From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V3 #69 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Thursday, 1 July 1993 Volume 03 : Number 069 In this issue: US Cable Viewers: DSC, 9:00PM, Wings, F117 test Re: Aurora mission Re: Yet Another... RC-135Q Re: Yet Another... and yet ano... Falling crowbars and yet ano... Falling Crowbars Re: RC-135Q re: and yet ano... Moby Congestion Terminal velocity Re: Terminal velocity See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: I am the NRA Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 07:18:03 PDT Subject: US Cable Viewers: DSC, 9:00PM, Wings, F117 Just noticed: tonight, 30 June, Wings, on DSC, is running the F117 segment. 9:00PM EDST, probably a midnight repeat. regards dwp ------------------------------ From: Joshua Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 16:08:52 +0100 (BST) Subject: test just a test ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 11:00:59 -0700 Subject: Re: Aurora mission Jeff Hagen (Rice University) said: A little bit off the subject, but I have been wondering lately if Delta Clipper type vehicles wouldn't make really fine bombers. Imagine putting a SWERVE type r eentry vehicle in the payload compartment of a DC and you basically have a reusa ble ICBM. If you use the SWERVE as a delivery vehicle for terminally guided muni tions, then you have a cost effective ICBM for conventional warheads. This could go a long way towards making up for the coming reductions in aircraft carriers and intercontinental bombers. To which I respond... The US has a history of utilizing civil or cargo aircraft as military vehicles... you could even include the shuttle in that view. I think that the DC could indeed be used, but you'd not really gain anything from using it over a standard ICBM/SLBM. You don't have many vehicles, and once you start using them to launch strikes, they become fat, happy targets when they land back at their base (just in time for the retaliatory strike... ;-) I have to say that my main point in the original thread was "Sure you _Could_ develop a delivery system with the Aurora, but with all the systems currently available is it really a cost effective solution for that particular mission? The important mission, IMHO, is the might carry... gee, can they spot nuclear warheads by gamma ray emissions? they could even be keeping track of Russian/Ukrainian warheads...) mission is still viable and needs a vehicle that can be directed. Imagine an Aurora sneaking up 10 minutes after a satellite pass and the baddies are uncovering their hidden assets... Other uses come to mind (like orbital turkey shoots and sub detection) but my thinking is that you need a mission that is a little more real-time than nuke strike... Orbital launch might be another, but what could they be launching that can't wait for the Shuttle or a Titan IV? Naw, I'll vote for Recon. (Napoleon would have won had he been able to get good intel...) Rick ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 13:46:42 -0700 Subject: Re: Yet Another... Jeff said: Note that I said DC's would make fine conventionally aremed ICBMs, not nuclear armed. If your going to use a nuke, then yes who cares about the cost of the missle. On the other hand, if you just want to blow up a single building on the other side of the world, then using a Minuteman is awfully expensive. However, if everthing but the reentry vehicle is re-usable, then the cost may be within the realm of practicality. Still just speculation though. Rick said: Oh. Though I'd call them ICDS for Inter Continental Delivery Systems... If you used the DC then you could overfly the target, use a multi-target laser designator (That's my idea for a high-quantity targeting system where multiple targets would be sequentially 'sparkled' with an encoded laser pulse so that preconfigured munitions could target their 'code' and ignore the others... Take out a whole battalion of tanks in one launch, or all the military bunkers in Baghdad in one *bang*) and release a package of laser designated guided crowbars. Kinetic kill object... Yeah, that'd work... they wouldn't retaliate with a nuke if you were dropping crowbars on them, would they? (and yes, I'm serious. It's been talked about before, a crowbar sized metal rod from orbit would be nasty if you could put it on target. And just what _was_ that "BLAST" experiment on STS57? They called it the Battlefield Laser Acquisition System Test...) Rick kuryakin@halcyon.com ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 14:37:18 -0700 Subject: RC-135Q Just spoke with Goodall who cleared up a question that got asked on the list earlier... There is no external difference between a KC-135E and a KC-135Q. The only thing externally visible that would clue you would be the tail number. One of these is 58-0054. Jim has promised me a list of all the tail codes, which I'll post. The main difference in the type is internal, the fuel systems are isolated. Two load points in the wheel well, one for JP4, one for JP7. He indicated that he just came back from another trip to the desert. They, of course, knew he was there and shut down. For a week. He figures that he cost them $25 million... unfortunately, that also means that he saw nothing. Rick kuryakin@halcyon.com ------------------------------ From: thack@cthulhu.Tymnet.COM (Thomas Hackwood) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 14:51:47 PDT Subject: Re: Yet Another... Could one of you kind folks do a simple bit of math and let everyone on Skunk-works know just what a mach 20 crowbar could do to Iraq's intellegence headquarters? Thx! Tom (not a math or physics major!) > Oh. Though I'd call them ICDS for Inter Continental Delivery Systems... > If you used the DC then you could overfly the target, use a multi-target > laser designator (That's my idea for a high-quantity targeting system > where multiple targets would be sequentially 'sparkled' with an encoded > laser