From: curt@quest.UUCP (Curtis Gibson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Wrecking a Planet (Was: Re: Sci-Fantasy Weapons)
Date: 4 Jan 93 21:01:13 GMT
Organization: Quest Research, Inc.

Forgive me for starting a new thread off an old one, we have had a
few problems with the mailer and news here and I don't have the earlier
postings anymore.

As I don't have the back of an envelope to do the calculations I will
be a bit vague with the math and numbers and stuff that warm the
hearts of the engineers.  Please feel free to work out the details
and share with the rest of us.

A way I would use to wreck a planet of an enemy power that would not
be too far removed from our present abilities, (maybe 100-200 years?)
would be stealthy, low risk, and happen too fast to be countered.
Build a linear accelerator catapult out in the ort cloud, well out
side the enemy detector range.  About 5 light days or more I'm guessing.
We reduce the chance of detection by hiding next to a comet, we also
use the comet for raw materials and reaction mass.  The catapult would
be hundreds of kilometers long, maybe over a thousand if need be.  We
would use hundreds, maybe thousands, of 1 to 100 ton projectiles.
The projectiles would be solid iron, chilled down to near 0 Kelvin to
reduce the infra-red signature.  Coated with Stealth Coat(tm) and a
tank of liquid helium for cooling the Stealth Coat(tm) as it warms up.
(A quick question; David Brin used a laser to carry away heat in _Sun_-
_Diver_.  Can that really work?  Could it be used to keep a body
at or near 0 Kelvin?  Back to our ranting.)  We fire the projectiles
as fast as possible, near or faster than .8 C.  They are aimed to hit
the planet in a belt of destruction around the planet as it turns.
We should wreck the ecosphere with the "non-nuclear winter" of hundreds
of multi-megatonne explosions spaced around the planet.  We will by
pure chance hit a few major cites and military installations.  Maybe a
few space/starships or major orbital insulations.  But the enemy will
be reduced to clinging to the edge of survival.  We will be on guard
for a suicide retaliation.

Some Points to ponder:
  What's the best mass for the projectiles?
  What's the best speed?
  What will the best of the above yield in megatonnes?
  What's the minimum number of projectiles needed to wreck the ecosphere?
  What's the best spacing in the "footprint of destruction"?
  Can a projectile travelling .8 C, fired from 5 light days out in the
    ort cloud, be aimed accurately to hit a planet 1 AU from the star?
  Will we need to make midcourse corrections?
  Will we be able to make midcourse corrections?
  Will we be able to make midcourse corrections and still maintain
    stealth?
  What could stop the projectiles? (or make miss the planet)
  Would the projectiles be detectable by their wake in the solar wind?
    If so how far away?
  Would using fusionable materials (2H)(is that the correct notation?)
    improve the destruction enough the justify the effort?
  Would using fusionable materials make it (easier/harder) to stealth
    the projectiles?

This is the mad ranting of a former mad rocket scientist at my former
Jr High.  And have been submitted for entertainment purposes only.
And are in the public domain.  And hoping someone with a scientific
education, (mine's in business) will work out the answers.  And I 
really like R.A. Heinlein's work, is that ok?  And I liked the early
stuff better than his last stuff, but I still liked it.

Curtis S. Gibson  curt%quest.UUCP@cs.umn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science