From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #156 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Wednesday, 21 September 1994 Volume 05 : Number 156 In this issue: Re: High-tec Russian Stealth Reno Flyby Aircraft Re: High-tec Re: High-tec Re: High-tec Re: High-tec off-topi - Glomar Explorer Re: High-tec Re:High Tec and ABL Re: High-tec Blowing people up Lasers and Anti-stealth ====> LIDAR IMHO Re: off-topi - Glomar Explorer Re: Blowing people up Re: Anit-stealth missile? New SR-71 book Re: New SR-71 book Re: Anit-stealth missile? Re: New SR-71 book Re: High-tec 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: HACKETT@vilas.uwex.edu Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 16:00:17 CDT Subject: Re: High-tec ." I don't know how accurate this is, but knowing how well Clancy gets his facts straight..... I wish I could remember what the problem was but there was a glaring error in his most recent (at least in paper back) opus Without Remorse....as I recall it was referring to a tanker as a C-135. I'm pretty sure all tankers are KC whatevers. Correct me if I'm slandaring the poor (g) man. ------------------------------ From: ConsLaw@aol.com Date: Tue, 20 Sep 94 19:04:30 EDT Subject: Russian Stealth In the Popular Science excerpt from his book, Ben Rich said that the computer program they used to test stealth designs was based on theories from a Soviet research paper. Perhaps we were able to put the ideas into practice earlier because of our more advanced computer technology. Perhaps the Soviets have also had some secret stealth weapons, but they are still secret. ------------------------------ From: Bill Corea Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 15:37:08 -0800 Subject: Reno Flyby Aircraft Kind of suprising nobody's mentioned the Thursday morning flyby at the Reno Air Races: a U-2!! Remarkably quiet aircraft. Now if my pictures just came out OK! - ----------------------------------------------------------- This is my opinion, not my company's Bill Corea Chevron Overseas Petroleum Inc hwcco@chevron.com San Ramon, California ------------------------------ From: "Stefan 'Stetson' Skoglund" Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 09:01:01 +0200 Subject: Re: High-tec >>>>> "Ralph" == Ralph the Wonder Llama writes: >> One last point. How long would it take a laser beam to disable a >> missile? For instance, if it would take one second for the laser >> to burn through the casing of the missile, there are only a limited >> number that one laser could disable. Also what if the Russians >> spun the missiles? Thus preventing the laser from being able to >> focus on one point for the required time to disable the missile. Ralph> This was talked about to a certain extent in Clancy's book _The Ralph> Cardinal of the Kremlin_. Interestingly, spinning the missiles Ralph> really doesn't seem to matter. I seem to remember one of the Ralph> characters saying, "Yeah, you can pirouette in front of a Ralph> shotgun and it'll do you about as much good...." The thinking was like this : You can polish the missile or you can spin it but you still is working with pure energy and most of that energy will go straight ie into the missile. Remeber that a missile is loaded with very flamable fuel and that not everything is burned up. To build a mirror for example you need to cool the damn thing. ------------------------------ From: "Stefan 'Stetson' Skoglund" Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 09:10:26 +0200 Subject: Re: High-tec >>>>> "larry" == larry writes: larry> One can see the possibilities in what I'm talking about in both larry> of these books. Quite interesting, especially if you want to larry> understand why a heavy lifting aircraft might be used to carry larry> the laser. It's an interesting twist to Professor Leik Myrabo's larry> original ground based concept, but in this concept, an airborne larry> 747 equipped with a laser system could be used to help boost larry> military light sats into orbit during times when the normal larry> launch mechanisms aren't viable - interesting idea. This is probably of charter but... I have started reading David Brin's Science-Fiction books. He has written a three books in a serie. It is about earth and its struggle to survive in a not so friendly universum. In the first book he writes about a space-ship for exploring the Sun. The ship has a laser for cooling its innards ie you use the energy in the head to drive the laser. In a emergency due to a sabotage they use the laser as