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I don't mean to stir controversy but I am curious how many countries are thinking 'I want one of these for my military'. Hear me out, wouldn't this technology

by vecinu 13y ago

I don't mean to stir controversy but I am curious how many countries are thinking 'I want one of these for my military'. Hear me out, wouldn't this technology allow for more advanced ballistic flight across Earth and perhaps even become more efficient than anti-ballistic missiles, evading any 'danger'?.

omni 13y ago
My understanding is that the main improvement here is that the rocket is sophisticated enough to land itself gently and intact. Why would a missile ever want to do that?
ljd 13y ago
I don't know anything about military strategy or missile technology but I'm having a hard time seeing how a missile making a turn that slow would really be effective at evading any kind of supersonic defensive weapon. Also, missiles have to explode to be useful; a safe relaunch would be a bit worthless. Just to add a pedantic remark, if the missile is guiding itself then it's not a ballistic missile anymore.
- nobodysfool 13y ago
  Yes, it's a guided missile not ballistic so those anti-ballistic things would be useless anyway. The best defense against guided missiles would be to disrupt the guidance system. However, there is technology being developed with the accuracy to allow a missile to use inertial navigation systems in the absence of gps.
  - greedo 13y ago
    It's already been developed in the 1980s with the Pershing 2 systems. They used inertial navigation, then terminal homing via a radar transmitter.
jlgreco 13y ago
There is a reason so much of what they do is covered by ITAR. ;) In general, rocket technology is missile technology.
- Zimahl 13y ago
  In general, rocket technology is missile technology. Wernher von Braun agrees.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Exactly. For that matter, the "Mercury 7" and the "New Nine" agree too; the Redstone/Atlas/Titan II's used for the Mercury and Gemini missions were ICBMs (edit: actually, was the Redstone technically an ICBM? I think as weapons they were short-range actually), originally meant to deliver nuclear bombs to Russia. (They were modified in several ways before being used for human flight of course, mostly for reliability). The Redstone in particular was a direct descendant of the V-2.
greedo 13y ago
Re-entry vehicles on ICBMs are moving extremely fast, and aren't really maneuverable in the sense you're thinking. They're not designed to dodge ABMs so much as hit multiple targets from a single ICBM. Even if you could somehow add high maneuverability to a MIRV, it wouldn't be close to matching how well an ABM can maneuver.
mikeash 13y ago
I don't see any interesting military uses for this technology, beyond military applications for spaceflight in general. This technology allows a rocket to maneuver while slow and close to the ground. The military terms for an object that is slow and close to the ground is "target".
guizzy 13y ago
And then it safely lands in enemy territory, so they can reuse it!

by vecinu 13y ago

omni 13y ago

My understanding is that the main improvement here is that the rocket is sophisticated enough to land itself gently and intact. Why would a missile ever want to do that?

ljd 13y ago

I don't know anything about military strategy or missile technology but I'm having a hard time seeing how a missile making a turn that slow would really be effective at evading any kind of supersonic defensive weapon. Also, missiles have to explode to be useful; a safe relaunch would be a bit worthless. Just to add a pedantic remark, if the missile is guiding itself then it's not a ballistic missile anymore.

nobodysfool 13y ago
Yes, it's a guided missile not ballistic so those anti-ballistic things would be useless anyway. The best defense against guided missiles would be to disrupt the guidance system. However, there is technology being developed with the accuracy to allow a missile to use inertial navigation systems in the absence of gps.
- greedo 13y ago
  It's already been developed in the 1980s with the Pershing 2 systems. They used inertial navigation, then terminal homing via a radar transmitter.

jlgreco 13y ago

There is a reason so much of what they do is covered by ITAR. ;) In general, rocket technology is missile technology.

Zimahl 13y ago
In general, rocket technology is missile technology. Wernher von Braun agrees.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Exactly. For that matter, the "Mercury 7" and the "New Nine" agree too; the Redstone/Atlas/Titan II's used for the Mercury and Gemini missions were ICBMs (edit: actually, was the Redstone technically an ICBM? I think as weapons they were short-range actually), originally meant to deliver nuclear bombs to Russia. (They were modified in several ways before being used for human flight of course, mostly for reliability). The Redstone in particular was a direct descendant of the V-2.

greedo 13y ago

Re-entry vehicles on ICBMs are moving extremely fast, and aren't really maneuverable in the sense you're thinking. They're not designed to dodge ABMs so much as hit multiple targets from a single ICBM. Even if you could somehow add high maneuverability to a MIRV, it wouldn't be close to matching how well an ABM can maneuver.

mikeash 13y ago

I don't see any interesting military uses for this technology, beyond military applications for spaceflight in general. This technology allows a rocket to maneuver while slow and close to the ground. The military terms for an object that is slow and close to the ground is "target".

guizzy 13y ago

And then it safely lands in enemy territory, so they can reuse it!