Wonder what other applications this could be used for. I hope this makes nuke use more acceptable in the future.
>Russian scientists want to modify existing intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver a nuclear warhead that will supposedly obliterate near-earth asteroids that measure up to 50 meters across. They want to test this capability against Apophis, a well known near-earth asteroid that will pass close to Earth in 2036.
I mean, what could go wrong, right?
Sabit Saitgarayev of the Kakeyev Rocket Design Bureau’s is the leading researcher on this, and recently told TASS News why an ICBM is their asteroid plinking platform of choice:
“Most rockets work on boiling fuel. Their fueling begins 10 days before the launch and, therefore, they are unfit for destroying meteorites similar to the Chelyabinsk meteorite in diameter, which are detected several hours before coming close to the Earth. For this purpose, intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used, which requires their upgrade,” the scientist said.
http://tass.ru/en/science/855968
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/russians-want-to-launch-an-icbm-at-a-near-earth-asteroi-1758697417
>>28896999
>you will never plink with ICBMs
Feelsbadman.jpg
>>28896999
At least Russia is looking ahead by doing something useful with their ICBMs. Just wait, one day the US will be begging Russia to "obliterate" an incoming asteroid that would destroy a large portion of the US. Besides, we need to get this shit together if we ever want to destroy alien warships. Maybe we'll disregard the orbital ordinance treaty and just launch a shitload of satellites with a shitload of ICBMs to "destroy incoming asteroids".
Solid plan would read again 10/10
has a nuke ever been detonated in true outer space?
what if like, all the space in the universe gets set on fire
What happens to all of the pieces when the asteroid explodes?
Will the orbit of all those 100m plus wide pieces remain stable? Or will they all fly in different directions? Did anyone think this through? Apophus is a big bitch.
>>28897084
Serious question, my public school friend.
What do you think the Sun is?
>>28897084
That would be fucking metal
>>28897084
>what if like, all the space in the universe gets set on fire
>>28897084
there's enough iron 238 in space to prevent that from happening
>>28897095
don't fucking question putin
>>28897095
I think big enough nuclear explosive can vaporize asteroid.
>>28897084
Serious question though, if the nuke accidentally detonated in the atmosphere, couldn't it cause a shitload of irreparable damage?
>>28897168
>man-made nuke can vaporize a literally chunk of iron (which is what Apophis is).
The over-hype of nuclear warheads capabilities are going to get someone killed. Nothing is going to vaporize. It will be broken apart into pieces still large enough to turn cities into cinders.
>>28897142
This
>>28897179
If it detonated in the atmosphere it would have the same effect as every other nuclear test that happened in the 1940s-1980s.
>>28897194
While it certainly wont "obliterate" it, it can still produce enough force to through it off course. That way next cycle it isn't a close call, they can slam a meteor down into the middle east and be done with it.
>>28897209
doesn't know about the emp in atmosphere thing yet
>>28897168
There's isn't a nuke big enough to vaporize an extinction-level asteroid. Notice how most hypothetical asteroid-defenses are about changing their orbits, not blowing them up.
>>28896999
>inb4 it's because they know that Apophis will strike Earth and they want to save it
>>28897179
nukes are near impossible to detonate accidentally
even if you blew up a nuclear missile in mid-flight it wouldn't produce a nuclear explosion because it would require all the mechanisms to fire at the same time
>>28897249
Alternatively:
>knows about how the "whole Emp in atmosphere from high altitude nuclear detonations thing" thing is vastly overblown.
>>28897142
It's nice to be in such cerebral company sometimes, anon.
>>28896999
Is there atmosphere in space?
>I mean, what could go wrong, right?
americans say fuck you and send a dozen or red-necked riggers to blow some shit up
>>28897325
you know what most gov'ts don't know?
at least not for sure anyway
>>28896999
nuking an asteroid wont work.
>>28897421
Actually yes, its just so thin that the atoms virtually never come close to enough to touch each other.
>>28897421
It is only rellevant for star formation over millions of years and spaceships relativistic-speeds.
>>28897084
>what if like, all the space in the universe gets set on fire
are you the ejection seat/unlimited elements/freezer burn guy?
>>28897108
>sun is an atomic bomb
american education everybody
>>28897084
Nukes in space are much less deadly due the lack of shockwaves and atmosphere. They can still vaporize things, but they have to explode closer to the target.
Why don't we ally ourselves with the asteroids and use them as weapons?
Name a human weapon stronger than a hypersonic rock?
>>28896999
>up to 50m
Apophis is not a good choice then. To actually obliterate such an object, you'd need serious penetration and substantially more than the old 20MT that the soviets had. I question the ability to repurpose a regular ICBM for this purpose.
