colmore: "Is it really just OK that our government is openly defying the treaties that prevent the weaponization of space?"
Please enlighten me on which treaties such activities violate?
And where were you when the USSR build orbital thermonuclear weapons after signing a treaty outlawing them? Heck, where was ANYBODY on the "we're against space weapons [except moscow's]" bandwagon?
AFAIK these were the first on-the-record interviews with Chilton and Johnson. I'd like to see links to any others, and won't claim exclusivity until a search turns up none.
General Obering told the 'Military Channel' program that the odds of casualty were between 2 and 4 %, and even Geoffrey Forden at MIT, who does not believe the intercept was justified, computed 3.5%, so there's general agreement across a wide range of approaches.
rcamans, the last US satellite I know of that required sea recovery was in 1975, and before that, lots and lots had made it back intact. Can you share more detailed memories so we can see if you really were where you say?
Maury: "the article Oberg's is based on claims ~8 gee loading. Again, bologna; that's what you get on a carefully controlled re-entry, uncontrolled will cause much greater loadings (again, http://www.columbiassacrifice.com/$A_reentry.htm)"
Maury, that number was deliberately chosen based on analysis of the mass/drag ratio of the tank. An empty tank would slow down much quicker and endure higher G's. A lifting body could skim the upper atmosphere longer and slow down more gently over a longer period. A capsule launch abort falls back at a steep angle and reaches really dense air much more quickly then on a nominal descent, and so spikes -- Mercury expected 12 G aborts, Soyuz-1975 pulled 18. The tank, based on discussions with my colleagues at NASA, had ballistic properties similar to a Mercury capsule on its nominal descent, which took 7-8 G's. It wasn't a guess.
Thanks for the thoughtful critiques and suggestions, it'll take me a little time to work through them and engage specific messages. But the story is flaring up again in half a dozen spots across the WWW.// Jim O
this world's tallest [known]
semi-retired rocket scientist
All major themes of these reports -- except the existence of a startling
and bright fireball -- need to be treated with EXTREME SKEPTICISM.
All available documentation shows the Progress de-orbit was performed
exactly on time -- and if it wasn't, it would have burned up over an entirely
different part of the globe. Twelve hours earlier, its passages across the Pacific
were over Kamchatka and just south of the Aleutians -- nowhere near the
airborne eyewitnesses.
Range estimates by pilots of bright fireballs are NOTORIOUSLY inaccurate,
and pilots have been known to throw their aircraft into violent evasive maneuvers
based on seeing bright fireballs that were 100 to 150 kilometers away. This is GOOD
for safety's sake -- always interpret a sudden visual stimulus in the most hazardous
way -- but it's bad for 'dispassionate observations'.
HoiPolloi: "The author jumps to the intercontinental missle scenario. If he bothered to look at a map he'd see that much of Russia (i.e. St Petersburg) is within range of intermediate range missles fired from European sites. With the Baltic states itching to join NATO and Poland already in the club I don't blame Russia for feeling uneasy."
By no means -- this is exactly the scenario, ICBMs, that the Russians are complaining about. As for rapid surface-to-surface strikes, don't SLBMs already cover that scenario?
Nope, if you back off your confrontational misrepresentations you would see that it's exactly the 'attack on our ICBMs' complaint that has the Russians so ridiculously riled. I do blame them for pretending to feel uneasy, for diplomatic advantage.
"Most discussions leave the impression the Russian system simply doesn?t exist." Undoubtedly, the author is talking about the S-400/A-135 network. It's certainly a threat to even our best warplanes (think a patriot missile battery on steroids, with a much longer testing history), but with the 100 km upper range for the biggest missile configurations (if memory serves), it's not going to be shooting down satellites, even low ones, any time soon."
I thought the author was talking about the Russian anti-missile system, with launchers around Moscow and in Kazakhstan. In fact, I checked -- that is indeed his intent. Be more cautious in use of the word 'undoubtedly'. If you have a difference of opinion with somebody, it might not always be because they are morons -- you may have jumped to a wrong interpretation.
