Re: (1935) habitats, hulls, ...
In reply to #1935 habitats, hulls, ... by Vote For NoneOfTheAbove Write In Candidate
Cites: #1935
> I personally would not like to have my main asteroid defense be how thick > my hull was, because there's eventually a bigger asteroid out there with > your name on it! I agree, you still need an active defense system of some sort. However, no matter how sophisticated your sensors are, there will be space dust smaller than they can detect. There is also a size below which there is no point trying to destroy incoming objects because they are too hard to hit. The objective of a ship designer will be to strike a happy medium; Have an active defense system that can destroy or evade larger incoming objects, and a passive system (shields, armour) that can handle the objects that are too small for the active system to deal with. Ideally you want a fair amount of overlap, in case your active system misses something (or is overloaded by sheer volume of debris). Hence the reason for a large amount of armour on ships. - - -- C. Harald Koch VE3TLA Alias Research, Inc., Toronto ON Canada [email removed] [email removed] [email removed] "Open the Zamboni! We're coming out!" - Kathrin Garland and Anson James, 2299