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Nuclear Missile disguised as a satellite rocket.

Nuclear Missile disguised as a satellite rocket.
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The name tells it.... Addition: What if you had satellites equipped with nuclear heads? It is very difficult to see those coming before they are all ready at their target.
Thrust, Jan 28 2019

Meteor https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079550/
[not_morrison_rm, Jan 30 2019]

Kinetic bombardment https://en.wikipedi...Kinetic_bombardment
Why you don't need a warhead at all if you're attacking from space [notexactly, Feb 03 2019]

[link]






       Not an innovation.   

       Satellite launchers were developed from ICBMs.   

       Orbital placement of weapons is banned by international treaty (allegedly).   

       [marked-for-deletion], WKTE.
8th of 7, Jan 30 2019
  

       //Orbital placement of weapons is banned// unless, tragically, your perfectly legal ICBM overshoots and just happens to get stuck up there.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 30 2019
  

       S'OK, the Ferengi come past every few years and collect anything of value left unattended. Most of the stuff down there is low-grade junk though, even a bunch of pikeys like that don't want to be bothered.
8th of 7, Jan 30 2019
  

       You're just saying that because they scammed you for re- tarmacking the cube.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 30 2019
  

       Swindling flap-eared bastards. First light meterorite shower and the whole top surface came right off.   

       We're going to have to have it all re-done. Sturton's offer for the job seems suspiciously competitive ...t does he actually know anything about tarmac, or is this another case like the Cutty Sark ? "That old paint ? Naaa, just get a blowlamp on it, it'll come right off ..."   

       Well, he was right, in a way ...
8th of 7, Jan 30 2019
  

       Sturton's tenders are always highly competitive. He just subcontracts it to the pikeys for a third of the money. He may be obese, foul-mouthed, inconsiderate and self-serving, but he's not stupid. Well, OK, he may be obese, foul- mouthed, inconsiderate, self-serving _and_ stupid, but he's not a fool.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 30 2019
  

       ...shades of "Meteor" with Sean Connery in a second- hand car salesman coat (the coat was better in the book, so was the acting and the special effects). Link.
not_morrison_rm, Jan 30 2019
  

       //Orbital placement of weapons is banned by international treaty (allegedly).//   

       One of those "treaties" that dumb politicians sign that do nothing but exhibit their ignorance.   

       To hit a target with a nuke you can A- Orbit several dozen nuclear weapons so whenever you want to nuke, say, East Palo Alto (be my guest) you wait for the closest one to get in the right trajectory window and activate the thrusters to initiate re-entry to your target hoping that East Palo Alto, having known the exact location of all your nukes because they're circling overhead every half hour or so following incredibly easy to track orbital paths didn't shoot them all down or B) Push a button and have your missiles fly out of either hidden submarines, deep concrete bunkers or impossible to track mobile missile launchers and hit their target with perfect accuracy in about a half hour.*   

       * U.S. Strategic Command guarantees that your first nuke will arrive within a half hour or your second nuke is free. :)
doctorremulac3, Jan 30 2019
  

       If I were a hostile country, why would I waste money on either orbital missiles *or* ICBMs? If I were [insert name of hostile country here], I would have spent the last few years installing nuclear bombs in all major cities in [insert name of other country here]. I'm pretty sure that Russia (to pick a name out of the hat) would not find it particularly difficult to buy a few properties in NY and install a few warheads in the basements, nor vice versa.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 30 2019
  

       Problem with that is if you get caught you've just initiated a first strike without actually blowing anything up. They find it, diffuse it and decide to push the naughty button to retaliate.   

       No, it's tough to beat the whole "Keep your naughty nukies at home until you want to push the button and say bye bye civilization." program in place for going on 70 years now.   

       That being said, these are the rules of the somewhat civilized countries. (I'm being extremely magnanimous calling Russia and China civilized) If some charming culture with an alternative view of what constitutes a civilization puts a crude nuke on a shipping container in a harbor that's pretty hard to stop and doesn't require much in the way of technology. No missiles, no guidance systems, just a relatively easy to make contraption made utilizing instructions readily available on the internet once you get the fissile material.   

