http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45344709/ns/te...nce-innovation/

Just saw this on msnbc tech-sci and decided to share.

Fun program, good people working on it.

Top Men. Top ...... men.

"Bob and Jim?" "Yes... How did you know?" "Oh, they're always on projects like this. You guys have stopped putting LSD in their coffee, haven't you?" "They stopped drinking coffee, they make a Cocaine Drip 'Coffee' now, so the LSD felt kind of superfluous at this point."

Must make for a quick Tokyo->New York commute.

I saw the article too, a projectile moving in excess of mach 5 striking down from an eliptical orbit- ok so we're a hell of a lot closer to Thor Bolts. Considering the Chinese have been developing long range antiship missles belived to be faster than a vulcan anti-missle system, this is clearly a counter to that, a weapon that can be fired at an even longer range. And a century ago the super weapon was the dreadnaught who's 13.5 inch guns could hit a target 20 miles away. A centurty before that it was the muzzle loaded cannon, capable of hitting a target 2 miles away (with luck). A century before that, no change, going back maybe 500 years to the long bow 300 yards, and the bow was king weapon bacxk for a milenia when steel swords were invented (a couple of feet.) really rapid changes have bene going on in thel ast 200 years..

The earliest was how far you could throw a rock at some idiot who brought a club to a rock fight.

You know ICBM's go further, WAY faster and are about as precise; and have been around for decades? In fact the Chinese system is just a theater ballistic missile that could hit a ship if it had targeting information.

ICBMs are great against targets that don't move, they aren't so great though against targets that move. Not to mention ICBMs have some strategic/political considerations that (may) make them less useful as battlefield weapons.

On the other point would the Chinese/Russian system perhaps be the SS-N-22 Sunburn?


I'm not vouching for any of the validity or content of the site... but the Chinese supersonic anti-ship missile sounded like the Silkworm system or the Sunburn.

No this is the one that spooked the Navy. 100 miles is podunk for Carriers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-21

The trick is to make a weapon that can pack a big punch but is cheap to replace. Consider that during WW1 they where afraid of actually deploying their dreadnaughts because of the cost of replacing one if lost.

World War II as well. It was mostly Subs and Sub Chasers for awhile there.

And also that they by then had become sitting ducks to aircrafts.

And these days one can pack a anti-ship missile onto just about anything that floats or flies.

There are anti-ship missiles and then there are truly threatening anti-ship missiles. Air breathers, the small ones that can be fit on most anything, are not much of a threat to the US fleet, they are only a threat to ships in brown water. Its the medium range ballistic missiles that can target ships, which are the real potential threat to a blue water Navy. They are far more difficult to defeat, and with a range of over a thousand miles they can negate the threat of air craft carriers because their range is further than the carrier. Of course the downside is targeting information for a long flight is not easy to get and keep updated, no land based radar has such a range and assets local to a carrier can be attacked.

The other reason not to use ICBMs is because they look like nukes.

And it wouldn't be good of us to be firing off not-quite-nukes and start the apocalypse.

The Punisher used one as an escape pod in one issue.

It was a Russian Model he aimed at Moscow.

ICBM's are the court of last resort. no one who has them who see's another nation launch can just sit and hope it has a conventional warhead. So they don't come on the table. I was just counting centuries though, not each innovation. 200 years ago it was the muzzle loader and that had been big dog for centuries, menaing we've jumped in the last 2 centuriews far more than the prior two millenia.

The harnessing of electric power seems to have been the spark (heh) that have resulted in all kinds of impressive gain.

It is the one thing that truly makes us unique in history.

Not really new:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paradigm...Frr15Events.svg

Technological progress has been occurring at a faster and faster rate for millenia.

Oh okay, its just a kinetic kill weapon launched from a missile. I suppose it makes more sense than a satalite based system, since China has already demonstrated that its possible to hack into orbit.

Even in warheads that have much kinetic energy, most of the boom is still from explosives. especially ones that are merely hypersonic.

Yeah you need to start talking about relativistic weapons before you don't need much in the way of explosives. I think a Thor shot might be getting into those relativistic velocities unless I missed something in one of the books.

"We'll throw rocks at them." -Adam Selene

Not really THAT fast. throwing a rock at 30k mph is enough to not need explosives much anymore, but that is far above any ballistic missile, even more so for any glider. Funny enough, the moon is far enough that simply dropping something from that orbit would be devastating in effect on earth impact. Of course surviving the atmosphere is the difficult part...

Well let's think stupidly for a second, a specialty of mine. Force is just mass times velocity and we're focusing on the required velocity. Anything heavy enough that it hitting at terminal velocity would be a better idea?

First, momentum is mass times velocity. Terminal velocity is downright slow compared to what an all or even mostly kinetic energy weapon needs.

Indeed, since a de-orbiting Thor Shot travels at about 10,000 Meters/Second. THAT is how it generates its massive damage. Well, that and the weight of the Tungston Rods that are used.

"If you thought the Nuclear Finger of God was bad... Here comes the CROWBAR OF GOD!!!"

Or, for the cost-conscious and recycling freaks, the "3 years and 67 days worth of saved, freeze-dried fecal matter from the satellite OF GOD!!"

Most of that would evaporate on the way down. You need at least a outer shell that can take the heat...

Ah, thank you.