propulsion. Unfortunately they got froosen but they did survive. ------------------------------ From: "J. Pharabod" Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 14:10:58 SET Subject: Re: High-tec >Back to #1, I rate the following countries as high-threat, hostile >missle launch candidates against another country. >IRBM => North Korea, Israel, Iraq, Iran >ICBM=> PRC, Russia, France >John F. Regus (Tue, 20 Sep 1994 15:20:51 -0500 (CST)) Perhaps because I am French, I feel a bit dissatisfied with the above list. May I suggest a minor correction: IRBM => USA, North Korea, Israel, Iraq, Iran ICBM=> USA, PRC, Russia, France (it seems that you forgot also India and Pakistan) J. Pharabod ------------------------------ From: "Philip R. Moyer" Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 07:03:19 -0700 Subject: Re: High-tec >Perhaps because I am French, I feel a bit dissatisfied with the >above list. May I suggest a minor correction: >IRBM => USA, North Korea, Israel, Iraq, Iran >ICBM=> USA, PRC, Russia, France >(it seems that you forgot also India and Pakistan) Are we talking about tossing nukes or tossing missiles? If conventionally armed missiles, then I agree with your assessment (with the exception of listing Israel in front of Iran and Iraq, but it's a nit). If you're talking about tossing nukes, then I disagree that the USA is most likely to throw one. In the case of first-use, I would rate them much differently (mostly due to the possession of IRBMs by the republics in the CIS). Philip R. Moyer Bits: prm@netcom.com Managing Partner Voice: 510-606-9875 Information Security Engineering Associates Fax: 510-606-9875 48 2E 4C 36 9A 3F F9 1E 74 77 18 E4 2C DB F0 5F ------------------------------ From: "Philip R. Moyer" Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 07:05:48 -0700 Subject: off-topi - Glomar Explorer I apologize for the off topic post. Would someone please tell me the current location of the Glomar Explorer? I think I know; I'm just looking for confirmation. If I get it, I might go for a midnight swim.... ;-) Cheers, Phil ------------------------------ From: John Regus Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 09:08:07 -0500 (CST) Subject: Re: High-tec You are right, I did forget India on the IRBM list. However do not want to modify my original list, since this is a composite makeup of overall threat characteristics based upon a number of specific criteria, political, economic-neo-colonialism, jingoism, etc. John F. Regus | (713) 960-0045 | SYS/370/390 SYSTEM SOFTWARE ENGINEERING WUI:REGUSHOU | On Wed, 21 Sep 1994, J. Pharabod wrote: > >Back to #1, I rate the following countries as high-threat, hostile > >missle launch candidates against another country. > >IRBM => North Korea, Israel, Iraq, Iran > >ICBM=> PRC, Russia, France > >John F. Regus (Tue, 20 Sep 1994 15:20:51 -0500 (CST)) > > Perhaps because I am French, I feel a bit dissatisfied with the > above list. May I suggest a minor correction: > IRBM => USA, North Korea, Israel, Iraq, Iran > ICBM=> USA, PRC, Russia, France > > (it seems that you forgot also India and Pakistan) > > J. Pharabod ------------------------------ From: Jeff Sollee Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 07:22:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re:High Tec and ABL The Airborne Laser (ABL) Experiment is sponsored by the AF Air Combat Command ACC - but is skewered with personnel from AFPL. The laser they intend to use is a Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL) which can produce high power output (megawatts are required) at 1.3 microns, in the near infrared. The laser uses little electrical power, and relies on a witch's brew of chlorine, basic hydrogen peroxide, and iodine to produce light chemically. The device will have to fly high (40000 feet+) for several reasons. 1) The laser must exhaust its reactants to low pressure, 2) atmospheric absorption from water is minimal at altitude, and 3) shoot down range requirements (>200 km, I think). By the way, these are all reasons why it won't work. The Space-Based Laser would have used another type of chemical laser - the hydrogen fluoride laser. It generates infrared light at 2.8 microns from the reaction of hydrogen with atomic fluorine. While this program was technically more mature than the ABL, it is basically a dead program at BMDO. The Armed Services Committees in congress saw to that recently. Many basic problems exist with the ABL. First, a 747 would be required to fly on station for about 8 hours at 