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How can a large fleets maintain formation in interstellar space?
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$begingroup$
Earth is under attack, the empire has gathered thousands of battleships each has a displacement of 500,000 metric tonnes and 20 motherships with a displacement of over 15 million metric tonnes now heading towards Earth as we speak. They are groups in a tight formation around a shield generator which put up a powerful force field the size of our moon orbit and can keep out asteroids and incoming missiles. I suppose traveling at subluminal speed across large distance of space, these fleets would be attracted to each other gravitationally and hence such a tight formation is disastrous. Is there any way to overcome this problem and still maintain a tight formation around the shield generator? The emperor has restricted the budget so there can only be 1 shield generator for the entire fleet, propulsion are antimatter-matter engine and ion drive (no FTL). The plan is to overwhelm Earth defences at one go, second wave commencing at later time is the finisher but no shield generator.
space-travel spaceships
asked 4 hours ago
user6760user6760
12.5k1470150
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Earth is under attack, the empire has gathered thousands of battleships each has a displacement of 500,000 metric tonnes and 20 motherships with a displacement of over 15 million metric tonnes now heading towards Earth as we speak. They are groups in a tight formation around a shield generator which put up a powerful force field the size of our moon orbit and can keep out asteroids and incoming missiles. I suppose traveling at subluminal speed across large distance of space, these fleets would be attracted to each other gravitationally and hence such a tight formation is disastrous. Is there any way to overcome this problem and still maintain a tight formation around the shield generator? The emperor has restricted the budget so there can only be 1 shield generator for the entire fleet, propulsion are antimatter-matter engine and ion drive (no FTL). The plan is to overwhelm Earth defences at one go, second wave commencing at later time is the finisher but no shield generator.
space-travel spaceships
asked 4 hours ago
user6760user6760
12.5k1470150
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Displacement makes sense for water ships. Since space is in a vacuum, what exactly is being displaced?
$endgroup$
– L.Dutch♦
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
@L.Dutch: actually nothing the empire still used that term but it is referring to the mass of the vessel.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Earth is under attack, the empire has gathered thousands of battleships each has a displacement of 500,000 metric tonnes and 20 motherships with a displacement of over 15 million metric tonnes now heading towards Earth as we speak. They are groups in a tight formation around a shield generator which put up a powerful force field the size of our moon orbit and can keep out asteroids and incoming missiles. I suppose traveling at subluminal speed across large distance of space, these fleets would be attracted to each other gravitationally and hence such a tight formation is disastrous. Is there any way to overcome this problem and still maintain a tight formation around the shield generator? The emperor has restricted the budget so there can only be 1 shield generator for the entire fleet, propulsion are antimatter-matter engine and ion drive (no FTL). The plan is to overwhelm Earth defences at one go, second wave commencing at later time is the finisher but no shield generator.
space-travel spaceships
asked 4 hours ago
user6760user6760
12.5k1470150
$endgroup$
Earth is under attack, the empire has gathered thousands of battleships each has a displacement of 500,000 metric tonnes and 20 motherships with a displacement of over 15 million metric tonnes now heading towards Earth as we speak. They are groups in a tight formation around a shield generator which put up a powerful force field the size of our moon orbit and can keep out asteroids and incoming missiles. I suppose traveling at subluminal speed across large distance of space, these fleets would be attracted to each other gravitationally and hence such a tight formation is disastrous. Is there any way to overcome this problem and still maintain a tight formation around the shield generator? The emperor has restricted the budget so there can only be 1 shield generator for the entire fleet, propulsion are antimatter-matter engine and ion drive (no FTL). The plan is to overwhelm Earth defences at one go, second wave commencing at later time is the finisher but no shield generator.
space-travel spaceships
space-travel spaceships
asked 4 hours ago
user6760user6760
12.5k1470150
asked 4 hours ago
user6760user6760
12.5k1470150
asked 4 hours ago
user6760user6760
12.5k1470150
asked 4 hours ago
user6760user6760
12.5k1470150
asked 4 hours ago
user6760user6760
12.5k1470150
12.5k1470150
$begingroup$
Displacement makes sense for water ships. Since space is in a vacuum, what exactly is being displaced?
$endgroup$
– L.Dutch♦
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
@L.Dutch: actually nothing the empire still used that term but it is referring to the mass of the vessel.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Displacement makes sense for water ships. Since space is in a vacuum, what exactly is being displaced?
$endgroup$
– L.Dutch♦
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
@L.Dutch: actually nothing the empire still used that term but it is referring to the mass of the vessel.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
Displacement makes sense for water ships. Since space is in a vacuum, what exactly is being displaced?
$endgroup$
– L.Dutch♦
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
Displacement makes sense for water ships. Since space is in a vacuum, what exactly is being displaced?
$endgroup$
– L.Dutch♦
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
@L.Dutch: actually nothing the empire still used that term but it is referring to the mass of the vessel.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
@L.Dutch: actually nothing the empire still used that term but it is referring to the mass of the vessel.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
$begingroup$
I don't see why a tight formation would necessarily be disasterous. Gravity is an incredibly weak force, so the attraction even massive vessels feel towards each other will be minimal- small, occasional corrections should be more than enough to correct for this drift.
