The Expanse

cmad1977 · Mar 17, 2017

Jeez guys.
The 'stealth' ship was clearly visible to the Donnager. Clearly 'stealth' doesn't mean completely invisible.

It did start a little slow for me too... but then the 'Canterbury', havelocks staking and Sheds big episode happen so... yeah I'm in.

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Azurewraith · Mar 17, 2017

I think in the instance stealth is more of a wont show up on radar/cursory glance, but if you know roughly where to look you can and will find it.

Nellisir · Mar 17, 2017

tomBitonti said:
Great show! I do wonder how folks who have not read the books are able to fit the story together. (I haven't, but I read the book back outlines, so have an idea of what is going on.)

I read the books, and just reread them in the past month. Frankly, The Expanse is one of the best adaptations I've ever seen. The books are excellent, and the show is, in many ways, even better.

tuxgeo · Mar 17, 2017

Re: Dissipating energy in directions away from the people who you want not to see you:
How about as high-powered "fast radio bursts" toward the galactic North and South? At high frequencies, radio waves are directible.

tomBitonti · Mar 17, 2017

cmad1977 said:
Jeez guys.
The 'stealth' ship was clearly visible to the Donnager. Clearly 'stealth' doesn't mean completely invisible.

It did start a little slow for me too... but then the 'Canterbury', havelocks staking and Sheds big episode happen so... yeah I'm in.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here "stealth" is at a distance.

In the chase sequence in the show, the danger was in losing the ship once it had turned off its engines and moved out of visual range.

I do agree that for the relatively close distances in the show, the ship ought not to have been able to hide, having lots of energy to dissipate after the hard burn.

Thx!
TomB

tomBitonti · Mar 17, 2017

tuxgeo said:
Re: Dissipating energy in directions away from the people who you want not to see you:
How about as high-powered "fast radio bursts" toward the galactic North and South? At high frequencies, radio waves are directible.

I'm thinking that gives you a "refrigeration laser" that uses radio frequencies, in the sense of Sundiver, by David Brin.

There is an interesting discussion here: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=22649.0

Thx!
TomB

Nutation · Mar 17, 2017

Hard science wins me over.
I like the depiction of thrust gravity, which is very rare for TV. We occasionally see braking thrust applied, though maybe not as often as we should. (Ships IIRC are usually pointed at their destination as they approach. We do see attitude thrusters fire, though.)
I just saw Amos dangling from the outside of spinning Tycho Station.
Also, high-gee stress.
What we don't see is any discussion of efficient orbits or delta-V. All of the belt locations feel close together, with Earth, Mars, and Jupiter being "farther away". It's as though everything is on the same side of the sun so that distances are just a function of the various bodies' orbital diameters.
Some of the plotting is unexpected and perhaps innovative. The story started out with 3 different groups of protagonists, and they still haven't all met. We've added other points of view since, though, so it's not that simple.
In the first episode, Miller is looking for Julie Mao, who is young, rich, beautiful, and got herself in trouble. In conventional plotting, he finds & rescues her by the end of Season 1, at which point we get the big reveal about the next threat. That ain't how it happened.
I haven't read the book, but I find the story easy enough to follow. There may be a lot of background on how and why that I'm missing. For example, with the recent flashback of how the testing of Mars' advanced drive went awry, I wasnt' clear on the fallout.
I've seen enough gritty, unreliable technology at this point that I take it in stride.

Ryujin · Mar 17, 2017

Nutation said:
Hard science wins me over.
I like the depiction of thrust gravity, which is very rare for TV. We occasionally see braking thrust applied, though maybe not as often as we should. (Ships IIRC are usually pointed at their destination as they approach. We do see attitude thrusters fire, though.)
I just saw Amos dangling from the outside of spinning Tycho Station.
Also, high-gee stress.
What we don't see is any discussion of efficient orbits or delta-V. All of the belt locations feel close together, with Earth, Mars, and Jupiter being "farther away". It's as though everything is on the same side of the sun so that distances are just a function of the various bodies' orbital diameters.
Some of the plotting is unexpected and perhaps innovative. The story started out with 3 different groups of protagonists, and they still haven't all met. We've added other points of view since, though, so it's not that simple.
In the first episode, Miller is looking for Julie Mao, who is young, rich, beautiful, and got herself in trouble. In conventional plotting, he finds & rescues her by the end of Season 1, at which point we get the big reveal about the next threat. That ain't how it happened.
I haven't read the book, but I find the story easy enough to follow. There may be a lot of background on how and why that I'm missing. For example, with the recent flashback of how the testing of Mars' advanced drive went awry, I wasnt' clear on the fallout.
I've seen enough gritty, unreliable technology at this point that I take it in stride.

The whole thing keeps making me think of the early Traveller RPG both because of delta-V drives and if you don't like your character make him a Belter, and he'll die during character creation.

Dannyalcatraz · Mar 17, 2017

Joker said:
That seems unfeasible. How would you store the heat coming from your thrusters? And your habitable area still has to maintain a temperature nearly 300 Celcius higher than the surrounding area. I can somewhat imagine ships without a human crew having some stealth capacity but the moment they use their engines, they'll light up.

AFAIK, you can't store heat under thrust. That's why you'd void the heat sinks at that time.

Think of it like a submarine. There are many things they can mask, but sounds can only be dampened to a certain point. And while the most modern subs are incredibly quiet when moving, they're not undetectably so. The stealthiest propellers still make noise. So one of submariners' tactics to maintain stealth is immobility.

Likewise, a stealth spacecraft would only use thrusters when absolutely necessary. With good heat sinks, and insulation, such a ship not under power might be virtually indistinguishable from debris or meteoroids.