>>28897933
I guess they would send a drilling robot with a nuke or something.
>>28896999
barely going to do shit even if they get the warhead near the rock
>empty vacuum of space
>some rock flying alone
>big nuclear explosion near the rock
gee where is most of the blast going to go? i'm sure it wont take the path of least resistance
now if they could launch a giant shaped charge and hit the rock they might do some damage
>>28897875
That is the luckiest motherfucker alive.
>>28897995
Maybe one of those anti-shark knives that fills the target up with gas?
Probably doesn't work on porous rocks...but then again, what short of a hammer does?
Anyways, there's no need to destroy the rock. It just needs to be deflected.
>>28897995
>gee where is most of the blast going to go? i'm sure it wont take the path of least resistance
No one can be seriously this stupid.
>>28897237
No it won't. The destructive capabilities of nukes, outside of the immediate fireball is due to the blast effect which requires an atmosphere. In space all you are going to do to the asteroid is turn an AP bullet into grapeshot so to speak. American scientists came up with a better plan. Land ion engines on the asteroid and gradually steer it to miss the earth. I have a better plan. Steer the asteroid into stable orbit and use as a spaceship! The reason we don't have space cruisers is because it is fuck expensive to bring stuff up the gravity well.
>>28896999
"I aim for the asteroids, but sometimes i hit Kiev"
- putin probably
>>28898090
The plan seems to be designed as a last resource when you don't have time to divert asteroids with ion engines. Ion Engines are extremely efficient, but also low on thrust. Ion engines are better for long-term impacts. Nukes are for when you have no time.
>>28897875
Damn, he even put his hazards on...
>>28897061
>destroy asteroid
>now instead of one big rock coming at Earth, there's thousands of tiny irradiated ones
>>28897995
Russians aren't stupid, anon. They know their physics and mathematics.
Whether they can get the necessary funds to fulfill their plans and whether current technology can make it happen is a different question
>>28898214
>picardclapping.gif
I had a good chuckle, thanks
>>28898502
thats amazing! biking in winter here in canada is dangerous because of the cultural mix and the argument of whether non-english people need to use signal lights or not
>>28898214
Glorious post Comrade you have made "putt-putt" Putin proud.
>>28896999
>They want to test this capability against Apophis
>Goa'uld confirmed for Putin's shit list
>>28896999
Its something we as a species should at least do a test run to make sure we can do it in case of armageddon, but in this case the test run better not fuck us all up. So help us god if Apophos gets nuked and we end up with a thousand minivan sized chunks hurtling towards earth...
>>28900384
Good, there is only room for one great Goa'uld
>>28896999
I'm going to be pissed if I don't get to watch Apophis do a fly by because the Russians decided to nuke it.
Russia needs to ask for help from China.
>>28900433
well, if it's a toss between a mount everest punching the earth's surface at hipersonic speed and like five years of impacts equivalent to a big JDAM every few miles, it's kind of a shitty decision to make.
>>28897669
Meanwhile, irl only a few newer cars would be disabled. Google "emp commission report". Onnaphone, so can't post a proper link. Or can't be fucked to.
Bad news is 50m diameter asteroids don't threaten us that much. We need a method of deflecting things in the 50km diameter range
>>28897084
Starfish Prime, and a few others.
>>28897807
Probaby one of those mecha fucktards
>>28897283
this
However if the warhead disintegrated you would still have the radioactive remains of the material just not the big explosion. It would just be a dirty bomb
>>28897848
Are you retarded?
>>28897209
Not if it was detonated high enough for air currents to spread the fallout further than surface or underground nuclear tests. Nukes are detonated underground to minimize fallout and if they are detonated on the surface then weather conditions would have been carefully monitored beforehand. Detonating a nuke in the jet stream could cause severe damage to agriculture.
>>28896999
>vatniks incharge of nuking asteroids
were fukked lads
>>28897015
>humanity stops fighting and joins together in a era of peace never seen before, to roam the galaxy and plink asteroids and ayy lmaos
>>28897995
>gee where is most of the blast going to go? i'm sure it wont take the path of least resistance
most of it would be turned into radiation, if you are using vanilla nuke warheads purposed for atmospheric blast effects against cities and infrastructure in the vacuum of space. There is no indication they would however, they just said they would use the ICBM as the launch vehicle; people are lacking in reading comprehension skills nowadays.
