#ROCKETPUNK MANIFESTO SPACE WARFARE MOVIE#

At the lower energies, high Z metals (like lead and tungsten) work best, while at higher energies all mass tends to shield about the same. What type of shielding to use for XRay and gamma ray radiation depends upon its frequency. Neutron shielding is best (defined as the least amount of shield mass required to protect against it) composed of low mass atoms (e.g. Which radiation flux is more dangerous to the crew depends upon factors like what sort of shielding is available and where the crew is located in the ship. This shows that for a standard (not neutron enhanced) bomb, XRay radiation is about 10,000x more damaging than neutrons at any given distance from the bomb. In an atmosphere, almost all of the high frequency photon energy gets converted into the thermal flash and atmospheric blast mentioned below.įor a conventional nuclear weapon (i.e., NOT a neutron bomb), the In space, with no atmosphere, the high frequency light (primarily XRay and Gamma Ray) flies off without interference and this becomes one of the primary danger mechanisms of the nuclear detonation. On the ground, nuclear weapons damage things through 3 mechanisms: Radiationīecause the atmosphere is opaque to high frequency light (hard UV, XRay, & Gamma Ray), the primary worrisome radiation is neutrons when detonated in the atmosphere (also see thermal flash below). I recommend reading this entire section of the Atomic Rockets website: Nukes in Space

Nuclear weapons would be highly effective in space.īut their effects are somewhat different than they are on the ground.

Would Arianaland and the Selenation be quick to go to war with one another? Would we see something similar to the perpetual battles between Britain and France in the 18th and 19th centuries, only played out in space instead of at sea? Would nuclear deterrence only be a passing phenomenon, from back when humanity was jammed together on the same planet? Since this might be seen as too broad, let’s say that the question is simply would large-scale territorial war be conceivable in this scenario? There is substantial communication infrastructure, and the internet exists, but it’s somewhat balkanized due to the fact that it takes up to an hour for signals to make the jump between “clusters”.

Travel is still slow, and moving between stations within each country takes months-it’s common, especially among members of the military, but it’s considered a “big voyage” (like interstate travel in the US in the 19th century).

#ROCKETPUNK MANIFESTO SPACE WARFARE MOVIE#

Their ships are about at the same level of what could be built in the movie Interstellar, only each country has more resources to build a greater quantity of them. The technology level is not unrecognizable from what we have today. There are countless smaller powers across the solar system, most of which have a small territory carved out in one corner or another. Neither country is tied to Earth, which is ruled by a third country Lovatoland and is regarded as something of a backwater. The “rockies” aren’t trapped on the surface per se they regard moving into space as about as big a deal as moving house from the city to the suburbs. They have ground colonies on large moons and asteroids, but there is a roughly comparable distribution between the “rock-bound” population and the space population. They have no strictly-defined borders, but each is concentrated in one broad area of the solar system, and have a region of space that they vaguely regard as their “territory”.

They are both fierce rivals, and maintain hundreds of space stations scattered across the solar system. Would large-scale, territorial war again become common in this scenario? Would nuclear weapons fail to pose an effective MAD deterrent effect?įor the sake of a specific scenario to work with, consider two space powers, The Selenation, and Arianaland. Humans live scattered across the solar system, and have nations somewhat independent of Earth. But what would happen if humanity progressed just enough to the point where countries expanded into space? Now powerful countries have fleets of spaceships (not fantastically advanced no faster than light travel, no freak handwavium weapons just what we might conceivably have within a century or so). On Earth, nuclear weapons can wreak enormous damage to a country and for that reason, large-scale wars between nuclear powers don’t happen.

Rocketpunk manifesto space warfare