I think you may have missed one of the most important factors: There's no reason for windows on military vessels as the distances between things are so vast, you'd rely on sensors, thermal optics, etc. too see anything anyways. It's always been a bit silly to me that cloaking technology in science fiction made the vessels *literally* invisible to the naked eye, given the distances involved, if you're still relying on spotting enemy combat vessels with the naked eye, you're probably not long for this world.
But cloaking is not about literal visibility; it's about visibility to scanning devices like ladar. The screen in the ship translates a scanned signal into an image (or not, if it is cloaked), but it can be 'painted' by the Roci.
The lack of windows is one of the design/visual language choices I love about The Expanse. Windows just don't make sense on spacecraft when you fly by display/instruments. It's safer and to be honest a CCTV system would just work better. Just look at the, if I remember correctly, Canterbury's XO's quarters and its monitor with a vista of Saturn.
Windows aren't just lethal at high G...but pointless too...That's what the HUD stuff is for...sensors are just going to do a better job then the human eye. Great video Chris! :D
Ships on the expanse do have windows but they tend to only be on the airlocks- that way you can see if you are hooked up to something and if the doors are closed. The windows probably aren't made of glass and on military ships they are covered with blast shields in combat.
I always figured that an Epstein Drive would have a top acceleration not a top speed. Top speeds only apply if your vehicle’s engine has to compete with things like friction and drag. Or am I missing something?
it can also indicate the Delta-V wich is the capacity of a ship to change its speed.. 4000km/s would mean a ship can change its speed in 4000km/s total before its reaction mass runs out.. for example if you want to go from A to B as fast as posible that would mean acelerating from 0 to 2000km/s and then decelerating those 2000km/s to 0 .. A Delta-V of 4000km/s btw is insane.. the Space Shuttle once in orbit had a delta-V of barelly 300m/s .. The Dragon 2 spacecraft has arround 400 and the Apollo spacecraft including the LEM and all the phases from earth orbit back to reentry was done with arround 3500m/s delta-V iirc
@@sparrowlt The original Epstein Drive was able to get to 5% of the speed of light before finally running out of fuel. By my calculations that is 15,000 km/s. I imagine that future models would only improve on that efficiency.
@@chrisdanelon At some point the speed of the speed of the ejected particles from the engine and the velocity of the Roci would be the same so there is a limit. Isn't there a point where adding energy doesn't add anything or am I thinking of it from an Earther point of view? So it's that since there is nothing acting against the ship you go faster no matter what as long as you add energy? Shit, I've confused myself.
Also, they mention in the books that they can just make any screen come up with a real or false color display with magnification. So why have a window, when you have a better window that doesn't make your ship into a game of decompression roulette?
I can agree with this for military ships, and to an extent civilian sector ships. Although the use of transparent metal composites could provide view without compromising *material* durability, the edge of the join on the panels would cause a lack of *structural* durability. Just thought I would give that little bit on both how windows could work, and why the method still isn’t used. On small suborbitals & more opulent civilian ships, however, I can see this kinda stuff done.
@@informalchipmunk5775 A camera doesn't provide true depth to a view. Even if that shit is in 16k 1000 fps it still isn't comparable to just being able to see through a material. 110% there would be luxury ships with windows. Probably not ones made of glass, but windows nonetheless.
@@xcalium9346 well let me tell you this: Submarines don't have windows or cameras for that matter. That's because Visual spectrum of light is barely ever used for navigation or combat. Even if you had windows on space vessels, other ships would be too far away to spot without Radar equipment. In luxury space yachts However, I think windows could be used.
Expanse ships are multistorey with floors perpendicular to vector of movement. That's how they have gravity. So in the deck you will have to look up, if you have giant window. So it's not convenient. Ships do have small windows though. Especially on airlock doors.
You see that's the thing though, though the expanse has no fighter type ships, it makes more sense to put in windows on a smaller craft to make it cheaper and it just makes little sense to put on camera style monitors to see with a fighter. As for ships of a bigger caliber (freighters, frigates and bigger ships) it makes more sense to use cameras to put on additional survivability, as in combat something as small as a PDC round would kill anyone on the bridge or elsewhere that had windows by depressurization of a cabin. Fighters are different because once they are hit, they are hit and its likely the pilot can survive but the fighter itself may not depending on what it was hit by, debris would mess up the engines and possibly weapons and furthermore put holes in the cockpit anyways whether you used windows or monitors with cameras, a swarm of PDC rounds would shred something that small to bits and torps would completely eliminate it while railguns if they have a lucky shot would obliterate it, hence why we see not a single fighter/bomber in the expanse, they are just useless against larger ships in that instance while they would be great against ground forces.
