America needs movies with better science

[ToSeek]

I Want My Sci-TV (http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid= 1032&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0)


A New York Times article published on May 3 reported that Americans are losing their scientific dominance to the rest of the world. Everything from the number of Nobel Prizes and patents awarded to the number of scientific papers published has fallen in the U.S., while those numbers have increased in other nations.

Bernardoni says one way to generate more interest among the youth of America is for government to fund more missions to space, and for the entertainment industry to create more programming about science. Bernardoni talked about his own boyhood fascination with the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, and how his interest was fueled by movies like "Forbidden Planet," "It Came From Outer Space," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," and "War of the Worlds."

and


But as Phil Plait, the creator of "Bad Astronomy" says on his web site, "Don't get me wrong: I love science fiction. When I was a kid I lived on a straight diet of 'Lost in Space,' 'Star Trek' and 'Space: 1999.' I still do! Even though the science in these shows is usually pretty bad, they do serve the great purpose of getting people excited about science, space and astronomy."

[The Bad Astronomer]

Heh. At the bottom of that article, the author gives answers to some questions based on science in movies. The Armageddon one is phrased very oddly. I leave it to the reader to figure out what I mean...

[Waarthog]

Heh. At the bottom of that article, the author gives answers to some questions based on science in movies. The Armageddon one is phrased very oddly. I leave it to the reader to figure out what I mean...

To me it seems like they are implying that the deflection will stop after a short amount of time with the momentum dissapating somehow. I have no clue what he means by "maximum" separation.

[ToSeek]

With an asteroid "the size of Texas", would gravity be sufficient to limit the separation?

[The Supreme Canuck]

What happens if it was a nickel asteroid? Would the nuke do anything?

[The Bear]

Time to vent...

The problem is that the people running Hollywood studios and TV seem to be COMPLETELY ignorant of any of the most rudimentary aspects of basic science. (And often are completely ignorant of any movie made before 1980!!)

I remember Gregory Benford once writing about his experience in Hollywood, when some studio optioned his novel on a race to Mars. The guy he was working with on it, a studio development "specialist," kept coming up with "great ideas" to punch up the story...like "Hey, how about one of the characters is in a cave on Mars, takes off his helmet because of some emergency...and discovers that Mars actually has air!" And: "Hey, maybe we can do something with that face on Mars."

When Dr. Benford complained (most, I think, would have simply shot the poor moron point blank), the studio geek gave the common excuse these movie guys give: "Nobody's going to care about getting the science right. It's just a movie!"

But, of course, as we now realize, so many people, young and old, seem to get their education in science, history, etc. from movies...

It's just so sad. I need to go lie down now. :cry:

[John Dlugosz]

I think about the writing career of Robert L. Forward (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Forward). He wrote some cheezy short stories to illustrate ideas in science, and that got him into writing "hard" Science Fiction stories and novels.

We need TV shows for kids where correct physics is central to the plot.

[Lurker]

It was either Steven Spielberg or George Lucas who was complaining that the trouble with spending the money and time to "get it right" in a movie is the prevailing attitude that "well people are going to watch it and then walk out and want to know, 'ok... what's for dinner'".

[Spacewriter]

It was either Steven Spielberg or George Lucas who was complaining that the trouble with spending the money and time to "get it right" in a movie is the prevailing attitude that "well people are going to watch it and then walk out and want to know, 'ok... what's for dinner'".

Yeah, but kids come home from school (where they've supposedly learn something) and say, "What's for dinner?"

So, I don't take their point. It's just intellectual laziness and certain amount of disrespect to the paying public to assume that we're all nimnulls who don't care about accurate science in movies.

[Brady Yoon]

I don't think bad movies are the problem. I think it's the educational system today. Teachers simply don't emphasize the importance of science. Most people I know dismiss science as either boring or impractical. It would be helpful if President Bush made an effort of stressing science as something that's useful and exciting.

[Normandy6644]

I can understand some lack of science for a movie's sake, but the main problem is that people see this stuff and take it at face value. If the attitude were, "it's only a movie, not real science" then it would be better. Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude is more "it's just a movie, so science doesn't matter."

I just saw The Day After Tomorrow and I liked it quite a bit. While I know that there were many things wrong with it (the director did too, but chose to keep some in for cinematic effect, e.g. the statue of liberty still standing) I still enjoyed it because the majority of the science errors were relatively harmless. Of course it would take years for that stuff to all happen, but that would be a very boring movie. So really Hollywood needs to find a balance between good science and good storytelling. And if the education system emphasized science concepts more, i don't think this would have ever been a problem.

[Meteora]

While I know that there were many things wrong with it (the director did too, but chose to keep some in for cinematic effect, e.g. the statue of liberty still standing) I still enjoyed it because the majority of the science errors were relatively harmless.

"Many?" More like "all," when it dealt with meteorology, which was its main topic. :( ...And let's hope that the errors really were harmless. I suspect they weren't.

On the other hand, the older movie, "Mars Attacks," a strange parody of science fiction movies, had a line that made me almost hurt myself laughing (I forget the exact quote, but this is the general idea):


(After pointing out several times that Martians breathe nitrogen) "Ah, nitrogen gum. So that's how they breathe in our atmosphere."

The sad thing it that I'll bet the majority of people who watched that movie didn't get the joke.

[nomuse]

Been thinking about this for a while (oddly enough). It was when I wrote a scene involving CPR in a little fanfiction I've been playing with that I discovered a way to put it clearly;

"If I fall into a private swimming pool, the person who hauls me out and is tasked with saving my life is more likely to have seen Baywatch than to have taken the Red Cross certification in CPR."

A writer has a duty to the public to get the facts right for anything the reader is likely to encounter personally; from the dangers of discharging a fire extinguisher in an enclosed space to whether to take the Southbound or Northbound on the Yamanote line to get from Tokyo Station to Shinjuku (trick question -- the answer is it doesn't matter.)

As a writer, though, I find the other argument more convicing. Science is INTERESTING. The universe comes up with weirder **** than any of us could ever dream up.

Too many writers (especially in TV and the movies) seem to think of facts as an inconvenient hardship to writing a good plot. I beg to differ. What passes for story and plot and conflict in, say, an "epic" like Enterprise is at least pedestrian, if not grindingly dull. Science, the real science, and the basic back-of-the-envelope engineering, should be in the writer's toolkit right beside the thesaurus and the 96 forms of Greek drama. It should be there as a way of generating ideas, and as a way of getting yourself out of whatever hole you wrote yourself into.

The great dissapointment of Voyager was the missed potential of what was right there in the premise. Voyager travelled across most of our galaxy, just skirting the core. And yet, with the exception of one episode, not one iotia of galactic structure was ever used in the plot. Indeed, stellar system structure often fell by the wayside (it is extremely difficult to tell in later peversions of Star Trek whether one is dealing with a star, a planet, a system or the systems of a binary or something else entirely. One is not sure the writers are clear about those definitions either).

