The Elusive Space Pirate: Hide in the fridge from the cops, defeat the droid war and spit Sauron in the eye
The article was written under the vivid impression of the post “Piracy in Space - Insidious Delta-V and Hydrogen Stealth-Steamboats - Part 1” and is an alternative view of the universe presented. We will often refer to what is written in it and write so that there is no need to read it.
Purpose : to convince you that piracy in space is inevitable, elusive and eternal. We will look at an incomplete list of ways to rob and how a pirate will deal with threats.
This article will dispel a couple of myths and superficially studied engineering solutions that facilitate the life of a pirate.
So, you have not caught up with the goal, the Eye has seen you, and the lawyers are already harnessed the horses for your soul.
Did you win or did not go according to plan? It's time to get away.
Purpose : to convince you that piracy in space is inevitable, elusive and eternal. We will look at an incomplete list of ways to rob and how a pirate will deal with threats.
This article will dispel a couple of myths and superficially studied engineering solutions that facilitate the life of a pirate.
Has come
Cunning Delta V
The treacherous delta V is so insidious that it has even circled the author’s finger!
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From the words of the author it is clear that:
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From the words of the author it is clear that:
- The treacherous delta V (also known as dV) is a quantity characterizing the amount of increase or decrease in the velocity value. What is clear, but not quite
- Reserve (aka reserve) dV not dV
- Acceleration dV not dV and not stock dV
- In most cases, pirate ships must have a dV margin greater than that of the target.
- For each meter / second acceleration of the target, pirates will need 1 m / s for acceleration and another 1 m / s for braking to attack
- Pirates need more than double dV than any target they are trying to capture.
- To catch the target at a speed of 20 km / s, the pirate must accelerate to this speed, use the reserve dV at 25 km / s, and then perform a braking with a pulse of 45 km / s to a full stop
What is wrong with the treacherous delta V?
To understand the mechanics of convergence, let's talk about Newtonian mechanics in a uniform space.
From this we conclude that most transport ships consume more fuel and they always have less acceleration than the pirates.
Let us simulate several variants of the initial parameters of characteristics in order to understand the mechanics of rendezvous with the distance between the ships at 50 m:
As you can see, you do not need 2 times more fuel to dock with the ship. There is also no need for 2 times more acceleration and without a magic dV you can cope - it is enough just to exceed the target in acceleration, and the rest is time.
Characteristics of interest
- Target speed relative to star and pirate speed (Vs)
- Approach speed (v)
- Maximum target acceleration and pirate (a)
- The mass of the target and the mass of the pirate ship (m)
- Impulse target and pirate impulse (p)
- The distance between the target and the ship at the start of the maneuvers (S)
- Supply of fuel to the target and fuel supply of the pirate (f)
- Fuel consumption of target and pirate (c)
Explanations
- To catch up with the goal, you need S = 0
- To stay motionless relative to each other (to dock without risks and damage), you need v = 0
- The mass of the target and the pirate ship, as well as the impulses of the target and the pirate, interest us only to find the accelerations of the target and the pirate by the formula: p = m * v, then v = p / m. From this formula it can be seen that the speed of the ship is the smaller, the greater the mass with a constant total impulse of the engines. This means that a heavy transport ship needs more fuel in order to pick up the same speed, while it needs a more powerful total impulse from all engines in order to get the same acceleration for a unit of time.
From this we conclude that most transport ships consume more fuel and they always have less acceleration than the pirates.
