Earlier quoted context omitted.
A friend overlaid an EDM track (Flux Pavilion if I recall) on the original test fire videos from several years ago when the prototype was located at the Virginia test site. I enjoyed the short piece of creative they remixed in the same way I enjoyed the Iron Man franchise. It’s a killing machine, but the engineer in me still deeply appreciates the advanced technology these systems are based on (energy/thermal managem…
> "SpaceX vehicles are a firmware update away from being high precision ICBMs" While strictly speaking true, as an ICBM booster the Falcon 9 would be going on 6 decades obsolete. Cryogenic propellants for ICBMs have been obsolete since the early 60s.
US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
181–190 of 277 posts
Re: US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but missiles have to propel themselves, are very large compared to railgun projectiles, and are easier to break apart by putting a heavy wall of lead in the air. Railgun projectiles have none of these disadvantages. They don't need propellant (or a warhead; the energy delivered upon impact is more than sufficient to break things without needing to explode), they're a solid projectile (and as such can't be as ea…
Could you hit a railgun with a railgun? Why wouldn't countries build massive anti-ship railguns to prevent any such ship from getting even close to their naval facilities?
Re: US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Could you hit a railgun with a railgun? "Smaller than a missile". You could, but it's harder.
Indeed, we don't typically resort to shooting bullets at bullets to defend incoming gunfire.
(Granted, it's more anti-missile than anti-bullet)
Re: US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not the hardest. Bit less than Tungsten so pretty hard but far from hardest. It is used because it is really really dense and hard enough. Perfect for piercing armor.
So perfect for a railgun projectile? :) What is the hardest man-made substance?
Re: US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
#185I find the physics of rail guns pretty fascinating. For something nominally invented in world war 1 (1918) which is now "only a few years" away from possible deployment. We are talking literally a 100 years later. We went from powered flight to flying in orbit in less time, think about that. Is it a compelling weapons concept? Of course it is, you don't need explosives to shoot things that is pretty huge. Are wars ba…
Reminds me of the electric car tech, in a way. I remember reading somewhere on HN that when the cars were initially gaining traction, electric engines were an option already, even with some prototypes. The issue was that the battery tech wasn't quite there to make it efficient and have any mileage compared to gas powered cars. So we went the gas route. And only within the past 5 years, we got a sign of electric cars…
Re: US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "SpaceX vehicles are a firmware update away from being high precision ICBMs" While strictly speaking true, as an ICBM booster the Falcon 9 would be going on 6 decades obsolete. Cryogenic propellants for ICBMs have been obsolete since the early 60s.
Can you reach close to the payload of a falcon 9 with dry rockets though?
Re: US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
"shoot satellites out of orbit", not "into orbit"
Same fundamental problem.
To destroy something in orbit, you just need to get the projectile up there. You don't also have to get it up to escape velocity.
Re: US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
"shoot satellites out of orbit", not "into orbit"
Same fundamental problem.
Re: US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "SpaceX vehicles are a firmware update away from being high precision ICBMs" While strictly speaking true, as an ICBM booster the Falcon 9 would be going on 6 decades obsolete. Cryogenic propellants for ICBMs have been obsolete since the early 60s.
Can you reach close to the payload of a falcon 9 with dry rockets though?
So if your aim is to chuck nukes, a Minuteman-III is plainly superior to a Falcon 9 in every respect save payload. What about payload then? A Minuteman-III can carry up to three warheads with hundreds of kilotons of power each. That's a lot of damage. The Peacekeeper missile, removed from service in 2005, could deliver up to 10 warheads. Of course that cost more, a little more than a Falcon 9 launch, but still had the advantages of being a solid fuel rocket. Still in service, the submarine launched Trident-II can carry as many as 8-14 reentry vehicles, but in practice is limited by various treaties to a fraction of that. If there was the political willpower to violate those treaties and have an ICBM carrying more warheads than either the Minuteman-III or Trident-II currently carry, they would simply put more warheads onto the Trident-II. That'd be a lot simpler than re-purposing the Falcon 9, and a lot more useful.
Something else to consider though is range. Minuteman-III has enough range to hit Russia from the North, but not from the South. That might seem like a pretty severe limitation, but that's actually the way people want things to remain. Back in the 60s the Soviets designed something called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS). Basically, it was an ICBM capable of putting the warhead into orbit, giving it unlimited range. So, in essence, Russia could nuke America over the South Pole, instead of the North Pole, thereby bypassing all of the early warning systems that were looking North. Because this system was seen as a way of bypassing early warning systems, it was seen as a first strike weapon and therefore a destabilizing force. These sort of systems are now prohibited by treaty, and Falcon 9 would be in violation if it were an ICBM. But as a first strike weapon, a Falcon 9 is pretty shit. They take a long time to load and fuel, and their launch sites are high profile. A first strike is all about having the element of surprise; in an Falcon 9 FOBS/ICBM scenario, there are too many opportunities for detection. Particularly when you remember that SSBNs exist.
(There is another option though. The first ICBMs (as well as the Falcon 9) used cryogenic liquid propellants, and modern ICBMs use solid propellant, but in between these two technologies was a third: storable liquid propellants. The Titan II ICBM for instance burned aerozine and n204, both of which are liquids at room temperature, therefore the Titan II can be stored in a fueled state, ready to fly. These missiles could fly on very short notice, but they're also pretty dangerous to be around.)
Re: US Navy's Railgun Now Undergoing Tests in New Mexico
#190I find the physics of rail guns pretty fascinating. For something nominally invented in world war 1 (1918) which is now "only a few years" away from possible deployment. We are talking literally a 100 years later. We went from powered flight to flying in orbit in less time, think about that. Is it a compelling weapons concept? Of course it is, you don't need explosives to shoot things that is pretty huge. Are wars ba…
I think the interesting use case would be to put things into space for a lot less money. Imagine putting one or many of those new Space X internet satellites into a rail gun that goes straight up. It doesn't need to go all the way into space, it just needs to get pretty high, then the cost to break into orbit can require a lot less fuel and make it a lot more cost effective to do space stuff.