isaackuo

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@nyrath @tarheel @ZachWeinersmith

The robotic space mule I know of is this M.U.L.E.

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@nyrath

Huh. They say nobody has spent much time thinking about this, but I thought people had? Not just for a person in a space suit, but also for generally holding down a spacecraft or unmanned probe.

Wrapping a tether around the asteroid/comet/moon could be used for any of those things.

Still, this system of telescoping arms is more complex and new.

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@androidarts

Bear in mind that the 1970s is before the age of Chobham armor, so armor simply wasn't as thick or take up so much volume back then.

That said, it was pretty trendy to have a rear turret layout, with the engine in front.

But this Ogre light tank appears to have a more traditional layout with rear engine (leaving plenty of room in the front for the driver).

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@androidarts @nyrath

There was no compartmentalization of the skirt. It's just that bullet holes did not leak enough air to be a problem. Any bullets poking holes in the skirt were absolutely preferable to bullets poking holes in the crew.

OTOH, a trench would leak enough air that a hovercraft would get stuck trying to cross over one. And any sort of obstacles designed to poke into a skirt or cut it would immobilize a hovercraft real quick.

Basically it's a non-starter.

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@androidarts

Hmm ... a modern hover S-Tank could be implemented as two wheels to the sides for movement/slew, along with two hover skirts (front and rear) for elevation.

Might be good for maintenance ... just "inflate" the skirts to work on the wheels, or rest on the wheels to replace skirt segments. Getting at the underside segments is annoying, though ... maybe drive up two portable "bumps" ...

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@cstross

Well, the question was about if a hovercraft could go over a trench. That's pretty "bad broken ground".

So the question is ... could some sort of ground effect vehicle be designed that could cross bad broken ground, possibly including trenches?
@androidarts @nyrath

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@androidarts

My intuition is that this won't work so well due to the way ground effect scales - larger radius is good because air leakage scales with diameter while upward lift scales with area.

But modern multi-rotor drones does make me ponder how modern designs can have lots of little fans rather than just one or two big ones.

So, a large slab body could have lots of little fans pointed inward/downward around the edges. This eliminates the inner chamber and ducting losses ...

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@cstross @androidarts @nyrath

Hmm... I don't know if that's what AndroidArts was thinking of. I mean, something that big would have a lot of mobility challenges just reaching a battlefield where the trenches are.

(The enemy wouldn't try to dig trenches in a beach, because that don't work at all.)

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@cstross @androidarts @nyrath

I don't think the Zubr class shows such an existence proof. AFAIK, it's still only suitable for LCAC style operations - basically bringing stuff to a beach, rather than transporting stuff inland or over land.

Certainly, they have not been used to try and transport stuff over land or even across rivers in Ukraine. And river crossings have been extremely important in this war.

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@scottsantens

You don't understand. Or really, they don't understand. They don't know what makes Mozart Mozart. They think THEY are Mozarts. But they don't even understand their own system.

See, they literally dream of reaching for the stars. But the only people who can afford to buy the tickets are billionaires. Fellow "Mozarts".

So they think that if we only had 1000 times more humans, there would be 1000 times more pyramids. But no. We'd still have just one pyramid ... it'd just be

1/2

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@cstross @FredKiesche

I feel like a main battle tank may be too heavy for this system to work well with. The wheels don't have that much ground area, and the vertical motion servos need to be able to handle the weight of the payload.

But for lighter vehicles, something like this might be useful for getting through mine fields?

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@FredKiesche @cstross

I'm not sure exactly what your meaning is, but certainly an MRAP is a lighter vehicle (compared to a main battle tank).

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@JeremyMallin

It's marketing. Aerodynamics doesn't matter, but if you want to sell your starship to investors and/or Congress and/or passengers, a sleek outer facade helps.

That said, aerodynamics does matter for spacecraft to conduct aeromaneuvers (aerobraking, aerocapture, plane changing).

Anyway, having an "up" and "down" helps humans keep themselves oriented. As for what direction(s) this should be in ... that's a situational question with no one correct answer.

isaackuo, 1 month ago

@cerebrate @SkipHuffman @nyrath @JeremyMallin

OTOH, for a spacecraft using Whipple shielding, you can make pretty much any shape you like using overlapping "fish scale" plates. The individual plates are just flat squares, attached to the mounting poles at the corner.