Let us simulate several variants of the initial parameters of characteristics in order to understand the mechanics of rendezvous with the distance between the ships at 50 m:
Target: [a = 10 m / s * c, f = 200 kg, c = 40 kg / s], pirate: [a = 11 m / s * c, f = 100 kg, c = 20 kg / s]
- The goal runs away at full speed, the pirate is catching up. During the course they take 10 m / s * s, the pirate has 1 m / s * s for acceleration - he gives a short pulse for 1 second, as a result of which their approach speed (v) becomes 1 m / s
- For 5 seconds, the target goes at full speed and spends all 200 kg of fuel, a pirate for 10/11 moves, holding an acceleration equal to the acceleration of the target, spends (10/11) * 20 * 4 + 20 = ~ 93 kg of fuel
- The pirate extinguishes the approach speed of 1 m / s with a pulse of 1/11 of the engine's power, burning another 2 kg and he has 5 kg of fuel left. Ships docked without a scratch
Target: [a = 10 m / s * c, f = 100 kg, c = 10 kg / s], pirate: [a = 11 m / s * c, f = 100 kg, c = 10 kg / s]
- The goal runs away at full speed, the pirate is catching up. During the course they take 10 m / s * s, the pirate has 1 m / s * s for acceleration - he gives a short pulse for 1 second, as a result of which their approach speed (v) becomes 1 m / s
- For 10 seconds, the target burns all the fuel, the pirate on the power of 91% of the course burns 92 fuels. Turns off the engine and is still moving closer to 1 m / s.
- At about 50 seconds of the flight, the ships are compared, the pirate gives acceleration in the opposite direction from the approach (-900 grams of fuel). Ships dock without a single scratch
Target: [a = 20 m / s * c, f = 1000 kg, c = 1 kg / s], pirate: [a = 22 m / s * c, f = 50 kg, c = 1 kg / s]
- The goal runs away at full speed, the pirate is catching up. During the course they take 20 m / s * s, the pirate has 2 m / s * s for acceleration - he gives a short pulse for 1 second, as a result of which their approach speed (v) becomes 2 m / s
- For 25 seconds of full speed, the target burns 25 kg of fuel, leaving 976 kg of fuel. The pirate burns 1 kg of fuel in the first move, and for the remaining 24 seconds there is still (20/22) * 1 * 24 = 22 kg of fuel, 27 kg remains. Ships are compared
- The pirate gives an impulse equal to 2/22 of the engine's power, burning another 100 grams of fuel, quenching the approach speed of 2 m / s - more than 27 kg of fuel remain. Dock without a single scratch
As you can see, you do not need 2 times more fuel to dock with the ship. There is also no need for 2 times more acceleration and without a magic dV you can cope - it is enough just to exceed the target in acceleration, and the rest is time.
Had seen
Kilometer Stealth Asteroids
In the Chelyabinsk region, on February 15, 2013, a meteoroid fell.
Despite the statements of the Russian authorities that they were aware of the approaching meteoroid, this is hard to believe: they did not report either its working name or the trajectory, and only after the fall there was a stir in the special services with the introduction of a state of emergency.
The astronomers of Switzerland, Colombia, Ukraine and other countries tried to recreate its trajectory only from the recordings of video cameras - a meteoroid with a diameter of 20 meters, presumably, was invisible to ground-based and orbital telescopes.
On this occasion, Neil Degrass Tyson spoke on CNN USA and spoke about another asteroid:
From his conversation with the leader it is well understood not only powerlessness in eliminating such a threat, but also powerlessness in the seemingly trivial task of calculating the trajectory of huge objects the size of “half a football field”.
After analyzing data from 3 ground observatories, which are able to find up to 276 near-earth objects, as researchers at the Cornell University website (New York) report, within a year each of them found less than 30%. Moreover, 50% of the detected objects have absolute magnitudes (absolute magnitude, i.e. luminosity) of more than 25, which corresponds to objects with an approximate diameter of less than 30 meters.
To understand, the Appolo group asteroids alone (approximately 54% of the total number of potentially open near-Earth objects) are about 10,000.
Those. two observatories for the year saw less than 1% of already known bodies .
According to Detlef Koschny , the head of the near-earth objects department in the ESA Space Situational Awareness Department, the total number of near-earth objects with a diameter of 100 to 1000 meters can reach up to 430,000 .
Despite the statements of the Russian authorities that they were aware of the approaching meteoroid, this is hard to believe: they did not report either its working name or the trajectory, and only after the fall there was a stir in the special services with the introduction of a state of emergency.