45000 feet with a very HEAVY load. No can do. Second, the jitter caused by normal airplane vibrations would cause the beam to smear at distance, requiring much more power to affect a kill. Third, at range (100's of km) the anisoplanatic shift is big enough that you can't do effective adaptive optic beam cleanup - the missile has moved out of the volume of aberrated air by the time you correct for it - even at the speed of light! Fourth is safety. Basic hydrogen peroxide is rocket fuel, and you have to carry a bunch of it. Techs at AFPL have been killed as a result of sloppy practice running COIL devices. Basically, the ABL is a crock, a waste of taxpayer money, and should go the way of the space-based laser. jsollee@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: "J. Pharabod" Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 16:43:40 SET Subject: Re: High-tec >Are we talking about tossing nukes or tossing missiles? If conventionally >armed missiles, then I agree with your assessment (with the exception of >listing Israel in front of Iran and Iraq, but it's a nit). > >If you're talking about tossing nukes, then I disagree that the USA is >most likely to throw one. In the case of first-use, I would rate them much >differently (mostly due to the possession of IRBMs by the republics in the >CIS). >Philip R. Moyer (Wed, 21 Sep 94 07:03:19 -0700) Hmm... Maybe that's wrong, but I have read that there had been talks of first use against China (Korea war) and even against Vietnam. Also, what is the name of the nation which already "first used" nuclear weapons a few decades ago ? And who knows who will be the next president of the USA ? (well, this is definitely not a skunk-works subject! I hope that we are not starting a political debate on this list, which has the highest ratio signal/noise amongst all those I know). J. Pharabod ------------------------------ From: seb@tadpole.co.uk (steve) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 16:22:53 BST Subject: Blowing people up I've been amused (and possibly flattered?) to notice that on the current lists of people who might toss missiles at other people, the good old UK has been noticeable by its absence. Or don't Trident D5s and Poseidon/Polaris MIRVs count? 8-) Anyway, I think this is all getting rather off-topic. I shall say no more. Steve Barber A UK resident ------------------------------ From: "S.K. Whiteman" Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 10:03:59 EST Subject: Lasers and Anti-stealth ====> LIDAR IMHO With the recent conversations concerning anti-stealth and lasers I was wondering if Lidar has ever been investigated as a method of tracking aircraft and/or missiles? As I remember from a remote sensing class I took some years ago Lidar can detect hydrocarbonaeous material in the range of high pp 100,000 or ppm at a distance on the order of miles. One was flown on the last shuttle flight for atmosphere investigation. | / MI What do I know, I'm a geology major. \ /___________________ Sam \_____/ | IBM Systems Programmer Chicago/ | * | O Indiana University - I | Ft. Wayne | H Purdue University at Fort Wayne L | 1794-1994 | Fort Wayne, Indiana USA ------------------------------ From: murr Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 12:21:31 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: off-topi - Glomar Explorer On Wed, 21 Sep 1994, Philip R. Moyer wrote: > Would someone please tell me the current location of the Glomar > Explorer? Just a guess, but I would bet she has been decommissioned by now. Seems like she was brought out 20 or 30 years ago. Many (most?) ships that age have been put to rest. I was surprised to see the NSS Savanna at the Patriots Point museum in Charleston a few years ago. I've been told they could not afford to keep her tied up. I remember reading about the Savanna in National Geography when I was a young-un. The 1st and only commercial nuclear ship was quickly obsolete. She was built for bulk cargo and the container ships passed her by. Murr Rhame - -- quasipsuedosemihemidemialmostbutnotquiterealyyetmaysomedaybea.sig ------------------------------ From: John Regus Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 12:07:14 -0500 (CST) Subject: Re: Blowing people up Well, yes, a lot of this is off topic, but what the hell....what are office water coolers for..... The reason I left the UK off the list is because they are in the process of downsizing their nuclear force as a matter of economic necessity and political reality, vis-a-vis the lack of a