The Absurdity of Borders in Space

[Nebusj]

Nebusj, I'm glad I'm not the only one who browses through that Google Group. Some of those discussions are absolute gold. Have you seen this one?

On a side note, there was an error in the calculation, so the main engines and SRBs are detectable from 'only' 6 billion km.

I don't just browse that Usenet group, I participate, although not so often as I'd like. I'm generally (not always and not consistently) willing to accept qualitative rather than quantitative analyses for science fiction technology, so once the equations are whipped out my useful participation is typically at an end. But when it's a question of whether something is possible at all, there's not much do to but take out the equations.

I'd missed ``He Who Radiates Is Lost'', though, and thanks for the pointer.

Shame for the calculation error since the result was so dramatic beforehand, although I suppose ``easily detectable from Saturn'' isn't too bad either. I had missed that (actually, I was coming through a web page discussing the possibilities of stealth in space, and why it doesn't exist).

That vastly higher-power engines would be detectable from farther away by sensors with three centuries' more development seems pretty much inevitable.

Robert "Mars Direct" Zubrin discussed that very subject in his 1995 ASP paper, Detection of Extraterrestrial Civilizations via the Spectral Signature of Advanced Interstellar Spacecraft (PDF).

TGT

Ah, neat, and thank you for the endorsement. Even if it is Zubrin projections ...

I don't understand this obsession with dubbing starship-style sensors as ``magic'', whereas somehow warp drive isn't. Current off-the-shelf sensor technology available in 2007 would be adequate to detect the maneuvering thrusters on the Space Shuttle from as far away as the asteroid belt, and if we were looking at the Space Shuttle's main engines (not the solid rocket boosters, by the way), we'd be able to detect them firing from as far away as Pluto is. (Reference: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.science/msg/54f4d01ceba2eb51 )

That vastly higher-power engines would be detectable from farther away by sensors with three centuries' more development seems pretty much inevitable. Yes, you have to suppose some way to send and receive data faster than light in order to have a subspace radar reaching out dozens of light-years usefully, but if you accept warp drive and subspace radio, you've already bought that ticket.

The idea that we have some sort of incredible sensors today has a totally hollow ring to it. There are thousands of near Earth objects which we do not know about (all within range of these sensors) and we have lost a number of our own spacecraft in recent years just heading for Mars.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, launched in June 2001, is able to detect a fluctuation of 20 microKelvin across a pixel which covers roughly 0.3 arc-degrees of space. If you could kindly tell me what's happened to the knowledge to detect a 0.000020-degree change in temperature since 2001, I would appreciate learning.

Incidentally, none of the space probes which have been lost were lost as in the sense of ``we don't know where they went''. They were lost in the sense of ``they stopped transmitting useful information'' or, with a few sad examples, ``they burned up in an atmosphere they weren't supposed to dip that far into''.

You're correct that there are many bodies in the solar system not yet tracked or not identified. You will also note that almost none of them have any strategic or tactical value. If you wait long enough, yes, whatever target you might want destroyed will someday be in the impact zone of a meteor strike; but if you'd rather have it destroyed sometime specific within the next 450 million years, you're going to have to expend a huge amount of power, and that's going to make you strikingly visible.

And thrusters and full on engines of the shuttles are but the tiniest fraction of a geologic eruptions, yet we only find out about eruptions on the moons of Jupiter or Saturn when we are practically on top of them. So while I'm sure this thing might be able to detect something if we know exactly where and when something is happening, that is a long way from sensing the unknown and warning us about it.

You'll also find that pretty much no material gets to Earth from these eruptions on the moons of Saturn. I suppose a couple stray molecules might, after many decades, but who cares about that? Now, if you would be so kind as to estimate what sort of explosion is necessary to get something of actual, you know, tactical value from Saturn to Earth -- let's say something the size of a minibus -- and then try to tell me that this sort of explosion would be somehow undetectable from the Earth.

If you've got some guy trying to sell something... don't take the sales pitch! I have been a fan of Kip Thorne for years, and jumped at the chance to meet him when he came to speak at UCSD about 16 years ago. Sadly, the talk was actually a sales pitch for a gravitational wave telescope. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.

Until some technology is in active (successful) use, it is still a lot of theory. People have sunk billions of dollars into missile defense since the 1980s and always promised that the brake through was just around the corner.

I count telescopes as pretty well deployed, successful technology at this point. That tactically useful bodies can be detected at enormous ranges is extremely well proven by example already, and there's no reason to think that sensor ranges are going to contract anytime soon.

The objection to borders in space for the Star Trek universe are absolutely baffling: by demonstration, it's possible for ships and bases to detect a wide swath of space around them, and to despatch units to investigate and to challenge intruders. If that isn't a defensible border, then what is a border?

 

[MarianLH]

How much empty space is there between star systems, anyway? I recall reading somewhere that Sol and Alpha Centauri are so close that our respective Oort clouds may overlap.

If Starfleet put listening posts a la Epsilon IX in every star system in the Federation--including empty ones like Wolf 359 where there's just a red dwarf and maybe some rocks--and each post could monitor, say, a 10 light year radius in real time, would there be any gaps in the coverage?

Sure, "real time" FTL coverage is probably mathematically impossible, but only in the same way that FTL travel is mathematically impossible, right?

