X-33 Venture Star Reborn as Space Bomber 193
Julius Su writes: "The LA Times reports that the Pentagon is interested in developing a "space bomber" that could be used to drop bombs on any Earthly target within 90 minutes of takeoff -- from an altitude of 300,000 feet. At this height, bombs don't need explosives to function. Critics worry about the start of a new arms race in space. Not to worry, Pentagon officials say -- the plane would fly in a suborbital path and would only attack Earth targets. The plane itself would be adapted from the X-33 Venture Star, originally developed at the Skunk Works as a vertical-take-off glider-landing reusable space vehicle." NASA needs to simply glue machine guns to every launch vehicle they have to assure permanent funding.
Re:Time for target practice.... (Score:1)
Re:animal rights (Score:1)
Re:Time for target practice.... (Score:1)
Re:Arsenal ships ? (Score:2)
"Arsenal ship was a joint Navy / DARPA program to acquire a moderate cost, high firepower demonstrator ship with low manning as soon as possible. The Arsenal Ship was planned to restore the naval support of the land battle, the modern day equivalent of the firepower that battleships provided during World War II and in Korea. The plan was to produce the demonstrator ship for initial operational capability (IOC) by the year 2000. Based on successful demonstration, a total force of four to six Arsenal ships would be funded. The goal was to develop an Arsenal Ship (AS) functional design by the end of FY97. This timeline from concept design (FY96) through fabrication (FY00) represented half the development time of previous naval vessels of this complexity. The Arsenal Ship would contains four times the VLS cells found on a CG-52 class ship, have a fixed unit sailaway price of $450 million, and a life-cycle cost 50% less than that of a naval combatant."
So for the layman - It was a ship that carried alot of cruise missiles (Tomahawk Land Attack Missile), an advanced gun-system and was mostly below the water line, with only a senor mast and navigation bridge and helipad above water.
"The ship would have the equivalent ordnance--about 500 vertically launched weapons from a wide variety of the military's inventory--of about four or five Aegis cruisers and destroyers. Employing the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) "remote magazine" launch concept, the arsenal ship would provide additional magazine capacity for Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD) and Air Supremacy missiles. "
It would have a crew of roughly fifty and would have been 500-800 feet long.
Curtis LeMay (Score:2)
LeMay was the main reason the President made sure that the release of atomic weapons was always a Civilian responsability vs. it being in the hands of the military.
There's alot about LeMay in Black Sun, the history of the Hydrogen bomb and in books about the 8th Air Force.
From what I've seen and heard about him, he was a serious nut that had no qualms about going toe to toe with Russia or China. He favored a joint US/Soviet nuclear strike on China in 68-69 when the Soviets brought up the idea of taking out China's nuclear weapon infrastructure. He favored an invasion of China in '50 and later when they took some small islands from Taiwan. He favored invasion of Cuba in '62 and a first strike against the Soviet Union.
Nukes in Space (Score:4)
http://www.rocketry.com/mwade/lvs/r36o.htm
"The Global Rocket 1 (GR-1) requirement of 1961 called for a system to place a large nuclear warhead equipped with a deorbit rocket stage into a low earth orbit of 150 km altitude. The warhead could approach the United States from any direction, below missile tracking radar, so little warning was available. Not only could such a missile hit any point on earth, but the enemy would also be uncertain when it would be deorbited onto target. The main disadvantage was lower accuracy of the warhead in comparison to an ICBM. "
"Flight trials of the system were conducted 1965 to 1972. Since orbiting of nuclear weapons was a violation of international treaty, the Soviet Union conducted all tests on a 'fractional orbit' basis - i.e. the test warheads were deorbited after less than one orbit of the earth. The system was in service at 18 siloes at Baikonur from 1969 to 1983. "
I count 28 tests from 1961 through 1971.
So yes, the Soviets did orbit nuclear weapons. The US also worked on these projects, but I've got food poisoning and am not going to look through Encyclopedia Astronautica for a link, I though the US FOBS was based on the Titan II and the 9 MT warhead they carried.
There's alot on Soviet and US combat space craft there too, links at the bottom of the page.
http://www.rocketry.com/mwade/index.htm
not a good idea. (Score:1)
Personally, I think the X-33-as-bomber is about as bad an idea as the X-33-as-launcher was. Let's face it, it failed as an x-vehicle testbed for launcher tech, and for a lot of the same reasons, it would make a lousy bomber. I would guess the military would rather have something that a) took off from regular runways, b) used easier-to-deal-with-fuels like kerosene, and c) was more structurally efficient. X-33 didn't get anything from its lifting-body shape, and eventually wound up with bigger wings than competing designs).
CIA troll? Chinese party member? (Score:1)
Forget the "amerikan corporate government" - you should know that a good percentage of the average guys in my neighborhood bar would be quite OK with nuking the entire Mideast (then we could just take the oil) and taking out China to boot. Just because we're tired of hearing a bunch of crap like this. The only thing saving you is we love Oriental women, and that nifty cheap furniture at Pier One.
Re:Better idea (Score:2)
Since it seems a lot of people believe this, I'll comment. Because of its shape, a penny flutters like a falling leaf and reaches a terminal velocity too low to do any damage.
See this site [straightdope.com] for confirmation.
See also Cows with Guns [cowswithguns.com].
OpenSourcerers [opensourcerers.com]
Re: Some thoughts... (Score:2)
Re:CATTLETECH! (Score:3)
Burn in Hell Saddam (Score:1)
Re:Time for target practice.... (Score:3)
You mean Franklin Delano Rosenfeld wasted his entire first term before turning the counrty over to the Elders of Zion? Darn, another paranoid conspiracy theory shot all to pieces.
Re:Better idea (Score:1)
(I don't know how far they can fly though...)
Re:Reality Check for the Peaceniks (Score:1)
We also have the 1928 League of Nations treaty outlawing war whose major signatories were all at war within 15 years.
War is a habit...I am not appaulling it, I am merely pointing out a fact.
Chemical weaponry knocks you dead to, nonetheless the use is prohibited. Even the Nazis obeyed at least this rule as they did not use them in war (Hitler ordered the use of them, but the order was disobeyed)
But it is quite possible the Japanese didn't. Arguably the US did it in Vietnam (was Agent Orange banded chemical warfare or was it legal?), Iraq certainly hasn't. The Warsaw Pact routinely trained for it and had it carefully integrated into their breakthough doctrines.
I would argue that the real reason Germany didn't use it in WWII is they lacked effective countermeasures to protect their own troops and thus its value was much less than its risk. It was this issue that had created problems with the usage of gas from Ypres on in WWI.
With infantry in an explotation role mounted, effective suits for unmounted infantry securing an area, and positive pressure filtering systems on vechiles have made gas much more effective.
Expect to see it used to break a statemate in a conventional war with 20 years.
Not by the US or the western nations...probably not by Japan or even Russia, but by some minor power whose leadership worries less about public outcry and more about victory.
