Article

2005-05-18 Home Front: WoT

Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Arms

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Posted by Steve White 2005-05-18 00:41|| || Front Page|| [11149 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Chicom DEATH STAR? - as iff they could. The whole essence of the Lefty argument or precept of Equalism, where international geopolitics and competition is concerned, is to disguise Socialist weaknesses and get vital tech transfers from America and the Capitalist West which the Left couldn't dev on its own, or get quickly to counter the West. To paraphrase a 1980's JAMES BOND 007 flick - "On the contrary, ... where would Soviet research and dev be without California's Silicon Valley and the US free market!? 9-11 was about Socialism and suborning AMerica to same - after 000's of dead, why should any US pol help the Commies!?

Posted by JosephMendiola">JosephMendiola 2005-05-18 02:57|| n/a]">[n/a] 2005-05-18 02:57|| Front Page Top

#2 Space is the ultimate high ground. It would be a mistake to not claim it and defend it.

As for the Chicom Death Star, I comfident it wouldn't last a second in a firefight.

Posted by BrerRabbit 2005-05-18 07:02|| 2005-05-18 07:02|| Front Page Top

#3 [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by Whomoting Omeaper1433 TROLL 2005-05-18 07:29|| 2005-05-18 07:29|| Front Page Top

#4 As for the Chicom Death Star, I comfident it wouldn't last a second in a firefight.

Maybe - but not if we don't build the systems to deal with one.

Posted by too true 2005-05-18 07:59|| 2005-05-18 07:59|| Front Page Top

#5 Rods from God? General Lord? Who writes this stuff, lol?
WRT with the force of a small nuclear weapon, anyone remember Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in which a lunar colony tosses rocks at Earth? Similar results: small mass and very large speed = large explosion

Posted by Spot">Spot 2005-05-18 08:21|| 2005-05-18 08:21|| Front Page Top

#6 Kinetic weapons ("smart rocks") also play a role in Pournelle & Niven's Footfall.

Posted by Mike">Mike 2005-05-18 08:50|| 2005-05-18 08:50|| Front Page Top

#7 Can someone who actually knows settle this. I've heard that a 'smart rock' or 'rod from god' with enough kinetic energy to cause a significant 'explosion' would make a nice firework display as it burned up in the atmosphere.

Posted by phil_b 2005-05-18 08:58|| 2005-05-18 08:58|| Front Page Top

#8 Kinetic weapons also featured prominatly in several episodes of B5 and Hienliens"Starship Troopers".

Posted by raptor 2005-05-18 09:34|| 2005-05-18 09:34|| Front Page Top

#9 I think thermal shielding is the least of the problems. A projectile would be long and a few inches across, minimizing drag. Current shielding tech is enough to protect the the nose and guidance electronics in the tail. The larger question is why? Why expend a $100 million launcher even if it could boost 100 projectiles into orbit. It would still be a minimum of $1 million a shot and targets would be limited to the orbit it is in.

A more interesting question is can a railgun be scaled up to cheaply launch a payload into orbit? Then I could where "Rods from God" would be effective as well as opening up a new era of space exploitation and colonization.

Posted by ed 2005-05-18 10:11|| 2005-05-18 10:11|| Front Page Top

#10 I looked into this a while ago and found a paper on the web which indicated ballistic missiles were so much cheaper and more accurate than kinetic weapons from space, that it was a no brainer to stick with ground launched ballistic missiles or cruise missiles.

The only reason to go with a kinetic weapon from space would be to avoid the fallout issues with a ground launched atomic weapon.

If your trying to go small and take out a smaller military site and not a whole city, then a conventionally armed ballistic missile or cruise missile is far cheaper and more accurate.

Posted by DO 2005-05-18 11:34|| 2005-05-18 11:34|| Front Page Top

#11 THe problem is not that it would start an arms race in space - that has already happened. Of course you'll never hear the anti-American bigoted press tell the whole truth: The Chinese government started it when they began developing and testing anti-sat weapons. The US did the same earlier in the cold war - but has basically discarded all of it as unneeded since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia's allowing thier programs to go into "only R&D" mode. If the Chinese had left well-enough alone this would never have come up.

You guys missed the real point here.

The main reason for putting weapons in space is not to strike ground targets, but to ensure the safety of our own satellites against threats that are now developing in China.

