Re: Striking a Lunar target in the near future...

From: Ian Stirling (root_at_mauve.demon.co.uk)
Date: 08/18/04 

Date: 18 Aug 2004 23:14:59 GMT

In sci.space.policy Henry Spencer <henry@spsystems.net> wrote:
> In article <4126e2e5.3539314@supernews.seanet.com>,
> Derek Lyons <fairwater@gmail.com> wrote:
>>There are two practical methods at launch time, with nothing obvious
>>(that I can see) to choose between them. The first is to launch into
>>a parking orbit and then depart for the moon, or to launch directly
>>for the moon.
>
<snip>
> seem appropriate. (You might or might not need to open the can up just
> before arrival, depending on fuzing issues.)

How long is it from when you light the blue touchpaper to when it goes
off?

For an implosion device, is it as simple as working out the speeds of the
compression wave travellign through the explosive, (say) .2m/5Km/s = 40us.
(assuming exploding wire initiators triggered from a charged capacitor).
Does the fission trigger compression happen at the same sort of speeds?
Once the fission trigger goes off of course things happen faster.

This would imply that contact fusing, even at 10Km/s or so impact speeds
is quite possible, as long as you have a few dozen cm of clearance.

It'll depend on your target.
If it's a spread-out dome structure, you probably want to light the
blue touchpaper where the target is around 60 degrees across from the
bombs POV, so it causes maximum blast effect on the surface.

On the other hand if it's tunnels, you might get better effects if you
put your bomb a couple of meters back from a couple of meter cone of
tungsten, and fused it to go off when it hit the back, or got hit by
debris.
The penetrator tunnels in, and provides better shock into the ground.

Hmm, I wonder if there is any way to make the penetrator part of the
Hohlraum (I know I've spelt that wrong, it's the uranium case of the
a fission-fusion-fission bomb, that provides a large amount of the
output energy of the bomb.

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