Re: SPACE: Lunar Warfare

Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Sun, 19 Jan 1997 14:14:22 -0500


Mark Grant wrote:
>
> On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Michael Lorrey wrote:
>
> > 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...
>
> You're still missing, or ignoring, the point. THEY ALREADY KNEW WHERE THE
> ASTEROID WAS! All the sensors had to do was scan a small volume of space
> for a large object.

a 1 km object at 20 million miles equals a 12 meter object at 250,000
miles, or a 12 cm object at 2500 miles. Given a limited set of launch
areas and impact areas, there are defined loci of terminal trajectories
to scan.

Finding a small warhead in a much larger volume of
> space is much, much harder.

Given a known launch area, and impact area, there is a limited set of
targeting solutions to look for. Given this, there are limited areas
that can be scanned for erroneous energy signals.

>
> Does anyone have the stats for Clementine's sensors handy? I can't really
> look for them on the Web with a slow computer on a slow dialup link...
>
> Mark
>
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |Mark Grant M.A., U.L.C. EMAIL: mark@unicorn.com |
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