Mistakes About Space Stealth and Revamping Lasers

In 2005 I wrote a fairly extensive article on space combat called "Hunters In The Great Dark," which was published in Strange Horizons. One of my main assertions was that stealth in space was a given; the sheer scale immense of the battle field seemed to assure that. Also, one of main rationales for that was how real-life astronomers have had a lot of difficulty finding even the majority of near-Earth asteroids, objects that can dwarf many proposed space battle ships. If there's such a problem finding flying mountains, why would it be any easier to find much smaller ships?

However, in the years since, people have pointed out the problems with that, and with a great deal of reading on my part for how sensors and such would work in space, I now have to admit I was wrong about that. The hunt for asteroids has taken place only in a limited spectrum (visible light) so far, and doesn't take into account multiple-spectrum IR detectors and more. Life support, various ship systems, and engines create waste heat that can at best be masked for only a short time, more than likely not long enough to mount any kind of successful attack.

Given "realistic" projections for future space technology (on the OV scale, that would be up through Tech Level 15), stealth for manned ships is not very likely and for unmanned attack craft difficult at best. Like most things about future technology, I don't want to say its flat-out impossible, because too many dismissals of 'impossible' things have been proven wrong. I still think its probably doable in certain specialized circumstances, and some unforeseen innovation (like metamaterials, which looks like it may lead to a real life 'invisibility' cloak) may throw a monkey wrench into it all.

But otherwise, I was wrong. Oh well. Sorry about that. At least I got paid $100 for the original article way back when, so I think my pride will survive.

So anyway, I'm taking down "Hunters In The Great Dark" from the Essay section for a possible major rewrite at some future time. I'm also going to take down the "Laser Firearms" article in the "Firearms" section. The article is still accurate as far as it goes, but it was one of the first articles I did in for OV back in 2003. There have been a number of developments and rethinking about laser weapons since then, and I should rewrite the article to reflect all that.