Re:The Physics of Space War: How Orbital Dynamics Constrain ...
by gruez on Thursday October 22, 2020 @09:08AM
(#24857585)
There's other problems. Even if you contain your heat or vent it from a different side, you still need to produce hot exhaust to accelerate. If you don't, your position can be inferred from your last known position/acceleration.
This and other points are discussed here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/StealthInSpa...
Re:The Physics of Space War: How Orbital Dynamics Constrain ...
by lumost on Thursday October 22, 2020 @03:27PM
(#24862336)
In the realm of hard sci-fi the detectability of an exhaust plume depends on a variety of factors including the ionization, temperature, shape, velocity, and angle of the plume wrt adversary, and the local medium.
There are a number of methods one could theoretically use to minimize these factors. As an example, imagine the detectability of a small angle coherent neutron beam or the IR exhaust of a black hole starship.
The James Webb space telescope cools it's observing side instruments to 10s of degrees above absolute zero, using active cooling. I wonder how hard it would be to detect from it's cool side, at a space combat distance?
Asteroids in the near solar system are normally 100-150 kelvin, apparently, and don't seem trivial to spot.
All that still seems to allow room for stealth in a hard sci-fi setting.