       Wanna stay up at night, there's your nightmare scenario. Sweet dreams.
doctorremulac3, Jan 30 2019
  

       //diffuse it and decide to push the naughty button to retaliate// But do they? You're president of the USA (let's assume you're not Donald Trump, please). You discover a nuclear warhead in downtown NY. You either diffuse or defuse it. It takes you about a week to conclude that it is either Russian, or has been built using Russian components to make it look Russian. Probably it's Russian, but just maybe it's Chinese or Ukrainian or whatever.   

       You've now neutralized that particular threat. If you believe it's the only one, you have no incentive to start WW3, since losses on your side (as well as the supposed enemy's side) will be huge, and the world will never forgive you or your country. Better to make political capital out of it. If you believe it's one of many, you know that if you launch at Russia, they will not only detonate other sleeping bombs, but will also of course retaliate conventionally. And maybe it's not really a Russian bomb anyway, and North Korea is laughing up its collective sleeve as the two of you nuke it out.   

       I guess Russia can afford ICBMs. But if I were, say, North Korea, I'd probably spend the money on smuggling rather than those expensive fireworks.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 30 2019
  

       Smuggling nuclear fissile material into the US is not for the faint-hearted. It tends to set off Geiger counters used by criminals who've ingested radioactive material with hopes to hide their tracks...
RayfordSteele, Jan 30 2019
  

       Ahem, in Meteor the nukes were in geostationary orbit, with the US nukes being over Moscow, etc and vice-versa.   

       You'd have to have at least 167% belief in your own protective rocket shield system.
not_morrison_rm, Jan 30 2019
  

       Scientologists can manage that level of belief quite easily, sometimes much higher.
8th of 7, Jan 30 2019
  

       //buy a few properties in NY and install a few warheads in the basements,//   

       //Problem with that is if you get caught you've just initiated a first strike without actually blowing anything up.//   

       Embassies/consulates represent an opportunity there...
bs0u0155, Jan 30 2019
  

       //You're president of the USA (let's assume you're not Donald Trump, please).//   

       That's been a pretty safe assumption to make about me most of my life.   

       If President "I'm not Donald Trump" Remulac III found a nuke and wasn't sure who hid it in his basement, first he'd make a speech saying that there's a group, regime or country out there who's days are numbered. I'd then say it was in the best interest of every group, regime and country in the world to assist us in finding these nuclear pranksters because having jokes like that played on me really upsets my aim and there's no telling where these nukes might land if I aim them while cranky or upset.   

       If I found out that Russia did it I'd ask Congress for a declaration stating that a state of war now exists between Russia and the United States and preceed to make sure that any further attacks resulted in Russia being sent back to the stone age. What's that for them, 3 or 4 weeks? But I wouldn't destroy a city unless somebody else did it first. That being said, one nuke wouldn't bring a response of one nuke, the perpetrators would cease to exist. Nukes are a very ugly business and that threat is the only thing that really keeps us safe so it has to be credible.   

       But seriously, I don't think Russia wants that any more than we do so I'd be working on trying to normalize relations with them.   

       Because that worked out really well for the the guy who IS Donald Trump.
doctorremulac3, Jan 31 2019
  

       After thinking about it I don't think I could ever nuke anybody, which is probably why I shouldn't be in charge of protecting a country.   

       If I got kidnapped and forced to be president, I think I'd institute a new war plan of "Total Warfare Against Enemy Leaders Only".   

       Think I'll post the idea.
doctorremulac3, Jan 31 2019
  

       Orbital velocity at LEO is almost 8 km/s. At ground it's more like 7.1 . "nuclear" seems a bit redundant.
FlyingToaster, Jan 31 2019
  

       "it's tough to beat the whole "Keep your naughty nukies at home until you want to push the button and say bye bye civilization." program in place for going on 70 years now."   

       But there is always something new. I think I posted an idea on here about putting big piles of cobalt on top of likely targets, including missile silos. If a nuclear weapon strikes the city (say Washington DC or Moscow), or missile silo, the cobalt gets zapped too, the radioactive cobalt then reaches the atmosphere and turns a single strike into a "doomsday" nuclear device affecting the whole planet.
beanangel, Feb 04 2019
  
      
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