Kerbal Space Program video about the effectiveness of space mines. I was having so much fun with my missiles in my last show that I wanted to research the usefulness of the fabled space mine. In episodes of shows like Star Trek Deep Space 9, or even Star Trek Enterprise, several episodes were dedicated to various types of space mines. Now I had a problem with these mine designs for a number of reasons mostly because they were stationary object much like landmines or naval mines, and this does not work vary well in space. The reason being is space is very very big and unless you fill every cubic mile of it with several mines they are not going to be very effective. What would make more sense is to have your mines sit stationary until signaled by some sort of detection satellite then activate and move to intercept. This way you can have far fewer mines, say a few thousand rather than several billion orbiting your planet or station or whatever, witch is far more realistic. Also maintaining some sort of very low level activity on your mine is crucial otherwise they can just be shot down before they activate. Mines can also be more effective and less expensive than maintaining a well armed fleet in orbit.

• published: 11 Oct 2013
• views: 24