I imagine that compared to gravity, matching the speed and direction of each ship with respect to each other accurately will be much more significant. Even then, for a high-tech fleet this shouldn't be a problem. The ships would probably use some sort of PID control linked to the engines of each to manage the distances between the ship in the fleet, and its nearest neighbours- much like how cruise control allows a car to match the speed of a car in front of a motorway, however in 3 dimensions instead of 1.
Alternatively, if there's some central command that knows the position of every ship in the fleet, the position of each ship could be monitored and micromanaged to ensure the correct formation is kept- however from a signals intelligence point of view, this requires all ships broadcasting their position which means the signals could potentially be intercepted.
answered 3 hours ago
JackJack
4614
New contributor
Jack is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Hi I was reading on how a heavy spacecraft can pull a planet killer(asteriod) gravitationally enough to derail it in it's collision course with Earth.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
If you mean derail the asteroid's collision with earth, I imagine that would be because if the asteroid is far away enough, tiny alterations to its trajectory would cause it to miss. The asteriod has no means of correcting its orbit which is why this could potentially work.
$endgroup$
– Jack
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
If you put those masses in the equation for gravitational force, you will see that the resulting force is negligible.
A 500,000 metric tonnes ship and a 15 million metric tonnes ship will attract each other with a force of 500 N at a distance of 1 km.
That gives $1 cdot 10^{-6} m/s^2$ acceleration to the lightest ship.
Not zero, but surely manageable.
answered 3 hours ago
L.Dutch♦L.Dutch
85.3k28201416
$endgroup$
add a comment |
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2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
$begingroup$
I don't see why a tight formation would necessarily be disasterous. Gravity is an incredibly weak force, so the attraction even massive vessels feel towards each other will be minimal- small, occasional corrections should be more than enough to correct for this drift.
I imagine that compared to gravity, matching the speed and direction of each ship with respect to each other accurately will be much more significant. Even then, for a high-tech fleet this shouldn't be a problem. The ships would probably use some sort of PID control linked to the engines of each to manage the distances between the ship in the fleet, and its nearest neighbours- much like how cruise control allows a car to match the speed of a car in front of a motorway, however in 3 dimensions instead of 1.
Alternatively, if there's some central command that knows the position of every ship in the fleet, the position of each ship could be monitored and micromanaged to ensure the correct formation is kept- however from a signals intelligence point of view, this requires all ships broadcasting their position which means the signals could potentially be intercepted.
answered 3 hours ago
JackJack
4614
New contributor
Jack is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Hi I was reading on how a heavy spacecraft can pull a planet killer(asteriod) gravitationally enough to derail it in it's collision course with Earth.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
If you mean derail the asteroid's collision with earth, I imagine that would be because if the asteroid is far away enough, tiny alterations to its trajectory would cause it to miss. The asteriod has no means of correcting its orbit which is why this could potentially work.
$endgroup$
– Jack
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I don't see why a tight formation would necessarily be disasterous. Gravity is an incredibly weak force, so the attraction even massive vessels feel towards each other will be minimal- small, occasional corrections should be more than enough to correct for this drift.
I imagine that compared to gravity, matching the speed and direction of each ship with respect to each other accurately will be much more significant. Even then, for a high-tech fleet this shouldn't be a problem. The ships would probably use some sort of PID control linked to the engines of each to manage the distances between the ship in the fleet, and its nearest neighbours- much like how cruise control allows a car to match the speed of a car in front of a motorway, however in 3 dimensions instead of 1.
Alternatively, if there's some central command that knows the position of every ship in the fleet, the position of each ship could be monitored and micromanaged to ensure the correct formation is kept- however from a signals intelligence point of view, this requires all ships broadcasting their position which means the signals could potentially be intercepted.
answered 3 hours ago
JackJack
4614
New contributor
Jack is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Hi I was reading on how a heavy spacecraft can pull a planet killer(asteriod) gravitationally enough to derail it in it's collision course with Earth.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
If you mean derail the asteroid's collision with earth, I imagine that would be because if the asteroid is far away enough, tiny alterations to its trajectory would cause it to miss. The asteriod has no means of correcting its orbit which is why this could potentially work.
$endgroup$
– Jack
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I don't see why a tight formation would necessarily be disasterous. Gravity is an incredibly weak force, so the attraction even massive vessels feel towards each other will be minimal- small, occasional corrections should be more than enough to correct for this drift.
I imagine that compared to gravity, matching the speed and direction of each ship with respect to each other accurately will be much more significant. Even then, for a high-tech fleet this shouldn't be a problem. The ships would probably use some sort of PID control linked to the engines of each to manage the distances between the ship in the fleet, and its nearest neighbours- much like how cruise control allows a car to match the speed of a car in front of a motorway, however in 3 dimensions instead of 1.
