| From: | Adam Getchell <acgetche@****.UCDAVIS.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Space Weapons |
| Date: | Sat, 8 Oct 1994 19:28:56 -0700 |
1) Slow to point. Unlike lasers or particle weapons, which can
be optically or magnetically reflected, a railgun is long straight
barrel. To generate any significant power, railguns need to be fairly long.
2) When you point 'em, it's kinda obvious. Nothing about a five
kilometer long steel girder aimed at Chicago is real subtle like.
3) When you fire 'em, it's *real* obvious. Large Amperian
magnetic flux as well as a glowing trail in the atmosphere pointing
straight back to the offending satellite.
4) Things going faster than 6500 meters per second in atmosphere
tend to burn up. That's why the shuttle has ablative heat-tiles, and
that's also why it glides in at about 200 mph (also easier to land as a
glider than under powered flight). It takes a huge chunk of something,
say a comet, to have significant fractions actually impact the ground.
This is not as serious a restriction as the above, with good
materials. Still, a laser is a much better choice -- a medium powered
SDI laser that can fry ballistic missiles at 1000 miles range could also
set, oh, 125 large fires per _second_ by tracking across a city.
SR relevance is that no megacorp in their right mind is going to
let their competitor put up something like that without some significant
capability of their own. Ares might have something like that up, but you
can bet the other corps watch 'em like hawks and have got their own
little red-button pushing fingers ready.
UCAS might have something like that up (in my game they do), but
NAN, Atzlan, Quebec and CAS are really itchy-fingered about when those
sats fly overhead.
And nukes can kill you just as dead, especially if conveyed by a
flock of air-elementals and sky-spirits.
+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|Adam Getchell|acgetche@****.engr.ucdavis.edu | ez000270@*******.ucdavis.edu |
| acgetchell |"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability is in the opponent"|
+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
