Why aircraft carriers won't make sense in space

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

As for 'stealth ships', those seem to be out of the realm of realistic physics at this point.

I'm not quite so sure, we already have radar reduction materials, sound isn't going to be a problem, and heat dampeners would be simple enough to fit, and to escape visual detection, well you could probably just paint the thing black, or use refraction to bend light around the ship.
The primary problem comes with the reduction of the radar reductive material through collisions with micro-meteors and other small debris which nullifies its usefulness, but if a way is found around that then certainly stealth space vessels are a practical possibility, of course they would be primarily ambush vessels since their drive systems would be detectable in use, a bit like the 'tail-pipe' of Changs Bird of Prey. I think that any stealth technology though would find a better use in mines, depending on the level of defence that ships of the future have against micro-meteors and space debris it wouldn't even need to contain explosives, just enough mass to cause damage when the fast moving vessel collides with it.

Of course there is the possibility of sensor systems which are under development at the moment making things like radar obsolete, but whenever a detection system is developed, it is likely that a counter to it will be under development, from Window to ECM to Stealth.