Enterprise falls by the same (and worse). Somehow it is too hard for the writers to show us the scale of thing, tell us about Alpha Centauri, point out just how many of the nearer stars are red dwarves and how many of the named stars are unreachably distant (or would be, if Enterprise held to their stated travel range for even a moment). Instead they toss out story after story of phaser fights in corridors that could as easily be gun battles in the 'hood or red indians with bows and arrows in an old western. But at least there we'd get to hear Gene Autry sing.

Unfortunately, I do have to give the writers this much...when you start with the assumption that a killer asteroid is coming (and our heroes stop it!) or that something has happened to the Earth's magnetic field (and our heroes stop it!) you have already painted yourself in. It might help to present the sheer mismatch of scale (Bruce Willis and a nuke against Texas, falling from the sky) on smaller, more regonizable terms. Say, an M1 tank just fell out of a C5a over downtown SF and Bruce Willis has a rope and six seconds to save the Christmas Eve crowds packing Union Square...

But...geez, at least give us some unabashed "Unobtanium" (the ONLY thing that didn't suck about the plot of The Core). Just get the one impossible thing out of the way then settle down and tell the story.



Oh, dear. Is it time to switch to decaf?

[waynek]

Excellent rant, nomuse. I sometimes think, "I should go be a science advisor and whip those Hollywood yahoos into shape". Then I realize that they already have science advisors, who they obviously ignore, so why put myself in the same position?
What bothers me most (I think you kindof said this) is not so much when the plot depends on bad science, but when it doesn't affect the plot and they still don't bother to get it right. #-o
Often it's just dialog. Give any one of us an afternoon with a script and we could fix so much, how much trouble can that possibly be??

Whew, you'd better pass me that decaf.

[Glom]

Good rant. That is one of my major complaints about Enterprise. Its depiction of space is boring as hell.

[Swift]

Good discussion, I agree with just about all of it. A couple of thoughts.
Hollywood does a poor job making TV programs and movies in general. Maybe this is just a sign I'm getting old, but 85% of what they put out is garbage IMHO, why should they do any better with science.

There have been a few films that were good depictions of science. Even if they didn't get all the details correct, they showed the joy, wonder, and excitment of science. The scene in Contact when she hears "The Signal" still fills me with joy.

[Jason Thompson]

Science in films and TV needs to be tightened up. Even tossing science aside for dramatic effect is pointless because the dramatic incident than makes no sense. Take Independence Day, in which no-one spots an object 1/4 the size of the Moon until it is somewhere in lunar orbit, and even then they only notice it because it is transmitting a signal picked up by SETI! Was it not visible next to the Moon as it rumbled over it, obliterating the footprints of the Apollo 11 astronauts on its way (another impossibility added for dramatic effect)?

I think a lot of the attitude is that putting correct science in it makes it dull. Well no, because interesting things happen on Earth, bound as we all are by the laws of physics, all the time.

There are, of course, times when science just gets in the way of a narrative, and so fudge factors have to be invented, like warp drive and the Heisenberg compensators, to get round it. Without FTL travel any film or show involving space travel between planets is doomed. It is also the case that things like the battles between the Enterprise and Reliant in Star Trek II would be incredibly dull to watch with no sound, even though we know sound wil not travel in space. But these are acceptable because little or no effort is made to explain these things. They just are. The problems come when events or objects have attempts at proper explanations attached to them, and then it all falls down.

And, in some cases, people can take fiction over reality. Witness the claims by some lunar hoax advocates that state that because the film Apollo 13 shows bright exhaust from the rocket engines in space the fact that the real footage of the missions shows no such exhaust is evidence that it was faked!

It wouldn't hurt anyone, IMO, to expend a little effort to get the science of a film or TV show right.

[Jpax2003]

Tell me about it. I'm trying to spend time getting good science into my screenplays without compromising the plot or characters. If you want to write a story set in space with current physics then you'll never leave the solar system and be lucky to get to another planet in this solar system. There needs to be a good balance between Hard SF and Medium SF with speculative technologies. That's what I am trying to do.

Of course there is no reason that one cannot write a story that crosses months of time if it's written and edited well. I've got a thread running in General Astronomy asking for specific answers for propulsion technologies. But even if I have to take a leap of faith in a speculative technology, it should still have internal logic and stay consistent.

[Maksutov]

Time to vent...

The problem is that the people running Hollywood studios and TV seem to be almost COMPLETELY ignorant of any of the most rudimentary aspects of basic science. (And often are completely ignorant of any movie made before 1980!!) [edit]

The problem is the people running Hollywood and TV seem to be almost entirely ignorant of any of the most rudimentary aspects of basic life. Most of them have never had real jobs.

They live (and appear to have lived) in a semi-vacuum, inhabited only by the figments of their (often drug-addled) imaginations and misconceived, partially-remembered reminiscences of reality.

The pathetic thing is that the products they turn out serve (as they have for the past 80-so years) as signposts and paragons for many of our young people to emulate.

One of the best bits of advice I provided my son when he was 10 was to point out that movies and TV are make-believe and that actors are, well, just actors.

:D

[jamestox]

So, what would the chances be of writing a screenplay that "lights the fire" of the audience about some science topic (and getting the science right), and pushing it through production without the story, science, or audience interest being diluted?

Sounds like an independent production, shot outside of the Hollywood influence, and perhaps financially backed by the scientific community (can you get a grant for something like that? :o ).

Any ideas?

:-?

[Eye-Zee]

So, what would the chances be of writing a screenplay that "lights the fire" of the audience about some science topic (and getting the science right), and pushing it through production without the story, science, or audience interest being diluted?


Apollo 13 is a good example of this to me. They got some nits wrong, but clearly the thing is based on the hard and the real. And it had drama out the wazoo - and even it's share of action. It should not be hard for a science educated screenwriter to write a hard-SF story for the big screen that does not cheat beyond one or two plot driving points (say, for example, FTL). 2001 and even 2010 are movies that for me tried reasonably hard and came closer to right than most - outside of the High-SF conceits of interdimensional acid trips and stellarizing Jupiter.



Sounds like an independent production, shot outside of the Hollywood influence, and perhaps financially backed by the scientific community (can you get a grant for something like that?

Well, from the above, the Hollywood establishment is, IMO, at least capable of putting together something good. You need the power and will behind the camera to prevent the Whiz-Bang department from turning it into a piece-o-drek, though.

[jamestox]

Apollo 13 is a good example of this to me. They got some nits wrong, but clearly the thing is based on the hard and the real. And it had drama out the wazoo - and even it's share of action. It should not be hard for a science educated screenwriter to write a hard-SF story for the big screen that does not cheat beyond one or two plot driving points (say, for example, FTL). 2001 and even 2010 are movies that for me tried reasonably hard and came closer to right than most - outside of the High-SF conceits of interdimensional acid trips and stellarizing Jupiter.

