[Aginor]

Yeah, reality can be boring.
But most of the time I find it rather interesting. Especially because there is a lot of things most people don't know.

[KeldorKatarn]

Well, part of what you said is wrong. You have to distinguish between what is a theory, and what is a law in science. That's quite a big difference.

Ok, prove to me scientifically that any of these laws is correct. You can pick one. And I mean PROVE. Not provide an empirical study that confirms it, but a proof that it is 100% correct and always will be and that nobody will ever be able to find an exception.

if you can do this, I'll recommend you for the next nobel prize... or better yet, the position of god.

Edit: Oh and.. don't show me anything that has less than 20 pages, as it will most likely not be sufficient to do this, since it has never been done before by anyone so far.

[General Battuta]

It's not possible. It is, however, extraordinarily unlikely that anybody will break thermodynamics.

Now for goodness' sake

All of the above carry the caveat 'at least with current technology.'

[/quote]

[Dragon]

Concerning stealth and space combat:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/

especially under "common misconceptions", then look for "stealth"
--> http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3w.html#nostealth

I'm aware that stealth in space is difficult to pull off, but by "ECM", I didn't meant just stealth.
Electronic Counter Measures can include: absorption or deflection of waves used by sensors (main concept of stealth), screening, decoys, noise emitters (they saturate space with various signals that have no meaning and make detection difficult), maybe even interference jamming (emitting EM waves which cancel out waves emitted by ships by destructive interference, this is likely to by used by really advanced aliens). Combining several ECM measures with tactics like hiding close to planets and asteroids would greatly reduce reliability of ship sensors.
You may know that the enemy is there, but pinpointing him may be a problem. You need to have exact coordinates to fire a beam (unless you're slashing and praying for lucky shot) and missiles can be shot down, so bombers may be usefull to bring those missiles close to enemy ships and fighters to defend against bombers.
My entire statement assumed that you may use jamming good enough to keep the enemy from pinpointing you and that both sides have access to it.
An idea that the enemy is "somewhere about 100km from there, roughly in that direction" isn't going to be enough when firing weapons.
Also, tactics may really vary considering the weapons themselves, a laser beam can be reflected, gamma beam is an energy hog, missiles may be shot down, remote controll can be jammed, AI may be just stupid (it it's not, it may be too inteligent and realize it's going to "die")...
In fact, the only way of finding out how future space battles will look would be to take a trip into future (if we will be lucky, even this may not help, as humanity may abandon warfare at all in the future, or, if we are unlucky, become extinct due to weapons we already have).

[General Battuta]

We know all that about ECM, we're just saying it's not likely to work because you can simply look and see where a ship is in space. Drives are very, very bright.

Lasers can't be reflected, either. Far too powerful. A mirror will act as armor, increasing burn-through time, but it will not apply immunity.

[Thaeris]

Other sensors can be manipulated by ECM, though. Also keep in mind that technology might be able to manipulate visible wavelengths to a degree by that time as well, making jamming systems to most viable means of self defense. Space combat, should we be foolhardy enough to engage therein, will be hellish at best...

[General Battuta]

This is a discussion of realistic space combat, though, not possible magitechnology!

[Dragon]

As I said, many depends on technology level, reliability of weapons, reliability of defensive measures, place where fight is taking place and a lot of other things.
Looking is difficult on great distances, just try to find a planet on a night sky. You may use a telescope, but they are fragile. You may also try to close the distance and that's where strikecraft comes in.

This is a discussion of realistic space combat, though, not possible magitechnology!

We are dicussing exactly that: possible technology, advanced enough to be difficult to distinguish from magic, as theories are all that we have in that field.
If you want a space battle done in modern tech, just look up and try to find one. They're impossible, unrealiable, too expensive and serve no purpose today.
Americans intercepted a falling satelite quite recently, but that's all. If a space warfare reaserch is going on and achieved anything, it's classified.

Lasers can't be reflected, either. Far too powerful. A mirror will act as armor, increasing burn-through time, but it will not apply immunity.

Who said anything about completely reflecting them? I was just pointing out possiblities which increase number of variables appearing during a space engagemnet, effective counter to lasers in one of them, but I didn't stated how effective it is. Not all missiles will be shot down either.

[General Battuta]

There's a difference between extrapolating using technology we think we could build but haven't yet, and technology we can't yet build. Even cloaking a ship with metamaterials won't get around simple thermodynamics.

Magitech is arbitrary and silly for purposes of this discussion.

And no, looking is actually really easy at long distances. According to some estimates you can, using modern technology, perform a complete sky survey in under 4 hours (a blink of the eye in space combat terms.)

Strikecraft do not 'come in' anywhere. Unmanned missile buses may, though.

Go read the Atomic Rockets page.

[Thundertrod]

The only law of science we have not been able to disprove is that every action has a equal and opposite reaction.