Saddly the same is probably true for tac nukes. My bet is tac nukes get used first, actually, during the next India/Pakistan War.
Herb
Re:Reality Check for the Peaceniks (Score:2)
Why is that bad?
Nuclear weapons have to be set off intentionally...you don't just drop it and have it go off like a cheap pistol. Trust me, the US military alone has "tried" this a lot.
In fact, US weapons are specifically designed NOT to do this. The detonating explosives require specific timing to get the correct denisty/surface area ratio to get the uncontrolled chain reaction. The signalling wires are designed so that relatively small errors in the wire length will prevent correct detonation timing. And if it doesn't explode then we have roughly the same dangers as other radioactives going into orbit, which has nothing to do with militarization of space.
Herb
Reality Check for the Peaceniks (Score:5)
I have to wonder if these people ever paid attention.
Have they heard of Blue Gemini? Are they aware that half of Salyut series of Soviet space station were military? That both the US and Russian have mature anti-satillite technology (and probably the ESA and China as well)? That both the US and USSR had designs for orbital nuclear platforms? That the USSR's platforms re-entry vehicles may have been tesed (mixed reporting on that one still)?
Space is militarized and will continue to be. Why, because war is humanity's racial bad habit. I fail to understand why bombing someone with a suborbital bomber is somehow worse than doing it with a B-2, a B-1, an F-117, an F/A-18, or even a 155mm or 203mm artillery piece.
All will knock down your house and leave you dead.
Want to hate war, good for you...coming from a long line of soldiers I'm not a big fan either (we tend to die a lot)...but to decry this plan as militarizing space is to ignore current reality, history, and human nature.
Herb
Re:Oh good, an X33-based space bomber, no worries (Score:1)
Prime example: the (sr-71a?) blackbird. The thing had major titanium components. To this day titanium remains extremely hard to work because mcnamara ordered the skunk works' custom titanium tooling machines to be destroyed in the name of national security. The engineers are all dead now and we'd be hard-pressed to build another blackbird if we needed to.
Deja Vu (Score:1)
This very possibility was discussed when the X-33 cancellation was posted.
Re:Lock and load (Score:1)
Re:Better idea (Score:3)
Re:How to get funding... (Score:2)
- NASA needs to simply glue machine guns to every launch vehicle they have to assure permanent funding.
Well why the hell not? Our space program owes its existance to the arms race anyway.In the early days of the space program we had a choice between missiles and spaceplanes. Spaceplanes we would have had to develop from scratch, but missiles we had plenty of.
Just take out the warhead and put in a payload and voila, you have a space program.
--
Re:if it's war that'll get us into space... (Score:2)
It's not even our "super sensitive" society that is to blame. Talk to just about anyone and you'll find most agree that exploration and colonization of space will cost lives, and that that is to be expected. We are somewhat indoctrinated into blaming ourselves, or "society" in general, but for this the blame lies squarely with a two party congress that acts in its own interests and not the interests of the people (and who have the system so sewn up that we have difficulty throwing the bastards out), and the lifestyle beaurocrats that serve them (or perhaps are served by them, who can tell anymore?).
Its political and beaurocratic "cover your ass" that is to blame for the unwillingness to take risks and accept the inevitable costs of doing something profoundly difficult but extremely worthwhile like manned space flight.
While there are some who argue the money would be better spent here, I think most people agree that a strong space program would be useful, and it is their dreams which are being betrayed, not by their own "hyper-sensitivity" to risk, but by hordes of beaurocrats and politicians who would rather let the dream of spaceflight die than take even the smallest political risk.
--
Re:Some thoughts... (Score:2)
NASA engineers, dogs, ponys and LeMay (Score:3)
" Yes general, to convert the sub-orbital system to a fully orbit functional craft requires only a minor thrust conversion package, the Lets Enter Geostationary Orbit (LEGO), available for few more billion per system. To convert the gravity assisted kinetic into a more gerenalized hit to kill (HTK) system, referted to as KINETEX (Kill Interorbital NETwork, EXperimental) requires another small modification to the internal weapon system bays. And finally there is the Exogenous REntry Constructor and Terrestrial Orbital Respoder (ERECTOR) package to allow total defense against any terrestrial as well as extra-terrestrial threats.
All of the packages are available under a unifed options package, The Joint Unified Neo Kinetic, Yearly Allocated Resource for Defence Weapons- Aerospace Research-scientist Support ( JUNK YARD WARS).
We kindly thank the Group of Researchers for AVaracious Yearly TRAnsfering INcome (GRAVY TRAIN) for their kind support in funding this anaylis.
(Full disclosure.. I worked as a nuclear physicist and like the Xplanes.. The researchers just recognize that future funding is more likely to come out of DOD than NASA) anyway, writing this was fun.
Some thoughts... (Score:3)
Also, although it'd reach any point on Earth in 90 minutes, I suspect the time needed to actually prepare one for launch would be substantially more. The X-33 uses liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen so unlike an ICBM, it can't be kept on the pad, fueled up and ready to go at a moment's notice as the propellents would boil off.
I'm not knocking this. I think it'd be superb if the Pentagon foots the bill to get the X-33 flying, it's just I can see some serious flaws.
This is why we need to develop the NEAR program (Score:2)
Nasa just needs to point out that this technology has easy crossover application of creating a military mass-driver. Through asteroids at the enemy (especially big ones which are easy to hit). No need to be manned, or carry guns, just engines and fuel.
Re:How to get funding... (Score:2)
I wish that man were peaceful. Unfortunately, as long as we disagree, we will fight. And as long as we fight, we will need to ensure that we win our fights. And as long as we need to win, military applications of technology will generate a sizable return on our investment.
Now, if you want to lose, it's pretty easy. Quit spending on military hardware. In fact, disband the Navy, Army and Marines (the Air Force is a Faux Force, its duties covered by the above). Then sit back and relax as everyone and his brother realises that you've land, resources and people free for the taking.
Re:dyna-soar returns (Score:2)
We could easily have won that war in other, humane ways, too, had it not been for the micromanagement of the war effort.
Re:suborbital mil = bad idea (Score:2)
D'you mean making space just as prone to conflict as the rest of the world? Hate to break it to you, but anywhere there is man, there will be conflict. Anywhere there is conflict there will be violence. And anywhere there is violence there will be the need to counteract that violence. And by counteract I do not mean `Please, stop shooting us. It's not nice, y'know.' I mean `Don't even think about shooting us, 'cause if even one of us dies, you and everyone you care about will be reduced to ash before you get a chance to blink.'
When and if the full-scale colonisation of space commences, there will be a need for weaponry. Those who are foolish enough to believe in some utopian dream of a peaceful space are not only ignorant of human nature, but prime candidates for the Darwin awards of the 22nd century.