The astronomers of Switzerland, Colombia, Ukraine and other countries tried to recreate its trajectory only from the recordings of video cameras - a meteoroid with a diameter of 20 meters, presumably, was invisible to ground-based and orbital telescopes.
On this occasion, Neil Degrass Tyson spoke on CNN USA and spoke about another asteroid:
Later that day, an asteroid came close to Earth. We followed him for about a year. Based on the laws of physics and orbital trajectories, you can accurately calculate where he will fly. And what is interesting: he not only flew between the Earth and the Moon, he not only flew here - we tracked many such celestial bodies.
But he entered our mastered outer space, passed closer to our planet than our orbital communication satellites. And it needs to be noted, because that asteroid was half the size of a football field. And the one that exploded over Russia is about three times smaller than it. And we are not able to protect the Earth from such small objects.
Original news inoTV.
From his conversation with the leader it is well understood not only powerlessness in eliminating such a threat, but also powerlessness in the seemingly trivial task of calculating the trajectory of huge objects the size of “half a football field”.
After analyzing data from 3 ground observatories, which are able to find up to 276 near-earth objects, as researchers at the Cornell University website (New York) report, within a year each of them found less than 30%. Moreover, 50% of the detected objects have absolute magnitudes (absolute magnitude, i.e. luminosity) of more than 25, which corresponds to objects with an approximate diameter of less than 30 meters.
To understand, the Appolo group asteroids alone (approximately 54% of the total number of potentially open near-Earth objects) are about 10,000.
Those. two observatories for the year saw less than 1% of already known bodies .
According to Detlef Koschny , the head of the near-earth objects department in the ESA Space Situational Awareness Department, the total number of near-earth objects with a diameter of 100 to 1000 meters can reach up to 430,000 .
Eye of Sauron
The author of the article, which inspired me to this post, claimed a world in which a certain system of satellites would be so all-seeing that it would record all objects in the solar system, up to space debris with a diameter of at least 1 centimeter.
Not only records, but will track the trajectory of each grain of sand in real time and at the slightest deviation from the course to sound the alarm and raise land rats in a fighting stance.
I will not say that such a system is impossible. On the contrary, we will look at how to do it.
Newtonian astromechanics is a discrete system of two points with arbitrary masses. I will not go into the subtleties of calculation by successive approximation, I can only say that on modern computers in real time this is a very easy task.
Why then did the astronomers of Neal Degrass fail to correctly calculate the trajectory?
This system is designed for quick rough calculation of the position of 2 bodies with mutual attraction.
But in order to calculate the position of 3 bodies, it will be necessary per unit of time, frame by frame, to draw each body to each body.
For 2 bodies, it is necessary to calculate attraction 2 times, for 3 bodies - 6 times, for 4 bodies - 12 times.
Per unit of time it is necessary to complete (N-1) * N gravitations, where N is the number of bodies in the system.
If there were only 10,000 objects in our system, we would have to do 99,990,000 calculations per frame - and this is on condition that we have Newtonian space! And our space can be distorted, despite the fact that we do not take into account gravitational tides, the solar wind, the shape of asteroids, luminosity, and so on.
For 1,000,000 dead objects, 1,000,000,000,000 operations need to be performed per frame. And the smaller the unit of time, the more accurate the result.
It should be borne in mind that you can hardly guess how to parallelize these calculations - you need to produce them sequentially, using the results of previous calculations!
According to the author, all this is to protect the ships from debris that you can hardly meet. I believe that it is cheaper to hang sensors and armor on ships in order to avoid being hit.
But the Eye of Sauron is there, and it works: several satellites revolve around the sun and burn every centimeter of the solar system, calculating every movement of the screw with incredibly powerful brains.
Not only records, but will track the trajectory of each grain of sand in real time and at the slightest deviation from the course to sound the alarm and raise land rats in a fighting stance.
I will not say that such a system is impossible. On the contrary, we will look at how to do it.
A little about the mechanics of celestial bodies
Newtonian astromechanics is a discrete system of two points with arbitrary masses. I will not go into the subtleties of calculation by successive approximation, I can only say that on modern computers in real time this is a very easy task.