"if you're going to make an argument, particularly in a relatively formal setting like a magazine article, it's customary to provide some actual evidence for your argument."
Uh, the author didn't make the argument in "a relatively formal setting like a magazine article", he did it on a commentary website.
Are you going to use MY lack of good manners as an excuse for YOU not doing the required research to refute the claim? Who's being ad hominem now?
Let's see, Moscow RenTV 0630 UT on Dec 8, 2006, had a news item entitled "ABM Missile Launch at Sary-Shagan Test Range". The Dec 26 issue of 'Krasnaya Zvezda' had an article by Space Troops Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Aleksandr Kvasnikov entitled "The Missions Are Being Accomplished in a Worthy Manner", that included the statement: "On Dec 5, a combat crew conducted a combat training launch of a Russian missile defense system interceptor missile from Sary-Shagan Range (Kazakhstan)."
The launch was also reported in the December 6, 2006 issue of "Izvestiya", on page 5, also on the online edition. It was in the report by Aleksandr Sadchikov: "An Anti-Missile Umbrella for the Entire Europe", and included the words: "Yesterday [Dec 5], a joint combat team of Space Troops and the Strategic Missile Troops [SMT] conducted at the testing site in Sary-Shagan, Kazakhstan, a successful training-combat launching of an antimissile of the Russian ABM Defense system designed to destroy hostile intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the words of Colonel General Vladimir Popovkin, Space Troops commander, this launching has convincingly demonstrated the viability of the Russian ABM Defense and its readiness to accomplish goals entrusted to it."
Will that do? Was this effort worth it?
[from a friend of JimO]
Rei: "And who knows what he's thinking about when he writes about changing the orbit with "the moon's gravity". If he's talking about a lunar transfer orbit, he must be ignorant of the huge amount of time and delta-V needed for such a maneuver; it'd be foolish. "
I'll be a little more generous in treating your ignorance than you seem to be for this author. Using lunar swingby as a method to emplace 'space mines' near high-value US assets in GEO or 12-hr-GPS orbits is eminently doable, for long-lead time preparation (not for straight attack). And since the author was a trajectory officer in Mission Control for NASA, I wouldn't be so quick to declare him 'ignorant' about orbital mechanics. For example, the delta-V to get into GEO can often be less using a lunar fly-by than for a direct Hohman transfer -- that rescued commsat back in the 1990's proved it by pioneering the way, did you forget (or never know) about it?
Sean: Myth: The US wants to deny space to those it considers hostile. TSR: No they don't! (no citation given)
Sean, the citation is self-evident -- the original US 'white paper', and the press coverage of it. If you confess you are incapable of finding the original policy text on the Internet, I will be happy to provide the link for you in response, out of pity for your puerile ineptitude.
zennsunni: "Many of these stories deal with weapons that travel through space on their way to surface targets--as military missiles have done since about 1944" 1944? Are you kidding me? The most advanced rocket technology at this time was the as yet unveiled V-3 being designed by the Germans."
Don't you think the author was referring to V-2 missiles which did travel through space on their way to their targets? Or do you want to quibble over the definition of 'space'? The V-2 needed a heat shield to get back down safely, heck, that's good enough for me to call it 'space'.
I think you're right that a geosync base could deliver a weapon to Earth's surface but that still takes about six hours -- and unlike platforms in low earth orbit, it takes a substantial delta-V to move a payload onto an earth-intersecting orbit -- substantial to the amount of ten or twenty times that which is sufficient to de-orbit an object from a LEO platform. Not counting the 50% more energy you have to invest to get the payload up into that orbit to begin with.
Even with a thick net of LEO platforms, you're still talking about hours and hours before any ONE of them has a ground track close to desired target. Why not just use a ground-based ICBM? It's cheaper, you can keep it in a garage where you can service it, it's faster in response and in travel time.... What is better about orbital basing?
