Nukes in space

[Deke]

I have read a few articles about the pros and cons of using nuclear weapons in space warfare. The consensus was as a standalone weapon, they wouldn’t be much good.

I’ve seen some good examples of using nukes in space, see the Keyes Loop in the Halo books for example, or when the Galactica gets nuked in the opening of the reboot.

What are your thoughts as a reader when you are reading sci fi and see people tossing nukes at each other in ship to ship combat in the depths of space? Do you dismiss it and feel your immersion broke or do you just read along nodding your head despite the science not working out quite right?

 

[Parson]

Most of the newer stuff I've read understand a nuclear explosions limitations in space. Often it is seen as a weapon that needs a lot of proximity to be effective. What I wonder about is why there is not much more use of an explosive "mine" which kills with a shrapnel cloud.

 

[Danny McG]

Phasers...
That's what you need

 

[StilLearning]

Most of the newer stuff I've read understand a nuclear explosions limitations in space. Often it is seen as a weapon that needs a lot of proximity to be effective. What I wonder about is why there is not much more use of an explosive "mine" which kills with a shrapnel cloud.

Cold war Russia's got you Parson: The Hidden History of the Soviet Satellite-Killer.

Phasers...
That's what you need

Lasers have been a thing in space warfare for a while, although they're mainly aimed at blinding or over heating the target rather than exploding it, eg: China Could Blind U.S. Satellites With Lasers

 

[StilLearning]

These days a lot of the sci-fi I've read get the limits of a nuke in space - the lack of mechanical shockwave and visible or heat flash for instance, pretty well on. I did some research on this for another author a while back, and there are still ways to use them though: The issues with nukes in space are mainly that space is much bigger than anywhere on Earth, so things have to move faster, and even the biggest bang can be lost in the distance easily - and space doesn't have a medium (like our atmosphere) that will react to the energy given off by the blast (the atmosphere turns the nukes energy into a devastating flash of heat and the destructive shockwave).

But you could get around that - a nuke surrounded by a some polystyrene and then a shell of heavy rocks would make a helluva shrapnel mine, making whole orbital altitudes un-useable if detonated in orbit.
Another way is to detonate a nuke on the surface of an asteroid to change it's course relatively suddenly, and crash it into a target planet (that's well studied as it's just the evil twin of 'save-the-world-from-asteroid' studies).
It's probably worth pointing out, too, that the energy given off by a nuke is the same in space - it just arrives as a wave of high energy radiation, So it doesn't do much mechanical damage, but it'll actually mess up DNA and microelectronics across a wider radius, maybe out to hundreds of km, depending on the yield.

 

[Wayne Mack]

A different way to look at it is that even a small hole may be fatal in a vacuum. A heat source or pressure wave only needs to create a small hole. If one also assumes that to maximize propulsion, ships would want to minimize mass, resulting in thin hulls. There would be none of this having ships rock back and forth, the strikes would likely be imperceptible until emergency airlocks begin segmenting the ship to save some.

 

[Deke]

You guys are echoing my thoughts. I want my space combat to be more technical and less reactors cooking off or getting schalacked with nukes. More ships knocking each other out, trying to get pass each others missiles defenses ect.

Long story short I’m trying to figure out how to minimize the nuclear threat. Particularly I don’t want my reader saying “hey you have marines boarding this ship and taking out critical engineering sections, why don’t they drop a nuke in the hangar bay and fly away?”

My thoughts were to have both sides have developed some kind of annulment field that stabilizes radioactive material, but all my ship reactors are cold fusion so that doesn’t really work.

 

[StilLearning]

You guys are echoing my thoughts. I ...

My first two thoughts are: Maybe your fusion method doesn't need any radioactive material - inertial confinement fusion of pure deuterium doesn't IIRC ( https://arxiv.org/pdf/0808.1905 ) and sonoluminescence has been suggested as the basis for a kind of 'cold' fusion needing no radioactive material ( Is Fusion Through Sonoluminescence Possible? )
Second is: Maybe the stabilisation field is shapeable, so you could just leave a little gap in it for the reactor core?

 

[Deke]

That’s a good idea. I could make the field hollow so it was more like an egg shell instead of solid sphere.

 

[AllanR]

The rpg Traveller had a nuclear damper. Nuclear Damper - Traveller

 

[.matthew.]

If you're looking for a reason not to use nukes in space, just make it a law of war in the same way we currently forbid biological and chemical weapons. This way you still have nukes but all sides agree not to use them as neither side could weather the economic cost or political fallout.