True. However, Apollo 13 was a true story. I was thinking more along the lines of an SF storyline that is plausible. For instance, Michael McCollum (former aerospace engineer-turned-author) published a book in the "big rock is aimed at Earth" genre called Thunderstrike where he tried very hard to keep the science good (BA might like it - one of the heroes is a working astronomer). Nowadays, such a story would fall in the "sorry, but it's been done" category - regardless of how gripping the story (and the story is a good one!). Few would go see the movie. 2010 was a very good film (aside from your own noted shortcomings) and I considered it to be superior to 2001 - particularly from a storytelling viewpoint.

Apollo 13 came ready-made with all the ingredients for a good, edge of your seat movie: life-threatening disaster in the depths of space with only the materials at-hand and a whole lot of brainpower 200,000 miles away to prevent the death of the crew, an honest-to-goodness cliff-hanger during re-entry, and a happy ending. Not to mention a commercial success - and it didn't hurt that it was based on a true story in a period that many of us lived through. There wasn't much a scriptwriter could add to the story (although they tried - #-o ).

In my mind, the problem is this: what Science-Fiction storyline would be sufficient to capture and hold the audience - that hasn't been done (or done at all well) already? Oh, and keep the science accurate (or at least believable). You have to admit, that'll be a "tough row to hoe."

:roll: However, now that we've defined the problem, we should be able to solve it, right? =D>

JTox

[Doodler]

Good rant. That is one of my major complaints about Enterprise. Its depiction of space is boring as hell.

I'm sure to a full blown scientist, being in space is absolutely fascinating. but for someone like a geologist, biologist, or just the guy driving the boat, the emptiness of space can get to be mindnumbingly boring after any length of time.

Getting there is not always half the fun. I'm sure even the most avid oceanographer on a sea cruise can get to the point of asking, "Are we there yet?" on an extended cruise.

[daver]

In my mind, the problem is this: what Science-Fiction storyline would be sufficient to capture and hold the audience - that hasn't been done (or done at all well) already? Oh, and keep the science accurate (or at least believable). You have to admit, that'll be a "tough row to hoe."

Films that got the science right:

Destination: Moon
2001
Apollo 13


Films that have advanced science that "feel" right:

Forbidden Planet
Bladerunner


Possible candidates for future films:

I think the various juveniles would be the best bet. Novellas are perhaps the proper length for a translation; I expect there are dozens if not hundreds that would be suitable. The problem is not so much finding one, but treating one with the respect it deserves, instead of spending all the money on special effects.

Lucifer's Hammer would make a decent miniseries.

[Gullible Jones]

I always thought that Keith Laumer's Dinosaur Beach could be a killer movie if done properly (though the science is absolute bull). Hollywood, though, would be almost guaranteed not to do it properly.

Lessee... Stuff with good science... Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars might work, the science there is reasonably accurate... the characters in the book are annoyingly stupid, though.

[Eye-Zee]

Films that have advanced science that "feel" right:
Forbidden Planet
Bladerunner


I'll add to that Alien (the planetary landing in particular) and Aliens (both flawed mostly with the classic shipbaord gravity problems, but not egregious otherwise, alien life notwithstanding).



Possible candidates for future films:
The problem is not so much finding one, but treating one with the respect it deserves, instead of spending all the money on special effects.


There's the rub. I think an I, Robot movie done in the Creepshow style - several different, lagely independent stories within the movie, but true to the original, could have been excellent.



Lucifer's Hammer would make a decent miniseries.
While it would be nice to have a planetary disaster and its aftermath done right, there are way too many of them done wrong, and recently at that, to make this interesting to me. And TV miniseries are even more notorious than Hollywood for mutilating science ("10.0" anyone?)

[jamestox]

This is a great discussion!

How about this: try to think of a story of our own rather than what's already been written? What can we think of in terms of storyline and characterization that may not have been written? I mean, true, we can rehash Verne, Clarke, Asimov, Robinson, or any other excellent author's ideas....but what can we, as a group of people interested in the various sciences and fans of really good SF stories come up with?

It doesn't have to be exact...it doesn't even have to be coherent - just a gathering of ideas into some sort of framework of a story.

Spaceflight? Space exploration? Adventures on other planets? Stories of scientific discovery? Dangers stemming from scientific discovery? Optimistic tales of our future as a spacefaring race?

The key is to come up with something that grabs the audience.....

We have a lot of brainpower on this DB; surely we can come up with something.......

JTox

[Eye-Zee]

It doesn't have to be exact...it doesn't even have to be coherent - just a gathering of ideas into some sort of framework of a story.

Spaceflight? Space exploration? Adventures on other planets? Stories of scientific discovery? Dangers stemming from scientific discovery? Optimistic tales of our future as a spacefaring race?

The key is to come up with something that grabs the audience.....


Nifty idea. Here's two of my cents:

If there is to be space travel (and I'd like there to be). I want gravity to be supplied by rotating sections or thrust (or both). Having it supplied by thrust would be fun, especially if there's comparatively radical maneuvering. As far as that goes, I want newtonian movement of spacecraft, transfer orbits, the whole works. You can use sci-fi engines to give you lots of thrust for little fuel, but gimme some halfway decent pathway - total mass conversion... nuclear engines...

Also, take a page from Kubric - no sound in space. OK for interior shots of spacecraft. OK to use dramatic music, but no Booms and Whooshes.

There's got to be at least one "battle" in space. Perhaps the very first we've known. But no flaming explosions, please. Fireballs are a function of atmosphere, and would look very different if the only atmosphere available is inside a ship that's breaking up.

The "first battle" idea is intriguing. It could be a near-future story with high orbit stations (or L1) from opposing powers (gov't or corporate) jury rigging transfer vehicles, satelite repair robots and spare maneuver thrusters into kinetic weapons. Of course that would only be part of it.

I'm rambling now, though.

[jamestox]

Great start!

Let's see. There's got to be a reason for the 'first battle'. It could be over rich deposits of some critical ore on a small NEA that passes in an orbit capable of capture...or a 'mining' attempt while the chunk remains in orbit. Of course, for any battle, each sides' logistics will be even more critically limited by orbital location....hmmmm. "Claim-jumping" story a la the California goldrush..?

So the ore would need to be critical for life on Earth/in orbit - energy source? What concentrations of heavy fissionables would be present in such a chunk? Some as-yet undiscovered power source?

Hey, I'm rambling, too!

JTox

[Jpax2003]

Well, part of the problem may be that many SF stories are epic in scale and are also plot-driven. Of course, it's possible to make a story that is character driven. However, if it is character driven and doesn't need the SF, then just write it as earth contemporary. The SF in such a story can be superfluous and actually get in the way of story-telling.

