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Author Topic: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"  (Read 7221 times)

Nikov

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #75 on: July 25, 2010, 07:30:44 pm »

Sign on as a crewman for a tramp deutrium freighter with your partners in crime, smuggle on board some guns, break your cover when the ship's out in the great black beyond, burn for a new course to some hide, sell the cargo to the black market, profit.
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Nilocy

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #76 on: July 25, 2010, 09:42:27 pm »

Sign on as a crewman for a tramp deutrium freighter with your partners in crime, smuggle on board some guns, break your cover when the ship's out in the great black beyond, burn for a new course to some hide, sell the cargo to the black market, profit.

Hmm, would this be your first time doing this? Cause you might be nervous and cock up. And if you've done it before you'll have been flagged by Space Cops, who using their super psychic powers will arrest and try you for the crime you just thought of right there.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #77 on: July 25, 2010, 09:48:58 pm »

Sign on as a crewman for a tramp deutrium freighter with your partners in crime, smuggle on board some guns, break your cover when the ship's out in the great black beyond, burn for a new course to some hide, sell the cargo to the black market, profit.

Hmm, would this be your first time doing this? Cause you might be nervous and cock up. And if you've done it before you'll have been flagged by Space Cops, who using their super psychic powers will arrest and try you for the crime you just thought of right there.

Careful! If your ship's life support software is pirated or the license runs out, they'll confiscate it on the spot.
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x2yzh9

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #78 on: July 26, 2010, 12:59:15 am »

Oh no, you can't power the entire planet with one fusion reactor. You'd need much more than that-Fusion Reactors only produce 4 times the amount of power that fission ones do.

DJ

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #79 on: July 26, 2010, 11:21:45 am »

Space piracy could be possible with the right kind of target ships. Namely, a freighter that consists of engines, crew compartments and a big frame for attaching containers. The actual cargo would be in containers which may or may not be pressurized, depending on their contents. It makes sense, because attaching and detaching whole containers is a lot more time efficient than loading and unloading built-in cargo holds. Anyway, the pirates could hide behind a rock or something until a freighter gets in range of their weapons, and then hail the ship and tell the crew they'll blow them up unless they jettison their cargo. Since this just means they'll detach the containers, the cargo won't be damaged. As for a pirate hideout, Kuiper belt is a huuuuuge place and there's no way anyone could inspect all the largish asteroids within a human lifetime.
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Soadreqm

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #80 on: July 26, 2010, 12:12:36 pm »

As for a pirate hideout, Kuiper belt is a huuuuuge place and there's no way anyone could inspect all the largish asteroids within a human lifetime.
You don't really have to do much to "inspect" an asteroid for human activity. Just point a telescope towards it, and see how much it's radiating. Or point a telescope towards the pirate ship, and follow it home. There is no stealth in space.
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Nikov

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #81 on: July 26, 2010, 05:26:55 pm »

As for a pirate hideout, Kuiper belt is a huuuuuge place and there's no way anyone could inspect all the largish asteroids within a human lifetime.
You don't really have to do much to "inspect" an asteroid for human activity. Just point a telescope towards it, and see how much it's radiating. Or point a telescope towards the pirate ship, and follow it home. There is no stealth in space.

Here we go. Hold on to your butts.

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Dwarf

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #82 on: July 26, 2010, 05:30:21 pm »

Pretty much any spacecraft stands out like a blowtorch in the cold, cold depths of space.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #83 on: July 26, 2010, 08:13:51 pm »

Pretty much any spacecraft stands out like a blowtorch in the cold, cold depths of space.

Ahem.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2010, 08:56:38 pm by MetalSlimeHunt »
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #84 on: July 26, 2010, 08:50:10 pm »

Pretty much any spacecraft stands out like a blowtorch in the cold, cold depths of space.

[urlhttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceIsCold]Ahem.[/url]
fail
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Bauglir

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #85 on: July 26, 2010, 10:58:09 pm »

-snip-
« Last Edit: May 04, 2015, 11:05:01 pm by Bauglir »
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SmileyMan

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #86 on: July 27, 2010, 02:12:58 am »

Pretty much any spacecraft stands out like a blowtorch in the cold, cold depths of space.
If you know where it is, and know what it's doing.  Even on solar scales, spacecraft are tiny, so your IR telescope will need to have very very high resolution, which means a small field of view.  Go behind a planet and then maneuver - bye bye!
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Dwarf

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Quote from: Akura
Now, if we could only mod Giant War Eagles to carry crossbows, we could do strafing runs on the elves who sold the eagles to us in the first place.

Soadreqm

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #88 on: July 27, 2010, 05:02:58 am »

Pretty much any spacecraft stands out like a blowtorch in the cold, cold depths of space.
If you know where it is, and know what it's doing.  Even on solar scales, spacecraft are tiny, so your IR telescope will need to have very very high resolution, which means a small field of view.  Go behind a planet and then maneuver - bye bye!
Behind a planet? Do you have any idea how few and far between they are? And if we have interplanetary travel, the odds are there are observatories on more than one spot in space. Good luck even finding a planet with nothing in orbit. And if you get a sudden distress call from a freighter, followed by loss of communications, you do know where the spacecraft is and what it's doing.

Also, I don't find it implausible that the future will, along with trivially easy space travel, hold IR telescopes powerful enough to map the whole sky in a reasonable amount of time. It'd take a while if you only had Hubble to play with, but with current technology, it also takes days to make the tiny hop between Earth and Moon.
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Nikov

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Re: Space exploration: Private corporations first, or "Space Navies"
« Reply #89 on: July 27, 2010, 05:31:38 am »

I told you to hold onto your butts, but did you listen to me? Oh no. You just gone done started talking about how there is or isn't stealth in space. Y'all shoulda shut up and sat down, but now I reckon y'all gonna start a flamewar.
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