After finding the stupidly fun sandbox space game
Kerbal Space Program and stumbling upon
this flickr thread, I got to thinking: All sci-fi space fighters seem to draw on fighter planes or jets for their inspiration. What would a real-world style fighter look like.
(Mind you, I am in now way an aerospace expert, so this ship still relies on the rule-of-cool to some extent.)
So I built this. A pure-space fighter. Lofted into orbit atop a conventional medium-lift booster, once it broke atmo, it would never again touch it. (It's a little low poly as I hope to animate it).
Twin radiator wings dump heat from the craft's systems, and two liquid cooled .50 caliber machine guns provide firepower. A 1.75m diameter pod holds the pilot, and a large window provides visibility after radar merge. (I know the window and guns aren't the most realistic, but they're cool.)
here's a better view of the top.
External stowage racks may eventually adorn the central spindle, allowing for drop-tanks, missiles, sensor packages, etc, to be hot-swapped. Also, the ship can fold its wings to fit into a standard pressurized inter-modal stowage can. Said can provides a "shirtsleeves" environment, simplifying repair and re-arming work. (It also hides the fighter from casual observation.)
The engine bell and RCS system.
The engine is on gimbles, for maximum maneuverability. (The fuel tank is a bit small, but I'm hand-waving it by saying better rockets have been invented.)
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Future space combat fighters will likely be hypersonic air breathing hybrid rockets such as a scramjet/rocket formed with lifting bodies and space ages materials to resist reentry and flight friction through the atmosphere. While missiles are a possibility they and especially any kinetic weapons such as a gun, rail gun or projectile of any kind will likely result in the undesirable alteration of it's orbit. Thus lasers are the only real weapon space fighters could have. These weapons would need to be only powerful enough to damage the opponents heat tiles to force a dangerous reentry at which point they would disengage.
Such a fighter was feature in the book "Storming Intrepid" by Payne Harrison
Also featured in certain NASA documents as the X-656
Also featured in History Channel special of Generation 5 Aircraft.
Capsuled fighter craft such as your own would likely not require huge propellant stores due to the use (with luck) polywell nuclear fusion rockets. Such ships would likely have waste heat issues need rather large radiators or active cooling systems when the engines are in operation. Bell sized nozzles wouldn't be necessary as they could generate high specific impulses through ion streams. In some cases with but a drop of aneutronic fuel.
I have actually spent quite a lot of time browsing Atomic Rockets. Too much time, in fact.
That's some cool stuff, but I was going for more of a 60's space-race vibe for this one. Besides, this craft is designed to fight mostly in transfers (interplanetary space, as well as the space between moons). Though if I ever built an Interceptor-type craft, I'll keep those ideas in mind.
Also, the 'verse this craft inhabits (what i've fleshed out at least) has nuclear energy laying undiscovered. With no nukes, dropping things from orbit became the WMD of choice, meaning of course, one needed control of space.
Speaking of your design, the only thing that somewhat bothers me - are the machinegun placement. They are off-centerline and that isn`t very good for a spacecraft.
Periodically, the pilots would rotate home, but the fighters themselves would stay in orbit. (Why keep boosting fighters p if you're going to bring them down again?) The station would also provide a 3m diameter pressurized can. This shirtsleeve environment simplifies basic repair and rearming work. If the fighter is too badly damaged, it would be cannibalized for parts, and deorbited. (Possibly after being used for target practice).
The MGs are placed where they are so they don't get in the way of the RCS thrusters, and to not intrude on the cockpit pressure vessel (and because I think it looks cooler like this). I admit there may be a little off-axis thrust, but this is a fighter, it's got plenty of maneuvering thrust. Besides, a .50 cal doesn't have that much recoil, especially compared to a 20mm cannon, if the fighter can't deal with that much off-axis thrust, it has bigger problems.
That said, I'm gonna do a few tests with alternate gun layouts, just to see what it looks like.
Interesting concept. and yes I agree with the others on the future of space combat.. large ships may have rail guns, and most combat will probably be at long range with kinetic kill missles ( even a buck shot missile, bunch of bb's at hyper velocity would decimate a craft) so once you get in close enough to use the 50 cal.. ur already dead since you don't have any maneuverability to avoid anti aircraft
looking forward to more fleshing out of this craft! good luck!
The more realistic weapons for spacecraft are lasers and microwaves, (and malware); weapons that are line-of-sight, and near instantaneous, where two drawback concerns are power and attenuation.