It's hard enough to write an engaging tale without having to worry about reality... it is fiction afterall. Look at some big screen and tv movies lately, even the non-SF types are often poorly written. If an SF fan wants to write a screenplay with real science that doesn't get chopped up by the producer for pizzaz, then just write a story that is so darn good, they don't need to add anything to the science.

Eventually, we'll be in space and the moon and starting on mars. Then you'll see soap operas set on the moon, and the physics will be close-enough to correct because people will be familiar with it. Right now, many people think of astronomy and space exploration as experimental and hypothetical in many ways. Therefore, many people think that gross inaccuracies are acceptable. It's the same way that Disney can butcher another culture's legend to fit american tastes, because americans are not familiar with it. But if you want to blame someone for bad SF, blame NASA for not doing enough in space to make the layperson familiar with it to know when Bad SF is bad. (Or blame the HoR for not funding them to do such, or blame the population for not asking them too.) In other words, we'll start having better science fiction when we start having better science.

edited to add
When I say better science, I mean better applied science. I don't mean to impugn pure science.

[Eye-Zee]

Well, part of the problem may be that many SF stories are epic in scale and are also plot-driven. Of course, it's possible to make a story that is character driven. However, if it is character driven and doesn't need the SF, then just write it as earth contemporary. The SF in such a story can be superfluous and actually get in the way of story-telling.


Best counterexample I can think of is Gattaca. Excellent flick. Barely, but quintissentially SF.

[Jpax2003]

Well, part of the problem may be that many SF stories are epic in scale and are also plot-driven. Of course, it's possible to make a story that is character driven. However, if it is character driven and doesn't need the SF, then just write it as earth contemporary. The SF in such a story can be superfluous and actually get in the way of story-telling.


Best counterexample I can think of is Gattaca. Excellent flick. Barely, but quintissentially SF.Exacty, I liked Gattaca. It was a decent balance. And there are others out there, but when if we look at "10.0" we understand that the science was bad because they probably put less into it than the story, and the story didn't appear to have much time spent on it.

But then I am working on a screenplay and it is epic and it is plot driven. But I am trying to keep it scientifically accurate, with only a few far-out SF ideas, but it will be internally consistent. But I also have some family-style SF I want to write too.

[daver]

Frankly, I'd just as soon NOT have a battle. Space battles would likely be extremely slow up to the point where contact is initiated, then extemely nasty. There are lots of other ways to get dramatic tension than having a space battle. If you were going to have a battle, I'd rather hold it off for the sequel.

However, if you must have a battle, you'll need a good excuse, and it's hard to come up with one. Revolt may do. Single ship combats might occur (claim jumpers) without having to do the whole space wars thing.

You might be able to set up circumstances for a battle--suitable ores for liners for atomic motors or some other mcguffin are only found on one asteroid; one company has grown very rich expoiting this. Rock hounds have been searching for years for another source, to no avail. Suddenly one is found. The company tries to protect its monopoly, people are murdered, the rock hound and friends tries to organize a competing concern. Film ends with the rock hound and company overcoming heavy odds and defeating the company. Or, a more downer ending, rock hound and company put up a heroic fight but are crushed. At which point a whole family of these asteroids--thousands--much too many for the evil corporation to control--are discovered elsewhere.

Or an artifact of obviously alien technology is discovered; countries on earth engage in mad scramble to secure the artifact (and its technologies) for themselves.

Or, something along the lines of Starman Jones--a hyperspace jump goes wrong and a starship is stranded near a strange system with no hope of getting home. The resolution would need to be changed; an eidetic memory isn't going to be sufficient unless you have a madman destroy the computers before the jump.

Space piracy might be a factor if starships must reenter along predictable paths. Piracy is usually out for strictly interplanetary stuff--it's too hard to match speeds.

[jamestox]

Adding to my own previous post...

The NEA capture may or may not be part of a plot - depending on when the story is set; if early in the future, we probably don't have the "drive" capability to attempt an orbital capture, in which case part of the story could involve "mining" it during the one-two-three-(give a number) of close approaches around the Earth before it regresses into a solar orbit. Also, if it's made of primarily heavy fissionables anyway, it would have too much mass to make the attempt.

If further in the future, it could conceivably contain some sort of (don't hate me for using the term, guys...) "unobtainium" used for starflight or other critical purposes.

I like the "little-guy-against-the-big-corporations" concept, since I root for the underdog anyway - but that plot's been used so much lately that it's worn a bit thin. Maybe claimer vs. claimjumper..?

In that case, the "battle" would be limited but the stakes incredibly high for both parties - especially if there's the time limit of solar orbit regression in addition to the "claim" conflict. In a situation like that, the "winning" party could hold the claim, but lose their life once the NEA got too far from Earth for a safe return or resupply effort. Oh...I can be downright nasty sometimes.....

What do you think?

[StormSeeker]

The problem is that realisticly, space battles would be won by whoever shoots first, and be over in a matter of seconds. With no energy screens, no "Shields", without masses of armor plating one good sized kinetic weapon puts you down. Of course, that could be part of the story. Those who have the ships with the unobtanium -- Er. I hate that world. Let's call it Durabillium. Heh. -- hulls are the ones who hold the power.

[skeptED56]

"unobtainium" used for starflight or other critical purposes.


Anti-Ice? (Great novel by Stephen Baxter)

[Jpax2003]

The problem is that realisticly, space battles would be won by whoever shoots first, and be over in a matter of seconds. With no energy screens, no "Shields", without masses of armor plating one good sized kinetic weapon puts you down. Of course, that could be part of the story. Those who have the ships with the unobtanium -- Er. I hate that world. Let's call it Durabillium. Heh. -- hulls are the ones who hold the power.I recently read about research into cold plasmas (http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/cold_plasma_000724.html) that can absorb EM directed energy photons. If you can build an array of these around your ship then you may be able to deflect or absorb lasers, masers, and maybe even particle beams. However, a kinetic mass would probably get through. Of course nukes are useful too. You could have some sort of mass shielding that is adjustable. Imagine an Orion type craft that moves toward an enemy, then turns-about and deploys a large nuke, using it's pusher-plate as shield. Or maybe some other type of ship would have an ejectable umbrella to protect against head-on attacks, and then use kinetic or high energy weapons (HEW) once alongside.

Of course, if you have plasma shields, they will protect you from distant HEW, but your enemy may use kinetics instead (no beam dispersion). However, the kinetics may be slow enough to be stopped with interceptor masses or ablated/deflected by HEW defence beams. If the kinetic rounds are of sufficient velocity, mass, and number, they may propel the attacker farther away from you per newtonian physics. This may see the use of self-propelled missiles with kinetic, chemical or nuclear warheads. Of course, these are even more suceptible to HEW defence beams.