Why then did the astronomers of Neal Degrass fail to correctly calculate the trajectory?
This system is designed for quick rough calculation of the position of 2 bodies with mutual attraction.
But in order to calculate the position of 3 bodies, it will be necessary per unit of time, frame by frame, to draw each body to each body.
For 2 bodies, it is necessary to calculate attraction 2 times, for 3 bodies - 6 times, for 4 bodies - 12 times.
Per unit of time it is necessary to complete (N-1) * N gravitations, where N is the number of bodies in the system.
If there were only 10,000 objects in our system, we would have to do 99,990,000 calculations per frame - and this is on condition that we have Newtonian space! And our space can be distorted, despite the fact that we do not take into account gravitational tides, the solar wind, the shape of asteroids, luminosity, and so on.
For 1,000,000 dead objects, 1,000,000,000,000 operations need to be performed per frame. And the smaller the unit of time, the more accurate the result.
It should be borne in mind that you can hardly guess how to parallelize these calculations - you need to produce them sequentially, using the results of previous calculations!
According to the author, all this is to protect the ships from debris that you can hardly meet. I believe that it is cheaper to hang sensors and armor on ships in order to avoid being hit.
But the Eye of Sauron is there, and it works: several satellites revolve around the sun and burn every centimeter of the solar system, calculating every movement of the screw with incredibly powerful brains.
Hide in the fridge
Immediately, the author offers us an interesting solution: a black anti-reflective coating, refrigeration systems with forced surface cooling and engines: from low-temperature hydrogen to an accelerator mass.
I choose the standard high-temperature engine and shunting any.
How to get in the refrigerator on the trajectory of freight routes, if the Eye of Sauron sees a thermal trace from the jet of gas?
We will gain greater speed at the beginning of the path (pericenter or apocenter), then dive into the shadow of celestial bodies, enter stealth mode, or if not, dive into stealth at any remote point and use shunting engines as we move, only to change the trajectory , going to the right.
The structure of shunting engines can be different:
And an excess of temperatures by means of forced gas cooling or heating of the radiator and radiant heat exchange should be sent directionally out of the system.
If necessary, you can simulate the light of the stars on the surface of the apparatus, directing it towards the famous observatories.
I choose the standard high-temperature engine and shunting any.
How to get in the refrigerator on the trajectory of freight routes, if the Eye of Sauron sees a thermal trace from the jet of gas?
We will gain greater speed at the beginning of the path (pericenter or apocenter), then dive into the shadow of celestial bodies, enter stealth mode, or if not, dive into stealth at any remote point and use shunting engines as we move, only to change the trajectory , going to the right.
The structure of shunting engines can be different:
- Hydrogen can be used by releasing a cooled stream.
- High-temperature can be reduced in size and jet stream in small portions, separating them by time (like a jellyfish).
- Use mass cooled bullets with a diameter of less than 1 cm in the mass accelerator.
And an excess of temperatures by means of forced gas cooling or heating of the radiator and radiant heat exchange should be sent directionally out of the system.
If necessary, you can simulate the light of the stars on the surface of the apparatus, directing it towards the famous observatories.
Won
So, you have not caught up with the goal, the Eye has seen you, and the lawyers are already harnessed the horses for your soul.
But you can still win
To pirate without catching a goal:
Since the main supply routes will be known, there is no difficulty in setting up an ambush. A high mass of ships with low maneuverability will make them vulnerable to various types of attacks.
- Set on the trajectory or throw in the direction of the flight path of the target mines remote triggering with shrapnel and demand cargo, bitcoins, ship or other.
- Threatening to shoot in the direction of the ship, being on the course of the ship.
- Damage the engine.
- Come up with yourself.
Since the main supply routes will be known, there is no difficulty in setting up an ambush. A high mass of ships with low maneuverability will make them vulnerable to various types of attacks.