We are at the same point with FTL has da Vinci was with manned flight.
We have some idea how to go about doing it but we lack the support technology to do it. It is likely that space combat will go threw phases has technology changes.

The first generation of space warfare is in place already with surface to space missals.
And remotely controlled intelligence satellites.

[General Battuta]

The only law of science we have not been able to disprove is that every action has a equal and opposite reaction.

Well, no, there are lots of other laws that do not appear to be violated under known circumstances. Conservation of mass/energy, conservation of momentum and angular momentum, so on.

[Dragon]

Strikecraft do not 'come in' anywhere. Unmanned missile buses may, though.

Now, the question is if they will really be unmanned, as AI is still inferior to human in some matters.
A remote controlled strikecraft may also be possible, but as I said, this connection can be jammed.
Also, "Strikecraft" is a catch-all term for fighters and bombers, manned or not. Unmanned missile boats may count as strikecraft, but I'm not going to discuss terminology here.
Whether they will be manned or not is a question separate from physics and closer to informatics and AI developement.

[The E]

Actually, no. A manned space fighter has to provide an evironment that a human, if not several, can live in. That means it has to provide radiation shielding, life support (heating/cooling/Air), it is constrained in terms of maneuverability by what the human body can handle, AND it has to provide the pilot(s) with at least a justified hope that they will survive being shot at.

Computer-controlled vehicles may be less flexible in terms of decision-making than vessels with canned monkeys in them, but since they do not have to waste tonnage (which directly relates to reaction mass) on canned-monkey-support-systems, they have a far bigger usable payload. Meaning that a computer-controlled vessel with the same capabilities as the human controlled one can be built smaller, or a vessel of the same size can be more capable.

[General Battuta]

Right.

And you may not (I'd say probably don't) particularly need reaction time or good decisionmaking in a long-range space fight. You pick your target from - possibly - AU away and send your killer robots. They spend days or months in transit, the target sees them coming, countermeasures are deployed, and either you kill them or you don't. Evasion is probably impossible depending on how heavy the target's vector vs. the delta-V of your kill vehicles.

Up closer signal lag becomes less of an issue.

[Thaeris]

This is a discussion of realistic space combat, though, not possible magitechnology!

 

I'm serious, actually. I've based that statement off of reading similar articles to the example given below:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090520151438.htm

Suckit.

[General Battuta]

This is a discussion of realistic space combat, though, not possible magitechnology!

 

I'm serious, actually. I've based that statement off of reading similar articles to the example given below:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090520151438.htm

Suckit.

I've read the article myself and I don't need to 'suck' anything. That won't work to make vessels invisible in space.

First off, it covers the visible band; the ship will still be glaringly bright in thermal.

Second, it does nothing to conceal the ship's drive.

[Thaeris]

Yes, I came off a little rash.

However, dismissing this entirely is not pertinent. "ECM" (or any other name you devise for a jamming system) is not perfect - you're simply harder to target. "Visible spectrum shielding" would simply be one more way to make a combatant harder to engage. Even if you know the target is in theater and have a general idea of where it is... heck, even if you know where it is, but can't target a key location on the vessel for whatever reason, your combat effectiveness has been effectively dropped in favor of the enemy.

[General Battuta]

Maybe, but when you can precisely locate the target in spite of the stealth and when locational damage isn't so much the order of the day as KEW IT IN THE BELLY, I'm not sure it's worth the effort to 'cloak' your ship when all you're doing is possibly eliminating star-transit detection. If even that!

[Aginor]

Keldor, I'm very sorry to say that but you still don't get the point. I really recommend that you read more into the basic stuff for science, because what you asked for is not going to happen and cannot happen either.

So I'll move on to to real discussion here:

Concerning manned flight and Da Vinci:
That's simply not true, from a scientific point of view. It was an engineering problem, not a scientific one. You have to distinguish between that. If it is physically possible that an insect or a bird flies, then it is also possible that a human can fly. Everything beyond that is engineering.

And there are a lot of laws in physics which don't have any exceptions we know of. That's because some things just work in a way that makes it totally impossible that the exact opposite can ever happen. There will never be a material that heats up but can't emit radiation. It can't. It breaks not only one law but a dozen or more. (ok, that might be a bad example, I am not a physicist.... I'll search for a better one.)
Of course theories (not laws) don't explain some things that happen. There is quite a number of effects you can't explain with current theories. But none of the theories or their exceptions violate a law of physics. That's why it is called a law.
And every time a cool new thing in nature is discovered and somebody thinks "wow! It violates a law of physics" it takes only a very short time to realize that it doesn't.

[KeldorKatarn]

Let's just say I don't find this discussion interesting enough to stop working on my thesis to read any pseudo scientific websites.

I've studied electronics engineering  and computer science and I've worked my way through Air Force Officer school. I think my education is at a high enough level to make up my own mind about science and its possibilities.
So please stop wasting your time trying to convince me of something I'll never accept anyway.