Conversely, if ship A wanted to "fall behind" ship B, it would need to increase speed causing it to rise to a higher orbit which takes greater time to traverse and thus ship A would appear to fall behind ship B.
I have somewhat of a handle on orbital mechanics. (The whole burn retrograde to catch up was counter intuitive at first). Regarding weapons, with weight being at such a premium, most ships are very lightly armored. A few .50 caliber API rounds can scrap most civvie ships. Hardened military targets might take more shooting, or possibly a missile.
That said, this ship is built more for deep-space combat. For escorting freighters to and from off-world bases. (be they mining outposts, shipyards, etc)
Part of these oddities are explained away by the 'verse the ship inhabits. Space is very highly traveled, but mostly by private corporations, seeking to profit via off-world mining, colonizing, what have you. (This is not set in our solar system). But, this is mostly a soft-scifi bit of modeling practice. I'm going more for ships that look real-ish, then being absolutely sure to adhere to physics.
I have somewhat of a handle on orbital mechanics. (The whole burn retrograde to catch up was counter intuitive at first). Regarding weapons, with weight being at such a premium, most ships are very lightly armored. A few .50 caliber API rounds can scrap most civvie ships. Hardened military targets might take more shooting, or possibly a missile.
That said, this ship is built more for deep-space combat. For escorting freighters to and from off-world bases. (be they mining outposts, shipyards, etc)
Part of these oddities are explained away by the 'verse the ship inhabits. Space is very highly traveled, but mostly by private corporations, seeking to profit via off-world mining, colonizing, what have you. (This is not set in our solar system). But, this is mostly a soft-scifi bit of modeling practice. I'm going more for ships that look real-ish, then being absolutely sure to adhere to physics.
EDIT: found This defense of Space Fighters on tvtropes (5th post). While it doesn't totally make my ships plausible, it closes the difference.
I think there was a thread somewhere here of a USS Enterprise built with real-world tech. (saucer is a centrifuge, NERVA rockets in the nacelles). Same concept here.
it details all this stuff on orbits and on how to chase another spacecraft.
" to rise from earth by wayne lee"
1. a large craft which stays in space for weeks and can support it's pilot(very expensive)
2. a small craft that is launched with a pilot every time it is needed using a multi stage rocket(also very expensive)
3. a single stage to orbit fighter such as a smaller version of the shuttle but with weapons and the ability to land and take off like an aeroplane like the reaction engines skylon spaceplane( beyond current technology, expensive to built but cheaper to operate)
4. a drone which can be sent up into space and wait for when it is needed, this would be a small craft similar to option 2.( cheapest of the choice for the near future).
i think option 3 would be one of the most awesome machines ever built but for now option 4 is the best method.
Pilots would cycle through in much smaller, cheaper capsules.
And Drones would still need human in the loop. Machines can't think, and no sane commander will give a computer authority to make a kill decision.
the space fighter models i have made so far are very advanced equivalents of option 3, i might try some of the other methods at some stage.
And this is one of the reasons exactly why in my verse, drones are mostly restricted to planetary operations (if manned fighters aren't available) or something else, like sensor duty, etc. Machine are mostly designed to process assess and relay information. Any other activity, requires some intervention, which leads to unnecessary chains, when you could really just cut the middle man.
In the rocketpunk-ish 'verse this ship belongs to, Drones are not very popular. There's a ton of commercial traffic, so the odds of killing non-combats are high if one is not careful. Besides, I like manned spacecraft. Call me romantic.
Not really. I hit a dead-end (read lost interest) on those boats. Since these ships are built up out of parts, I can reuse more stuff, thus giving myself the illusion of working diligently.
Anyway, UPDATES!
I finished the Missile racks and Missiles. (There's a total of 12 racks around the central hull, and two missiles have been removed to show the clamps.)
The radiators have been tweaked slightly, so that when folded, they have enough clearance with the missiles.
I switched the gun-armament to 4 machine guns symmetrical to the x and y axises. No more off-center thrust when firing. (plus, ya know, more dakka.) I also added hand holds for EVAs, as well as wrangling the fighter into its can. (there are also ammo doors for replacing MG belts, but you can't see them here.)
Another render of the hand-rails. The rectangular hatches above the guns are doors to access ammo belt stowage. This does mean you need to go EVA to reload, but any way to reload from within the cramped cockpit just wouldn't work.
Finally, a beauty shot (fugly shot?) of this beast to update the tumbnail.
EDIT: fixed the final image.