militaristic threat in Europe, unless they count the French, or any country that will not (yes, not) allow their popular press to publish pictures of Charles and Di nude, somewhere. John F. Regus | (713) 960-0045 | SYS/370/390 SYSTEM SOFTWARE ENGINEERING WUI:REGUSHOU | On Wed, 21 Sep 1994, steve wrote: > I've been amused (and possibly flattered?) to notice that on the current > lists of people who might toss missiles at other people, the good old UK > has been noticeable by its absence. Or don't Trident D5s and > Poseidon/Polaris MIRVs count? > > 8-) > > Anyway, I think this is all getting rather off-topic. I shall say no more. > > Steve Barber > A UK resident > > ------------------------------ From: jagnow@al.weeg.uiowa.edu (Al Jagnow) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 13:50:36 -0500 Subject: Re: Anit-stealth missile? Stealth aircraft seem to be designed to provide a small RCS to ground based active radar. If you suspected the presence of stealth aircraft, it might be possible to launch a missile to illuminate the stealth aircraft from above. Such a system may be able to provide targeting information for defense systems. The trick is to determine when stealth aircraft are present so you would know when to launch your radar transmitting missile. Perhaps hanging a transmitter form a high altitude balloon would work better. ------------------------------ From: Adrian Thurlow Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 20:23:06 +0100 Subject: New SR-71 book Hi Skunkers, I am new to this listserv today although I have posted to rec.aviation.miltary before. This might be old hat and has been rumoured before but I have learnt that Aerofax have confirmed that Jay Miller is writing a new book on the SR-71 and that Paul Crickmore will be a co-author. Miller is said to have unparalled access to Lockheed files and the book is likely to be the most in depth to date. Any more info on this? Also what is the latest position with the return to service of the three birds kept in storage by Lockheed? Regards Adrian Adrian Thurlow Adrian.Thurlow@bt-sys.bt.co.uk The views expressed above are purely my own. ------------------------------ From: Geoff.Miller@EBay.Sun.COM (Geoff Miller) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 13:49:30 +0800 Subject: Re: New SR-71 book Adrian.Thurlow@bt-sys.bt.co.uk writes: > This might be old hat and has been rumoured before but I have > learnt that Aerofax have confirmed that Jay Miller is writing > a new book on the SR-71 and that Paul Crickmore will be a co- > author. I hope that this book is a tidier effort than Crickmore's book, _SR-71: The Secret Missions Revealed_. I'm currently reading a copy of that, and while it's fascinating and contains an incredible amount of information, it's just _appallingly_ written and edited. I'm surprised that nobody on this list mentioned that when the book first came out. I've caught numerous instances of misspelled and missing words, continuity breaks, and information gaps with obvious things glossed over or left completely unaddressed. - --Geoff ------------------------------ From: Tim Ottinger Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 15:51:21 CDT Subject: Re: Anit-stealth missile? I guess you can always look for something the size of a sparrow (the bird, not the AAM) moving at speeds in excess of 100 naut. mph. Hmmm... intelligent systems attached to radar, some noise reduction... - -- tim - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- If I state an opinion or mess up a fact, you have to assume that's the way I am. You mustn't assume my company tells me to be that way. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 16:50:57 -0700 Subject: Re: New SR-71 book Adrian.Thurlow@bt-sys.bt.co.uk writes: >> This might be old hat and has been rumoured before but I have >> learnt that Aerofax have confirmed that Jay Miller is writing >> a new book on the SR-71 and that Paul Crickmore will be a co- >> author. Actually, based on your post, I called AEROFAX (1-800-733-2329) and asked. The answer is: "Yea, it's been proposed that Jay update his existing Blackbird books, but it will be several years before anything even starts." The AEROFAX guy even added, "No foolin". There is a lot of stuff they're doing in the meantime. Expect the following: A book about the Su OKB to go with the OKB Mig book. A short history on Monasco (sp?) that they were commissioned to write. A book on the US Army Flight Demo Helicopter Team. And books on the P-3, C-130, and A-1. Reports of