I have an idea for a weapon that would be an energetic macroscopic particle stream created by burning AL and O2 and ejecting it out a nozzle as a beam instead of a propellant. The advantage is that the particles are not just atom sized, and Aluminum oxide is the hardest natural material after diamond. Accelerate a beam of this with a high energy laser (also used as a catalyst for the reaction) and maybe you'd have a good close-in weapon. I don't think the particles would be much affected by a cold plasma shield. I'm not sure if AL2O3 is magnetic at all. If it is then plasma shields might affect it, but then a magnetic tube could acclerate it to higher speeds and maybe through the plasma. Also, it would be a boon for sci-fi tv in that it might flouresce and thus be a visible beam (might need to add some Titanium to the mix)!

Oh, BTW, if you build your space ship to be light enough, then the kinetic projectile might pass through it like tissue paper and not actually cause much damage to the intact compartments, but if you armor it like a tank then you'll get spalling like a tank.

[daver]

Oh, BTW, if you build your space ship to be light enough, then the kinetic projectile might pass through it like tissue paper and not actually cause much damage to the intact compartments

Relativistic talcum powder should handle this case.

[Emspak]

I saw the comments on space battles being slow -- has anyone here read The Forever War?

Joe Haldeman uses very real science to talk about battles at near-relativistic speeds. The fun part is that the people on the ship can't do anythign, and his description of being cooped up in an acceleration couch while a computer decides your fate is very riveting and even funny. He talks about "getting vaporized because of an error in someone's tenth decimal place."

Anyhow, his bit about the necessity for protetion from huge G-forces is pretty wild, and the effect if your acceleration couch gets messed up -- ("You explode like a dropped melon" -- as we are talking about a LOT of Gs).

(Haldeman posits a liquid-filled chamber, with oxegynated fluid to breathe, at high pressure to protect against insanely high G-forces).

Anyhow, just a thought.

[Jpax2003]

Oh, BTW, if you build your space ship to be light enough, then the kinetic projectile might pass through it like tissue paper and not actually cause much damage to the intact compartments

Relativistic talcum powder should handle this case.How do you accelerate talcum powder to relativistic velocities?

[ToSeek]

Oh, BTW, if you build your space ship to be light enough, then the kinetic projectile might pass through it like tissue paper and not actually cause much damage to the intact compartments

Relativistic talcum powder should handle this case.How do you accelerate talcum powder to relativistic velocities?

If you'd even seen me sneeze, you'd know. ;)

[Morrolan]

so if we do space battles in movies (or any kind of space travel in which space vessels actually approach or meet each other) can we do away with the 3-dimensional thinking?

there is an annoying up/down gravity related approach to space craft positioning in movies. since there is no one directional (term?) gravity in an x-random area of space why are we still depicting space craft as if they were centered around a fixed gravity object like earth?

it's hard to explain without using visuals, but for instance in Star Trek or Star Wars vessels always have the same up/down position vs each other.

[Gullible Jones]

Yes, I've noticed that. It really annoys me.

[ToSeek]

it's hard to explain without using visuals, but for instance in Star Trek or Star Wars vessels always have the same up/down position vs each other.

No, we've all seen it, and it's very annoying because it should be so easy to do otherwise (and would make much more sense).

[daver]

How do you accelerate talcum powder to relativistic velocities?

By throwing it out the porthole. You were talking about 1 AU/day velocities in another thread; that's plenty fast enough for the talcum powder to take out any small ship in its path. Add a few marbles to the mix and it's buh-bye space fleet.

[Jpax2003]

it's hard to explain without using visuals, but for instance in Star Trek or Star Wars vessels always have the same up/down position vs each other.The only time they broke with tradition was the final episode of TNG about 10 years ago. The Enterprise E (?) came up from underneath the klingon vessel like in the Jaws poster. I guess Riker was the first captain to realize he could do this. Forget the Picard mini-warp Maneuver...

[Jpax2003]

How do you accelerate talcum powder to relativistic velocities?

By throwing it out the porthole. You were talking about 1 AU/day velocities in another thread; that's plenty fast enough for the talcum powder to take out any small ship in its path. Add a few marbles to the mix and it's buh-bye space fleet.Yes, but I think it would be easier to accelerate a solid mass to a velocity over a long time period. I'm not sure how you would accelerate the dust particles to the same velocities. Would you accelerate a bucket of the stuff then retro the bucket so the dust keeps going? How would it interact with the solar wind. Could it be blocked using a dispersed laser or a maser? Would heavy shields prevent damage? Could a target see the dust coming and simply move out of the way? If you dump it out the porthole so it floats along side, and you accelerate away, but if you then need to slow down after turnabout it could come back at your ship.

[mike alexander]

Some books I would love see made into good movies:

Lord of Light

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (if you can get the gravity right)

Tau Zero (overtaken by science and I don't care)

The Skylark of Space (but ONLY if done as a proper period piece)

The Big Time (just because it's such a good story)

[daver]

Yes, but I think it would be easier to accelerate a solid mass to a velocity over a long time period.

We're talking space fleet battles, right? A fleet from earth blasts off to Mars, a fleet from Mars blasts off in an intercept course; depending on the drive they're approaching at a speed of several km/sec (if they have atomics, they might be approaching at 100's of km/sec). The Mars fleet launches a set of talcum-powder missiles to where they think the Earth fleet will dodge to, the Earth fleet does the same to the Mars fleet, both fleets change course radically, the fleet that guessed wrong ends up as plasma. If they both survive, the Earth fleet goes on to a now essentially defenseless Mars and blasts its spaceports and industrial centers to rubble. The Mars fleet can either turn around to try to help any survivors or change course to try to do the same to Earth.

"Fleet" here is probably a misnomer--no ship is likely to be closer than a light second or so to another in the fleet--the only real value to massing together is to make a bigger target for a kinetic kill weapon. Close in maneuvers, dogfights, whatever, will have no place. Small, unmanned missiles will be the weapon to fear.

Of course, space is big; the best defense against a kinetic kill weapon is knowing where it is and not being there. Unfortunately, not being there involves jinking your space cruiser whenever you think you're getting close to a missile or a debris cloud, which requires lots of fuel. The defenders obviously want to take out as many attacker ships as possible; failing that, to cause them to dodge as much as possible so that they'll be short of fuel later on.

Now, I'm terrible at tactics and creating combat scenarios. This thread seems common enough that there's probably a few hundred FAQs left over from the usenet days in case you wanted to see some serious discussions.

Most likely space combat could be partitioned into two types--large scale combat, whose object is to eliminate the opposition's space faring capability, and small scale combat, whose object is much more limited. Large scale combat is probably initialted when the planets are aligned so that attack is simple and counterattack difficult, and most likely consists of a swarm of missiles. The second wave may consist of manned vessels, depending on the goals of the war and how effective the first wave was. An effective first strike wipes out the opposition's retaliatory cabability before the planets align for an effective counterstrike.