It's more likely that machine/computer intelligence when it arrives at human equivalent intelligence will be the same as natural intelligence, with all that implies. Read Douglas Hofstadter. Not Issac Asimov. Intelligence and emotions are not programmed states, but arising results of complex information processing systems, be they brains or computers. If your AI has programmed emotional responses, it likely has no true self-awareness. At least, this is my take on it. For less intelligent autonomous drones, the military is smart enough to put in place safeguards, like not using a Windows OS. No matter your feelings on it, autonomous drones are in the future. Military robots are being R&Ded.
Imagine a Predator loaded with face recognition software . . . kill these people.
Human pilots also make mistakes. Recall every incident of friendly fire.
What Atomic Rockets is saying is that hot objects are really really really really really really easy to spot. Really. Something on the spacecraft is going to be hot. Against a 2 degree Kelvin background, yes, you stand out not only like a sore thumb, but like a sore thumb dipped in phosphorous, soaked in gasoline, and lit on fire. Your ships is a freaking infrared beacon, especially with those radiators pouring heat away from sensitive humans and electronics. Atomic Rockets is stressing that there is no stealth in space, not that you have some super FTL sensor system.
This guy doesn't understand the orbital environment. Orbital combat is to air combat what air combat is to surface combat. So long as gravity has an effect on your ship, all of your flight motion will follow a curve because your motion is a vector along at least two axis: gravity and thrust. It will be assumed that a bullet or other type of projectile will be traveling considerably faster than the firing craft, so that means the bullet will automatically assume a transfer orbit to a higher orbit and be only useful as a weapon if the target intersects that transfer orbit at the calculated moment of impact and cannot evade the firing craft--recalling that the firing craft cannot hide its heat signature to sneak up on the target. Missiles have the same problem. Both may have unlimited range but they can be easily defeated and evaded. Projectiles have a better chance of hitting their target at close ranges and when the projectiles are accelerated into a hyperbolic orbit, such as those used for escape velocity.
Let's see what the referenced material on the Soviet Almaz wikipedia entry has to say. James Oberg writes in Space Power Theory:
The second paragraph is key. I said this in a different way yesterday. Less than a kilometer is practically point blank range on orbit. There are sniper rifles with longer confirmed kills. Notice too how the cannons could not be fired crosswise to the spacecraft's direction of flight without risk of shooting itself--orbital mechanics at work.
Russianspaceweb also has this to say about the cannons:
In other words, orbital mechanics was used to ensure the bullets would deorbit and be destroyed.
They also state:
In its current design, it wouldn't have been a pleasant thing to use.
The author of the tvtropes comment makes the assumption that because the Russians did it, then that will be the weapon of choice for future orbital combat craft. However, these missions were conducted in the 70's, prior to small lasers (something that could fit on the Salyut, like a 2m gun) having anywhere near the power to cause critical failures of target spacecraft. Aircraft cannon were the only option available. Had the Soviets had a small turreted high powered laser, they would have fielded it.
What I infer from this information is that the Almaz was more space station (as the Russians call it) than spacecraft in that it did not have enough propellent to make a number of orbital changes (for combat maneuvering), and its cannon was defensive only, waiting until the enemy spacecraft got sufficiently close--docking maneuvers close--before it had a firing solution for guaranteed damage/destruction--but only in certain attitudes in reference to orbital motion so as to not endanger itself! This is the first time I have ever heard and further researched the Almaz/Salyut missions and I find it validates my own thoughts regarding orbital combat and the pros and cons of available weapons systems.
Things to remember are that projectiles have a smaller window of usability than lasers, which would have a longer range (even 2km is better than 1) and not be impeded by orbital mechanics, however a laser requires a higher power source than a kinetic gun. There is a place with guns, but the guy with the directed energy weapon wins.
In a totally realistic world, I agree my design would not be the most practical. I'll leave the uber-realistic stuff to you and Mikey-B, this is more making something cool for my own enjoyment.
I never claimed this to be utterly realistic. Think more neo-BSG (sans FTL and artificial Gravity) or Firefly than Apollo 13. While I do appreciate and value you input as to what is strictly feasible or not, I'm more willing to brush it to the corner in pursuit of something that feel cooler.
Also, are your missiles supposed to be re-entry capable? If not, then they don`t need cyllindrical outer shell. Basicly, I think they will be engines+propellant tank+warhead, strapped together to some simple frame.
The missiles aren't supposed to be used intra-atmo. (they can, but they shouldn't.) The cylidrical shell is just there to keep the poly-count down.
Cool. I wasn't really satisfied with the ordnance clamps as they are now. Thanks for the refs!