SpaceX's Dragon capsule captured by ISS

[Joseph Chikva]

Even? What is better their S-300 or Patriot or SAMP-T?

S-500 IIRC while based on the S-300 is supposed to have significant ABM capability.

Why "even?" Galosh and it's descendents don't seem to be getting much love here. I got a little late in the discussion of reliability of ABM though.

Unlike USA a little improvement and they change designation from S-300 to S-400 Favorit, second improvement and S-500. While Patriot has three generation PAC (Patriot Advanced Capability) - 1, PAC-2 and PAC-3. This is only for showing that they still kept working hard engineering resources who create new and new product with "no analog in the world". But in reality almost all of their products from Soviet era.
In reallity Russian economics is ill with so called "Dutch illness" when the industry unable to pay salaries commensurable with salaries in raw branch. Also there is a natural outflow of the qualified labor. Plus natural aging of people working there.

And I am sure that ABM capability is the great myth as well SDI was a big big bluff and waste of money.
Do you know real statistic of successful interception of newest Israeli Iron Dome system. As far as I know something like 70% in case of shooting 2 rather expensive missiles for shooting down one extremely cheap unguided rocket. And recall that not in saturation attack case.
And ballistic missile has splitting warheads, false targets and in five-10 times a higher speed and they can be launch in large quantities for saturation air defense when radar can track simultaneously 100 targets from which you do not know how many is false and system shoots at e.g. 20-30 targets simultaneously. And enemy has a capability to launch 200 missiles simultaneously. So, system will pass at least 170-180 missiles but taking into account hit-kill probability of one shot is not 100%, system passes even more missiles.

BTW, if you speak Russian see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaL55_ob9tY

[Skipjack]

I seriously doubt N-G is somehow hurting.

Their spacecraft division, I meant.

[Skipjack]

NASA has an unfunded SAA with ULA to finish manrating Atlas V. They already gave them $6.7M a while back to come up with an Emergency Detection System, which is all it really needs.

Well according to a recent press release they also have to do a few minor tests regarding a stronger upper stage...

[R.Nkolo]

A lot of Insights about SpaceX from Gwynne Shotwell President of SpaceX.

Tuesday Opening Keynote with WITI Hall of Famer Gwynne Shotwell
http://youtu.be/pPq0QN-J724

[ladajo]

Joseph,
There is a fundamental difference betweem ABM capability and Anti-ICBM capability. endo & exo atmospheric as well as RV profiles do make a big difference in how you do the job.
But in any event, I have never been talking about single event launches. I have been talking about planning and aquisitions calculus for large scale operations.

In note to your CEP question. Nobody has ever beaten US CEPs. And probably will not for a long while. Your simplistic layman's view of guidance systems make it pointless to talk on CEP further.

One could make a strong arugment about CEPs based on yields per weapon. This argument could be based on the idea that smaller yields are cheaper and realistic on more accurate weapons. The diversion from this would be when one considers unguided tactical. So they should not enter the long range autonomous discussion.

[GIThruster]

NASA has an unfunded SAA with ULA to finish manrating Atlas V. They already gave them $6.7M a while back to come up with an Emergency Detection System, which is all it really needs.

Well according to a recent press release they also have to do a few minor tests regarding a stronger upper stage...

I'm pretty sure that during the Augustine investigation, ULA testified that they needed $1B to man rate Atlas. I thought that number was way too high but the justification was they don't even have a launch pad for it and a new gantry, etc. needs to be built. Not sure what solution they're now looking at but it is not a simple thing to man rate a rocket intended only for cargo.

[Joseph Chikva]

Joseph,
There is a fundamental difference betweem ABM capability and Anti-ICBM capability. endo & exo atmospheric as well as RV profiles do make a big difference in how you do the job.
But in any event, I have never been talking about single event launches. I have been talking about planning and aquisitions calculus for large scale operations.

In note to your CEP question. Nobody has ever beaten US CEPs. And probably will not for a long while. Your simplistic layman's view of guidance systems make it pointless to talk on CEP further.

One could make a strong arugment about CEPs based on yields per weapon. This argument could be based on the idea that smaller yields are cheaper and realistic on more accurate weapons. The diversion from this would be when one considers unguided tactical. So they should not enter the long range autonomous discussion.

