Private Mars Rocket II

Apologies for the long radio silence at Casa Gerrib Norte. I was heavily involved in running Capricon and then other Life happened. But relax - your silent suffering is at an end.

Comes news today that the FAA shut down the airspace over El Paso, Texas for 10 days on very short notice. Then, after a widespread round of WTF, they re-opened it. Well, the problem resulted from a spat between the FAA and DOD over using high-powered lasers to shoot down drug cartel drones. Apparently the DOD has been using these at Fort Bliss over FAA objections. Also at least one use of the laser was to shoot down errant party balloons. I have thoughts.

1) Dealing with low-and-slow drones over any urban area is tough. There's a lot of stuff flying around.

2) Especially in peacetime, you really should know what you're shooting at before firing.

3) The drone problem will require multiple solutions, to include sending up your own drones to eyeball a target before hitting it with your Mega Death Ray.

4) The (lack of) planning this incident exhibited is reason #3741 why you need competent people in government. Alas, in the current Administration, competency is actively discouraged.

I'm going to Rotary, so have some links in lieu of content.

A) The other government revolving door - sheriffs departments and state troopers providing new homes for bad cops. Note: although this article is safe, the full site is full of not-safe-for-work "good shit."

B) Regarding the mess in Ferguson, this guy sums up my views perfectly.

C) An interesting article on the American way of dying. Having seen this with a number of aging relatives, the article makes good points.

D) The US Navy has deployed a 30 KW laser as a weapon.

E) An interesting article on the guy who refloated the Costa Concordia.

F) Space geeks really need to drop whatever they are doing and watch this movie.

In thinking about missiles, there are two very different niches that could be filled by them. In fact, the roles are different enough that the very well-appointed warship may have two different anti-ship missile systems.

The first missile roll is what I would call the “hunter-scout.” This would be a missile that would be optimized for long-range attacks. It would have an engine capable of being throttled, be as stealthy as possible, and be smart with good sensors. Part of its “scout” roll would be the VID function.

In modern warfare, it’s very difficult to look at a radar screen and tell the difference between a B-52 and a Boeing 747, especially if the B-52 is trying to look like a 747. They are, after all, large multi-engine subsonic vehicles made by the same company. In modern warfare, manned fighters are sent out to “VID” or “visually identify” (AKA “go look at the damn thing!”) any suspicious targets. A sufficiently smart missile could do that job much safer than a manned vehicle.

The second missile roll is what I would call the “hard-kill” role. This missile is designed strictly for attacking enemy warships. Since presumably the enemy will be trying to use their lasers to melt the inbound missile, hard-kill missiles would be designed to be as laser-resistant as possible. They’d do things like spin, have heat-resistant hulls, and be as fast as possible for shorter-range work.

Tactically, the hunter-scout missile would be used much like a sniper – one missile, one kill. It would try to sneak in and destroy. The hard-kill missile would have to be cheaper and possibly lighter, because it would be launched in a swarm, to attempt to overwhelm the anti-missile lasers. It would be a tactically more of a “spray and pray” weapon system.

I think my future space navy may end up with two missiles. A short, squat fast missile called “Harpoon” to fill the hard-kill role and a larger, stealthy “Arrow” missile for the scout-hunter role.

Students of naval history may remember the USS Stark, which in May 1987 was hit by two Exocet anti-ship missiles. 37 sailors died, 21 were injured, and the ship damn near sank. I have it on reliable sources that the warheads on those Exocets did not detonate. How does my source know this? He found one of the warheads sitting on the deck after his firefighting crew had spent several hours literally kicking it out of the way!

The Exocet missile masses 670 kilograms and travels at 1100 KPH. For us Americans, that’s 1500 pounds at 687 miles per hour, or just under the speed of sound. Two of these missiles without warhead detonation damn near sank a 4,000 ton warship. The two missiles massed the equivalent of a WWII Japanese Zero fighter, one of the planes used in kamikaze attacks late in the war. In short, missiles pack one hell of a punch.

By contrast, lasers don’t pack the same punch. My admittedly small-ish laser used in the previous posts on this topic cuts a 12 inch hole in aluminum or steel. Although no mechanical device reacts well to having random holes cut into it, one could easily imagine scenarios in which a 747 took several such hits and kept flying. Yes, the cabin would depressurize and the folks sitting in the rows hit by the laser will have a very bad day indeed, but a laser might not produce a mission-kill, let alone a hard kill.

When you start thinking about merely traveling to other planets, let alone fighting battles around them, a 747 is rather small by any reasonable standard. The cabin of a 747 has around 1200 cubic meters of space, while the frigate has 11,000 cubic meters just below the waterline. So, while a naval frigate might be a big ship by space standards, a 747 would have to be a small one.

This leads me to conclude that one should expect long-range space ships to be expected to sustain multiple laser hits. However, because weight is critical, I doubt that they would be able to sustain even one hit from a medium or large missile. If you can get a missile past the lasers, you can kill a warship with a single shot.

Coming Monday: Lasers and Missiles go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

A while back I linked to an interesting article about aircraft carriers in space. The tl:dr version of the article is "aircraft carriers in space don't make any sense." This article was linked to over at Simberg's Flying Circus, and in comments, there were several discussions about whether or not beam weapons (AKA "lasers") were better than missiles for space warfare.

I would argue that the well-appointed warship of the foreseeable future would have both weapon systems. But first, it's important to understand the military effectiveness of a laser in space, which I'll do today. A note - all equations and facts are from either the damage from laser online calculator or the great time-sink Atomic Rockets of the Space Patrol.

( cut to avoid swamping F-lists )