General Discussion Thread of DOOM

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Scipio the Elder said:
Well if we're going out there in sci-fi how about nuclear fission reactors cooled in space. Such as on board a space station or space elevator. Air cooled in zero atmosphere. We'll just throw out the negative effects..
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You already said it, air cooled in zero atmosphere doesn't work. Heat is actually already a big problem on space stations as heat can only be shed via thermal radiation, which is much less effective than convection. You need a very large surface area to radiate all the heat of a nuclear reactor away, and for maximum efficiency that surface needs to be as hot as possible. There are several advanced cooling designs out there as people already thought long and hard about different kinds of nuclear drives for spaceships, but in the end it boils down to "radiate heat away", because vacuum. Some (open core) drives like the Zubrin Saltwater rocket fix that by using the fission products as propellant and fuel (like a chemical rocket) and thus chucking out the heat of the drive as a side effect of how it works, but most designs don't do that.
 
Hassknecht said:
You already said it, air cooled in zero atmosphere doesn't work. Heat is actually already a big problem on space stations as heat can only be shed via thermal radiation, which is much less effective than convection. You need a very large surface area to radiate all the heat of a nuclear reactor away, and for maximum efficiency that surface needs to be as hot as possible. There are several advanced cooling designs out there as people already thought long and hard about different kinds of nuclear drives for spaceships, but in the end it boils down to "radiate heat away", because vacuum. Some (open core) drives like the Zubrin Saltwater rocket fix that by using the fission products as propellant and fuel (like a chemical rocket) and thus chucking out the heat of the drive as a side effect of how it works, but most designs don't do that.
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Give me links to some Wikipedia articles or something about that. Seriously, I'm a layman, but would like to know more. Would appreciate a head start.
 
Atomkilla said:
Give me links to some Wikipedia articles or something about that. Seriously, I'm a layman, but would like to know more. Would appreciate a head start.
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I'll give you something even better, at least when it comes to Science Fiction related science:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
Project Rho is a really, really good site when it comes to rock-hard Science Fiction.
 
Atomkilla said:
Holy. Fucking. Shiiiiieeeet
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I'm very proud to say that I made a contribution to that site. And by that I mean I pointed out a mistake in the description of how lasers work to the author :D
Seriously though, that page is utterly brilliant. Mandatory reading for anyone thinking about writing Science Fiction.
And even if you don't plan on writing SciFi, it's very informative, interesting and goddamn entertaining to boot.
 
Plasma weapons. Freaking plasma weapons, dammit. You superheat the plasma and then you use the railgun to propell it. Duh!

Also, better article, since the previous one was apparently shite.

So, has anyone even tried to reach a conclusion from both articles instead of just concentrating in one of them?

Also, the supreheated plasma from the weapon wouldn't have to reach fusion energy levels, just hot enough to cause serious damage.
 
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Hassknecht said:
I'm very proud to say that I made a contribution to that site. And by that I mean I pointed out a mistake in the description of how lasers work to the author :D
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How does it feel knowing that you have already passed the zenith of your existence and that all actions from that point on are nothing more but digging a solemn grave?
 
Gonzalez said:
Plasma weapons. Freaking plasma weapons, dammit. You superheat the plasma and then you use the railgun to propell it. Duh!

Also, better article, since the previous one was apparently shite.

So, has anyone even tried to reach a conclusion from both articles instead of just concentrating in one of them?

Also, the supreheated plasma from the weapon wouldn't have to reach fusion energy levels, just hot enough to cause serious damage.
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The problem is that plasma is, well, plasma. Thus, an ionized hot gas that likes to expand. Any naive approach will just result in a very inefficient flamethrower.
Coaxial plasma railguns are a nice scientific experiment (there are a few of them, actually), but it's not really useful to weaponise them.
I wonder if the results of the MARAUDER experiments will ever be declassified...

Atomkilla said:
How does it feel knowing that you have already passed the zenith of your existence and that all actions from that point on are nothing more but digging a solemn grave?
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If I'm lucky I might have my hand in developing a laser-based tunneling machine in the near future. Yes, like in The Core. At least a bit. And then I'll dig my solemn grave. With lasers.
 
Gonzalez said:
What if it were to be encased in a container that breaks on impact?
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And what advantage would that have? I mean, containing a plasma is a big issue, and if you have the energy source to create such a dense and hot plasma AND confine it, you're better off throwing your power source at the enemy...
 
Well as you mentioned earlier, someone already tried to build plasma weapons, and after an "initial sucess" the whole thing got classified, and may or may not have been scrapped.
 
Gonzalez said:
Well as you mentioned earlier, someone already tried to build plasma weapons, and after an "initial sucess" the whole thing got classified, and may or may not have been scrapped.
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They probably realised that attaching a building-sized capacitor bank and a power plant to a tank isn't exactly the most efficient use of the budget :D
 
Bummer. It is the job of you scientists to make all those sci-fi goodies real, so get working on it, I want my plasma rifles already! :P
 
Gonzalez said:
Bummer. It is the job of you scientists to make all those sci-fi goodies real, so get working on it, I want my plasma rifles already! :P
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It should be the job of science fiction writers to make sure that they're not just spouting bollocks so their readers won't be disappointed when they find out about the bollockiness of said bollocks :D
 
And how about having the reaction happen when you hit the target, like with a heat round, only instead of using a high explosive creating a jet that melts the armor you do it with plasma. Could it result in a more powerful chemical penetrator? Like instead of a High Explosive Anti Tank, or HEAT, you have a Plasma Anti Tank. Could the reaction happen fast enough and be powerful enough to project a jet that can defeat steel armor and perhaps composite?
 
Wouldn't you need to create a material that could resist such heat and energy to be able to shoot it? And by that point should you just make projectiles out of that material instead?
 
No, you wouldn't, as the reaction occurs when you hit the target, negating the necesitiy for such material altogether, HEAT rounds do not survive their delivery either....
 
Gonzalez said:
And how about having the reaction happen when you hit the target, like with a heat round, only instead of using a high explosive creating a jet that melts the armor you do it with plasma. Could it result in a more powerful chemical penetrator? Like instead of a High Explosive Anti Tank, or HEAT, you have a Plasma Anti Tank. Could the reaction happen fast enough and be powerful enough to project a jet that can defeat steel armor and perhaps composite?
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Hm, no, the density of electrical plasma generation is just way too small. And if you do it chemically... Well, that's what a shaped charge already does.
What you can do is fire a high energy laser pulse at the target that creates a plasma plume where it hits. This is basically a small, very bright and very loud explosion with an added electromagnetic effect.
This is currently under development, called "Pulsed Energy Projectile".
 
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