zlacker

This is a big thing never shown in sci-fi. For example, those huge torch ships in The Expanse would need gigantic radiators. Even if the drive were upwards of 90% efficient the waste heat would melt the engine and the rest of the ship.

Even the ISS has sizable radiators. The Shuttle had deployable radiators in the form of the bay doors if my memory serves me correctly.

Oddly enough the otherwise dumb Avatar films are among the only ones to show starships with something approaching proper radiators.

There’s no air resistance in space so radiators don’t impact your flight characteristics.

>>api+(OP)
The Mass Effect video games talk about cooling ships, with the warships glowing red from heat if they go too fast

>>api+(OP)
Your memory serves well with respect to the Shuttle. Astronaut Mike Mullane, from his autobiography Riding Rockets:

> Next [after loading the computers with on-orbit software] we opened the payload bay doors. The inside of those doors contained radiators used to dump the heat generated by our electronics into space. If they failed to open, we’d have only a couple hours to get Discovery back on Earth before she fried her brains. But both doors swung open as planned, another milestone passed.

>>api+(OP)
> Oddly enough the otherwise dumb Avatar films are among the only ones to show starships with something approaching proper radiators.

I imagine it's the same reason James Cameron is a world expert on submersibles - the guy picks individual topics in his movies to really get right.

>>rolisz+Q2
I enjoyed seeing it described in those games :)

I'm pretty sure it was that series that also described https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_droplet_radiator , with the side effects of different ships having very distinct heat patterns because of their radiator patterns. And that if a ship ever had to make a turn while they were active, big glowing arcs of slowly-cooling droplets would be flung out into space and leave a kind of heat plume.

>>api+(OP)
Neal Stephenson's _Seveneves_ covers these dynamics in detail :)

>>api+(OP)
The book Saturn Run has an interesting design utilized for a spaceship.