[Storm from the Shadows] Eridani??

External Since: Dec 02, 2006 Posts: 299

On Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:51:27 -0600, "Dwight E. Howell"
wrote:

>Brian McDonald wrote:
>> On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:56:13 -0800, Loren Pechtel
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I also don't think they have Manticore's tiny fusion reactors--no
>>> power for mantaining shielding for the pod's long fall in. Is
>>> everything going to work properly when called upon? I serously doubt
>>> it!
>>
>> even if they had them particle shielding is probably detectable.
>> would nicely account for why stealthing ships slug around at low
>> speeds most of the time.
>
>I would think that would have to be correct.
>
>However another poster long ago noted that anything traveling really
>fast would disturb the solar wind and create changes around itself that
>would show up.

hmm it'd be the interaction with the solar wind ie particles or bits
of particles bouncing off you that would be detectable. perhaps if
you had magnets or absorbtive materials on the skin of the pods to
just soak up the solar wind you'd get around that problem. i seem to
remember we did somethign similar to capture comet particulate not
long ago.

External Since: Aug 10, 2006 Posts: 428

On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:18:02 -0600, "Dwight E. Howell"
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> On Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:52:20 -0500, Don Sample
>> wrote:
>>
>>> In article ,
>>> "Dwight E. Howell" wrote:
>>>
>>>> Brian McDonald wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:25:19 -0500, Terry FitzSimons
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> So maybe the pods forward armor is heavily augmentated at the expense of
>>>>>> the other aspects. All it takes is one or more pieces of sand moving in a
>>>>>> different direction at a high enough speed to ram the pod in the side to
>>>>>> wreck the electronics and smash the last ditch self-destruct.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> With the smashed electronics, the wake up signal is never sent to the
>>>>>> on-pod missiles, so they stay in the cruise safe mode and never transfer
>>>>>> into the war-shot mode, much less the self destruct cycle.
>>>>> the problem with this is the assumption there is only the one bit of
>>>>> self destruct circuitry involved. the cost/weight of multiply
>>>>> redundant self destruct systems should be utterly negligible.
>>>> There should be more than one system that could set off the bomb but
>>>> they will have only one bomb and it will most likely be nuclear.
>>>> Anything else that would do more than scatter the parts would be bigger
>>>> than the pod.
>>> In the case of a missile pod, you've got half a dozen or more missiles,
>>> any one of which could act as the self destruct for the pod. Missiles
>>> have their warheads, and also their drive mechanisms. All but the
>>> latest generation of Manti missiles use what are essentially large
>>> capacitors, charged up with enough power to vaporize the missile, to
>>> power their wedges. Any significant damage to the missile is likely to
>>> cause the storage system to catastrophically fail.
>>
>> The capacitor isn't going to be charged for weeks of fall. It's got
>> to be powered up just before launch.
>
>You want to try that one again?
>
>I don't care when it's charged. They all have to be charged for weeks of
>fall just like the space mines in a minefield would be.
>
>Your suggestion computes about as much for these people as saying a new
>car battery will go dead if you don't start your car in a week would for us.

Capacitors bleed charge away, they don't hold it for a long period of
time. The long-term power storage has to be something else.