The real question is why the hell would a spaceship even need windows? To stare out into the vast void of nothing that is space? All that windows are are inherently weaker and more difficult to maintain structural components on a ship -- and exterior cameras fill visual navigation and survey roles better than windows, easily. Spaceships just don't need windows in a practical sense. Nor do the dockss on Ceres need to have so many either, but in the end it is just art desgin.
Also. Most (war) ships in the expanse have double hulls. It's an engineering hell to make a window in such construction. Maybe there is 1 or 2 meters of distance between the inner space and space.
i understand your arguments, but there is one argument which i miss. To get all these data at the screens inside of a spacecraft there must be a lot of cameras and/or sensors at the outside of a ship at the ships hull. At a relativ easy attackable point. (Yes, i remember that the most ships has pdc's - but they are used to defend the ships against relativ big missiles. But if there were used frag missiles like frag granades, i'm really sure that the pdc's cann't hold of such a attack. the pdc may destroy some of the frags but not all. yes, they do not many damage and don't penetrate the ship very deep. this isn't their objectiv - they only objectiv is to destroy the sensors - a task which at this way wil be easily done...) I wonder that there was at the whole serie no lucky shoot, which destroyed or demaged these components and i never understood why there where no target attacks to these necessary points. If a ship lost his ability to get data from the battlefield, it may can try to defend themself with their pdc's, but aren't more any great threat. To repair this a technican had to go outside. Very dangerous during a battle. If the attacking ship can destroy or disable one or more of the pdcs, the blind ship easily can be boarded... and later repaired the literal damage and use the spacecraft themself. I know that the sight out of a window during space travel is not very exciting, but for me the logical reasons to use at minimum one front window are greater.
Most real life navy vessels don't have windows either. Usually the bridge has windows because it's important for maneuvering the ship in close proximity to other things, but everything else is metal, plastic and wood.
Hi Chris. There is a couple of windows on Tachi/Rocci. They are located on the airlocks. 😁 But honestly saying and being serious windows are useless on those types of space crafts. Even from the distance of a single kilometre human eye is not capable to distinguish the shape of an object in space. Under an excellent conditions we could see a bright dot. But the actual engagements in The Expanse started at far more greater distance a human eye cannot see at all. Only computers can with the help of the set of different sensors and cameras.
Those windows are covered with blast shields while in combat and in flight. The Roci Kickstarter model shows that and they are on the VFX model too. Those windows are never really directly exposed while in flight.
they just aways use tiny displays. its crazy like they could at least have fake windows that are gigantic displays like in star trek. the ships are so claustrophobic
Technically speaking the ships do have windows in a couple of places but they can essentially be closed off behind metal. It's mainly the external airlocks, cargo bays and sometimes weapon/sensor emplacements. Basically things that can be observed by the naked eye and are useful but can be sealed away behind metal and other doors when not in use. But yeah in a generic sense the ships don't really have windows and it's great, it's a lot more realistic. There was a similar philosophy on Battlestar Galactica too which is probably the only other TV show that even comes close to the Expanse in terms of groundedness (although it does omit all sorts of crap).
The Epstein drives don’t have a speed limit as there is no real speed limit in a vacuum except for the speed of light, the numbers you see as “top speeds” are actually just the average speeds the ships using these drives fly around the solar system at, many drives however have a top acceleration, for instance I believe the Rocinante’s top acceleration is around 25g or 245.25m/s^2
I had asumed one of the main reasons was radiation shielding.. a window would certainly be a radiation weak point in a ship made of double metal hulls..and radiation is a major problem in deep space
With all the advanced radar and sensors that can detect a ship far away in space .. I see no reason for a use of windows specially in a space warship, that would be a fatal weakspot to be exploited easily.
A very good point - lead-glass is used for protecting X-ray operators (and in even higher-radiation workplaces) for this reason (remember, while your two or three exposures in a session and not again - hopefully - for months to years, is largely harmless, they are in that room for hundreds of exposures a day 200+ days a year). So rad-proof glass is definitely a thing even today. However there are several other additional reasons others here have already covered here better than I ever could too. 😃
Windows would not have to be out of glass. There could be a way tougher transparent materials in the expanse f.e. transparent aluminium. I get the budgetary constrains. Although I think there could be some really cool shots especially in the expanse. They could visually establish the orientation of the exterior to the interior. Imagine an outside shot of a spaces ship with a Window at the "front". see a zoom in on the window, and than into the cockpit coming from on top. You might have some flight beds in there giving the pilots a view outside the Window when lying down.
Have you any source to your argument "the budget challenge" ? You dont mention any interview or articel directly. You only say there are facts, that the production team decided that.
