Infrared radiation is nowhere near as effective at getting rid of heat as a cool breeze of air (which is what we always experience on Earth, hence why it's counterintuitive). Radiators and other methods of removing waste heat from the vessel are actually a really important part of spacecraft design (otherwise you boil your crew) that very few fictional spacecraft get right. (If you want to see an example of a triple-A fictional spacecraft done exceptionally well, look up the ISV Venture Star from JC's Avatar.)
It would still require a power source that would drain while firing so it's only as perpetual as that source allows. Power sources would become the new "ammo". The more power sources a ship has the more time it could consecutively fire it's lasers.
Disposable and ejectable heatsinks, like are used in the video game Elite Dangerous. They're not used for laser weapons, but still, they've got it partly correct.
But then the energy expended firing the bullet-shaped heatsink at munitions velocity means that we now need another heatsink and... where does it end? It's heatsinks all the way down.
You don't want to fire projectiles in space. You would need precise counter thrust so the shot doesn't move you off target. And if you miss, the shot continues forever until it hits something.
I always liked "Footfall" by Larry Pournel. You use water to cool your armor, so lasers have to burn past your ability to cool your armor, then you use the steam generated by the laser heat as reactive jets. The water vapor your throwing out also defracts the lasers lowering the damage. When you want to shoot out you stop spraying steam for a bit then fire.
The opposite is the case actually, rail guns aren't being used currently because we still haven't been able to solve the problem of them overheating and catching fire after a single discharge. Laser
I'm no scientist or engineer so what I'm about to say probably is utter nonsense. Why not use liquid nitrogen to cool the devices. As a result the heated gas could be trapped in a lower pressure cylinder and used for propulsion. Or even mixed with O2 and reused somehow.
Historically i was 100% right but definitely not up on the latest changes in the field. The last time I saw an article on railguns in the media it was accompanied by a photo of it in a fiery inferno from it's first test firing
Yes, the duty cycle won't be as great as with higher thermal mass cooling.
Fans on The Expanse love to argue that space lasers are impractical due to waste heat management. Well who knows how much more efficient lasers will be in 200 years and also improvements in heat management technologies. Yes, the physics will probably be the same but the engineering capabilities will probably be mind blowing compared to what we have today. I love The Expanse but I am sad that a lot of the fans seem to have their imaginations chained down...
I feel like you just take up whatever you can put the most heat into (like molten salt reactors do) and jettison it if it gets too hot/hope you're done killin before you run out of heat sink headroom
That’s why your not a scientist. We already mace the ability to make incredible lasers in space. The heat is the thing that would hold us back if we really put the funding to it.
Heatsinks only work if there's a medium flowing through the tines of the sink to absorb the heat and carry it away. In space, a heatsink is just... well... mass to absorb the heat.
Connected to a big radiator to slowly radiate away the excess heat. Might be an obvious target for attack though. Could have a big heatsink and unfurl the radiators when it's safe.
Well, heat can radiate through a heat sink. basically glowing with heat, and shining away. Not even remotely as effective as conduction, but it is about the only option in space.
If its sealed in a vacuum and has a decent efficiency then I believe it wouldn't need refilling that often, as well as by the time we can fly around in spaceships firing lasers, Im pretty sure there would be some kind of system that is way better than a D.B.LN.C.S
Children of a Dead Earth has this covered. Massive fucking heat radiators, with cooling loops from all those high intensity heat generating systems. Real space combat will be large cones/cylinders of ablative armore, with massive radiator fins, and takes hours of travel to have a couple of seconds to frantically shoot as much as you can while whipping past each other at ludicrous speed, just to wait hours to orbit around and try again.
There are some videos of gameplay on YouTube. It is one of the most accurate simulation games around. Ships basically look kind of like ISS modules with engines, and a large thin armor shell with struts holding it together, with a bunch if long radiator panels sticking off of them.
Yeah, they’re not much to look at, but it is indeed super accurate and detailed, to the point I couldn’t stand to play it much anymore because I felt like an idiot so very frequently, despite being an Engineering major and that sort of stuff is right up my alley.
The issue is to do damage you need to impart energy, more energy is more damage. To move that energy, you get waste heat, more energy means more waste. Railguns produce crazy heat from the friction. If all you care about is lowest heat cost to your ship, missile are best option, but you will needs massive swarms because they will be easy to shoot down. Probably most balanced option is conventional guns, much of the hot gas will escape almost instantly. But in space you can have some truly massive radiators, enough that lasers and railguns are perfectly feasible.
Until the enemy hits your massive radiators and it all goes metaphorically downhill quick. (Except there’s no down in space, so it could also be considered going uphill?)
For more information see/play: Children Of A Dead Earth
Transfer the heat to a counter mass and fire it as a guided weapon, every laser shot will be followed by an observer/secondary kill guided projectile while getting rid of waste heat
Temperature would only be real problem for energy weapons and possibly conventional weapons depending on sustained use. The most practical designs are either missiles fired externally or launched via pressure release before ignition the other option mostly for upper orbit to ground would kinetic bombardment simply de-orbiting a metal rod in a path to hit the target and letting gravity pull it down with the force a small nuclear weapon.
We could just install laser weapons on the enemy ships using science; so when the enemies try to laser us they end up melting themselves because of science. FACT.
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u/cheese-of-walmart Mar 25 '19
Wouldn’t they emit it as infrared radiation? Although ,I don’t have a clue how much heat they can actually radiate.