Re:If it was too crazy for Hitler... (Score:2)
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
Re:Reality Check for the Peaceniks (Score:2)
Re:We should be worried. So what else is new? (Score:2)
Unless of course, they've never seen Grave of the Fireflies [imdb.com] (or Tombstone for Fireflies, depending on the translation), which depicts the death (the VERY SLOW death) of two japanese children in WWII Japan, when their home town gets fire-bombed. It was not an easy movie to watch, but if you've seen it, the horror of US fire-bombing is not something that you will soon forget.
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
Should we be worried... heck yeah! (Score:3)
Well, a conventional explosive won't do too much. You'll need a lot of them in order to really damage a country's infrastructure, and that takes a lot of time, effort and money (e.g. Gulf War, Bosnia to use US examples). So, you go to nukes. Problem is that there're long-lasting negative effects from nuking (radiation), not just to your target country, but to large portions of the surrounding geography (even the world, of you use enough).
When you're dropping a rock (or car, whatever) from orbit, you have nearly no radiation, and total devistation of the target. So, you can take out N. Korea without any more than kicking up a whole lot of dust at S. Korea. So... why not?! That's the key problem with this kind of weapon: it's a weapon of mass distruction, which cannot distinguish civilians from military targets, and there's very little to hold one back from being the first (an possibly last) to use it....
Second, there's a question of the continued military applications of space. Our population is getting uncontrolably large on this planet, and we may well *need* to start exploring the use of space for: mining, power generation, even manufacture in order to support our population. But, as long as the military presence in space stifles other forms of exploration (and don't kid yourself, right now, we squash any credible civilian attempt to gain a space-borne foot hold), we can't move forward.
Third, darn it, we gave our word (in the form of treaties) and if our word is this worthless, then I submit that we are too!
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
Re:Time for target practice.... (Score:2)
This is a good thing. (Score:2)
I am in favour of this.
From the military standpoint, it will only really make it a little easier than it is not for the US
to blow something up. Really, does it matter if it takes an extra 15 minutes to hit the target
because the boomer has to get to firing depth first? I can't see this helping the US too much.
What I do hope is that there will be a trickle down of technology which will benefit the entire
world. Sub-orbital space flight for the masses would be fantastic. This type of research will
slowly help to make this more of a reality.
Even if it fails totally after billions of dollars, it still means that there are alot more
people skilled in knowing what to do (or not do) to create a sub-orbital plane.
Re:Time for target practice.... (Score:2)
v = g*t_i
where t_i of impact, in seconds from release.
So we have:
v(t) = g*t
d(t) = (1/2)g*t^2
so all we have to do is solve d(t) = 100000, for t
t = sqrt(2*100000/g) (~= 145 sec)
so we plug this into v(t):
v_i = g*t = g*sqrt(2*100000/g) = sqrt(2*100000 * g) (~= 1453 m/s)
No big difference, you'd think. But energy varies as the square of the velocity, so this reduces yeild to (v_i^2/2) Joules per Kg (~ just shy of 1 MegaJoule per kg). This is 1/220 th of your value. Assume we could drop a KiloTonne (assuming metric tonnes: 1 tonne == 1000 Kg), that would give us 1000 Gigajoules, or 1/4 as effective as good old TNT.
Not so great.
Re:Time for target practice.... (Score:3)
Hrm. Is that so? I mean, you can easily calculate the kinetic energy per Kg. What is the terminal velocity of a warhead shaped thingie? A google search for joule kilotonne gives 4200 GigaJoule per kilotonne. The maximum payload of the x33 is 25000 kg, so counting backwards, we see that the payload needs to reach ~ 18300 m/s just to get a kilotonne yeild (and that's for a 40th of a kilotonne, which isn't great). Furthermore, that is mach 61, which I suspect is beyond the terminal velocity of anything in freefall (ie, without incoming velocity).
However, if you want to knock out infrastructure without serious casualties, dropping 25000 unpiloted slugs might do the trick. or 50000 1/2 kilo ones that have explosives. Especially if you can drop them in piloted packages to disperse at lower altitudes. Terminal velocity is your friend, since it basically means you loose nothing by dispersing late (presumably the smaller slugs have higher terminal velocity than the delivery package).
So actually, I see this as a fairly humane rapid suppression device.
Compare and Contrast (Score:4)
The US: Make it military, then we can hide how much it costs in the interest of "National Security".
Russia: We'll get dumb rich Americans to pay us to build it for joy rides. See here: Russia restarting Buran program for space tourism purposes. [k26.com]
Hmm, clever blokes those Russians, eh?
just great (Score:3)
the researchers *were* the military (Score:2)
Actually, according to this history of the Internet [zakon.org], the researchers involved were already working for Rand and DARPA.
Re:Technical issues (researched this for DoD once) (Score:2)
For problems 1 and 2, sure, you've got a roughly 160-fold (sqrt(19) =~ sqrt(16) = 4, 30 * 4 = 160) reduction in energy per unit mass (not counting the ablation), but remember that the point of this is to have cheap warheads. I'm not sure of the exact figures, but I suspect a well-engineered depleted uranium kinetic kill missile costs (per unit mass) well over 160 times your typical bovine. (Less, actually, if you use the bovines being slaughtered for mad cow disease: you could probably get a discount to take them out of Earth's biosphere long enough for them to become noninfectious.)
The main issue here is actually dollars per unit energy on target. Granted, the increased mass will also mean increased launch costs, so the further study might do well to include a comprehensive economic analysis. (Effectiveness of the munitions, aside from energy on target, is probably very similar: these would presumably be used on hardened targets with little ability to dodge, though the cows might be less accurate due to inability to correct for atmospheric irregularities, unless equipped with a guidance and targetting mechanism, which raises the price per munition.)
x-33 groundbreaking technology (Score:2)
Re:dyna-soar returns (Score:3)
-dB
Re:Only earth targets? (Score:2)
--
Better idea (Score:5)
Not only would it be an effective weapon, it would confuse the hell out of any enemies we didn't kill. It would also be cheaper. McWarfare.
So write your congressman in support of highly combustable bovine munitions today!
Not cost effective (Score:3)
And don't tell me about technology spin off. If that's what we want to do, then NASA needs to make that case itself, instead of hiding behind DOD's "national security" excuse. Military production is inefficient at the best of times, but undirected research without public review is a recipe for pure and unmitigated waste. The X-33 is still in a very pure research stage. The military won't do any better with it than NASA did, and will probably do much worse.
NASA knows that X-33 failed to meet any of its basic goals and they know that it won't meet any of them in the near term. Being good bureaucrats, they're trying to save the program. Instead of trying to justify the project to Congress any more, NASA's found some guy with scrambled eggs on his head and scrambled brains in his head who wants to get the military to underwrite the rest of his career. Typical conspiracy of crooks. What a crock.
Oh good, an X33-based space bomber, no worries (Score:5)
The X33 was a prototype vehicle, not meant to be manned. Nor did it have any payload capacity, to speak of. It's payload capacity pretty much was its avionics bay.
