Pat Flannery wrote:
This is odd...the test target satellites are inflatable spheres that
have heat generators inside of them, and you point out that the
intercept is basically head-on. The spheres are inflated shortly before
the intercept is attempted... this sounds a lot more like a test of
something designed to intercept incoming ICBM warheads than satellites.

Nope. It's a way to make something the general size and thermal
properties of bird in orbit without having to launch something of the
same general size... but much larger.

Furthermore, birds in orbit will be heated by the sun, while warheads
will not reliably be so heated.

ICBM warheads could well be housed inside of inflatable sphere's (IIRC,
the British Chevaline system may have used this technique) so that they
would appear to be identical to the inflatable decoys on radar until the
covering burnt off during reentry (the decoys would also decelerate
faster on hitting the outer edge of the atmosphere) prior to the
covering burning off, the incoming encased warhead would look like a
heated sphere as it began its descent...much like these target
satellites.

These targets were considerably above the altitude at which an ICBM
warhead or decoy would display significant heating from re-entry
forces.

If the object of the intercept was to do a realistic test of hitting a satellite
in its natural orbital environment, shouldn't the heating of its surface have
been primarily due to solar irradiation?

Which means a large target... That will decay that much faster. Sven
discusses just this at the end of the essay.

*You may want to mention that many scientists were angry about the
destruction of P78-1 at the time, as it was still doing useful work.

More correctly, the hitchhiker experiment was still doing useful work.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL