The bomb fairy.

[Ian Stirling]

If you have a string of bombs spaced a second apart on a trajectory,
is there a reason that you can't simply ride the stream with an orion, and
constantly accellerate to 0.1C at ~1G?
I assume medusa wouldn't work quite so well, due to problems with
detonations in the millions.

This almost certainly requires fission-free bombs.

How hard can an (uncrewed) orion sustain accelleration?

--
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[Jorge R. Frank]

Ian Stirling > wrote in
:

> If you have a string of bombs spaced a second apart on a trajectory,
> is there a reason that you can't simply ride the stream with an orion,
> and constantly accellerate to 0.1C at ~1G?

For one thing, the bombs couldn't be spaced out on "a" trajectory - if they
are all in the same orbit, the first bomb would boost the Orion *out* of
the orbit and it would miss the second and subsequent bombs. The bombs
would each have to be placed on slightly different trajectories, with bomb
1 being on the Orion's current (coasting) trajectory, bomb 2 on the Orion's
predicted post-bomb-1 trajectory, bomb 3 on the predicted post-bomb-2
trajectory, and so on.

So your predictions of each bomb's effect on the Orion's trajectory must be
highly precise, and therefore so must be your prediction of the Orion's
position relative to each bomb at the time of detonation. It seems to me
that one second between bombs does not allow sufficient time to track and
correct dispersions that inevitably build up on such a scheme. You could
probably eject the first bomb from the Orion and hit the second one fairly
precisely, but you'd be slightly off-center for the third bomb, and
completely off for the fourth and subsequent.

--
JRF

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[Jorge R. Frank]

Ian Stirling > wrote in
:

> Jorge R. Frank > wrote:
>> Ian Stirling > wrote in
>> :
>>
>>> If you have a string of bombs spaced a second apart on a trajectory,
>>> is there a reason that you can't simply ride the stream with an
>>> orion, and constantly accellerate to 0.1C at ~1G?
>>
>> For one thing, the bombs couldn't be spaced out on "a" trajectory -
>> if they are all in the same orbit, the first bomb would boost the
>> Orion *out* of the orbit and it would miss the second and subsequent
>> bombs. The bombs would each have to be placed on slightly different
>> trajectories, with bomb 1 being on the Orion's current (coasting)
>> trajectory, bomb 2 on the Orion's predicted post-bomb-1 trajectory,
>> bomb 3 on the predicted post-bomb-2 trajectory, and so on.
>
> The bombs would be on a trajectory, they would be on the trajectory
> that the orion follows.

Let me rephrase myself: it is inaccurate to speak of "the" trajectory the
Orion follows - its trajectory changes noticeably every time it is
accelerated by a bomb. Each bomb must lie on "a" predicted future
trajectory for the Orion - a prediction that changes ever so slightly every
time it hits a bomb.

>> So your predictions of each bomb's effect on the Orion's trajectory
>> must be highly precise, and therefore so must be your prediction of
>> the Orion's position relative to each bomb at the time of detonation.
>> It seems to me that one second between bombs does not allow
>> sufficient time to track and correct dispersions that inevitably
>> build up on such a scheme. You could probably eject the first bomb
>> from the Orion and hit the second one fairly precisely, but you'd be
>> slightly off-center for the third bomb, and completely off for the
>> fourth and subsequent.
>
> Yes, you need to have some sort of stationkeeping arrangment on the
> bomb, and some way to destroy them early if they are way off target.

I think you drastically underestimate the precision of the navigation
required, and the reaction time for the bombs.

--
JRF

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[Peter Fairbrother]

Just catching up. Sorry if the quoting is wrong.

>>>> Ian Stirling > wrote in
>>>> :
>>>>
>>>>> If you have a string of bombs spaced a second apart on a trajectory,
>>>>> is there a reason that you can't simply ride the stream with an
>>>>> orion, and constantly accellerate to 0.1C at ~1G?


The thrust generated by light pressure from the bombs is ignorably small.

Depending where the reaction mass comes from:

- ablation from the Orion's shield, in which case there is no solution for
the mass of the Orion.

- the bomb itself, in which case the final thrust would be minimal (the last
bomb would be moving away from the Orion at 0.1c when detonated)


Of course you could accelerate the bomb to 0.1c, perhaps by carrying it in
the Orion...

--
Peter Fairbrother