Theolein: "They talk about anti ballistic missiles being based in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is and has been independent since 1991. It leases the old Soviet manned rocket launching site at Baikonur to Russia, but it, along with the Ukraine and Byelorus destroyed all of its Soviet era nukes in the 90's, and no longer hosts any strategic Russian military equipment."
As they say, it ain't what you don't know that makes you look like a fool, it's what you do know what ain't so.
Re Kazakhstan: Russia also leases the Sary Shagan ABM rangehead, and several other facilities besides Baykonur (which is far more than a 'manned launch center' -- includes all geosync Protons, plus Dnepr and Zenit commercial carriers, etc etc), and has resumed ABM test and training launches from that site. Do you need a citation, or can you just say, 'Oops, I didn't KNOW that, the author is correct..." ??
"Only if the government continues to cut the junk-tracking budget, otherwise any "junk" moving strangely would be noticed pretty quickly. Also, based on the orbit of the junk that's been around since the dawn of the space program, the Moon's gravity does not cause sudden major orbital changes, and I would suspect that with no other propulsion, the Moon's gravity is not enough to prevent the orbit of a "stealth" satellite with no boosters from decaying."
By no means. Killer satellites small enough not to be seen by ground-based radar could easily lurk in HIGH orbits out where navsats and comsats and brethren circle. Also, small objects NEAR their target objects would not be resolvable as separate objects. You are extrapolating ground-based capabilities for LEO out through cislunar space -- a dangerous delusion.
As for using lunar gravity to slip back down into an orbit of interest -- say, the GEO arc -- it's already been done. True, a brief rocket burn is required for the final delta-V, but then, who is scanning the sky for such a signature -- especially if it were a very low thrust burn over an hour or two? The U.S. just doesn't have sensors to notice it -- and folks who might want to emplace 'space mines' (or who might want the u.S. to WORRY that they HAVE emplaced a few) know this, and we know they know it.... ad infinitum.
Such a weapon is all the more effective because most folks are like you -- they just cannot believe it's possible. Does-- that -- sound -- familiar??
Slashdot Mirror
colmore: "Is it really just OK that our government is openly defying the treaties that prevent the weaponization of space?" Please enlighten me on which treaties such activities violate? And where were you when the USSR build orbital thermonuclear weapons after signing a treaty outlawing them? Heck, where was ANYBODY on the "we're against space weapons [except moscow's]" bandwagon?
AFAIK these were the first on-the-record interviews with Chilton and Johnson. I'd like to see links to any others, and won't claim exclusivity until a search turns up none. General Obering told the 'Military Channel' program that the odds of casualty were between 2 and 4 %, and even Geoffrey Forden at MIT, who does not believe the intercept was justified, computed 3.5%, so there's general agreement across a wide range of approaches.
rcamans, the last US satellite I know of that required sea recovery was in 1975, and before that, lots and lots had made it back intact. Can you share more detailed memories so we can see if you really were where you say?
Maury: "the article Oberg's is based on claims ~8 gee loading. Again, bologna; that's what you get on a carefully controlled re-entry, uncontrolled will cause much greater loadings (again, http://www.columbiassacrifice.com/$A_reentry.htm)" Maury, that number was deliberately chosen based on analysis of the mass/drag ratio of the tank. An empty tank would slow down much quicker and endure higher G's. A lifting body could skim the upper atmosphere longer and slow down more gently over a longer period. A capsule launch abort falls back at a steep angle and reaches really dense air much more quickly then on a nominal descent, and so spikes -- Mercury expected 12 G aborts, Soyuz-1975 pulled 18. The tank, based on discussions with my colleagues at NASA, had ballistic properties similar to a Mercury capsule on its nominal descent, which took 7-8 G's. It wasn't a guess.
