From: curt@quest.UUCP (Curtis Gibson)
Subject: Re: Wrecking an O'Neill (Was: Re: Wrecking a Planet)
Organization: Quest Research, Inc.
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:15:33 GMT

>In <1993Jan08.205052.5002@quest.UUCP> curt@quest.UUCP (Curtis Gibson) writes:
>>Senearo 1.
>>---- Much of Senearo 1. Deleted ----
>>starts to hit.  Then a window explodes! followed by the other
>>2 windows.  Guess what happens when a big chunk of missile
>>penetrates the habitat going hypersonic?  The shock wave will blow
>>out your windows as sure as an explosion.
>
>>I submit that O'Neill habitats are not invulnerable.  They got windows.
>
> rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) Replied:
>What are you assuming the windows are made of, stained glass??? How
>about the stuff they use for police riot shields? That's reasonably
>transparent, good tensile strength and shatterproof. Remember, the
>windows would have to be made shatterproof in case of a meteor impact,
>even if they hadn't been designed with missile attack in mind.
>
>Also, a habitat need not necessarily have windows; it could be totally
>enclosed and use fusion power instead. It comes down to, at what
>distance from the sun will mirrors large enough to collect enough solar
>energy, become more expensive than the equivalent fusion generation
>capacity? (This of course depends on the actual costs of mirrors and
>fusion generators.) Far enough out, fusion will be more economic; and if
>the windows really do make the habitat more vulnerable, fusion would be
>used in closer to the sun as well.
>
>But even if the windows did shatter, it would be an expensive mess, but
>not fatal. Remember, to kill the population of a habitat, it is not
>sufficient to just put the habitat in vacuum. You must totally
>disintegrate it. This is because the population will get into sealed
>compartments during alert conditions. And totally disintegrating
>something weighing 1 billion tons whose structural shell is composed of
>the strongest materials available to 21st century engineering is no mean
>feat.
>
>"Andrew C. Plotkin" <ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu> Replied to this in an other
>posting and I couldn't say it any better. csg.
>+Ok, I can't kill off the population; all I can do is kill off all the
>+crops, waste a habitat-worth of air, and force the population to do
>+nothing but repair work for a while. And it costs me (forgive the
>+repetition) rocks and energy, both of which are cheap; so I can do it
>+again whenever I want. I think the habitat rapidly becomes not worth
>+living in.
>
Ok the Habitat has no big windows.  The shell is 10 cm aluminium belted
by carbon fiber cables.  Much like a steelbelted radial tire, look! its
the Goodrich blimp!. 8^).  There is 4 m of fused rock deposited on the 
outside for raditaion and micro-meteorite shielding.  There is a network
of moveable sunscreens to help regulate temperature.  There is 2 m of
crushed rock and soil inside to support the bio-sphere.  The defenders
have high energy lasers and railguns mounted on the habitat and on the
defending space craft.
This habitat took 10 years to build, maybe 2000 man-years (sorry ladies)
total, at a cost of trillions of economic units to compleate.
It contrubutes billions or tens of billions of ecomomic units to the war
effort.
The Missiles I think would be used may cost a few million ecomomic units.
There is something called "Counter Value Targets" and "Counter Force
Targets" in the Great Game.  An AirBase, Naval Base, Arms Stock pile,
a military production facility, the transportation network, the
communication network, etc are are Counter Force targets.  A
population center, civilian airport that could be used as a military
facility, general production facilitys, power production, dams, etc
are Counter Value.  I have missed a few targets from each type, and
some targets are both types.  The psychopathic warmongering baby killers
(which I was studying to become before they, The UofMN ROTC, gave me the
boot for not being one of them in spirit, (I was in Military Intelligence
as an enlisted man which made me a 'smart ass' undesirable)) have made
many indeapth studys to find the best way to blow things up and why.
An O'neill Habitat is going to be a prime target because its not at
the bottom of a gravity well.  Has access to cheap raw materials, and
the labor to produce war materiels for the war effort.  It is a place
to project power.  An enemy with any smarts is going to spend millions
or billions to blow them out of the sky.  A defendor with any smarts
is going to defend them to the best of their abilitys, spending millions
or billions to do so.  But any attack can be defended against, and any
defence can be overwhelmed.

Senearo 2a.
The attackers launch from out side the effective range of the defenders
weapons.  The missiles are big very stealthy, very fast, with lots of
decoys and jammers.  There are lots of missiles.  As each missile detects
that it has been locked on to by a targeting radar or lidar (spelling?)
it deploys its decoys and jammers and starts the dance of the thousand
blips on the defenders screens.  The defenders are fighting valiantly,
one after an other the missiles, decoys, and jammers ar destroyed.
All save the one that got through.  It exploded 10 km from the habitat,
a big 1 megatonne talored to a high IR yield.  The aluminium sunscreen
flashes to vapor.  The outer 1 m of of fused rock is vaporized, the
rock under it is glowing blue-white hot.  The raditaion in side the
habitat is within safety limits.  The soil is steaming a little.  It
looks like the attack failed.  Then as more heat sinks into the rock
and warms the aluminium, the aluminium softens and streachs.  The
carbon-fiber cables start to break.  A bulge grows, "Looks like
a kid blowing bubblegum".  The bubble breaks, the air and water gush
out.  Between the ablated rock and the air jet, the habitat is given
an off center nudge, it begins to wobble.  Its off balance from the loss
of a 1000 tonnes of sheilding and shell flung off by the rotational
momentum.  The habitat was not designed to have so many carbon-fiber
cables broken with such a wobble while off balance.  The shell starts
to rip its self apart.  Everybody that cann't reach a spaceship or
is not rescued dies.

Senearo 2b.
Much the same as 2a, but the fusion bomb explodes 1 km from the habitat.
The fireball burns thru the shell and everthing is incinerated and smashed
by the blast effect before being sucked into space.  Everybody dies.
The habitat breaks up faster.

Curtis S. Gibson   curt%quest.UUCP@cs.umn.edu