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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2194 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 5, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I presume you're talking about Hydrogen/Helium steamers that work through keeping hull temperatures below the noise limit for IR detectors, and potentially even at CMB levels?

In my own hard scifi novel, the K3 aliens have those, as well as far faster craft that manage to hide emissions via using neutrinos as their reaction mass in their drives, beaming them tightly and nigh-undetectably away from watching sensors, but that's a tier far above current speculative space craft (well, they're K3!).

Yes, reducing hull temperatures to background levels would be an essential component of minimizing IR signature, but this is something we do today on things like telescopes to avoid thermal distortions, its not even sci-fi tech. And highly expanded exhaust nozzles with cryogenic final exhaust temperatures are again already something that exists for simple efficiency reasons.

I think the "there is no stealth in space" meme comes from the fact that at least to public knowledge, no one has tried to build a stealthy spacecraft so there is no countervailing data to present against detector technology, wheres terrestrial stealth technologies (such as vs radar) has popped up almost as quickly as the detectors did.

Is your novel out? Im always looking for more good reading material.

I was referring to the directed neutrino emissions for heat dissipation and as reaction mass as the outright scifi part, the Steamers are just short of proof of concept!

If you want to take a look, here it is:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/65211/ex-nihilo-nihil-supernum-original-hard-scifi-with

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