definitive books in progress on the SR-71 have been quite frequent over the past 5 years. Every time you check it out though it turns out to be false. Also, there are a few highly visible black aircraft watching enthusiasts who keep saying they're going to do one, but it never gets done. The Lockheed 50th Anniv. Book seems to be the closest to what you'd like to have so far. Add to that Ben Rich's book, and Kelly's book, and you'll essentially have it. It seems that the cover is peeled back slowly - very slowly (although recently it's gotten a little faster). I know of a former SR driver who wants to write a book of his experiences, in fact he's recently gotten his stories cleared for publication. A movie company has even talked to him about it. He has some really interesting stories. It will probably be about what it's like to be HABU! From what I'm told, HABU is not the airplane, but a personal state of mind and being achieved by drivers or RSOs only. Hmmm. Geoff replies: >I hope that this book is a tidier effort than Crickmore's book, >_SR-71: The Secret Missions Revealed_. I'm currently reading >a copy of that, and while it's fascinating and contains an >incredible amount of information, it's just _appallingly_ >written and edited. I'm surprised that nobody on this list >mentioned that when the book first came out. I've caught >numerous instances of misspelled and missing words, continuity >breaks, and information gaps with obvious things glossed >over or left completely unaddressed. Yes. We have a tendency to overlook those things, intent on finding new facts. Book publishers are supposed to edit those things as well. They ought to let enthusiasts edit these things. But sometimes, the book is not published, and then the cat has been let out of the bag. Larry ------------------------------ From: zoz@cs.adelaide.edu.au (Kaishakunin) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 1994 11:44:35 +0930 (CST) Subject: Re: High-tec Phil sez: |> >Perhaps because I am French, I feel a bit dissatisfied with the |> >above list. May I suggest a minor correction: |> >IRBM => USA, North Korea, Israel, Iraq, Iran |> >ICBM=> USA, PRC, Russia, France |> >(it seems that you forgot also India and Pakistan) ... |> |> If you're talking about tossing nukes, then I disagree that the USA is |> most likely to throw one. In the case of first-use, I would rate them much |> differently (mostly due to the possession of IRBMs by the republics in the |> CIS). I don't think that J. Pharabod was listing these countries in sorted order of likelihood to first strike - I think he was just making the valid point that the original poster left out one of the more trigger-happy nations that also possesses nukes. Speaking of nukes, and considering that this is the skunk-works digest - does anyone know of any research that was done into making nukes stealthy? We have MIRVs, and we have multiple decoys, but nukes seem in general to be fairly un-stealthy - missile launches are easy to detect, and warheads can be tracked. Did anyone do any work on making ballistic missile type nukes stealthy, or did people just rely on sub-launched/air-dropped nukes for the element of surprise? [Not that this is necessarily a good thing... Anything that might tempt someone into launching a first strike is probably best left alone.] - -- ______ _____________ ______________________ ______ /\####/\ / / / / /\####/\ / \##/ \ /_______ / / _ ______ / / \##/ \ /____\/____\ / / / / \ \ / / /____\/____\ \####/\####/ / /____\ \_/ / / /_______ \####/\####/ \##/ \##/ / / / / \##/ \##/ \/____\/ /_____________________/ /____________/ \/____\/ zoz@cs.adelaide.edu.au http://www.cs.adelaide.edu.au/~zoz/ If you see a blind man, run up and kick him. Why should you be kinder than God? -- Old Iranian Proverb ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #156 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-skunk-works": subscribe skunk-works-digest local-skunk-works@your.domain.net To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe skunk-works-digest in the body. Administrative requests, problems, and other non-list mail can be sent to either "skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu" or, if you don't like to type a lot, "prm@mail.orst.edu A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "skunk-works-digest" in the commands above with "skunk-works". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from mail.orst.edu, in /pub/skunk-works/digest/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).