EDIT: Found a map via Google. There are no gaps of more than 9 light years, so a sensor reach of as little as 4.5LY per system would leave no holes in the coverage. I don't think it's too unreasonable to assume the rest of the UFP has a similar "population density" of star systems. It's a two-dimensional map, so there may be vertical gaps. But I doubt it would require a dramatic increase in sensor reach to close them.

So what stops the Federation from negotiating a treaty with the Klingon Empire that says "Federation space is defined as being within 12 LY (or whatever) of any UFP member system. Enter it and we smack you"?


Marian

 

[Daedalus12]

In Star Trek much is made of border violations by the feds,romulans,klingons and others.

Much is made of "this is our border you have crossed".

i put it to you that the idea is absurd.

everything in space is MOVING relative to everything else.

a planet is moving around a star which is moving around the galactic center and the galaxy is moving around the center of gravity of a galaxy cluster which is moving away also...

No one has mentioned this yet but the landmass on earth doesn't exactly remain statically unchanged as theorized by plate tectonics. Granted the extraterrestrial motion is certainly more dynamic however in the scale of most humanoid lifespan it's slow enough to be treated as approximately zero. Any border remapping in space would only be necessary (assuming no other influencing factors) once every few dozens of millennia. Eventually if necessary star systems can be nudged as mentioned by TGT to prevent any disintegration into non-contiguous pieces. For an instellar civilization like the Federation such problem would not be any more serious than the 6 hour discrepancy between the solar year and the Gregorian calendar year.

 

[captcalhoun]

thanks for that map, Marian. will prove most useful for my book i'm writing...

 

[ticktock]

In Star Trek much is made of border violations by the feds,romulans,klingons and others.

Much is made of "this is our border you have crossed".

i put it to you that the idea is absurd.

everything in space is MOVING relative to everything else.

a planet is moving around a star which is moving around the galactic center and the galaxy is moving around the center of gravity of a galaxy cluster which is moving away also...

No one has mentioned this yet but the landmass on earth doesn't exactly remain statically unchanged as theorized by plate tectonics.

that was rebutted above already.

 

[Timo]

In what sense? The relative speeds and distances appear roughly similar in both cases. And while a few random exceptions can be expected, such as the runaway world in that old TOS novel, random exceptions such as emerging and disappearing islands or changing flows of rivers also plague the borders of Earth.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FalTorPan]

So what stops the Federation from negotiating a treaty with the Klingon Empire that says "Federation space is defined as being within 12 LY (or whatever) of any UFP member system. Enter it and we smack you"?

But... but... borders are absurd!

 

[captcalhoun]

they did a whole episode on DS9 about the absurdity of geographic borders.

border was the course of a river. then the Cardies went and diverted said river. so, new treaty required, follow new river course or revert to old one...

 

[Daedalus12]

In Star Trek much is made of border violations by the feds,romulans,klingons and others.

Much is made of "this is our border you have crossed".

i put it to you that the idea is absurd.

everything in space is MOVING relative to everything else.

a planet is moving around a star which is moving around the galactic center and the galaxy is moving around the center of gravity of a galaxy cluster which is moving away also...

No one has mentioned this yet but the landmass on earth doesn't exactly remain statically unchanged as theorized by plate tectonics.

that was rebutted above already.

I see now that it was mentioned by Timo but your rebuttal was rubbish.


I simply don't see how borders/territory in space would be an issue at all at least in the time frame of the Trek series. It takes a star 30,000 years just to move about 10 light years (assume a relative speed of 100 km/s) which is only half of sector.

 

[MarianLH]

Perhaps treaties could have a provision allowing either party to renegotiate boundaries every other millennium.


Marian

 

[Timo]

Heh. Reminds me of the local legislation on studded tires. Law sez they have to be removed no later than the last of March or the Monday after Easter Monday, whichever comes later. This year, the rule almost had to be applied, for the first time in the history of the law (or of automobiles, for that matter). The next time the Monday after Easter Monday will be earlier than March 31st is about when NX-01 launches towards Kaang's homeworld...

I wonder if we'll still have automobiles at that date? (Archer knew how to drive one in "Carpenter Street".)

Or winters?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cid Highwind]

Borders between objects (here: stars) could be defined using a Voronoi cell approach. What that means, basically, is: each point in space is defined as belonging to the object closest to it.
Even if relative star motion was considerably faster than it really is, this approach would easily lead to well-defined territories and borders between them.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram

Generally, defining any sort of border is not absurd iff
- there's any value (strategical or other) to what is inside that border
- the entity defining the border can and will enforce it.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

The way I always saw it is this, take several star systems and from those stars create a sphere and expand it outwards towards eachother, when these speres finally reach eachother they stop and THAT is the extent at which territory is controlled by that empire, on the outskirts of these spheres where they stop in uncontrolled space the spheres are chamfered off so to speak to create a more flat border.

 

[FalTorPan]

Borders between objects (here: stars) could be defined using a Voronoi cell approach. What that means, basically, is: each point in space is defined as belonging to the object closest to it.
Even if relative star motion was considerably faster than it really is, this approach would easily lead to well-defined territories and borders between them.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram

Generally, defining any sort of border is not absurd iff
- there's any value (strategical or other) to what is inside that border
- the entity defining the border can and will enforce it.

That's an interesting model. Thanks for mentioning it!