Skybolt said:I've never understood why the 100-megaton bomb unavailablity would have been a problem: just put 4 25-megaton bombs on that...
archipeppe said:Here it is.
OM said:...It needs an astronaut riding the SM, waving a cowboy hat.
archipeppe said:OM said:...It needs an astronaut riding the SM, waving a cowboy hat.
Mmhhh...you mean like this????
Michel Van said:Skybolt said:I've never understood why the 100-megaton bomb unavailablity would have been a problem: just put 4 25-megaton bombs on that...
that easy, but has one big problem:
try to trigger 4 H-bomb simultaneously
is one to fast, its vaporise the 3 others
rickshaw said:Michel Van said:Skybolt said:I've never understood why the 100-megaton bomb unavailablity would have been a problem: just put 4 25-megaton bombs on that...
that easy, but has one big problem:
try to trigger 4 H-bomb simultaneously
is one to fast, its vaporise the 3 others
Not impossible, just very difficult. Of course, it depends upon what sort of distance you want between the warheads exploding. Now, if you put in a radar proximity fuse which exploded when your four warheads are x distance apart, your detonation problem would basically be solved. However, what target would be worth four 25 megaton warheads or even worse, one 100 megaton warhead? I can't think of any, myself. One 25 megaton warhead would be sufficient to destroy most cities or missile silos.
rickshaw said:One 25 megaton warhead would be sufficient to destroy most cities or missile silos.
Just call me Ray said:rickshaw said:One 25 megaton warhead would be sufficient to destroy most cities or missile silos.
The concern was to deflect an oncoming asteroid. Most cities and even missile silos pretty much just sit on the surface, but an asteroid is at least a rough spheroid of half a kilometer in diameter of solid metal. According to the original link posted there were concerns if even a 100 megaton warhead would do the job.
A 100 Mt bomb detonated on the surface of a 1km iron body will deflect it less than a 100 Mt bomb detonated 20 feet below the surface etc.
RP1 said:A 100 Mt bomb detonated on the surface of a 1km iron body will deflect it less than a 100 Mt bomb detonated 20 feet below the surface etc.
Not necessarily. Very large explosives and nuclear devices have a problem in that most of the energy from the event is simply radiated out into space. To deflect an asteroid one would wish to make as much propulsive use of this energy as possible - a lot of the force would come from vapourised asteroid acting as a rocket, and burying the device may actually increase the propulsive force produced.
. Radiation and neutrons pressure, I think. There wouldn't be much debris to impart an Orion-style kick. And I suspect the "directed-effect" explosion trick wouldn't work with such a large weapon.And, note: a nuke set 20 feet from the surface of an asteroid *will* impart a delta V to it.
Radiation and neutrons pressure, I think. There wouldn't be much debris to impart an Orion-style kick.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=6840This technological fantasy, the product of the MIT Students System Project and the inspiration for the 1979 film "Meteor," presents a plan for avoiding a hypothetical collision between Earth and the Apollo asteroid, Icarus, which sweeps by every nineteen years within a few million miles (a near-miss in astronomical terms). Collision with a four billion-ton rock would create a catastrophe equal to the destructive power of half a trillion tons of TNT.
To prevent tidal waves from washing away the coasts of North America and Europe and shock waves from fracturing the earth's substructure, the Project Icarus plan calls for six 100-megaton hydrogen bombs to be ready for liftoff in sequence from the Kennedy Space Center by six Saturn V rockets in an attempt to push the asteroid off course or to smash it into harmless debris. Clearly, money is no object; all the financial resources of the country are assumed available to the crack Project Icarus team. But time and accuracy are essential.
The description of the frantic project schedule from go-ahead to impact includes selection and modification of the launch vehicle and spacecraft; "design" of the nuclear warhead and prediction of its interaction with the asteroid in space; guidance and control of the spacecraft on its critical intercept trajectory; development of an intercept monitoring satellite to gather scientific data from the asteroid and the explosion; the tight management and rigid PERT schedule; and the economic impact of the project.
How close to Earth will Icarus's eccentric orbit carry it next time? What are the chances of some other, as yet undiscovered, asteroid—or worse, a random meteor—making its way straight for Earth? The MIT team's plan may yet be put to the test.
Orionblamblam said:Kids, kids, no need to fight! Let's just all agree that thermonuclear devices are extremely spiffy, and need to be used more often. Asteroid deflection, civil engineering, urban renewel, entertainment, etc.
SAustin16 said:I find it rather sad and frustrating that:
1. We have no flyable Saturn V boosters (or similar booster) in case we actually need them.
2. Jupiter was recently hit by an asteroid, and it took an AMATEUR Australian astronomer to notice the Pacific Ocean-size impact.
The entire planet is woefully unprepared for this type of event, though we have the technology to improve our situation in regards to detection and influencing our outcome.
Which country or political body has launch authority? Which country will "host" this planetary defense system and is it possible that this system might be used in a war on Earth?
Triton said:With those odds, can we really justify diverting the huge sums of money from other public projects to create and maintain a planetary defense infrastructure that would include creating launch vehicles, launch pads, and possibly half-a-dozen 100 megaton nuclear devices?
How much will it cost to maintain these launch vehicles on constant stand by?
Which country or political body has launch authority?
Which country will "host" this planetary defense system and is it possible that this system might be used in a war on Earth?
SAustin16 said:Though I can't argue too much about the probability of the Earth being hit by a significant object, the reality is that Jupiter was hit with a multiple-impact in 1994 and then again 15 years later (almost to the day). The question now is how often have planets been getting hit in the recent past, with no one on Earth noticing. I do realize that the Earth's smaller gravitational field may reduce our chances, but "probability can be a funny thing".
We're willing to spend trillions on weapons that can destroy our planet, but we're unwilling to spend money on an adequate system to save ourselves. Icarus may not be the answer, but we'd probably learn a lot devising a workable solution.
In the immortal words of "Goose" in Top Gun ... "Your sons died because they were stupid".
mz said:1-The much waffled about Apophis is a few hundred meters in diameter. Hitting a city would be a bad thing, yes, but a 100 km away you'd be fine. Hardly dinosaur killing here.
2-You can estimate impact effects here:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
3-A 6 km asteroid would require more distance for survival, say in the thousands of kilometers magnitude. 10 km is dinosaur killer territory.
blackstar said:mz said:1-The much waffled about Apophis is a few hundred meters in diameter. Hitting a city would be a bad thing, yes, but a 100 km away you'd be fine. Hardly dinosaur killing here.
2-You can estimate impact effects here:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
3-A 6 km asteroid would require more distance for survival, say in the thousands of kilometers magnitude. 10 km is dinosaur killer territory.
1-You'd need more than 100 km, probably. A hit in the ocean (most of the world is ocean) would probably not affect anybody unless there was a ship underneath.
2-The impact effects may be adjusted. New research--still not independently confirmed--suggests that smaller bodies can cause more damage.
3-Your figures are wrong. The generally accepted lower boundary for impacts with globally catastrophic damage (i.e. a dinosaur killer) is around 2-3 kilometers. 6 would be devastating.