I heard that USA's anti-ICBM system has three layers: Naval stage - AEGIS with Standard missiles, then land based THAAD and then Patriot.
But do not believe in their real capability to defend. May I am mistaken.
Also I do not believe in real capability of systems to shoot down artillery, mortar shells as claimed by Raytheon http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/pr ... 023130.pdf or by Rheinmetall http://www.rheinmetall-defence.com/inde ... 286&lang=3
I waited that Israelis for defending of their Northen cities against Hezbollah rockets would choose Rheinmetall system with very nice AHEAD ammunition but they have chosen missile system. And as I know real fires showed their limited capability. Recall that Grad rockets have maximum speed about 700 m/s, short range ballistic missiles (like SCAD) about 1500 m/s and ICBM 4-5000 m/s.
Plus false targets plus for two Russian missiles: Iscander and TOPOL - active (up to 30g as claimed) maneuvers in terminal phase.

I am not so layman in artillery and guidance. And pardon for me your "Nobody has ever beaten US CEPs" sounds very similarly to Russian "no analogs in the world". If skilled enough team has a high performance IMU (inertial measurement unit) , so they can do highly accurate guidance block easily. For rockets/missiles it’s quite easy but it is very difficult for artillery shells as acceleration in the barrels reaches 20’000g while for artillery rocket not more 70g. So, INS/GPS Excalibur with several meters CEP is the great achievement but GMLRS with the same CEP is very ordinary result. Even for Pakistanis.

[Skipjack]

I'm pretty sure that during the Augustine investigation, ULA testified that they needed $1B to man rate Atlas. I thought that number was way too high but the justification was they don't even have a launch pad for it and a new gantry, etc. needs to be built. Not sure what solution they're now looking at but it is not a simple thing to man rate a rocket intended only for cargo.

I think that part of that cost would be carried by SNC and Boeing since they need all that anyway. I think most of it will be Boeing and that is why they got the most money.

[scoops12]

You can't really man-rate a rocket. What you have to do is ensure there's an escape system, as Apollo had and the Shuttle didn't.
Rockets are bound to malfunction or explode once in a while. The important thing is that people aren't irredeemably strapped to it when it happens. javascript:emoticon(':)')

[GIThruster]

Well, here is Michael Gass' presentation before the Augustine commission for ULA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LavQstnW410

If you look at the slide time index 11:07, you'll see what they were asking for was $800M for a new pad, $500M for the man rating (meaning several launches with cargo only) and $300M per launch. At $300M/launch, why would we pay for ULA at all?

IMHO, ULA has always been a bad joke that should have been stopped under current anti-trust law. When Boeing and Lock-Mart were in competition with the Delta and Atlas, they forced each other to keep their costs down. USG should never have permitted ULA to be born as this is clearly a collusion intended to thwart market force and competition and allow obscene pricing to DOD.

Amazing how ULA got next to no funds and Atlas is going to be man-rated anyway.

[Skipjack]

IMHO, ULA has always been a bad joke that should have been stopped under current anti-trust law. When Boeing and Lock-Mart were in competition with the Delta and Atlas, they forced each other to keep their costs down. USG should never have permitted ULA to be born as this is clearly a collusion intended to thwart market force and competition and allow obscene pricing to DOD.

The power that rich corporations and their lobbies have in Washington. They can basically do whatever they want, especially if their main business is in defense. Certain politicians will always have their backs and make sure that they get away with whatever they want. The small people are just able to watch.

Amazing how ULA got next to no funds and Atlas is going to be man-rated anyway.

Yepp amazing how that was possib.e. Another example how CCDev is working wonders in the industry.

[Joseph Chikva]

...this is clearly a collusion intended to thwart market force and competition and allow obscene pricing to DOD.

May be or not those "obscene prices" are only part of certain non-proliferation politics? As only rich and, so, quite predicted countries can purchase modern systems.
When Lockheed Martin or McDonall Douglas or Bae Systems or Boeing or General Dynamics or Alliant Techsystems set new standards of pricing on weaponry in common and missile/space access technology particularly all other producers around the world with pleasure pick up this relay race.
If so not only these companies make influence on politics but they are the part of politics.
Air defence missiles' prices varry from about 100K$ (manpads) to 2M$ (Patriot class), anti-ship missile - 2M$, anti-tank missile 30-200k$
Space programs Mr. 9....3 quoted.
Can comparativelly poor and with less predicted behavior country pay such prices? No.