pulse so that preconfigured munitions could target their 'code' > and ignore the others... Take out a whole battalion of tanks in one > launch, or all the military bunkers in Baghdad in one *bang*) and > release a package of laser designated guided crowbars. Kinetic kill > object... > > Yeah, that'd work... they wouldn't retaliate with a nuke if you were > dropping crowbars on them, would they? > > (and yes, I'm serious. It's been talked about before, a crowbar sized > metal rod from orbit would be nasty if you could put it on target. > > And just what _was_ that "BLAST" experiment on STS57? They called it > the Battlefield Laser Acquisition System Test...) > > Rick > > kuryakin@halcyon.com > > ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 14:54:48 -0700 Subject: and yet ano... > >Could one of you kind folks do a simple bit of math and let everyone on >Skunk-works know just what a mach 20 crowbar could do to Iraq's intellegence >headquarters? > >Thx! > >Tom (not a math or physics major!) Well, the crowbar was described as adequate to destroy a tank. To take out a headquarters building would probably best taken out with a conventional bomb dropped from high alt... but if you could drop lots with the pass of merely two aircraft it might get interesting. However, I'll bet that a Mach 20 crowbar would do more than shufle the paper on some desks... more fun would be one of those kinetic kill warheads that fold out like an umbrella. Rick ------------------------------ From: Indiana Joe Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 18:52:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Falling crowbars The idea of orbiting kinetic weapons has been around for a while (my brain is refering me to something called Project THOR). However, I think that targeting with one of those things would be a real pain, given the time it would take to de-orbit one of the projectiles. Joe Claffey claffey_jor@ccsu.ctstateu ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 14:54:48 -0700 Subject: and yet ano... > >Could one of you kind folks do a simple bit of math and let everyone on >Skunk-works know just what a mach 20 crowbar could do to Iraq's intellegence >headquarters? > >Thx! > >Tom (not a math or physics major!) Well, the crowbar was described as adequate to destroy a tank. To take out a headquarters building would probably best taken out with a conventional bomb dropped from high alt... but if you could drop lots with the pass of merely two aircraft it might get interesting. However, I'll bet that a Mach 20 crowbar would do more than shufle the paper on some desks... more fun would be one of those kinetic kill warheads that fold out like an umbrella. Rick ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 17:25:19 -0700 Subject: Falling Crowbars >Well, the crowbar was described as adequate to destroy a tank. What model Binford crowbar was that? And was that a fish tank? ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 21:22:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: RC-135Q Just a tidbit of trivia--I was talking to a KC-10 pilot yesterday and he told me that running JP-7 through the Moby absolutely trashed it. Apparently they had to replace valves and lines all over the plane. He said that the KC-135s (even the regular non-Q ones) didn't have this problem. Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com ------------------------------ From: lhawkins@annie.wellesley.edu Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 22:21:00 -0400 Subject: re: and yet ano... > >Could one of you kind folks do a simple bit of math and let everyone on >Skunk-works know just what a mach 20 crowbar could do to Iraq's intellegence >headquarters? > >Thx! > >Tom (not a math or physics major!) Can you say terminal velocity??? All together now... Ter-min-al Vel-oc-i-ty There now. I knew you could. - --Lee ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 00:19:26 -0700 Subject: Moby Congestion That's odd... that must mean that different materials were used in the plumbing. I presume they didn't do this very often... Also, that must mean that the KC10's fueling systems are isolated as well. Interesting... _Thanks_! Rick ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 00:24:29 -0700 Subject: Terminal velocity Well, just what is terminal velocity for a streamlined shape that's roughly 3 feet long and one inch thick? Weighing in at 10-12 pounds? Hey, It wasn't _my_ idea... I just read about it. Rick ------------------------------ From: agbrooks@teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au (Zoz) Date: Thu, 1 Jul 93 17:24:15 CST Subject: Re: Terminal velocity |> Well, just what is terminal velocity for a streamlined shape that's |> roughly 3 feet long and one inch thick? Weighing in at 10-12 pounds? |> |> Hey, It wasn't _my_ idea... I just read about it. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but terminal velocity is simply the limitation on falling speed caused by air resistance. It is the velocity at which acceleration due to gravity equals deceleration due to drag. Should your Brilliant Crowbar (tm) be accelerated to Mach 20 in the vacuum of space, it should retain a goodly percentage of that velocity by the time it reaches the ground as it will not be in the atmosphere long enough for the relatively weak deceleration of air resisitance to slow it down much. Especially as it is a very streamlined shape. - -- ______ _____________ ______________________ ______ /\####/\ / / / / /\####/\ / \##/ \ /_______ / / _ ______ / / \##/ \ /____\/____\ / / / / \ \ / / /____\/____\ \####/\####/ / /____\ \_/ / / /_______ \####/\####/ \##/ \##/ / / / / \##/ \##/ \/____\/ /_____________________/ /____________/ \/____\/ agbrooks@teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V3 #69 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "listserv@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu". 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