Then the composite LH2 tank failed its tests, and they went to a backup plan of Aluminum LH2 tanks, reducing the payload capacity further.
Besides, the X33 was a 1/3 scale test vehicle, and it was never certain exactly how to scale it up to the full-sized Venture Star. I guess perhaps you could make the X33 into an unmanned bomber, but given its miniscule payload capacity, isn't it closer to a mirv'ed ICBM, and don't we have those, already?
Then again, what's the point of an orbital bomber? A craft has to be designed for stealth, you can't fit it in, afterward. Besides, anything would be visible during boost phase, and then you've got a line to follow it, so there are no surprises. Plus even a guided bomb (as others mention) would take so LONG to arrive.
Isn't a cruise missile more cost-effective?
Sounds to me like project leaders grasping at any possible straw to keep their baby alive. (Actually, I approve of this one. I just hope the baby is born, and finds its way back into civilian space.)
Announcing the "DFA" Orbital Assault Vehicle! (Score:2)
Seeking: Funding for orbital assault vehicle
In-field Testing: Over 2 decades
Description: The "DFA" Orbital Assault Vehicle is a multi-purpose space-based weapon. It features vertical take-off [nasa.gov], a heavy-duty tank-like assault vehicle [nasa.gov] (depicted at left), a retractable missile-crushing remote controlled arm [nasa.gov], an army of robot droids [nasa.gov], and the ability to lock onto and board large military craft. [nasa.gov] If you are a member of the Pentagon or an aspiring third-world nation, don't hesitate to contact us [nasa.gov] to find out about our wide array of military applications!
---
And a one, and a two... (Score:2)
So long Mommy!
I'm off to get a Commie!
So send me a salami,
And try to smile somehow!
I'll look for you when the war is over...
An hour and a half from now!
--Tom Lehrer, So Long Mom: A Song for World War III [aol.com] (1965)
__
Bombers or Rakes? (Score:2)
I may be an aging hippie/peacenik, but I know enough military history to know that fancy toys don't win wars. The best they can do is make the job easier for the people who do win wars: the low-tech grunts who have to walk in (often literally) and take and hold territory. The most vociferously hawkish politicians and policymakers often seem to care little about such unglammorous aspects of miliary policy.
__
if it's war that'll get us into space... (Score:3)
Our space program came to a grinding halt when the Challenger exploded, and I think that's a terrible shame, and a disservice to the memory of those who died.
Exploring has always taken a high toll in lives and it is only our lately-super-sensitive society that holds us back in this new arena of space travel. Excuse my irritation, but *I* want to get into space and unless things progress a little more quickly, I'll have to bribe some third world government with promises of blow jobs to get into space. And I don't want that.
Not a good explanation from Pentagon (Score:2)
Good, now I feel safe again... or wait.. I live on Earth. (Of course they are only going to attack targets on earth, where else are there enemies ? :)
And how do they exactly mean... why shouldn't this cause an arms race just because the plane would attack its targets sub-orbital ? It is still a new military aircraft and it can fly in "space".
Re:Republicans, Treaties, and Silver Bullets (Score:2)
The Great Depression allowed militaristic governments to arise in Japan and Germany who then did not give a fig for those treaties. Since every other country hoped for reason to prevail and was unwilling to go through the expense of arming, they were able to do so and not be stopped from aggression until they were fatally committed.
I'd say history proves that economic desperation fosters extreme governments who will ignore treaties, and arms control treaties will encourage said governments to test for weakness.
Finally, citizens of a world government that turned tyrannical would have no recourse. There would not be a United States to land on D-day or a Red Army to bleed for the world. I'm not interested in the illusory safety of a federation until the same sorts of lessons about democracy and legal resolution permeates the world on a deep-rooted cultural level.
Please kindly wake from your dream.
RIAA, etc. (Score:3)
Better enjoy that illegally-downloaded MP3 while you can.....coz you ain't got long.
Re:Better idea (Score:3)
dyna-soar returns (Score:2)
This is a ploy to keep the research going - NASA can't afford to do it - so the hope is the Pentagon will. The valuable work that the military can do is cut the support requirement and speed up the rate with which the device can be reused. Currently the shuttle takes months between launches.
The air force has recently realized that they aren't interested in winning air battles 51-49; they want 100-zip. This point of view is eventually going to spread to the other branches of the military. Not only is this the safest thing for your own troops - it also greatly reduces the chance of war; no one is crazy enough to think they can beat an elephant in a fist fight.
As a weapon - it would take a huge fleet of X-33 type bombers (which would have to be converted to stealth devices) to have much of an impact on the outcome of a war. The U.S. is the only country in the history of the world to have been in the situation of knowing it could conquer the rest of the world and yet not do it. While other countries might bad mouth the U.S. they also realize this simple truth: at the end of World War II the rest of the world was at the mercy of the U.S., and mercy is exactly what the U.S. showed.
CATTLETECH! (Score:2)
Re:This is exactly how the dinosaurs died. (Score:2)
Re:So that makes it OK.... (Score:2)
First, in a realpolitik world, you must be prepared and willing to play by the rules as everyone has decided/agreed to. Wilsonian visions of a utopian world only work when you can change the underlying social agreements and thought processes. Altruism only works when _everyone_ is being altruistic. Suppose, for example, that you and someone else are stuck on a boat. You have enough water for 14 man-days - and the nearest island is 9 days away. If you're both altruistic, you can (just barely) stretch your water supplies to get you both to the island. But neither of you can cheat in the slightest. OTOH, if you're altruistic, and the other person isn't, then you run out of water. Except for the little private stash he's laid aside. You die for lack of water, while he makes it to the island. Self-interest is a bitch, eh?
Second, even in a completely logical environment, you won't find true multi-lateral treaties observed for very long. The governing logic is Prisoner's Dilemma. There's a lot of research that shows that in a 2-person (aka bilateral) PD environment, cooperation is very common, because it's in both sides best interests. In a multilateral PD environment (3 or more actors), however, cooperation quickly breaks down, because even though cooperation is in their _collective_ best interest, it is not in any _individual's_ best interest. I did some research on this in the early 90s as it applied to arms control treaties, and verified that that was in fact the case - one look at the power structure involved in the treaty, and you could tell if it was going to work.
In sum, the 1967 treaty was perfectly workable as long as there were two opposing power blocs - neither side wanted the other to militarize space, so they were willing to forgo the benefits of doing so in return for the benefits of the other side NOT doing so. Once we moved to a multilateral world, however, all that logic fell by the wayside. So, as I said, you can expect a lot of agreements that made a lot of sense during the Cold War to fall by the wayside. The ABM Treaty being another _excellent_ case in point.
Re:The USAF Needs to Stop Doing This (Score:2)
If I were the Chinese, where would I attack?
- Indonesia and Malaysia, to close the straights to transiting traffic. Threaten to shut off Japan's oil supplies, and they _will_ block American base access.
