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Cheap Access to Space
On Jan 15, 11:00 am, Ian Parker wrote:
On 15 Jan, 17:45, Len wrote: On Jan 15, 4:26 am, Ian Parker wrote: On 14 Jan, 22:52, Len wrote: On Jan 14, 12:27 pm, Fred J. McCall wrote: Ian Parker wrote: : :Not completely true. At about the time of Apollo there was a :divergence between missile technology and space technology. Space :technology is based on liquid fueled rockets. : Would that it were so. We'd have one more Shuttle flying if what you just claimed was true. : :These have a higher :specific impulse than the solid fueled missiles : Not necessarily true. Depends on just what 'liquid fuels' are used. : :... but have second strike capability. : ??? The preceding makes no sense. Are you stupidly confusing 'launch under attack' with 'second strike'? This one threw me as well, Fred. As a principal in a very hard-headed, multi-year, USAF HQ study of Survivable Launch Vehicles during the height of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, let me assure everyone that the most promising candidates did not depend upon such a simple distinction between type of propellants. Some of the most superficially promising systems seemed to have been flawed under sufficient analyses; while some less promising concepts got a lot better when you worked on them. Can't say more for obvious reasons. Now we have terrorists, instead of the USSR, a conceivable ally. The problem has changed radically; not that is necessarily easier. Len : :If you have to launch a nuclear missile the last thing you want is to :have to pump in tons of cryogenic fuel. : 'Liquid' does not equate to 'cryogenic'. You've never heard of missiles with storable liquid fuel motors? : :You just want to press the :firing pin and forget. If you are planning a nuclear attack you will :simply wipe out any prospective liquid fuelled retaliation on the :first strike. : Also any prospective solid fueled retaliation. : :You will not have the time to fuel up and fire. : Of course you will. That's what hardened silos are for. Are you suggesting that everyone is always operating under 'launch under attack'? If so, you're an ignorant git. : :In fact :these days with 2m CEPs a conventional first strike is perfectly racticable. : Please cite ANY missile system that has all the following attributes: 1) 2 meter CEP (you're pretty much done right there). 2) Conventional explosive warhead. 3) Can crack open a 1500 PSI hardened silo (you're done here, too, given (2) as a requirement). -- "Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong." -- Thomas Jefferson- Hide quoted text - In fact survivability options have changed with 2m CEP. I did mention CONVENTIONAL attack. At 2m you can aim at doors. There is no point in having an intact rocket if you doors are full of rubble and you can't launch. Liquid/solid is I agree a little simplistic. The fact however remains that no space rocket can be prepared for launch in the 15min or so warning you get. The key to our LV survivability study was to survive an attack with short warning. Response capability with a survivable system can be more relaxed. Our study was not focussed much on survivability of the enemy capability. I agree that a conventional attack with 2 m CEP can actually be useful--contrary to actual use a nuclear attack capability. Actual use of a nuclear response was always a basic admittance of failure. Conventional attack with with low cost launch systems that are not particularly vulnerable to terrorist attack--because of sheer numbers of potential launch sites rather than any other special survivability provisions--would seem to be effective against terrorists for some time to come--as well as against rogue nations without the military capability of the former USSR. There is no alternative to nuclear retaliation agaist a major power like Russia or China. The spead of missile technology is irrelevant here they have all they need to deliver their nuclear weapons anyway. There is always DDT and VX, and we've got lots of those two. - Brad Guth |
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