Alternatively, if there's some central command that knows the position of every ship in the fleet, the position of each ship could be monitored and micromanaged to ensure the correct formation is kept- however from a signals intelligence point of view, this requires all ships broadcasting their position which means the signals could potentially be intercepted.
answered 3 hours ago
JackJack
4614
New contributor
Jack is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
$endgroup$
I don't see why a tight formation would necessarily be disasterous. Gravity is an incredibly weak force, so the attraction even massive vessels feel towards each other will be minimal- small, occasional corrections should be more than enough to correct for this drift.
I imagine that compared to gravity, matching the speed and direction of each ship with respect to each other accurately will be much more significant. Even then, for a high-tech fleet this shouldn't be a problem. The ships would probably use some sort of PID control linked to the engines of each to manage the distances between the ship in the fleet, and its nearest neighbours- much like how cruise control allows a car to match the speed of a car in front of a motorway, however in 3 dimensions instead of 1.
Alternatively, if there's some central command that knows the position of every ship in the fleet, the position of each ship could be monitored and micromanaged to ensure the correct formation is kept- however from a signals intelligence point of view, this requires all ships broadcasting their position which means the signals could potentially be intercepted.
answered 3 hours ago
JackJack
4614
New contributor
Jack is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
answered 3 hours ago
JackJack
4614
New contributor
Jack is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
answered 3 hours ago
JackJack
4614
answered 3 hours ago
JackJack
4614
4614
New contributor
Jack is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
Jack is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Jack is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
$begingroup$
Hi I was reading on how a heavy spacecraft can pull a planet killer(asteriod) gravitationally enough to derail it in it's collision course with Earth.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
If you mean derail the asteroid's collision with earth, I imagine that would be because if the asteroid is far away enough, tiny alterations to its trajectory would cause it to miss. The asteriod has no means of correcting its orbit which is why this could potentially work.
$endgroup$
– Jack
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Hi I was reading on how a heavy spacecraft can pull a planet killer(asteriod) gravitationally enough to derail it in it's collision course with Earth.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
If you mean derail the asteroid's collision with earth, I imagine that would be because if the asteroid is far away enough, tiny alterations to its trajectory would cause it to miss. The asteriod has no means of correcting its orbit which is why this could potentially work.
$endgroup$
– Jack
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
Hi I was reading on how a heavy spacecraft can pull a planet killer(asteriod) gravitationally enough to derail it in it's collision course with Earth.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
Hi I was reading on how a heavy spacecraft can pull a planet killer(asteriod) gravitationally enough to derail it in it's collision course with Earth.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
If you mean derail the asteroid's collision with earth, I imagine that would be because if the asteroid is far away enough, tiny alterations to its trajectory would cause it to miss. The asteriod has no means of correcting its orbit which is why this could potentially work.
$endgroup$
– Jack
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
If you mean derail the asteroid's collision with earth, I imagine that would be because if the asteroid is far away enough, tiny alterations to its trajectory would cause it to miss. The asteriod has no means of correcting its orbit which is why this could potentially work.
$endgroup$
– Jack
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
If you put those masses in the equation for gravitational force, you will see that the resulting force is negligible.
A 500,000 metric tonnes ship and a 15 million metric tonnes ship will attract each other with a force of 500 N at a distance of 1 km.
That gives $1 cdot 10^{-6} m/s^2$ acceleration to the lightest ship.
Not zero, but surely manageable.
answered 3 hours ago
L.Dutch♦L.Dutch
85.3k28201416
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
If you put those masses in the equation for gravitational force, you will see that the resulting force is negligible.
A 500,000 metric tonnes ship and a 15 million metric tonnes ship will attract each other with a force of 500 N at a distance of 1 km.
That gives $1 cdot 10^{-6} m/s^2$ acceleration to the lightest ship.
Not zero, but surely manageable.
answered 3 hours ago
L.Dutch♦L.Dutch
85.3k28201416
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
If you put those masses in the equation for gravitational force, you will see that the resulting force is negligible.
A 500,000 metric tonnes ship and a 15 million metric tonnes ship will attract each other with a force of 500 N at a distance of 1 km.
That gives $1 cdot 10^{-6} m/s^2$ acceleration to the lightest ship.
Not zero, but surely manageable.
answered 3 hours ago
L.Dutch♦L.Dutch
85.3k28201416
$endgroup$
If you put those masses in the equation for gravitational force, you will see that the resulting force is negligible.
A 500,000 metric tonnes ship and a 15 million metric tonnes ship will attract each other with a force of 500 N at a distance of 1 km.
That gives $1 cdot 10^{-6} m/s^2$ acceleration to the lightest ship.
Not zero, but surely manageable.
answered 3 hours ago
L.Dutch♦L.Dutch
85.3k28201416
answered 3 hours ago
L.Dutch♦L.Dutch
85.3k28201416
answered 3 hours ago
L.Dutch♦L.Dutch
85.3k28201416
answered 3 hours ago
L.Dutch♦L.Dutch
85.3k28201416
85.3k28201416
add a comment |
add a comment |
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$begingroup$
Displacement makes sense for water ships. Since space is in a vacuum, what exactly is being displaced?
$endgroup$
– L.Dutch♦
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
@L.Dutch: actually nothing the empire still used that term but it is referring to the mass of the vessel.
$endgroup$
– user6760
3 hours ago