Small scale combat probably centers around some off-planet real estate--maybe Terrestrial Termites thinks that Martian Mining is encroaching on their share of an asteroid; Mars sends a destroyer there to help with their side of the argument, Earth responds by sending a cruiser. Both sides snarl at each other until one side backs down or until someone fires a weapon. This type of combat would be close range at low relative velocities, so maybe something like the traditional space battle could ensue. The scope of the battle is probably limited--a few ships on either side. There's not enough time or space for weapons to get up any real speed, so we're probably talking nukes and directed energy weapons. Offense is still likely more effective than defense, but it's not so one-sided as deep-space encounters.

[Master258]

When I saw the title of this thread I said to myself, is this new to anyone else?

[ToSeek]

When I saw the title of this thread I said to myself, is this new to anyone else?

I don't know how many people have attributed the decline of people interested in science in this country to the release of Armageddon before the referenced article.

[Zamboni]

Spiderman II is a prime example of American physics... They tried to stop a hydrogen fusion reaction by "drowning" it in water. Hee hee...

Not to mention a fireball that can melt metal but doesn't radiate nor transmit heat to the skin chained to the metal 2 inches away...

[John Dlugosz]

So, what would the chances be of writing a screenplay that "lights the fire" of the audience about some science topic (and getting the science right), and pushing it through production without the story, science, or audience interest being diluted?

Sounds like an independent production, shot outside of the Hollywood influence, and perhaps financially backed by the scientific community (can you get a grant for something like that? :o ).

Any ideas?


Shorts made from the early educational stories by Robert L. Forward. Campy, full nudity, great special effects, and dead accurite on the point the story was making about gravity, anti-matter, or whatever.

Likewise, Gamow's Mr. Thomkins stories, or other classic educational literature.

How about a big production of a Hal Clement novel? If you can keep them from messing it up, that is. Mission of Gravity is nothing if not exciting, and can be true to the physics even as it hams up the classic dramatic hero business.

[Jpax2003]

We're talking space fleet battles, right? A fleet from earth blasts off to Mars, a fleet from Mars blasts off in an intercept course; depending on the drive they're approaching at a speed of several km/sec (if they have atomics, they might be approaching at 100's of km/sec). The Mars fleet launches a set of talcum-powder missiles to where they think the Earth fleet will dodge to, the Earth fleet does the same to the Mars fleet, both fleets change course radically, the fleet that guessed wrong ends up as plasma. If they both survive, the Earth fleet goes on to a now essentially defenseless Mars and blasts its spaceports and industrial centers to rubble. The Mars fleet can either turn around to try to help any survivors or change course to try to do the same to Earth.

I think there are several tactics that could be employed. I think that an active scanning system (radar and optical wavelength) might be able to detect the inbound missile, if not the inbound dust cloud. The inbound missile could either dump the powder by reversing thrust or by using an explosive charge to eject it. I am thinking that an ejection charge would cause much of it to be too highly dispersed and quickly ejected from the theatre of battle if not the solar system. A shotgun-type ejection wad might work, but it might not disperse enough, and a simple course correction might avoid it. I am guessing that there is a fine line between dispersing too soon or too late. This attack would also require hundreds of missiles to block enough vectors to catch an enemy convoy for each attack.

Directed energy weapons may be able to volitalize the incoming powder to slow it down, deflect it, or turn it into a gas. I can imagine using masers and lasers to clear a path. Perhaps there would be picket frigates ahead of the capital ships that clear a path with specially designed EM weapons and plasma shields. Then again, maybe a simple gas jet would suffice. With any of these methods, the small angle difference would create a large envelope farther back for the larger vessels. The convoy could also deploy unmanned expendable recon drones far ahead to detect the inbounds. The capital ships themselves might have extendable ablative shielding indepth forward of the ship's hull. It might look like many nestled umbrellas.

These tactics would force the opponent to try to attack from the flanks. This means other vessels would need to be far in advance of the their own fleet in order to launch a relativistic dust-attack that would hit the enemy fleet broadsides at a predetermined position. Perhaps another defence could be a both a forward and flank defence using mini-nukes. As soon as a device senses a dust cloud it detonates. This would vaporize the dust cloud and clear most of it and nearby dust clouds. It also serves as notice of an attack upon the convoy.

I can see the difficulty of dealing with a dust attack, but I can see how it can be dealt with, assuming the attacker spends the money for the defense systems. Makes me wonder though... why didn't Heinlein use it in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to attack inbound ships or knock them out of LEO?

[Morrolan]

would a reply salvo with nuclear type explosives be strong enough to get rid of the dust? a fleet could then use this as a sort of active armor
(re-active being too close for comfort). problem is how do you launch fast enough to get the explosions to vaporise the dust far enough away that you don't damage yourself...

would railguns work, btw as a means of targeting the enemies capital ships? the platform would be large enough to carry several, but they're line-of-sight weapons so that would mean too close for comfort probably.

[Jpax2003]

would a reply salvo with nuclear type explosives be strong enough to get rid of the dust? a fleet could then use this as a sort of active armor
(re-active being too close for comfort). problem is how do you launch fast enough to get the explosions to vaporise the dust far enough away that you don't damage yourself...

would railguns work, btw as a means of targeting the enemies capital ships? the platform would be large enough to carry several, but they're line-of-sight weapons so that would mean too close for comfort probably.I would use unmanned probes with nuclear warheads leading the formation at a distance. When the probe begins taking damage consistent with relativistic dust, it detonates. In space, most of the energy is released as x-rays, IIRC. A directed energy beam could be used for deflection as well.

[Grand_Lunar]

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned computer viruses in your space battle. All the tech on board would be rendered useless by a good virus; everything from weapons to life support. Bummer!
Me, I'd just force the opposing crew to watch Coleman Francis movies and anything starring Joe Don Baker. Those, and short films from the 50's and 60's.

[Ilya]

Lucifer's Hammer would make a decent miniseries.

I'd LOVE to see Lucifer's Hammer made in to a movie (or a miniseries), and not just because its science is very good. Unfortunately, the main reason I'd love is also the reason Hollywood will never do it - at least not in this generation. Namely, the idea that human race has a destiny, to which Nature should be subjugated. The book ends with a nuclear power plant defended by heroes, under attack by environmentalists-turned-cannibals. The last line, IIRC, is To give people lightning again!.

[Ilya]

I think Forge of God and its sequel Anvil of Stars are very "filmable", but are also terribly depressing. Especially the first one.

[Morrolan]

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned computer viruses in your space battle. All the tech on board would be rendered useless by a good virus; everything from weapons to life support. Bummer!

that is, of course, if the various systems used by the two sides are compatible. it's not like in Independence Day where they are able to make a virus on an Apple, load it into the system of an alien spacecraft and are able to upload it to the alien mothership where it actually works too...! :o

[daver]

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned computer viruses in your space battle. All the tech on board would be rendered useless by a good virus; everything from weapons to life support. Bummer!