Basically, the Chines havbe decided to pursue a cours that includes making anti-sat weaponry part of their arsenal. So, to protect the US satellites upon which we are very dependent (for Intel, navigation, bomb guidance, communications, etc), we need to set up interceptors of our own, and they need to be in space already. Simple orbital mechanics mandate this approach. By the time the adversary launches and we can determine from the launch the probable orbit to be a hostile one, it will be too late to launch a countermeasures satellite or to intercept it from the ground. The protectors must already be in orbit, on station, to be effective.

To do otherwise is to make oursleves susceptible to a loss of comms, intel and military capability that would enable a "Pearl Harbor" to happen and severely degrade the armed forces' ability to act in the nation's defense.

Posted by OldSpook 2005-05-18 11:39|| 2005-05-18 11:39|| Front Page Top

#12

Just put the railgun on the MOON. Then it can directly shoot Rod from The Moon made out of the Moon. Power by a small reactor. Much cheaper.
Only limiting factor is delivery time is longer.

Posted by 3dc 2005-05-18 12:51|| 2005-05-18 12:51|| Front Page Top

#13 http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/mega.html#THOR

That's the information you need on Project Thor or the "Rod from God."

As Jerry was President of the Citizen's Advisory Council on Space to President Reagan and wrote a textbook for the USAF Academy on the Strategy of Technology, he's in the know if you will.

Posted by Silentbrick">Silentbrick 2005-05-18 14:25|| 2005-05-18 14:25|| Front Page Top

#14 So, Haliburton is modifying their Zionist-designed Indian Ocean Quakeinator for spacework? Niiiiice.

Posted by Brett 2005-05-18 14:47|| 2005-05-18 14:47|| Front Page Top

#15 Yep, it snaps the space-time fabric, course it could piss off the Trhogilian Empire if the harmonics are right.

Posted by Shipman 2005-05-18 16:47|| 2005-05-18 16:47|| Front Page Top

#16 This article is a hatchet-job, designed to inflame the uninformed and provide talking points for the surrender lobby. Neither Global Strike nor Thor ("Rods from God") is conceived as an orbital weapon, let alone a space-based one. In that respect, they are not fundamentally different from ballistic missiles that have used space as a pathway to their targets since the German V-2 of the Second World War.
The article apparently justfifies its premise, that the new directive approves "space weapons," through repetition alone. It also muddles the definition of a space weapon, purely to invite false conclusions from confused readers. Note that the reams of rhetoric contain no factual justification for this, other than the false inference that the new systems are "space weapons" in some alarming new sense.

Deep Cold is a beautifully rendered website on 1960s-era space weapon proposals, from both the US and the Soviet Union.

X-20 Dyna-Soar military spacecraft at Edwards Air Force Base, 1965 (cancelled in 1963)

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-05-18 19:30|| 2005-05-18 19:30|| Front Page Top

#17 phil b,
Above a certain size, an object will not burn up in the atmosphere. Atmospheric heating is caused by the conversion of kinetic energy into thermal energy. The total kinetic energy of an object is a function of mass x velocity. Atmospheric heating is a function of exposed surface area. Because of the square/cube law (the volume of an object increases in proportion to the cube of the dimensions, while the surface area increases in proportion to the square) a larger object has less surface area relative to its volume and, for solid objects, less kinetic heating relative to its mass. For very large objects, such as asteroids, atmospheric heating is almost negligible. The size and shape of kinetic energy weapons would, of course, take all this into consideration. With the proper shape and materials, the minimum size for an object to reach the ground intact at a high velocity is surprisingly small.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-05-18 19:44|| 2005-05-18 19:44|| Front Page Top

#18 Thanks, AC. i was aware of the size issue. My understanding is that absent turbulence what you say is correct. However, at very high speeds, increasing turbulence is an insuperable problem with dumb projectiles. It's potentially solvable with smart projectiles, but the electronics have a long way to go.

Posted by phil_b 2005-05-18 21:02|| 2005-05-18 21:02|| Front Page Top

#19 Don't know about turbulence, but I do know that a lot of dumb objects reach the ground, in the form of meteorites, and the size/proportionality ratio generally holds true for mass loss during passage.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-05-18 22:06|| 2005-05-18 22:06|| Front Page Top

#20 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by Whomoting Omeaper1433 2005-05-18 07:29|| 2005-05-18 07:29|| Front Page Top

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