From: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: DoD launcher use
Date: 17 Dec 92 18:59:53 GMT
Reply-To: sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu
Organization: Computer Aided Design Lab, U. of Maryland College Park

In article <1992Dec17.110426.8596@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <1992Dec16.202219.2063@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu writes:

>>>. With a serious opponent, your space assets would be priority targets. 
>>
>>So, uh, gary, where are the serious opponents supposed to afford A-SATs? hmm?
>
>The ex-Soviets have a system. Getting into a fight with them would still
>be dealing with a serious opponent in my book.

Yes, but you imply there's more than the Russians who have ASAT. Could you
illustrate who else has demonstrated said technology? And describe the CURRENT
state of the SS-9s (?) which were used to pitch them up? 

They had that capability. Whether it still exists is open to question.

Besides, the Russians are our friends. We're buying reactors and science data
and a good portion of their research establishment with good old Yankee
Dollars. 

>>If you can kill recon planes, it's damn sight harder to kill sats.
>
>In principle no, the sats are predictable, the planes aren't. Putting
>some "buckshot" in their orbital path is sufficient to knock them down.
>In practice planes probably are easier to down because few countries
>have space launch capability while they do have AAA, but most planes
>in combat zones aren't shot down, and planes are cheaper than spysats too.

Depends on what type of plane. The RF-16s are, oh, how much these days? 
$16-20 million? 

>>Furthermore, you assumed that the KH-11 is the benchmark (also known as
>>the Szabo yardstick) without the resultant drop in costs which would occur if
>>you could rapidly deliver sats to orbit. 
>
>Launch costs don't dominate a spysat's cost, at least not one capable of
>doing tactical damage assessment. The cost is dominated by the superior
>optics required for a orbital spy versus the optics required for an aircraft,
>and by the flight control systems required to point the thing at the right
>place and compensate for orbital motion and downlink the data. An aircraft's
>photorecon equipment is much cheaper because the optics don't have to be as
>good because of the lower altitude, the pilot takes care of pointing chores, 
>and the data is physically returned at the end of the mission.

Gary, depending on who you listen to, the KH-12 costs between $800 mil and $1
billion dollars, but it's also a LOT of hardware and fuel to make sure it stays
up there for a long long time.

Now, SPOT gets 5-10 meter resolution and costs some number ($150-200 million?)
below that. A follow-on to SPOT with 1-2 meter resolution will probably cost
the same...

You CAN build a cheap sat with the resolution needed to do tactical damage
assessment. The ex-Sovs did it all the time; they used film rather than
rad-spec hardened long-life electronics to transmit images back. You can go
cheap on the electronics if you don't want your spysat to live for 5-7 years. 

                    I have talked to Ehud, and lived.
  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --
Newsgroups: sci.space