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Post by gedzilla on Sept 7, 2018 13:49:53 GMT
I though of trying to make a 1985 spacecraft (a thought experiment about what would happen if the space race continued rising in intensity past 1969), for both the USA and the USSR
Do you guys know what materials, and fuels, and technologies, existed in 1980-1985 ?
Also, Challenge yourself to create a realistic 1980s era Spacecraft, for both the USA and USSR
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ghgh
Full Member
Still trying to make kinetics work.
Posts: 136
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Post by ghgh on Sept 7, 2018 15:04:21 GMT
I think there's already a cold war technology challenge. That said, I'm pretty sure NTR's were only in prototypes and tested on the ground (though to be fair they still to date have not been used in any craft) so NTR's would be X'd out of the experiment  . Railguns would be gone, same with coilguns, also the missles would be fairly accurate in their current stage. Heat seekers account for 90% of aircraft casualties for the USAF according to Wikipedia. Heat seekers would be dominant as Radar-guided can be easily fooled with chaff. Lasers would be low power low efficiency (sorry apophys). For fuels, Saturn 5 used a hydrogen-oxygen reaction for a combustion rocket for most of its fuel. The first stage was an RP1-Oxygen reaction. |
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Post by gedzilla on Sept 7, 2018 15:08:00 GMT
I think there's already a cold war technology challenge. That said, I'm pretty sure NTR's were only in prototypes and tested on the ground (though to be fair they still to date have not been used in any craft) so NTR's would be X'd out of the experiment . Railguns would be gone, same with coilguns, also the missles would be fairly accurate in their current stage. Heat seekers account for 90% of aircraft casualties for the USAF according to Wikipedia. Heat seekers would be dominant as Radar-guided can be easily fooled with chaff. Lasers would be low power low efficiency (sorry apophys). For fuels, Saturn 5 used a hydrogen-oxygen reaction for a combustion rocket for most of its fuel. The first stage was an RP1-Oxygen reaction. i cant find that thread :-( |
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Post by Rocket Witch on Sept 7, 2018 16:51:13 GMT
If the space race progressed to military action you could very well see NTRs in use by 1975, let alone 1985. War gives R&D a big kick and unfinished technologies are put into production. Tanks for example were useless in most of their first deployments, but deployed they were. Cold War NTR spaceships would likely have a number of problems and accidents, but could certainly exist with the losses deemed acceptable. Even the near future ships in unrestricted CDE gameplay are essentially the stringbag triplanes of the space era. Most of the technology that enables the simulation is already contemporary with the Cold War, when its development reached a peak. I think railguns would be the only off-limits module (coilguns are much easier due to no friction, and working examples go back to the 20s I think). Most limitations would be on size and efficiency of modules, and the available materials. Restricted materials would include spider silk, UHMWPE fiber, microlattice, aerogels... and not really much else. It's a small list really. Although losing graphogel is a relatively big hit, it really just makes guns a bit heavier and the ships a bit bigger to move them around. But I think I understand what is meant by the idea of a Cold War spaceship: Something with a crew of 12, hypergolic RCS jets poking out at every angle, a single 5" gun supported by a handful of 25-57mm cannons, and a dozen aerozine-50 propelled missiles the size of naval torpedoes, all in a package designed to go no further than Luna's far side. For this you don't look at the sum of available technology at the time, but what was actually developed by each respective nation and within their scopes of expertise. So you're mainly looking at designing things like a NERVA II replica and from that imagining how a NERVA III might look; and keeping the liquid metal reactors to the Soviet ships. A good 'chassis' to build a USSF (US Space Force?) ship from might be the NSFD shuttle: spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-last-days-of-nuclear-shuttle-1971.html |
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. Railguns would be gone, same with coilguns, also the missles would be fairly accurate in their current stage. Heat seekers account for 90% of aircraft casualties for the USAF according to Wikipedia. Heat seekers would be dominant as Radar-guided can be easily fooled with chaff. Lasers would be low power low efficiency (sorry apophys). For fuels, Saturn 5 used a hydrogen-oxygen reaction for a combustion rocket for most of its fuel. The first stage was an RP1-Oxygen reaction.
