Question Various Tech Questions

[fsci123]

Ive been holding this off but i was inspired by that other guy who posted something similar...
I have been working on a hard-scifi story for a while so i wanted to make sure some of the concepts are scientifically sound...
1) Aircraft carrying submarines
2) Active Camouflage
3) EMP satellites
4) Laser Propulsion Infrastructure
5) Military Drones
6) Xenolinguistics
7) Laser Weapons

 

[tl8]

1) Aircraft carrying submarines

Japan has done this in WWII

2) Active Camouflage

Research is being done on this with success

3) EMP satellites

EMP weapons?

Plausible, though a Nuke is more efficient.

4) Laser Propulsion Infrastructure

Like VISMAR?

Research in progress. Has had some success.

5) Military Drones

UAVs? or foot soldiers?

One is in practice, another is being researched, though it is going to take a while to perfect.

6) Xenolinguistics

I don't see anything technical about this, Care to explain?

7) Laser Weapons

Again, being researched. Some success. See the cold war Starwars program.

 

[Dambuster]

Ive been holding this off but i was inspired by that other guy who posted something similar...
I have been working on a hard-scifi story for a while so i wanted to make sure some of the concepts are scientifically sound...
1) Aircraft carrying submarines
2) Active Camouflage
3) EMP satellites
4) Laser Propulsion Infrastructure
5) Military Drones
6) Xenolinguistics
7) Laser Weapons

I know very little about this, but anyway (I'll use examples so I'm not talking completely out of my arse):

1) Sort of - in WWII there was a Japanese submarine which was modified to carry one small plane with it. It was used on a mission to firebomb a US forest, however the intended effect of causing a forest fire never happened. So yes, it is possible, but I doubt it's practical, and probably not on a large scale.

2) To an extent, yes, however the technology is still pretty basic, IMO. There isn't anything like what you see in games like Halo 3 yet, however who knows what technologies there will be in future

3) Not quite sure what you mean by this.

4) If you mean propelling things in space with lasers, it's probably possible, but I think it's only ever been done using tiny planes and small lasers.

5) Yes - look up UAVs on Google.

6) Not sure what you mean, but off the top of my head, I'd say that since we haven't encountered any alien species yet, we have no basis on which to make any major conclusions/assumptions about alien languages. I wouldn't rely on [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_language"]this article[/ame] too much because of the multiple tags at the top, but it's probably worth reading if you haven't already.

7) Depends what you mean - if you mean handheld laser weapons, then nothing so far AFAIK, however there was that USAF airborne laser thingey, and also some laser thing that I think they were testing mounted on Humvees. I can't think of any reason why handheld laser weapons could never happen, but I think we'd need a very compact power source first.

And I've just realised I was sort of answering the question of 'does it exist' rather than 'is it possible'...hope this is helpful anyway. (P.S. as an aside, Google will probably turn up some interesting things on your questions)

edit: :ninja:'d

 

[T.Neo]

Could you effectively camoflage a moving vehicle? What about the noise it makes? Is it camoflaged over multiple spectral ranges? How durable is the camoflage?

The problem with laser weapons is that even if you can make them work acceptable, they'd be more expensive and less durable than a conventional firearm, for example. Their advantages include not having to worry about bullet trajectories, and the fact that they're 'cool'...

We don't know anything about how xeno-languages would work, obviously, because we've never encountered any. It's certain that they'll have a structure to convey information- like any language- that they would convey a lot of concepts similar to human languages, and that they would probably be structured to deal with the sort of use we have in human languages (as opposed to, say, a computer programming language- an individual can say a short senence, phrase, or even a single word, and another individual would understand what they mean, in context- such a means of communicating is more efficient and less time-consuming than always using complet sentences all the time).

But those languages could have totally different structures in other regards. The means with which an alien species could communicate could be different- for example, they might communicate in an intricate series of chirps, or even use a sort of binary language, like a natural morse code, or they might not use sound at all, opting at least partially for a form of sign-language, for example, or something based on bioluminescence, or perhaps even communication aided by special pheromones.

I doubt that alien languages would be directly pronouncable by humans, just in the same sense that the sounds various animals make can't really be naturally imitated by the human voice. An alien species likely won't even have the digestive system-respiritory system conjunction we have, which would make things differ even further.