Thanks for the thoughtful critiques and suggestions, it'll take me a little time to work through them and engage specific messages. But the story is flaring up again in half a dozen spots across the WWW. // Jim O
this world's tallest [known]
semi-retired rocket scientist
All major themes of these reports -- except the existence of a startling and bright fireball -- need to be treated with EXTREME SKEPTICISM. All available documentation shows the Progress de-orbit was performed exactly on time -- and if it wasn't, it would have burned up over an entirely different part of the globe. Twelve hours earlier, its passages across the Pacific were over Kamchatka and just south of the Aleutians -- nowhere near the airborne eyewitnesses. Range estimates by pilots of bright fireballs are NOTORIOUSLY inaccurate, and pilots have been known to throw their aircraft into violent evasive maneuvers based on seeing bright fireballs that were 100 to 150 kilometers away. This is GOOD for safety's sake -- always interpret a sudden visual stimulus in the most hazardous way -- but it's bad for 'dispassionate observations'.
HoiPolloi: "The author jumps to the intercontinental missle scenario. If he bothered to look at a map he'd see that much of Russia (i.e. St Petersburg) is within range of intermediate range missles fired from European sites. With the Baltic states itching to join NATO and Poland already in the club I don't blame Russia for feeling uneasy."
By no means -- this is exactly the scenario, ICBMs, that the Russians are complaining about. As for rapid surface-to-surface strikes, don't SLBMs already cover that scenario?
Nope, if you back off your confrontational misrepresentations you would see that it's exactly the 'attack on our ICBMs' complaint that has the Russians so ridiculously riled. I do blame them for pretending to feel uneasy, for diplomatic advantage.
"Most discussions leave the impression the Russian system simply doesn?t exist." Undoubtedly, the author is talking about the S-400/A-135 network. It's certainly a threat to even our best warplanes (think a patriot missile battery on steroids, with a much longer testing history), but with the 100 km upper range for the biggest missile configurations (if memory serves), it's not going to be shooting down satellites, even low ones, any time soon." I thought the author was talking about the Russian anti-missile system, with launchers around Moscow and in Kazakhstan. In fact, I checked -- that is indeed his intent. Be more cautious in use of the word 'undoubtedly'. If you have a difference of opinion with somebody, it might not always be because they are morons -- you may have jumped to a wrong interpretation.
"if you're going to make an argument, particularly in a relatively formal setting like a magazine article, it's customary to provide some actual evidence for your argument." Uh, the author didn't make the argument in "a relatively formal setting like a magazine article", he did it on a commentary website. Are you going to use MY lack of good manners as an excuse for YOU not doing the required research to refute the claim? Who's being ad hominem now?
Let's see, Moscow RenTV 0630 UT on Dec 8, 2006, had a news item entitled "ABM Missile Launch at Sary-Shagan Test Range". The Dec 26 issue of 'Krasnaya Zvezda' had an article by Space Troops Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Aleksandr Kvasnikov entitled "The Missions Are Being Accomplished in a Worthy Manner", that included the statement: "On Dec 5, a combat crew conducted a combat training launch of a Russian missile defense system interceptor missile from Sary-Shagan Range (Kazakhstan)." The launch was also reported in the December 6, 2006 issue of "Izvestiya", on page 5, also on the online edition. It was in the report by Aleksandr Sadchikov: "An Anti-Missile Umbrella for the Entire Europe", and included the words: "Yesterday [Dec 5], a joint combat team of Space Troops and the Strategic Missile Troops [SMT] conducted at the testing site in Sary-Shagan, Kazakhstan, a successful training-combat launching of an antimissile of the Russian ABM Defense system designed to destroy hostile intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the words of Colonel General Vladimir Popovkin, Space Troops commander, this launching has convincingly demonstrated the viability of the Russian ABM Defense and its readiness to accomplish goals entrusted to it." Will that do? Was this effort worth it? [from a friend of JimO]
Rei: "And who knows what he's thinking about when he writes about changing the orbit with "the moon's gravity". If he's talking about a lunar transfer orbit, he must be ignorant of the huge amount of time and delta-V needed for such a maneuver; it'd be foolish. " I'll be a little more generous in treating your ignorance than you seem to be for this author. Using lunar swingby as a method to emplace 'space mines' near high-value US assets in GEO or 12-hr-GPS orbits is eminently doable, for long-lead time preparation (not for straight attack). And since the author was a trajectory officer in Mission Control for NASA, I wouldn't be so quick to declare him 'ignorant' about orbital mechanics. For example, the delta-V to get into GEO can often be less using a lunar fly-by than for a direct Hohman transfer -- that rescued commsat back in the 1990's proved it by pioneering the way, did you forget (or never know) about it?
Sean:
Myth: The US wants to deny space to those it considers hostile.
TSR: No they don't! (no citation given)
Sean, the citation is self-evident -- the original US 'white paper', and the press coverage of it. If you confess you are incapable of finding the original policy text on the Internet, I will be happy to provide the link for you in response, out of pity for your puerile ineptitude.
zennsunni: "Many of these stories deal with weapons that travel through space on their way to surface targets--as military missiles have done since about 1944" 1944? Are you kidding me? The most advanced rocket technology at this time was the as yet unveiled V-3 being designed by the Germans." Don't you think the author was referring to V-2 missiles which did travel through space on their way to their targets? Or do you want to quibble over the definition of 'space'? The V-2 needed a heat shield to get back down safely, heck, that's good enough for me to call it 'space'. I think you're right that a geosync base could deliver a weapon to Earth's surface but that still takes about six hours -- and unlike platforms in low earth orbit, it takes a substantial delta-V to move a payload onto an earth-intersecting orbit -- substantial to the amount of ten or twenty times that which is sufficient to de-orbit an object from a LEO platform. Not counting the 50% more energy you have to invest to get the payload up into that orbit to begin with. Even with a thick net of LEO platforms, you're still talking about hours and hours before any ONE of them has a ground track close to desired target. Why not just use a ground-based ICBM? It's cheaper, you can keep it in a garage where you can service it, it's faster in response and in travel time.... What is better about orbital basing?
Theolein: "They talk about anti ballistic missiles being based in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is and has been independent since 1991. It leases the old Soviet manned rocket launching site at Baikonur to Russia, but it, along with the Ukraine and Byelorus destroyed all of its Soviet era nukes in the 90's, and no longer hosts any strategic Russian military equipment." As they say, it ain't what you don't know that makes you look like a fool, it's what you do know what ain't so. Re Kazakhstan: Russia also leases the Sary Shagan ABM rangehead, and several other facilities besides Baykonur (which is far more than a 'manned launch center' -- includes all geosync Protons, plus Dnepr and Zenit commercial carriers, etc etc), and has resumed ABM test and training launches from that site. Do you need a citation, or can you just say, 'Oops, I didn't KNOW that, the author is correct..." ??
"Only if the government continues to cut the junk-tracking budget, otherwise any "junk" moving strangely would be noticed pretty quickly. Also, based on the orbit of the junk that's been around since the dawn of the space program, the Moon's gravity does not cause sudden major orbital changes, and I would suspect that with no other propulsion, the Moon's gravity is not enough to prevent the orbit of a "stealth" satellite with no boosters from decaying." By no means. Killer satellites small enough not to be seen by ground-based radar could easily lurk in HIGH orbits out where navsats and comsats and brethren circle. Also, small objects NEAR their target objects would not be resolvable as separate objects. You are extrapolating ground-based capabilities for LEO out through cislunar space -- a dangerous delusion. As for using lunar gravity to slip back down into an orbit of interest -- say, the GEO arc -- it's already been done. True, a brief rocket burn is required for the final delta-V, but then, who is scanning the sky for such a signature -- especially if it were a very low thrust burn over an hour or two? The U.S. just doesn't have sensors to notice it -- and folks who might want to emplace 'space mines' (or who might want the u.S. to WORRY that they HAVE emplaced a few) know this, and we know they know it.... ad infinitum. Such a weapon is all the more effective because most folks are like you -- they just cannot believe it's possible. Does-- that -- sound -- familiar??
The author hangs his head in chagrin and salutes the finders of his flub. So he tells me.