This would almost certainly work to the Martian's advantage. Terrestrial forces would be forced by Bill Gates XIV to be running some descendant of Microsoft; by following current trends we can extrapolate that instead of bending over backwards to be vulnerable to every sociopathic kindergartner (that's a bit redundant) script kiddie, that this version will be so accomodating that it will generate its own viruses out of line noise. The Martians, on the other hands, will be running their space fleet on stone knives and bearskins, and will stomp all over the Terran fleet, which probably couldn't make it out of drydock.

[daver]

As I said, I'm lousy at tactics.

However, I think it's fairly clear that the space fleets will be approaching at a high rate of speed--if nothing else, the defense has the edge when its kinetic kill weapons close as quickly as possible. So, it's most likely that a defensive ship will only have one pass at an offensive ship. If the offense is attacking in any depth, though, the defense ship may get passes at multiple opposition ships.

How effective kinetic kill weapons are depends on lots of different factors--the closing velocity is a big one. Low speed (km/sec) closing factors favor ball-bearing sized impactors; high speed (10's - 100's of km) favor much smaller (grains of salt, flakes of talcum powder, eventually, atoms of gas) sized impactors. The smaller the impactor, the more that can be carried in a missile, and the bigger the debris cloud can be and the further from the target ship it can be fired.

However, space is big. A small debris cloud could be detonated seconds before impact; a larger one perhaps tens of seconds. Passive debris clouds are unlikely to be effective--they'd likely have a big radar signature and they'd be unlikely to be in the attacking fleet's path. Most likely the missile will need to approach the target fairly closely in order to be effective, and there's no way a maneuvering missile can be hidden.


I think there are several tactics that could be employed. I think that an active scanning system (radar and optical wavelength) might be able to detect the inbound missile, if not the inbound dust cloud. The inbound missile could either dump the powder by reversing thrust or by using an explosive charge to eject it.

The bursting charge should be fine. Reversing thrust is unnecessarily complicated.


Directed energy weapons may be able to volitalize the incoming powder to slow it down, deflect it, or turn it into a gas.

I woudn't imagine DEWs could do much once the missile has detonated; they could be useful against the missile, as could anti-missile missiles.

Perhaps there would be picket frigates ahead of the capital ships that clear a path with specially designed EM weapons and plasma shields.

I think that it's more likely that an attacking force would form a broad and shallow formation--as I mentioned above, a deep formation allows a defending ship to attack many opponents; a broad formation minimizes the effectiveness of the defense. There's not much advantage to picket ships or a sacrificial front-line--space is big, and the pickets are unlikely to be able to clear a significant cross section.

To me, the best defense against an attacking ship seems to be mobility; many of your suggestions cut down mobility dramatically, and kinetic attacks against non-maneuvering opponents get simpler and more robust and harder to detect.


These tactics would force the opponent to try to attack from the flanks.

I disagree strongly here; higher velocities increase the capability of the defense dramatically; high-speed frontal assaults magnify the effectiveness and damage of kinetic kill attacks (this works against the defense as well, but once the defensive ships have made their pass they're irrelevant to the rest of the war--they will not encounter the enemy again until the offense has reached its objective).


Makes me wonder though... why didn't Heinlein use it in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to attack inbound ships or knock them out of LEO?
That wasn't fought at interplanetary velocities or distances, and the Loonies wanted to retain the good will of the groundhogs. They could presumably have launched a space dust attack that would have destroyed everything in LEO for a few months, but that would have pretty much ensured that they would be recognized as a terrorist state and not a country. Earth would have built lasers to clean out LEO, launched missile attacks to take out the catapult and the backup catapult, and landed ground troops to run hobnailed over any survivors.

[Whump!]

I noticed Spiderman 2 and had to chime-in. Have a look at that thread and see my take on things. In regards to movies teaching bad science, it will always be an uphill battle for those outside the industry to try to change things. Hollywood produces what people are willing to pay for and put up with. I cringe constantly when watching TV or a movie and notice bad science and engineering (in addition to bad acting and writing). It's up to all of us who have something to contribute to teaching those around us and in the schools how to differentiate between entertainment and reality. Will things ever completely change for the better? Nope. The Simpsons episode where Lisa and MENSA take over the town is a great (although, extreme) example of what kind of divide there is between the educated and the ignorant. Everyone on this board who is not a fully certified woowoo should be personally committed to seeking ways to educate and inform through the countless opportunities out there. There are so many volunteer opportunities across America where people have a chance to interact and educate both the young and the old. Join your local astronomy club, or ham radio club, or volunteer at a local museum or arboretum. In addition to my ham radio club (I'm still very new to the hobby and not electronics savvy) and my emergency communications volunteer work, I also volunteer as a fire lookout host in a fire tower some weekends above San Bernardino. It's a blast interacting with the forest visitors showing them how we help protect the forest and I am able to point out areas of the forest and the different types of plants and animals. The schoolkids really get a kick visiting. I work during the week and miss most of those visitors, but a bunch of Boy Scouts visited Butler Peak lookout a few weeks ago while I was on-duty and working a ham radio contest at the same time with my friends up there. They really enjoyed the visit and had a good look at our equipment. We were able to answer lots of questions about the hobby as well as let them enjoy the view.

There's a little woowoo in all of us. If there weren't, we would not have much creativity in us at all and the things we enjoy today would probably not be. Before the special effects we enjoy in movies today, most people took their inspiration from reading the likes of Bradbury, Clarke, Verne, and so many other SciFi authors out there who inspired so many of you. All of that bad (and good) science from the movies, TV, and books did have some good side-effects. It's up to us to be the best influence we can be on those around us to help ward off extreme wooism.

In regards to what a bad job the schools are doing today, it will only get worse before it gets better. We only have ourselves to blame for letting it get so bad. One could probably write a PhD thesis on why it is so. I feel that until school systems start at either Kindergarten or 1st grade and seriously improve funding and standards and work progressively with that first class downward as that class advances in up in grades over the years, throwing money scatter-shot at the schools is not going to have much effect. Raising taxes, or re-allocating tax funds is difficult - particularly here in CA with the problems we have right now. Having more volunteers in schools would be a wonderful way of helping out. The problems with that are many, including needing costly background checks, and teachers feeling that their jobs are in competition with the volunteers. There's no "magic bullet" for any of this, BUT, we all can work towards solutions to the problem of education in America and help to mentor and shape the young of today.

Yikes, I've spent 2/3rds of my day at work on these postings and goofing off. Anyway, remember: Think globally - act locally, and don't get caught cyberslacking. 8-[

[Jpax2003]

Thanks for the PSA, now back to our regularly schuduled programming... Space Battle!