>now if they could launch a giant shaped charge and hit the rock they might do some damage
You are talking about nuke-boosted shaped charges- casava howitzers. It would have to be an awfully large warhead in the megatons range and with a much wider plasma jet dispersion pattern instead of the originally envisioned multikiloton yields pushing plasma lances for vaporizing Soviet ICBMs if you want to completely vaporize the asteroid and not just poke a hole and crack it into just slightly smaller chunks. The other approach is to get one of those multi-megaton hardened warheads meant for busting Stargate Command, im sorry mount Cheyenne, get it to bury itself deep in the asteroid then bust it from the inside.
>>28898570
>Whether they can get the necessary funds to fulfill their plans and whether current technology can make it happen is a different question
Actually if there is one branch of the Russian military that is never short of funding its the Strategic Rocket Forces. deep space looking radars, and scopes, nuclear interceptors, all of these are living in some form in operational systems. If they ever get the need for em, the technology is there.
>>28900672
>Russia needs to ask for help from China.
Russia has vastly more experience and technology in space, nukes, and aerospace defence- what could China help them with? Funding is about the only thing one can conceive the Chinese can give a hand in but that is assuming the Russian economy stays in recession until 2036(hint, it most likely wouldn't)
>>28897432
>because it's easier to train a roughneck to be an astronaut than to teach an astronaut how to roughneck
>>28897848
>the sun *isn't* a nuclear reaction
what is it then, teach us oh smart one
>>28898214
>Kiev's face when
>>28898039
>asteroid detected
Get out of here you iron hunk of shit
>>28898502
Nah some modern cars do that automatically when they sense a big enough impact. Something to do with being easier to find if they go off a ledge or something.
>>28898214
>>28897061
Russia has been scrapping ICBM for engines for years and downblending weapons for fuel.
>>28897095
>>28896999
As far as i've read, the most popular plan of action if Apophis is on a collision course, is to detonate a small charge on its surface to redirect it on a different trajectory away from earth.
>>28903461
APOPHIS DINDU NUFFIN
>>28898090
Grapeshot of smaller asteroid fragments is preferable because it burns up in atmosphere. The real threat are asteroids that are large enough to survive re-entry.
>>28897848
muh fission
>>28897168
physically impossible. No nuke is big enough.
>>28896999
Why not just shoot it once with .45ACP?
I want to see this get done, I'm tired of our zombie space program sending little spy satellites. I want to see shit get BTFO in space nigga.
>>28898540
>grow an extra ear
>be dead
Well shit man, which one do you want
>>28896999
Does it say anywhere that detonating a nuke is part of the test?
>>28898540
That will burn up in the atmosphere. If the asteroid is so large that when we hit it the chunks will still do massive damage, that pray that one of the pieces doesn't hit you.
How would that even work without an atmosphere for the bomb to detonate in?
>>28905204
Nukes still release a shit ton of energy, it'll just be (relatively, compared to the same warhead in atmosphere) short ranged due to inverse square law and lack of a shockwave. Thing is though, an asteroid would have a shockwave pass through it (and it would bounce around) causing damage throguh spallation, not to mention the sheer amount of heat directly from the blast through IR and a shitton of x-rays.
So the blast would cause an immediate change in velocity (and trajectory) due to ablating the rock, the shockwave through the rock would cause spallation or maybe even completely shattering it.
Very easy to fuck up though due to how short ranged nukes are. A kilometer in space is a very very short distance.
>>28904992
Also if there is risk of large chunks coming down....why woukd we use only one nuke? Blow up the big rock, then set off another or a dozen others to make the pieces smaller. Fuck its like people thnk you can only do smethngn once.
>Double tap that fucking asteroid.
Its like in the movies when a Soldier shoots a monster once then runs when it recovers after a few seconds. Nigga KEEP SHOOTING!
>>28905246
>Double tap that fucking asteroid.
Makes more sense than you think. Since the blast from a nuke will be largely wasted by just going into empty space, you use the first one to dig a crater in the asteroid. Then you pop the next one in the bottom of the crater, making the blast more efficient by providing more surface area of the rock around the sphere of the blast and by channelling the ejecta like a rocket nozzle.
>2036
>Russia still exist
Yes, sure...
>>28905343
According to Metro Last Light, yes.
>>28898540
if you hit it far enough away from earth its like sniping with a shotgun
>>28905246
>Double tap that fucking asteroid
>>28905173
They're planning to plink an ICBM against the asteroid, and snooker it away. They're not going to blow it up, that would be a waste of an ICBM.
It'll then conveniently and accidentally land in Assad's turf, and it'll be goodnight for the rebels.
>>28897142
Finally someone in this thread who knows what the fuck he's talking about
>>28897432
Only to be saved by a Russian.