But, as for real progress? Well, we might try to better understand how some intelligent animals communicate, or try to figure out what the languages of our ancestors or extinct relatives might have been like- that's a kind of xenolinguistics. But we'll only hear, or see, or feel true xeno-languages when and if we meet another sapient species. Till then it's pretty much just speculation.

 

[fsci123]

Well when I talk about laser weapons Im not talking about compact star wars/trek lasers... This is a hard scifi story so... The laser weapon I'm talking about is like 150lb and needs a backpack with a few super capacitors which also need charging from a mobile source...

 

[T.Neo]

150 lb? What's a lb? Don't you mean 70 kilograms?

What's the output of this laser? Its range? What is its application supposed to be? How many shots can the energy storage system cope with? What is its wavelength? Its efficiency? What are its dimensions? How is it aimed?

 

[fsci123]

150 lb? What's a lb? Don't you mean 70 kilograms?

What's the output of this laser? Its range? What is its application supposed to be? How many shots can the energy storage system cope with? What is its wavelength? Its efficiency? What are its dimensions? How is it aimed?

Well lb stands for pounds I prefer to use it even though I can use kg... There are two lasers one is a gas laser(CO2) the other is a chemical(D-F)laser which don't need electricity as far as I am concerned... Output is 2.6kW/17MW repsectively... The first laser fire continuously for about 8.1minutes the chemical fires for a few seconds... The wavelength is infrared for the first and ultraviolet for the second(the exact wavelength i forgot as I am using my phone)... The dimensions are the same about 6 feet long... And is aimed like a turret...

 

[mojoey]

sounds like a clancy book. about this laser... what role would the laser be deployed? This could be a very plausible anti aircraft weapon. Anti missile tests are under way (google laser 747)

 

[fsci123]

sounds like a clancy book. about this laser... what role would the laser be deployed? This could be a very plausible anti aircraft weapon. Anti missile tests are under way (google laser 747)

I NEVER said it was built buy humans...

 

[mojoey]

aliens or robots?

 

[Artlav]

What about diode lasers?
They are getting small and strong pretty quickly. A pen sized one can burn through wood plank, at 1W, and work for many minutes.
Multiply by 10, make a bank, and a power source into the backpack, and you got a handgun.

Purpose still lacking, however.

 

[fsci123]

What about diode lasers?
They are getting small and strong pretty quickly. A pen sized one can burn through wood plank, at 1W, and work for many minutes.
Multiply by 10, make a bank, and a power source into the backpack, and you got a handgun.

Purpose still lacking, however.

Well I will generally assume that chemical and diode lasers are getting better at the same pace... Chemical will stilll be better in the long run... Pluss I don't want those little handgun lasers which are the stuff of fantasy but more like huge devices withe the power source taking up most of the space that can only be used with artificial exoskeleton...

 

[T.Neo]

You can build handheld lasers if you have the technology. The question is whether you'd want to, considering their extra cost and/or complexity.

 

[fsci123]

Well I will assume that the smaller things get, the more complex it will need to be... One will notice how hard it is to pump gasses into a combustion chamber at supersonic speeds in a gun the size of a glock... There is the possibility it may overheat or explode of it falls a few inches or like some skeptics say "interactions between parts that cause failure"

As for the xenolinguistics I am forces against my will to explain the nature of the story... There are several alien intelligences scattered a few hundred ly from eachother... Just like humans they to have multiple languages countries religions ethnic groups and problems... Some don't have mouths some don't have eyes some don't have ears and so communications is so severely limited... Complex dialogue is virtually impossible for a multitude of reasons... My biggest problem with communication is the notion that one species communicates By flashing lights and emitting pheremones... The light is organized into colors, polarities, and direction... How would such light be dettected?

 

[T.Neo]

Do you know how evolutionarily advantageous eyes are? They pop up in pretty much every major phylum, and from the point of view of a simple organism (such as a flatworm, or our ancestors) they make a lot of sense to evolve (as opposed to things like sonar, which is an active sense that requires energy, etc). See [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye"]Evolution of the eye[/ame].

The ability to sense light exists even in plants and bacteria.

How do you eat without a mouth? :facepalm:

I suppose you could have some sort of system for digesting food, that could work on little fibres or something like that... but that could just as easily qualify as a "mouth" of some kind... :shifty: