Re: SPACE: Lunar Warfare

Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Thu, 16 Jan 1997 20:37:48 -0500


Mark Grant wrote:
>
> On Wed, 15 Jan 1997, James Rogers wrote:
>
> > I think you misjudge sensor technology. Military IR sensor satellites in
> > geosync orbit (~40000 km) can detect fractional degree changes at
> > resolutions of something like 10 meters on the planet surface.
>
> The question would be, how large an area are they scanning at any time? A
> one degree temperature difference over a ten meter square should give you
> maybe 500W at the surface. So that would imply that those satellites could
> detect my warhead at about the same distance.
>
> So if they're scanning the whole sky at once and still getting that
> resolution, then that's a problem, but if they're only scanning a few
> square kilometers at a time then it will take them a significant amount of
> time to spot the warheads and they'll be unable to track more than one;
> Even radar would work if you already knew where the warhead was to within
> a few kilometers. Imaging something you already know the location of is
> much, much easier than finding something in trillions of cubic kilometers
> of space.

What is important to acknowledge is that the Clementine probes main
mission for BMDO was to prove that these sort of sensors could lock onto
and guide a craft to near earth asteroids, which are millions of miles
away. If they can do this, then finding a body reflecting solar flux in
cislunar space is a piece of cake...
>
> > Also, decent signal processing will be able to pick out small, weak,
> > differential IR sources against the backdrop of a spinning earth, since its
> > behavior would distinguish itself from an earth based IR sources.
>
> *If* they know roughly where it is.
>
> > (unqualified) theory is that when you have a flux overload, the
> > superconductor would start to heat up. At a certain temperature point, it
> > would resume an entirely ceramic nature, which would then be unaffected by
> > EMP.
>
> Yeah, I don't know what would happen either. However, all that energy
> would have to go somewhere, and it would probably end up in heat. Even if
> that didn't happen, having gigavolts running unexpectedly through the
> control hardware would be annoying, to say the least.

What is the situation with superconductors and EMPs? I thought that they
did not conduct magnetic fields at all, just current? Also, you would
think that the forces that an induction gun are built to would be in the
range synonimous with nuke EMP type flux levels. I'll have to study my
Pulse Power handbook I got from BMDO.
>

-- 
TANSTAAFL!!!

Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ President retroman@tpk.net Northstar Technologies Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com

Website: http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/ Now Featuring: Mikey's Animatronic Factory http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/animations.htm My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) ------------------------------------------------------------ Transhumanist, Inventor, Webmaster, Ski Guide, Entrepreneur, Artist, Outdoorsman, Libertarian, Arms Exporter-see below. ------------------------------------------------------------ #!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}