- The West Coast of the US. I don't need to threaten nuclear _impact_. I can threaten EMP strikes. One each against San Diego/Los Angeles, San Francisco/Sacramento, and Seattle/Tacoma/etc., and I've got a $100 billion economic target. Want to see a recession? Try rebuilding the electronics for all three of those from the ground up, and see what that does to the US economy.
- western Australia. Perth makes such a nice, _isolated_ target.
- Brunei. With 2 whole battalions of troops, they'd go under like a rock in the surf. And just think - all that oil!
Anybody who thinks the Chinese are going to go strength vs. strength against the US are stupid. They'll go for asymetric warfare, and threaten to cripple the US and Japanese economies.Re:So that makes it OK.... (Score:2)
Re:The USAF Needs to Stop Doing This (Score:2)
War is like that - people make choices. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. In those two cases, people didn't die due to lack of preparedness. They died because of poor decisions.
Preparedness, though, is having orders out/construction started/mobilization begun for most of the equipment used in the war, in 1940. Do you realize that most of the prototype work for the equipment the US Army took into battle _through 1943_ was done before 1939, before the war ever started? The US Army went into WW2 with _buildings_ full of detailed industrial mobilization plans. The US Navy wasn't far behind, either. All of the aircraft that won WW2 were designed and in production (LRIP, at least) prior to Sept. 1941.
Go read _There's a War to be Won_ by Jeffrey Perret for a look at some of this.
Re:The USAF Needs to Stop Doing This (Score:2)
Re:The USAF Needs to Stop Doing This (Score:2)
Glad to. It's kind of rare these days to find someone who enjoys history, and who actually has a clue on the subject.
King is still dammed, 6 months to admit a mistake that occurred, solely by his personality flaw. Admiral Sims during World war One recognised the threat of U-Boats and convoys as the only means to counter them, he advocated that to the British in 1917.
Well, to give the man his due, he had a few other things on his mind at the time. The folks I'd really go after are the leadership for the Atlantic and Home fleets - they're the ones who really botched up the convoy protection issue. A lot of people in the US didn't think the war would reach all the way across the Atlantic, though - they were quite surprised by the method of the US entry into the war, and by some of the immediate consequences. You might note how unprepared the French were, _6 months_ after they entered the war.
Read John Terraine's "Business in Great Waters, The U-Boat Wars of 1915-1945". It is the definitive book and damms King and the Navy (and in fairness, the British Navy in early World war Two gets dammed as well).
When I get a chance. There's a large pile of to-be-read books in my living room.
There is a flaw in much of military thinking, the cost is always paid in blood.
Always the case, unfortunately.
The first Zero, was captured in February 1942 and shipped to the US for evaluation. It crashlanded almost intact on Thursday Island off the north coast of Australia, following a bombing raid on Darwin (Feb 23 or 29th, 1942). It is easy to see why it has been overlooked historically, US forces didn't capture it, so it has quietly been forgotten. That Zero was used in the designing the Hellcat.
Interesting - I hadn't run into a reference to that one. Date was actually Feb. 19, 1942. Based on the condition of the plane (see the pictures at http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/statuepark/6 20/toyoshima.htm), it looks like it wasn't in flyable shape, so they probably disassembled it and looked it over. The 8/42 Alaska capture was the first one in flyable condition, so it's still arguable, a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if you're right, though, that some elements of the Zero design wound up in the Hellcat.
The Mustang is fascinating, it is the supreme piston engined aircraft of World War 2, but my point was, it was not designed as a long range fighter pre war, so no credit can be taken for it. It evolved almost accidently.
Umm, take that further. It wasn't designed prewar, _period_. North American didn't even start talking about a design for such a plane until mid 1940. The original design, with the Allison engine, was built as a low-level fighter - everyone knew the supercharged Allison wouldn't put out the horsepower needed above 15K feet. Don't know who had the idea to put the Merlin in, but all the design folks knew that would resolve the high-altitude performance issue. A couple other interesting points to note. First, the A-36 was designated as a dive bomber to sneak it into the US inventory. It was, in fact, a fighter from the get-go. Second, The P-51 is pretty much a descendant of the P-40. The North American NA-73 design was, it turns out, partially based on a Curtis-designed successor to the P-40.
Indeed the USAAAF prewar advocated the dogma of the self protecting bomber ie the B17. That dogma was persisted with despite its known fallacy, the ultimate dream was for an independent Airforce and bombing was the way the advocates saw to achieving it. The tradegy was in the pursuit of that dream, the planners condemmed thousands of young men to death, the lessons of the Britsh and the Germans were there, but ignored. Not until the second Schweinfurt did the USAAAF accept that their prewar plans were fantasy.
_Every_ prewar bomber command advocated large bomber strikes. The USAAF was simply the last to have the blinders taken from their eyes. To some extent, they had viable reasons for believing as they did. 1943 really was educational, though, in that it demonstrated the big logical fallacies that couldn't be ignored. BTW-- you might note that by Feb 1944, the bombers were essentially being used as bait, to bring up (and kill) German fighters, in preparation for the June landings.
As an aside the tactic used effectively by the Luftwaffe with head on attacks which rendered the B17's almost defenceless (till the G model) was copied from the RAF No. 111 Squadron, they first used it in the Battle of Britian to attack the German formations. Again a lesson was clearly there but ignored, the question is with almost 3 years to do something(1940-1943), that design flaw in the B17 should have been removed before crews were sent into combat.
There's endless points like that. Did you know that the primary reason the US forces went ashore with Shermans in June of 44 was because George S. Patton thought bigger tanks like the M-26 would be less maneuverable? Turns out that the M-4 had _higher_ ground pressure than the M-26, and was thus less maneuverable on rough ground. But the decision had been made in Jan. 1944, for delivery for the June landings. Once the production targets were changed (7/44), it took another 5 months for the M-26s to get into combat.
As for the Mosquito, it is an anomaly, so clearly superior to any other bomber be it British or American, fast, cheap to make, to maintain, less expensive in crews to train and man, the lists goes on and on.
Hmmm. Semi-arguable - the A-26 Invader had an illustrious post-war career (into the 70s, actually) for precisely those same reasons. But when it debuted, it definitely set the standard.
Were the lumbering fleets of four engined heavies necessary militarily or merely politically, Generals needs armies, without them their prestige is lessened.
Iffy, either way. Once the war started, everyone pretty much had to start building what they had available. B-17s, for example, were produced because they were what was available. Same with the F-4F and P-40. Hell, why do you think there were P-39s/400s sent to Guadalcanal? They were the _wrong_ plane for the mission, but they were also the only thing in the bucket to send. A lot of what was done, was theoretical, with very little way to check accurate results. So everybody tried out their ideas, to see what would work. Ploesti, for example, demonstrated that mass, low-level bombing was suicide. Yet Wewak showed that low-level tactical strikes _did_ have their place. The whole air-support campaign in the Solomons Slot, as well as the Battle of the Bismark Sea, showed what land-based air could do to naval forces, given the chance.
