Re: Blacker than Black

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One point here in this thread. Not so much about stealth, but detecting
an
object at all. How large are spaceships presumed to be, and how close
must
they get before the current technology of the time (or colony) can see
them
at all, much less resolve them with any detail? The sky is a vastly
enormous volume to be looking for an intruder speck in on a constant
basis.
And not every random rock (asteroid of small size) is likely to have
been
cataloged without a *tremendous* amount of work, in any given system
(then
there are always the oddballs that randomly appear).

On the flip side, how much energy output are ships doing when they are
thrusting in-system from wherever they jumped? Asteroids are whizzing
about
a mach speeds, but on a solar system scale, painfully slow crawls.
Certainly no intruding ship is going to try and take a year or three to
get
to where it wants to go.  ;-)

Mk

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 3:40 PM, Roger Burton West
<roger@firedrake.org>wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 03:21:51PM -0500, Tom B wrote:
>
> >3. Sensors may be subject to depth issues (I'm not sure if such
> >sensors instantly see everything at all depths equally well or need
to
> >scan varying depths meaning more scan passes to determine accurately
> >what might be thee). Space is 3-D and perhaps like the Mk I eyeball,
a
> >sensor has to focus on areas close, medium or far to get accuity.
>
> For a precise image, sure. But to say "hey, there's something in that
> direction, time to take a closer look" on the IR sensor, all you need
is
> a bit of directionality on your IR photodiode.
>
> Are you perhaps conflating detection with lock-on? When I talk about
> stealth, I'm thinking mostly about concealing the fact that there's a
> target there at all. That's really not doable in space. To use your Mk
I
> eyeball analogy, it's dark, everyone out there is covered in bright
> white LEDs, and there's nothing to hide behind.
>
> But throwing out multiple targets and confusing the systems that are
> pointing weapons at you? Much more plausible. You're still walking
> around covered in LEDs, but you can leave candles behind as you go.
>
> R
>
>
>