies and at Earth. Controlled by imperialistic countries.