It's still true, though. Take the US Marines. Most of the amphibious doctrine that they used in the Pacific was written and tested in the 1920s. Their close-air-support doctrine was forged in Nicaragua and Haiti, also in the interwar period. Or, use the US Army. All of the tactical infantry doctrine was worked out in the 1920s and 1930s at Ft. Benning. Most of their counter-Panzer doctrine was developed in 1940, during things like the Louisiana exercises (I can't stress it enough - go read Perret on this - he says it far better than I can). Or, the US Navy. Carrier doctrine (as well as unrep capabilities, which were _just_ as important) was worked out in exercises during the 1920s and 1930s. Every major (and most minor) combatant design that the US Navy brought to the party was worked out and ready for production (if not already IN production) before 1939, and they were _all_ on the order books in the 1940/41 budgets. I can't accept your comments about poor decisons of King and Macarthur, they still equate to me to a lack of planning and taking Dixon's book in account shows a serious flaw in the military. Both men's command clearly failed when tested in battle. The mistake they both made was their egos could not accept they could learn from others, King from the detested Britsh and Macarthur from the enemy.
Well, that's an opinion thing. IMHO, Macarthur and King were well prepared, and had planned in-depth for the coming war. However, I think it would be an accurate thing to say that their plans were not necessarily the correct ones, and that they perhaps planned for the wrong war at times. Macarthur pretty much threw away the Phillipines, because (a) he and the War Dept. planned to fight different wars, and (b) once the shooting (and the landings) started, he didn't fight the war he planned for anyway. A great example is the huge supply caches he built up on the central plains south of Manila. After setting his supplies out front, so he could execute a fighting withdrawal, he wound up boxing himself into Bataan, and left large supply caches out for the Japanese to capture. King, similarly, didn't plan for the kind of war the Germans decided to fight - he was thinking offensive strategies in the Atlantic, and then had to strip _that_ capability to cover for the carnage in the Pacific.
I look forward to seeing your corrsponence on other issues in slashdot and will happily mod for you.
Glad to correpsond. Like I said - I like finding someone who knows what they're talking about.
Re:Time for target practice.... (Score:3)
The basic idea is pretty sound - a long chunk of iron/steel, with a guidance package in the nose, and basic aerodynamic surfaces for guidance. Shouldn't be too hard to build, and would be thoroughly nasty once they tough down.
Re:the idiocy continues (Score:3)
- Washington Naval Treaty: Japan signs, then immediately starts building in violation of the treaty. After the initial term of the treaty ends, Japan declares its intent to withdraw from the treaty in the minimum allowable time, and commences construction as appropriate.
- Versailled Treaty: As part of the terms of the treaty, Germany is required to disarm in a number of areas, and is technologically restricted in a number of others (fighter aircraft, u-boats, other weapons development), and is not allowed to militarize the Ruhr, which is occupied by French troops. Germany responds by moving most weapons development work abroad - the Netherlands and the USSR are the two primary locations. The infamous 88mm Pak 18 was, for example, developed and tested by a design team in the Netherlands. The day after France pulls out of the Ruhr, Germany abrogates the relevent portions of the Versailles treaty, and moves their own army troops in.
- CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) Treaty. This treaty reduces conventional forces for both sides by significant amounts. One loophole exists for "maritime" support forces, while another exists as a geographic loophole - Russia is only included up to the Ural mountains. As soon as the treaty is signed, Russia (a) moves large amounts of treaty-prohibited armor into parking facilities to the west of the Ural mountains (ironically, since that equipment wasn't maintained, it's now a huge pile of rust), and (b) redesignates some 20% of their frontal aviation assets as "naval infantry" support assets. NATO pulls a few tricks in similar veins.
The 1967 treaty will be observed as long as the signatories who matter want it to be observed. Quite frankly, however, I expect that most of those treaties will either die, or be ignored, in the next 10-15 years. PD logic is pretty clear that in a multi-power situation, the treaty is the first thing to go.Re:The USAF Needs to Stop Doing This (Score:3)
Figure it out, guys - we're gearing up for a war with China, about 20 years down the road. Just like we started gearing up for a war with Japan, and Germany, in the 1920s.
Re:Arsenal ships ? (Score:5)
One of the interesting issues exposed by the Gulf War was that, given the then-current state of the art, a given firing ship could actually control a lot more firing tubes than were mounted on it. For example, an Aegis cruiser could comfortably target/control several hundred SLCMs, but only had about 70 tubes, and usually kept >2/3 of those filled with SAMs for self defense. Since the control electronics were the expensive part of the equation, and since a properly equiped ship could easily control other ships' missiles, some blithering idiot put these facts together and came up with the arsenal ship.
The basic idea was to have a (large) ship, built to civilian standards (not military/blast/etc. resistant), with a small crew (40ish, as I recall), and only minimal self-defense capability. The ship's primary purpose was to be a great, big, floating VLS platform - the design I saw had over 200 VLS launch tubes, which were to be filled with cruise missiles, with a few SAMs thrown in for use by the accompanying warships if needed. No control electronics, except those needed to permit another ship to control launches, would be included, however. Plans were to build 2 of them - one for the Atlantic fleet, one for the Pacific fleet.
The idea ran into several practical problems:
Re:Oh good, an X33-based space bomber, no worries (Score:3)
Re:Oh good, an X33-based space bomber, no worries (Score:3)
Anyhow, the point of an orbital bomber? You really can not call back an ICBM once it is launched. Cruise missles are pretty slow, when you get down to it, and can be intercepted... (a big maybe on the intercept, perhaps - too much harpoon for me)
The real point? You get monies for pure research - you force anyone who cares to pay money for pure research to counter the new weapon. You hope that one day the technologies might trickle down. Sounds like a win-win for those who try to make a living in the sciences...
Cheap payloads (Score:3)
Even better! (Score:2)
-Kasreyn
Re:If it was too crazy for Hitler... (Score:2)
Not only was the idea presented. It was presented complete with blueprints for a prototype. The German military had been very serious about the idea.
If Adolph Hitler - an SOB who seriously considered using magic, for chrissakes! - thought space-based weapons were too "out there" (pun intended), does this mean the current secretary of defense is crazier than Hitler?
Well, magic has a real history in warfare. In the 17th century, Dr. John Dee, a prominant mathematician and court astrologer to Elizabeth the first was reported to have put a curse on the Armada shortly before it sank. A similar records are found in Japan regarding the Mongol envasion (the first two fleets of ships were wiped out by storms after ceremonies made in Shinto shrines-- giving rise to the concept of "Kamekazi" or Divine Wind). The US has used dowsers in Vietnam to discover trenches, and the US and USSR have emplyed military astrologers.
Hitler was in no way unique in his belief that magic would make a difference in war.
Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:
Re:If it was too crazy for Hitler... (Score:2)
Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:
Re:Better idea (Score:2)
(With apologies to Monty Python)
Re:Oh good, an X33-based space bomber, no worries (Score:3)
Personally, because of this aspect alone, I think the whole thing is a good idea. Other people posted that once we have the first space-based (sub-orbital or not) weapon we're going to have to develop more weapons (in space) to combat other people's weapons (in space). Think Fighters/Bombers.
I've recently read a few good books about the Gemini and Apollo era of space exploration, and the one common theory I've seen in all of the books is, "America needs an idea or threat to organize around- like the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Progam- to do anything of significant import to great ideals." (Not having to do with their immediate lives).
What this means, is if our population is suddenly worried about what type of missle carrying satellite China just sent up the population will support weapons reasearch and deployment. NASA had a budget of 5,000,000,000 during the height of Apollo because the public cared. If it does again more advances in space will be made.
Also, the ramifications of this would not only affect the military, because space, at the moment, is only NASA's domain. If the Air Force or whomever wants to launch missiles (heavy payload) they're probably going to need NASA's help. This means NASA gets money to research rockets, launching platforms, and whatnot. Every advance made for the military also helps the exploration of space in general.
--
People Are Sheep [brassknuckles.net]
Technical issues (researched this for DoD once) (Score:4)
It's a great idea (and ameliorates the excess cow problem [colorado.edu] as well). Unfortunately, in some studies we performed for BARPA [darpa.mil] (Bovine Advanced Research Projects Agency) a while back we encountered some serious technical problems:
That said, of course we recommended further study.
Re:Lock and load (Score:2)
Lock and load (Score:2)
That explains this classic quote: "Nuke 'em from space. That's the only way to be sure" -- Ripley, Aliens
Strap-on Machine Guns (Score:3)
So _that's_ why there were twin chainguns mounted on the asteroid rovers in Armageddon. I couldn't for the life of me figure that one out- until now.
Re:Republicans, Treaties, and Silver Bullets (Score:2)
Anyway, a theme he returns to throughout the text is the incredible over-supply of unneccessary, expensive instruments of mass destruction. If we're going to achieve anything this century, please god let us have real peace. And if it takes a world government to get there, bring it on, say I. Arms control treaties, by definition, can only be a Good Thing.
--
Speed Kills (Score:2)
Something that might be useful would be depleted uranium encased in such a ceramic as a penetrator. It makes a nice penetrator not so much for its high density, but more for two other characteristics. The first of these are uranium is self sharpening. Instead of blunting, as it penetrates, the burs which are certain to form, and might blunt the point would instead peel back revealing an eversharp tip. The second quality of interest is it happens to be pyrophoric. While the penetrator itself might not detonate, the peices of metal that spall off it will be exceptionally hot and pretty well insure that such a penetrator incinerates anything living or useful. In this instance, the high density of the uranium would also serve to enhance the velocity of the penetrator, as the terminal velocity of an object is determined primarily by its density and surface area.
But a full on weapon that is designed to be lauched from a platform as ludicriously expensive as the one proposed would not likely be simple and cheap. One might certainly envision a large guided weapon with multiple warhead consisting of penetrators with explosives sitting at the front of a decent sized rocket. This weapon might glide to a few tens of thousands of feet above its target, them turn on its rocket for an extraboost before launching the warhead, which might scatter the individual penetrators just before impact. Or it may simply just be a warhead large, heavy and fast enough to dig down to and shatter any bunker.
Re:*Sniff* (Score:2)
He probably are a injunear. You know, 135 hours credit with 12 humanities (and you can take "Boolean Logic" for the philosophy requirement). Injunears don't have to know how to spell anything except FORTRAN keywords.
Re:Better idea (Score:2)
Oink! Oink! BOOM!
Only earth targets? (Score:4)
Re:Time for target practice.... (Score:2)
Good calculations, but that's not the problem in your thinking. The problem lies in the fact that terminal velocity doesn't entirly apply to this scenereo. Terminal velocity keeps an object from accelerating beyond it within the atmosphere with only the earth's gravity to accelerate it. Unfortunatly, terminal velocity does not apply without the braking effect of the atmosphere acting on it. That is why meteors fall at very very high (read: much faster than terminal velocity) speeds. If something could only fall at terminal velocity , nothing would ever burn up in the atmosphere. In other words, with these theoretical explosivless bombs, all of there acceleration is done OUTSIDE the atmosphere, and hence they are able to accelerate to much greater speeds before the atmosphere acts on them. And even once they do impact the atmosphere, they will already be going so fast that the braking effect is negligable. Like a speeding frieght train hitting a tractor-trailor. Sure it will slow down, but it's still quite deadly. So yes, it is so. With enough force coming down on something, you won't just punch a hole in it, you'll obliterate it. Think of this, not as a bomb, but as a man made meteor. Yes, terminal velocity would kick in EVENTUALLY, but these bombs would have to be quite lite for them to decelerate to terminal velocity before they reached the ground. Okay, so now you've piqued my curiosity for the actual numbers...
The Meteor example I pointed out before is probably a bad example for our purposes, because those meteors don't (all) just rely on the earth's gravity for acceleration. Most already have a relative speed of many thousands of miles per hour before they ever get near the earth's gravity well.
Now, the article said that the bomber would be capable of delivering strikes from 60 miles+ let's just round that to 5000 ft per mile 5000 * 60 = 300,000 ft. Now let's round this again to 100,000 meters. I know it's not exact, but bear with me...
Now with an altitude of 100,000 meters, we simply use 9.8m/s^2 as our acceleration rate. This will give us a speed of 2243 meters per second at 0 feet. Keep in mind that this formula does not account for friction of the atmosphere. Now let's figure out how much force we're going to deliver, okay? The military uses 500 and 1000 lb bombs a s a sort of standard. These labels are for the entire bomb, not just the explosives. Typically half of that weight is explosives... So let's assume that they'll continue to use these denominations. Let's even go with the lighter one to support your argument. Now 500 Lbs is 227.27 Kgs Let's again round down to 225.
Now, let's recap:
We have our theoretical (frictionless) impact velocity:
2243 m/s
We have our mass:
225 Kgs
We have our altitude:
100,000 m
Now to calculate energy we use the formula:
mass * g * altitude where g = 9.8m/s^2
Using this we get:
220,500,000 joules, which according to your formula of 4200 Gigajoules per kilotonne is 0.0525 kilotonnes. Not much when you're thinking of things in nuclear proportions, but that is a hell of a lot when you consider that his is a single 500 pound bomb without a warhead.
Just for referance, the Hiroshima bomb had a yield of 20 kilotonnes.
