Speaking of Kinetic Kill, at Dalghren, they're futzing with electromagnetically launched projectiles. The projectiles come out of the barrel with so much energy and travel so fast that it's literally pointless to put explosives into the shells as they'd be redundant. The kinetic impact alone would do far more damage than the limited amount of explosives could do.
Do you think people are stupid? Do you think people broadcast to the world "Hey! Top Secret Payload right here!". Do you think they put such an object in space and then blast it all over the place getting it into its "secret spot"? Do you think all weapons have to be huge, something the size of Optimus Prime? You are so far out of your depth its pitiful.
I don't know, but I don't think they would let that deter them. I'm sure it was expensive to send the first rocket into space too.
Yeah, but while the government loves to spend money on the military...they do look at cost effectiveness. In my example of putting just 4 rods into space...the same amount of money could buy 205 conventional Massive Ordinance Penetrators. The cost of the satellite could likely pay for the fuel for the B-52 planes to drop them. Like I said...why drop 4 when you can crater every military base an enemy owns for the same price?
Now, no. In the future as we develop new technologies that will let us get into space inexpensively...sure.
Space weapons don't have to target ground based targets. Decades ago there were tests of anti-satellite satellites, you can bet there are such vehicles in orbit right now. All these systems did was deploy some debris in the path of the target satellite and when the debris and the target collide, no more target. Since then you can be certain more and better techniques have been developed and deployed. Total destruction of the target is not required, it just has to be made nonfunctional, even temporarily nonfunctional can be valuable. Think of your 205 MOPs and all the infrastructure required to deliver them to their target. And how much easier to do that to a blind enemy, an enemy who lost their orbital communications links and orbital surveillance, whose command and control was in chaos.
Which makes me worry if has back up communications. Hard wire. Short distance radio. Microwave surface to surface line of sight. Or are we really blind when out aerospace based communications is taken out. Moi r > g Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic, regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.
Americans don't have a monopoly on people who can think, every industrialized nation can see the weaknesses. You can be sure that China and Russia and every other industrialized nation are looking at USA satellites (particularly GPS) and thinking of ways to neutralize them. The US is heavily dependent upon high tech, including the military. Imagine what happens when the internet goes down on a national scale, all that electronic banking and finance stops, cash stops flowing until institutions figure out how to do it manually again. At the individual level, credit cards stop working, and how many people have enough cash to go a month or 2, how many people don't even have checks? Can't buy food, gas, medication. And the military is very dependent upon GPS for situational awareness, targeting, communications timing, navigation. Some have started to recognize the weakness, but it will be a tough day when all those soldiers have to pull out a map and compass and can't talk to or pinpoint everybody.
A good point, but as a weapons system it's still not that practical. Ok, I mean yes you can drop debris in front of a satellite and disable/destroy it. But in order to do that you have to have the killer satellite moving at a speed that the debris is moving at a vastly different speed in comparison to the targeted satellite. Either by moving towards the targeted satellite at a goodly clip, or by putting slow moving debris in the path of a fast moving satellite. This is not easy to line up. Not impossible, but not easy. Most nations with satellite killing technologies are employing satellite killing air-to-space missiles. The US Currently uses the ASM-135 for example. Even Russia who (back when they were the Soviet Union) played with satellite killing satellites...now relies on the simpler and less expensive PL-19 Nudol missile for their satellite-killing needs. Right now, space-based weapons are not practical from a cost-per-weight standpoint. Most of the systems that are on the design tables or have been tested in the past are far more costly than conventional terrestrial based weapons systems that can do the job as well as if not better than the satellite based systems. But that's just for now. As we find better ways to get stuff into space more cheaply...then it's time to worry about such things.
If you are aiming at another object in space, a robotically controlled 44 revolver should do the trick. How big do you suppose the robot needs to be? Bigger than Dirty Harry? What are you aiming at from space? Then I can answer more better.
A .44 Magnum bullet travels 1,475 feet per second or roughly 1,005 miles per hour. Depending on what orbit a satellite is sitting at a stable orbit...you're looking at satellites moving from 17,500 MPH (low orbit, International Space Station, 250 miles altitude) to the GOES and GPS satellites sitting at geosynchronous orbit (22,000 miles altitude) which travel at roughly 7,000 MPH and finally the Moon (240,000 miles) which travels at 2,300 MPH. This means that you need to point that .44 Mag with some serious accuracy from somewhere in front of incoming satellite to be able to hit it. If you have to try to hit it from behind it's going to fly away from the bullet like a McLaren F1 peeling away from a child on a Little Tikes pedal car. Anti Satellite Missile systems are designed to do just that. The Aircraft (for the US it's the F-15) flies in a direction to be pointing the missile where it can get a lock on it, calculate an intercept point and then detonate a spread of debris in front of it so when the satellite hits it...that's when the damage is done.
The robotic computer will manage it. The Clint Eastwood robotic could move in closer for the kill shot. And until we "do it" in space, to we really know the velocity of a 44 in space? The point was the combined Clint Eastwood robotic and the 44 need not be as enormous as the reply I intended to a quote. Almost.
First of all, a self-guided missile is in a sense a robot. It makes the calculations and sorts out the best point of intercept. Yet...it deploys a screen of projectiles to make sure since it's possible to hit a satellite and do limited damage. Say it knicks a solar panel, or passes through the silhouette of the satellite, but passes through the empty space between the spars. Or simply grazes the housing. Not to mention, the ASM-135 travels at a top speed of 15,000 mph. Much faster than the .44 and pretty close to the speed of the satellites. There have been tests of bullets fired in vacuum. Little difference. The speed of the bullet is determined by the expansion rate of the propellant and the oxidizer in the powder factoring in the need to push the air out of the barrel as the bullet travels down it. The speed of the bullet going through the barrel would be slightly faster since there is no atmosphere to get pushed out of the way when the bullet travels along, but the expansion of fuel and oxidizer is still the limiting factor. The increase of speed is negligible. So instead of 1,475, you might hit 1,500 fps. Still slower then the satellites, and still slower than the ASM-135.
Do you understand distances in space? Objects have miles and miles and miles of distance between them.
Bullets are pretty aerodynamic. Someone did a computer simulation of bullets in flight. A .50BMG round fired at sea level in only stopped by hitting something or is pulled into the ground by gravity. However if you left the atmospheric drag alone and removed gravity from the equation, after being in flight for 3 minutes, the speed of the round would be reduced by only 8cm per second. So from a speed of 923 meters per second, you get reduced to 922.92 meters per second. So firing it in space isn't going to make that much of a different really. I think you've be bummed at the results...but it would be a fun experiment.
Yes, can't we the public have a little fun with all our NASA Space tax dollars or must we wait for some ferighner or private enterprise to do it first. As far as vast distances, let the Dirty Harry robot get "up close and personal" relatively speaking and fire the round. The Dirty Harry robot and its' 44 might just be smaller than a missile firing killer satellite. The reply that started this conversation was about not needing "enormous" size for the job. Moi r > g
These systems exist now. It was in Aviation Week long ago. Putting debris in front of a satellite has been done, there are multiple ways of doing it. And in a time when there are directed energy near operational systems that can shoot down a drone and disable a missile in the atmosphere, you can bet they have been in space already. So its expensive. What would you pay to blind and confuse your enemy in time of war? Its pretty cheap when you think of it in those terms.
