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**sposteTipsKage** · 09-05-2010, 05:39 AM

Yeah, and inadvertently start WW3 in the process. And for what? A conventional warhead with a soft, gooey center and an accuracy of plus or minus 150m isn't accurate enough or strong enough, so your just wasting a perfectly good missile better used to quickly replace military satellites, or launch MIRVed AMB impactors.

What they should be looking for here is a kinetic energy impactor. Basically a solid tungsten meteor, with an aerodynamic shape allowing it to penetrate deep bunkers and generally make craters, these are sometimes referred to as "Rods of God". Even so, any unscheduled missile launch from a silo is going to soil a lot of Russian underpants. A better option is to maintain a non-nuclear impactor force on orbit.

Oddly enough, the Air force is launching a small orbital space plane with a payload carrying capacity, the X-37, next week. It's prototype, the X-40, had "useful load" of over a 1000lbs, and the X-37 is 20% bigger.

Cool.

Except none of them have actually been tested yet, and when they are, they'll still be in the "prototype" phase for years.

So what's the stop-gap between now and then?

We've got the B1B and the Reaper, sure, but those have to take into account a signifigant flight time between launch and target (in many circumstances).

So between now and the time we can have an orbital vehicle putting warheads on foreheads in sub one hour timelines what's the next best thing?

09-05-2010, 05:39 AM	#11
sposteTipsKage Join Date Nov 2005 Posts 448 Senior Member	Yeah, and inadvertently start WW3 in the process. And for what? A conventional warhead with a soft, gooey center and an accuracy of plus or minus 150m isn't accurate enough or strong enough, so your just wasting a perfectly good missile better used to quickly replace military satellites, or launch MIRVed AMB impactors. What they should be looking for here is a kinetic energy impactor. Basically a solid tungsten meteor, with an aerodynamic shape allowing it to penetrate deep bunkers and generally make craters, these are sometimes referred to as "Rods of God". Even so, any unscheduled missile launch from a silo is going to soil a lot of Russian underpants. A better option is to maintain a non-nuclear impactor force on orbit. Oddly enough, the Air force is launching a small orbital space plane with a payload carrying capacity, the X-37, next week. It's prototype, the X-40, had "useful load" of over a 1000lbs, and the X-37 is 20% bigger. Cool. Except none of them have actually been tested yet, and when they are, they'll still be in the "prototype" phase for years. So what's the stop-gap between now and then? We've got the B1B and the Reaper, sure, but those have to take into account a signifigant flight time between launch and target (in many circumstances). So between now and the time we can have an orbital vehicle putting warheads on foreheads in sub one hour timelines what's the next best thing?
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