Okay, by now half of you are thinking to yourselves that that's a big yield for a "conventional" weapon. And I'm sure a lot of you are still scratching your heads and saying "well what about the drag?" That's where Jovlinger is right. There *will* be drag acting upon the missile-meteor. Not only will it slow it down, but it is likley to reduce the mass of the bomb too, due to much of it's mass burning up on reentry. The only site I was able to find that deals at all with both of these paramaters (mass lost and drag that varies with variable atmospheric density) is here [gmu.edu] The test at the botom of the page is the most relavent one since it uses a 90 degree entry angle. However it is only a 100kg model. Even still, 66% of it's mass survives reentry and it impacts with 795 kilojoules... Keep in mind this is less than half of our theoretical meteor-missile. Now, what does all this mean? I havn't the foggiest idea. Is this weapon anywhere nuclear class? No. But these numbers, I believe are quite respectable for conventional weapons. By the way, if none of this makes any sence to you, it's probably because I havn't slept in 36 hours, so if someone wants to try and translate this post into something more human readable, be my guest ( :
Um.... yeah.
Republicans, Treaties, and Silver Bullets (Score:5)
One of the primary targets amongst my right-wing colleagues was the Outer Space Treaty. In particular, they are upset by the "no weapons in space" rule (itself subject to some interpretation as to what it actually means), the "celestial bodies aren't owned by nations" rule, and the "free passage in space over any nation" rule. Finding a way to quietly erode this treaty would make them very happy, because the best way to get rid of a treaty is to quietly let it slip into obsolescence. That way you avoid all of the shouting that accompanies the current missile defense row, for example. The ASAT prorgam, Space Based Laser program, Brilliant Pebbles, and similar have already walked this particular path
The Pentagon has long talked about a Space Plane project. As it is, this is a bad program. The X-33 has technical issues, but I'm sure they will be worked out. On the other hand, it's heavy, relatively fuel-inefficient (for example, the failure of honeycomb design fuel tanks - and replacement with conventional ones - has resulted in significant weight gain/total fuel loss). It also wastes a HUGE amount of infrastucture on carrying a human crew - the same problem exhibited in other Air Force projects. Make something like this unmanned and you can halve the weight, greatly reduce development costs, and make running costs significantly lower - not to mention you don't have to worry so much about pilot safety.
This program satisfies several of these objectives. It further militarises space, gives the Pentagon a shiny new weapon, and gives Frank Gaffney reason to send more faxes to anyone and everyone. In reality, it will be like the B2; expensive, capable of hitting a small number of targets per trip (with high turnaround times, to boot). It's unlikely that very many will be built, and the X33 program already has significant cost overruns. Just like the B2, it will be dubbed as "equivalent to X conventional planes" (with X being a large number) despite the fact that you still need the other X-1 planes for more general purpose missions. Rumsfield is proving to be like Weinberger; willing to spend big bucks on technology that the services want without trying to fit it into any sort of grand strategy. His obsession with China can't be helping, either. Expect several more "silver bullet" military solutions of this type - arsenal ships spring to mind.
The USAF Needs to Stop Doing This (Score:2)
The bombing mission profile doesn't make any sense either. If the costs of launching this thing are anything like the Space Shuttle than the missiles are cheaper. (and faster, at least with regard to ICBMs) Since the US refuses to learn from Russia and develop economies of scale in rocket production, the military would seem to be the perfect place to do it. The missiles would also be unmanned (much better for PR), and could draw on a much better set of guidance technologies than the kinetic weapons to be dropped from this thing. I think that the problem of targeting these things may turn out to be fatal. During reentry it can't communicate via radio (no GPS) and unlike an ICBM it doesn't have a miss radius. (It has to hit the target dead-on, it can't miss by a mile or two) Cruise missiles may actually be more viable, as only really the Great Powers poisess the technology to stop them and they don't have guidance problems as severe. They also don't generate US casualties.
This project is also indicative of the breakdown in US war planning. In an actual, all-out war, this thing is useless. It doesn't have nearly enoigh payload and costs far too much. This weapon only has value in Iraq II or Libya IV or whatever. The US needs to stop basing its strategies around the idea that we'll be dominant as we are now forever, because we won't be. This project, as it is useless and likely to start another arms race, is just another example of American arrogance. Let's hope we can shake off this arrogance before the next big war.
Think ahead (Score:2)
It sounds to me like they are worried that they wouldn't be able to plausably deny what they *do* have since the other project tanked, and therefore need to create a way to go from here to there without their budget/motives/balls out in the open for the public to see.
How to get funding... (Score:4)
That's not actually that far off the mark.
To get funding for most projects, you need to demonstrate that there will be a return on investment, or, if you can't do that, develop it for military applications.
This is the reason the 'Net was developed by ARPA. There was no concieveable way to make money out of it (there still isn't
Shame that's how society works... either it makes money, or it makes war.
Re:dyna-soar returns (Score:2)
Hey dudes, Vietnam kicked our ass! Imagine how hard it would be to occupy a regular, non-peasant, industialised country (other than France, of course).
Furthermore, Liquid fueled weapons suck (Score:2)
Forward commander:We've confirmed the terrorist summit is going on right now at coordinates 1.343'34.33. Launch a strike with that 45-minute space bomber!
Bomber control:Roger that. We'll begin hydrogen fueling procedures and checklist now. ETA, 4 hours.
Forward commander:Too late; forget it. I'll launch one of those boring old cruise missles instead. It'll save the taxpayers a few hundred million anyway; maybe we can use the money to remodel the gym here at the base...
Time for target practice.... (Score:2)
Re:Time for target practice.... (Score:2)
If it was too crazy for Hitler... (Score:2)
If Adolph Hitler - an SOB who seriously considered using magic, for chrissakes! - thought space-based weapons were too "out there" (pun intended), does this mean the current secretary of defense is crazier than Hitler?
USA Intellectual Property Laws: 5 monkeys, 1 hour.
Exactly! (Score:3)
That said, the idea of kinetic bombs is sort of cool, just because they give you enormous penetrating power without using a nuke.
USA Intellectual Property Laws: 5 monkeys, 1 hour.
Re:Better idea (Score:2)
No it cannot - at least not in earth's athmosphere.
Without a detailed calculation, I would guess it would not gain a speed much in excess of 20 m/s, app. 45mph.
However, you can check that for yourself: Suspend a penny from a thin string and dangle it out of the window of your car (driven by a friend, of course).
While you pick up speed, the air-drag will increase the angle of the suspending string to the normal (vertical). When this angle reaches 45 degrees, the air-drag is just as big as the gravitational force exerted on the penny. The speed you then read on your odometer is the maximum speed a free-falling penny could attain.
If this speed were 20m/s, then it would be attained after the penny fell from a height of app 20m (65 feet), disregarding air-resistance during this first 2 seconds of acceleration.
In practice, it will not make a noticable difference to the speed of the penny if it was released from 100 feet or 1000 feet. If released from space, from any height or at any initial speed, it would either burn up completely, or be checked to just that 45mpH before reaching the surface of the earth.
If you throw out a penny at 45mph from the window of your car, or release it from the 6th floor of a building, it will not create an impression I would care to call a crater.
Otherwise, people would be killed when hit by bird-droppings any day !
Re:Only earth targets? (Score:5)
Re:dyna-soar returns (Score:2)