On Mar 16, 4:10*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
wrote:

Warheads re-entered at nearly orbtial velocity. *The design of re-
entry vehicles - RV - is STILL highly classified!

I hate to tell you this, but there are before-and-after photos of the
ablative warhead of a Minuteman II in the book *"US Nuclear Weapons"
from around 1985.
Getting info on the specifics of the RV design is fairly easy...what
exactly's _inside_ the RV is a bit more difficult.
Ever since Minuteman III our RV's have been pretty much identical in
design...sharply swept cones.
Here's the W-87 MIRV warheads off of a Peacekeeper ICBM:http://www.talkingproud.us/ImagesMil.../RVSinCone.jpg
And a cutaway of one:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Warhead.jpg/4...
The above mentioned book has cutaways of the RV showing spin-up motors,
and antennae positions for arming.

Pat

I agree with all of that - but 1985 is about 30 years after the time
we're talking about, so, it doesn't really conflict - however, even
today there are laws on the books that restrict a clear engineering
analysis of a lot of the details from entering public discourse. Can
you point to an engineering analysis that details out the materials,
their thermal properties, their proper application and so forth?

I can give you a photo of a can of coca-cola, I can even buy one and
hand it to you. I can't give you the formula for the syrup however.