If the lawyers fly to you, let them fly
It will take a long time before that. You take the ship - it will be more valuable than the load - and throw away the load in the direction of the cargo ship's movement - there will be a surprise for the cops when they meet with their crazy acceleration shrapnel from the goods.
The larger the cloud of shrapnel, the harder it is for them to dodge, and if they do not lose their ardor, they will still have to catch up with the speed of shrapnel — when the cloud approaches, it will slow them down if they do not kill them.
In the meantime, you can drag off the ship (think how to hide it), or steal all the equipment, part of the fuel, and send the ship at full speed to the base of the cops - let them deal with it, not with you.
The larger the cloud of shrapnel, the harder it is for them to dodge, and if they do not lose their ardor, they will still have to catch up with the speed of shrapnel — when the cloud approaches, it will slow them down if they do not kill them.
In the meantime, you can drag off the ship (think how to hide it), or steal all the equipment, part of the fuel, and send the ship at full speed to the base of the cops - let them deal with it, not with you.
Dropping feces
Did you win or did not go according to plan? It's time to get away.
Spit Sauron in the eye
Take a “smoke bomb” or a bunch of sparkles with you and spray them around, or blow a huge “balloon” around the ship, and then start to spit out your inflated balloon copies in all directions and pretend to be a balloon - let the traps fly in all directions, imitating the maneuverability and weight of each other - the Eye will not guess which of a dozen, hundreds or thousands of traps need to chase the cops.
And if there are a dozen of such pirates, and everyone will apply this trick?
Approximately this principle is used to conceal nuclear warheads during a vertical dive.
Even if the lawyers as a result of catching one present, the trouble is not great - you will find a new partner.
And if there are a dozen of such pirates, and everyone will apply this trick?
Approximately this principle is used to conceal nuclear warheads during a vertical dive.
Even if the lawyers as a result of catching one present, the trouble is not great - you will find a new partner.
Droid war is inevitable
Lawyers will not burn a bunch of fuel, sending entire fleets in your direction, will not conduct guerrilla wars among asteroids with you, will not play cat and mouse, trying to catch up with a stealth ship, sharpened not by direct armed conflict, but by speed, maneuverability and stealth.
Moreover, there are many of you and you all rushed to the placer.
Not. They will send droids for you!
If cargo ships are more expensive than cargo, if they are defenseless against pirates, and to send entire military fleets accompanied by expensive, there will be no cargo ships.
Now there will be an epoch of catapults.
The cargo will be sent by special ships, withdrawing containers filled with explosives and cargo to the required trajectory, and at the end there will be receiving ships. Each container can fly through space for years while an endless flow of goods from one station to another is built.
Semi-automatic drones will be half-asleep on such trading threads, waking from suspicious signatures or if some drone has failed. These drones are cheaper, they are not a pity, and they are more effective than humans.
A drone patrolling a remote system boundary or stalking an intruder can do it for years, consume less fuel, be quicker and withstand a load above 20 g. And there may be hundreds of thousands and even hundreds of millions.
Pirates will have nothing left but to steal the technology of drones and use for their dark deeds - the war of robots will begin, and it may be forever.
Moreover, there are many of you and you all rushed to the placer.
Not. They will send droids for you!
If cargo ships are more expensive than cargo, if they are defenseless against pirates, and to send entire military fleets accompanied by expensive, there will be no cargo ships.
Now there will be an epoch of catapults.
The cargo will be sent by special ships, withdrawing containers filled with explosives and cargo to the required trajectory, and at the end there will be receiving ships. Each container can fly through space for years while an endless flow of goods from one station to another is built.
Semi-automatic drones will be half-asleep on such trading threads, waking from suspicious signatures or if some drone has failed. These drones are cheaper, they are not a pity, and they are more effective than humans.
A drone patrolling a remote system boundary or stalking an intruder can do it for years, consume less fuel, be quicker and withstand a load above 20 g. And there may be hundreds of thousands and even hundreds of millions.
Pirates will have nothing left but to steal the technology of drones and use for their dark deeds - the war of robots will begin, and it may be forever.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/428698/
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