• As for why you would use nukes in space, I've been a longtime believer that lasers are impractical and any laser powerful enough to hurt the enemy ship could be easily deflected by said ship with common heatsinks and reflectors.
• You could of course go for kinetic weapons but they are too slow to be used anywhere but close range.
• Missiles (or would that be torpedoes?) on the other hand could be fired from distance and adjust for enemy course corrections. The problem here is that you'd want to be able to destroy a ship (or heavily damage it) with a single strike, making nuclear the best option, even if it's just at a tactical scale. For example, the smallest nuke made has about the same yield as the largest conventional bomb (a MOAB) and the difference in size (and thus deployment potential) is huge.

Nuclear weapons could also, depending on your universe be used to create sensor problems or possibly? destroy/disable fighter craft, though the one use of lasers I can think of would be point defence where they would actually work which I suppose makes using a nuke for that a bit silly.

 

[Dave]

I understand the points being made here about the limited effects of explosions in space in a vacuum, but an explosion will still cause damage (even if just internally) and a big explosion will cause damage over a larger volume of space. Even very small pieces of shrapnel would cause catastrophic damage to a high velocity spacecraft. In fact, a cloud of junk left in the path of a spacecraft would be as good as a minefield, so a pipe or nail bomb would be lethal. However, no one has mentioned the radiation: a neutron bomb, or enhanced radiation weapon (ERW), with a low-yield thermonuclear blast but a maximised amount of lethal neutron radiation in the immediate vicinity of the blast would fry everyone inside the spacecraft, as well as completely taking the vessel out of use for good.

Yes, if you aren't adverse to some handwavium, then nuclear dampers could explain the non-use. Dune also had rules against using Atomics

 

[Deke]

If you're looking for a reason not to use nukes in space, just make it a law of war in the same way we currently forbid biological and chemical weapons. This way you still have nukes but all sides agree not to use them as neither side could weather the economic cost or political fallout.

• As for why you would use nukes in space, I've been a longtime believer that lasers are impractical and any laser powerful enough to hurt the enemy ship could be easily deflected by said ship with common heatsinks and reflectors.
• You could of course go for kinetic weapons but they are too slow to be used anywhere but close range.
• Missiles (or would that be torpedoes?) on the other hand could be fired from distance and adjust for enemy course corrections. The problem here is that you'd want to be able to destroy a ship (or heavily damage it) with a single strike, making nuclear the best option, even if it's just at a tactical scale. For example, the smallest nuke made has about the same yield as the largest conventional bomb (a MOAB) and the difference in size (and thus deployment potential) is huge.

Nuclear weapons could also, depending on your universe be used to create sensor problems or possibly? destroy/disable fighter craft, though the one use of lasers I can think of would be point defence where they would actually work which I suppose makes using a nuke for that a bit silly.

I’m using kinetic weapons, missiles, and torpedos in my universe. Lasers turned into a dead end given their power requirements so most ships use a combination or rail guns and missiles, though I also have torpedo bombers.

Mostly I’ve just been looking for excuses to take nukes off the table. I don’t have ship board FTL so most engagements are at short range and closing.

I’m keeping nukes on the table for ground engagements though. The story does not permit me to use “laws of war” since the two sides fighting each other are locked in a life and death struggle for extinction.

 

[.matthew.]

I’m using kinetic weapons, missiles, and torpedos in my universe. Lasers turned into a dead end given their power requirements so most ships use a combination or rail guns and missiles, though I also have torpedo bombers.

Mostly I’ve just been looking for excuses to take nukes off the table. I don’t have ship board FTL so most engagements are at short range and closing.

I’m keeping nukes on the table for ground engagements though. The story does not permit me to use “laws of war” since the two sides fighting each other are locked in a life and death struggle for extinction.

I already like this world then as I have no end of issues with lasers in sci-fi.

How are sensors designed? By this, I mean do the stealth of ships play an important part? There have been various attempts to track subs via radiation leakage and you could maybe invent some tech that would light up any vessel carrying nukes, making them easy targets? This would also explain why they can still be used on planets.

 

[Deke]

So I don’t have stealth fields, ship hulls are painted with light absorbing coatings but I haven’t nailed down how effective I want stealth to be.

BSG reboot did the radiation tracking. I do like that idea.

Also given point defense tech ships have to fire missile swarms, and torpedo bombers have to get inside the perimeters as well.

Maybe I can just have the reasoning be that uranium is rare and needed for reactors, and the amount you would need to get a swarm of nuke warheads through the defenses just to have it not do a lot of damage can be justification enough.

 

[.matthew.]

I've always imagined that space combat would include a lot of stealth combat, space being so big and everything. Well, that and WW2 style battleship fights. So in essence, WW2 naval warfare in space

With access to other planets and asteroids etc, I doubt uranium would be in short enough supply to negate its use, especially with tactical nukes.

You also need to consider the scale of war, how many ships each side can field as that would change the tactics and cost/benefits for everything as well.

 

[Mon0Zer0]