Re: Real Space Combat Help:

Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:
> 
> Allan Goodall writes:
> @:) At 01:50 PM 4/10/97 -0400, you wrote:
> @:) >Black is the best color for a near perfect absorber of energy.
> @:)
> @:) Are you sure about that? Even black holes aren't perfect absorbers
> @:) of energy. They absorb a lot but give off x-rays.
> 
>   Well you're right about the black, that's why blackbody objects
> still radiate and all.  As far as the black holes are concerned I
> think you're wrong but I'm not absolutely sure.  Black holes give off
> so-called "Hawking radiation" which I think is lower energy than
> X-rays.  Real-life black holes generally have a lot of crud spiraling
> into them from nearby stars and the crud rubs up against itself and
> gets very hot and THAT emits X-rays.	I think that, to within a
> quantum theory, black holes are in fact perfect absorbers of energy.
> 
> @:) I think if you paint your ship black, you'll have to channel that
> @:) heat out somewhere.
> 
>   This is the real problem.  I think even channeling heat out the
> "back" of your ship (which requires knowing where your enemy is of
> course) is pretty tough because it's going to diffuse into a big cloud
> eventually.  I don't know how you could control it once it's out of
> your ship.  In Brin's Sundiver, they had some kind of thermo-electric
> gizmo that allowed them to convert heat into power and they used the
> power to fire up a laser which they shot out of the back of the ship.
> This would be a cool way of getting rid of waste heat but I don't
> think it's feasible now or in the near future.
> 
> -joachim

One trick is to have a high temperature superconductor layer.. then you
have no hotspots and your entire ship's surface is a radiator.

-- 
Barry Cadwgan ( BCADWGAN@FL.NET.AU )
"The end does not justify the means.  
 The end is the sum of the means,
 as the road travelled determines the destination." 
Valijon Starbringer (Hellflower Trilogy, Eluki bes Shahar)