[World Building] A Future History of Space Force

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

What's the signifigance of the 16 year date?

.

The quick google I did showed a first launch in 2006.

I would not expect a still developing Starship to reach the now mature Falcon-9's level of launch frequency quickly or easily. The components are just too much bigger to be handled as quickly.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I would not expect a still developing Starship to reach the now mature Falcon-9's level of launch frequency quickly or easily. The components are just too much bigger to be handled as quickly.

Wouldn't that just mean you put more vehicles in the pipeline?

8000 tons/year means just over one Starship a week (53.3 / year). If it take six weeks to cycle a Starship / SHB*, then you add six more Starships to the fleet. So, seven total, if you really only need to launch one per week and can wait for the next.

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* SpaceX says 21 days to cycle a Falcon 9, so my assumption doubles that. 21 days is down from 27 in 2021. Their record was 9 days.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The quick google I did showed a first launch in 2006.

I would not expect a still developing Starship to reach the now mature Falcon-9's level of launch frequency quickly or easily. The components are just too much bigger to be handled as quickly.

I beli be space x is showing that they can build a starship in 33 days. They build a falcon 9 in about a month. They used to build 9s in three months. Raptor production is pretty much the bottleneck, the crew at Boca Chica seems able to spit out therest of the stack rapidly. Raptor was designed from the ground for rapid reusability, and falcon has seen it's reuse go from extensive refurbishment taking months or weeks, to inspections taking days. The company is clearly competent at launching rockets, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect their competency to continue.

Again, building the infrastructure to handle a starship a week cadence is going to be the hard part. That's a lot of construction.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Since Space Command was spun off into Space Force I've been thinking about the first thing that milsf gets wrong and that's pretending that space is an ocean. They use naval ranks and naval ship designations when actually if the the United States actually started to put manned vessels of war into space, it would be a spin-off of the airforce just as their air force was a spinoff of the army, which is why it has majors, colonels and generals, not commanders and admirals.

So, let's start from scratch. At some point the United States decides putting manned military vessels in space is a worthwhile endeavour. Assume this starts at a mature TL 9. That may be a bit optimistic but this is still a game and games need people. Let's assume that the United States wants force projection capability into the asteroid belt which has become increasingly economically important. While at first they start with remotely commanded drones they eventually come to the conclusion that they need people out there to reduce the decision making timelag and to make it clear that they are serious and attacking their stuff could mean war.

So the first question is, what year is it when the first manned warships start to arrive in the asteroid belt?

They won't be proper warships. They will be either corporate enforcers (equiv to a gunslinger kept by a cattle or stagecoach baron) or they will be constabulary vessels. There will be a gap between the time when prospecting is serious business and when states get involved on a full scale level.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

They won't be proper warships. They will be either corporate enforcers (equiv to a gunslinger kept by a cattle or stagecoach baron) or they will be constabulary vessels. There will be a gap between the time when prospecting is serious business and when states get involved on a full scale level.

That gap might not be filled by non-government enforcers, though. It's quite possible for things to go straight from 'unarmed' (aside from improvised weapons from mining gear and personal small arms) to 'government patrol ships and the asteroids are now annexed to assorted powers' with no interim step.

[PTTG]

Things to consider regarding space weaponry...

Chemical guns might be useful. It's actually very hard to make a railgun that fires more than one or two times due to friction, and it's not currently very plausible for the projectile velocities and muzzle energy to be more than a little bit superior to chemguns. Add in the cost of a main reactor and the vulnerability of large radiators, electromagnetic guns remain unlikely.

Lasers have the speed advantage, but having a laser makes you far more vulnerable to lasers, as they have both sensitive optics and vast waste heat. A chemgun platform, conversely, can be fairly well armored against a distant laser strike. The economics and exact physics are unclear to me.

Second, it seems likely that drones will almost certainly be used by both sides; after all, all spaceflight past the moon has been by "drones," in a sense. Smugglers, wildcats, and legitimate miners will all do best to use remote-operated vessels.

Oddly, this suggests that spacecraft the size of refrigerators or cars might be fighting each other with belt-fed guns on turret mounts.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Things to consider regarding space weaponry...

Chemical guns might be useful. It's actually very hard to make a railgun that fires more than one or two times due to friction, and it's not currently very plausible for the projectile velocities and muzzle energy to be more than a little bit superior to chemguns. Add in the cost of a main reactor and the vulnerability of large radiators, electromagnetic guns remain unlikely.

Lasers have the speed advantage, but having a laser makes you far more vulnerable to lasers, as they have both sensitive optics and vast waste heat. A chemgun platform, conversely, can be fairly well armored against a distant laser strike. The economics and exact physics are unclear to me.

Second, it seems likely that drones will almost certainly be used by both sides; after all, all spaceflight past the moon has been by "drones," in a sense. Smugglers, wildcats, and legitimate miners will all do best to use remote-operated vessels.

Oddly, this suggests that spacecraft the size of refrigerators or cars might be fighting each other with belt-fed guns on turret mounts.

I doubt slug throwers will be very useful. But missiles? Really good.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

I doubt slug throwers will be very useful. But missiles? Really good.

Even missiles need to get to their target before lasers kill the launching vessel. At least the launching vessel hopes so.

If this is not possible only expendable drones will launch long range missiles (which will have to be autonomous).

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Even missiles need to get to their target before lasers kill the launching vessel. At least the launching vessel hopes so.

If this is not possible only expendable drones will launch long range missiles (which will have to be autonomous).

I don't know if any lasers that have been successfully used to kill space targets. I do know of several countries using missiles.

At some point lasers may become viable, but in the near term, I think missiles make a lot more sense.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

I don't know if any lasers that have been successfully used to kill space targets. I do know of several countries using missiles.

At some point lasers may become viable, but in the near term, I think missiles make a lot more sense.

I know of no country using missiles on long range space vehicles.. We're not talking about the near term.