While you are probably right, daver, that frontal attacks would have the greatest impact velocity, it would also probably have the greatest defenses oriented toward it. I could imagine a relatively thin hulled ship, having some sort of massive shielding at the bow for defense from naturally occuring micrometeoroids and maybe even for atmospheric braking maneuvers. It might also have some sort of electromagnetic plasma system at the front to deflect ions. If the convoy is anticipating this type of attack, it might form a line behind a heavily armored escort which can shield the other ships from the head-on dust attack.

That is why I suggested the idea of a flank attack. Although the dust impact velocity would not be as fast, it could hit the ships where they are more vulnerable. This would necessitate the defending enemy launching attack ships ahead of their main blockade and these ships would either get into position sooner or faster. Then they would fire dust, bb, or marble filled missiles perpendicular toward the spot they anticipate the enemy will be at intercept. It won't do as much damage, but it might do some damage. Then they might split this force and go north and south of the expected intercept point to meet the ships that maneuver up or down from the plane or cone of the frontal and flank attacks. This could only really work if the ships had enough fuel to make these meneuvers.

I don't think opposing fleets will fly towards each other head-on. I think they will pinwheel where they can. As they pass each other they will rotate in order to expose the smalled cross-section and keep what shielding they have pointed toward the enemy. But that could be used against them. The convoy might rotate in order to avoid HEW from the passing enemy ships, but they could be hit abeam with the kinetics from follow up ships on the blackade. However, bursting kinetics against an enemy ship when your own ships are passing it runs the strong risk of friendly fire casualties. This would require tight conic dispersal patterns on the missiles for close in fighting, and relative speeds would not be as important as accuracy.

At any rate, relativistic or even slower kinetics pose a hazard to navigation well after the battle, unless they are dispersed enough and fast enough to be ejected from the solar system.

But we are talking about two fleets heading toward one another. What if on fleet was stationary. It could try to use relativistic dust, but the only acceleration would be from the missile engine. And if it is used too late, it will reach the incoming fleet as it is slowing down. In fact, the reversed engine exhaust might shield the ship. The reversed thrust would also be useful for offense against the blockading fleet.

[daver]

Thanks for the PSA, now back to our regularly schuduled programming... Space Battle!


While you are probably right, daver, that frontal attacks would have the greatest impact velocity, it would also probably have the greatest defenses oriented toward it.

Umm. OK, let's throw some numbers at it.

Let's say your drive is something along the lines of a nuclear salt water rocket, with an exhaust velocity of 80 km/sec; that gives a total mission delta V of 140 km/sec assuming your rocket is 80% fuel. You can plug in whatever numbers you like; I don't think they make much difference.

OK. Imagine the Terrestrial fleet, equipped with this drive, approaching Mars at 35 km/sec. It can't rely on refuelling at Mars, and wants to have some leftover fuel for the trip back and for maneuvers on the way there. The Terran fleet had spent about an hour accelerating to their top speed and has been coasting towards Mars for the last three weeks. The Martian fleet goes out to intercept--it gets a bit away from Mars, and waits for the Terran fleet to near. When they get close enough, they blast off towards Mars, timing their maneuver so that they hit 35 km/sec just as the Terran fleet is passing, so they have zero relative velocity. Now the two fleets can battle with zero relative velocity, using nuclear tipped torpedoes and DEWs and the like.

Another scenario would have the Martian fleet accelerating straight towards the Terran fleet, for a combined attack velocity of 70 km/sec.

Another scenario would have the Martian fleet tracking out to the side and attacking from a couple of sides at 35 km/sec, for a combined speed of around 50 km/sec.

Or, you could have the Martian fleet zoom out to the sides and wait for the Terrestrial fleet to pass, and then accelerate to 70 km/sec. Since they're heading towards home, they don't have to worry about bingo fuel; they are, however, pretty short of maneuvering fuel. This gives them a closing speed of 35 km/sec relative to the Terran fleet.

A 70 km/sec closing speed gives a kg projectile the equivalent of around 0.6 tons of tnt. A 35 km/sec closing speed is only 0.15 tons of tnt per kg.

Which scenario plays out depends on the technology, but it seems to me that at these velocities kinetic kill weapons are far lighter than DEW or nuclear weapons, and that a reasonable defensive strategy would take advantage of this (in effect, it's using the main drive of your ship as a weapon). Lower energy drives might favor different tactics.

If the attacking force were silly enough to bunch up, you could attack from several directions (front and sides)--you know your attack pattern, so you could avoid fratricide--the enemy doesn't, so they have to armor all points of their ships.


At any rate, relativistic or even slower kinetics pose a hazard to navigation well after the battle, unless they are dispersed enough and fast enough to be ejected from the solar system.

These speeds are pretty close to solar system escape velocities--better drive systems would definitely give solar escape speeds.


The reversed thrust would also be useful for offense against the blockading fleet.
Yes. A drive should be a quite effective beam weapon, out to some kilometers anyway.

[Jpax2003]

I agree. I hope you didn't think I was disagreeing with you. I was just playing OpFor. I wonder how often movies and mass media depictions of space battles are actually wargamed in advance... Some books probably are, I think Babylon 5 was in many instances.

Sorry, I did get confused with DEW. Since I had been mentioning picket vessels and probes, I thought you meant Distant Early Warning instead of Directed Energy Weapon, which was why I was using HEW for High Energy Weapons, which might include nuclear devices as well as directed energy.

So when these ships are moving together each other at 35km/sec but slowly closing at an acute angle, they may still rotate so that they are moving sideways through space to present the smallest profile. Of course this assumes that they have some heavy shielding at the front. Then again, they may want to cross the T and give their enemy a full broadside if their weapons are so mounted. But the manuevering fleet would have to be careful not to irradiate their own ships if they light up their main engines.

[ToSeek]

I agree. I hope you didn't think I was disagreeing with you. I was just playing OpFor. I wonder how often movies and mass media depictions of space battles are actually wargamed in advance... Some books probably are, I think Babylon 5 was in many instances.



The original version of the battle around the Death Star in Star Wars was storyboarded using clips from World War II movies. It kind of shows, actually.

[Jpax2003]

I agree. I hope you didn't think I was disagreeing with you. I was just playing OpFor. I wonder how often movies and mass media depictions of space battles are actually wargamed in advance... Some books probably are, I think Babylon 5 was in many instances.



The original version of the battle around the Death Star in Star Wars was storyboarded using clips from World War II movies. It kind of shows, actually.Yeah, I think I saw that on one of the DVDs. But I meant wargamed for realism to space tactics. I'm not sure flying a finger-four in a dive bomb run would work as well in space, what with Newton's 3rd law and all.

[Mellow]

My two pence worth.....

The reason I'm such a big Thunderbirds series fan (concerned about the forthcomming film though) is that it was SF with a less common story angle i.e. rescue from peril.

I think that the nearest we've come on celluloid recently was Apollo13 which of course is not SF(i) but SF(act).

I think if Thunderbirds had been remade for adults rather than the pre-teens, it could have spun a decent series of movies.