[ladajo]

Joseph,
There is a fundamental difference betweem ABM capability and Anti-ICBM capability. endo & exo atmospheric as well as RV profiles do make a big difference in how you do the job.
But in any event, I have never been talking about single event launches. I have been talking about planning and aquisitions calculus for large scale operations.

In note to your CEP question. Nobody has ever beaten US CEPs. And probably will not for a long while. Your simplistic layman's view of guidance systems make it pointless to talk on CEP further.

One could make a strong arugment about CEPs based on yields per weapon. This argument could be based on the idea that smaller yields are cheaper and realistic on more accurate weapons. The diversion from this would be when one considers unguided tactical. So they should not enter the long range autonomous discussion.

I heard that USA's anti-ICBM system has three layers: Naval stage - AEGIS with Standard missiles, then land based THAAD and then Patriot.
But do not believe in their real capability to defend. May I am mistaken.
Also I do not believe in real capability of systems to shoot down artillery, mortar shells as claimed by Raytheon http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/pr ... 023130.pdf or by Rheinmetall http://www.rheinmetall-defence.com/inde ... 286&lang=3
I waited that Israelis for defending of their Northen cities against Hezbollah rockets would choose Rheinmetall system with very nice AHEAD ammunition but they have chosen missile system. And as I know real fires showed their limited capability. Recall that Grad rockets have maximum speed about 700 m/s, short range ballistic missiles (like SCAD) about 1500 m/s and ICBM 4-5000 m/s.
Plus false targets plus for two Russian missiles: Iscander and TOPOL - active (up to 30g as claimed) maneuvers in terminal phase.

I am not so layman in artillery and guidance. And pardon for me your "Nobody has ever beaten US CEPs" sounds very similarly to Russian "no analogs in the world". If skilled enough team has a high performance IMU (inertial measurement unit) , so they can do highly accurate guidance block easily. For rockets/missiles it’s quite easy but it is very difficult for artillery shells as acceleration in the barrels reaches 20’000g while for artillery rocket not more 70g. So, INS/GPS Excalibur with several meters CEP is the great achievement but GMLRS with the same CEP is very ordinary result. Even for Pakistanis.

You always know better Joseph. Believe as you wish. You may also want to consider when the first guided artillery round was fired. And then also think about how much different it is to toss something 10 or twenty miles, verses the opposite side of the planet, with a trip out and back into the atmosphere. But, again, you always know better. Personally, I thinking that you actually have no idea how ICBMs are guided from launch to impact, other than what the internet can tell you.

[kunkmiester]

Even if you have a independent warhead, you still have a limited number of trajectories from point A to point B. Once an ICBM is going somewhere, it's on one road, and once a radar or other tracking system sees it, you'll know where it is well enough to put a terminally guided munition in it's path. It's just calculus after all.

All of the decoys and junk they talk about making it harder were thought up in the 50s and 60s as well, and the only decoy that can defeat an ABM system is another actual warhead. MRVs and MIRVs were dealt with too, this isn't some mystical science, you just have to study a bit.

[Joseph Chikva]

And then also think about how much different it is to toss something 10 or twenty miles, verses the opposite side of the planet....

Principle is the same - inertial navigation (INS). Small caliber large acceleration - more difficult to place there guidance block.
While IRBC requires highest perfomance of IMU.
Only this is difference.
When INS is aided with GPS requirents on perfomance on IMU are less stricter. But GPS for artillery is used only in US rockets/shells. As other countries are bothered that GPS signal will be jammed or blocked.
For IRBM only inertial guidance and so very strict requirements on perfomance.
But by appearence of high perfomance MEMS inertial sensors even in 70mm rockets it is possible to make inertial guidance allowing dispersion at least 1/500 from firing distance. So, firing at 10 km CEP will be 20m.
In higher calibers it is possible to place fiber optic gyros providing better accuracy - without aid of GPS up to 1/2000. So, 300mm rocket fired at 100km will have CEP 50m.
This is Chiness INS guided MLRS

IRBC needs more accuracy than rockets and so higher perfomance of IMU. And when claim that more aiged american missile provide lower CEP then e.g. TOPOL created just yesterday when new element base (first of all inertial sensors) almost in free sale I do not believe you. Despite your high rank in NAVY. As you are/was user of such systems and I have a skill to take participation in design-development. And yes I know better.

Also I doubt in strategy offerd by you when you proposed to strike missiles silos. As till your IRBM will reach the targets very likly that silos will be empty.
Also I showed you mobile IRBM not based in silos at all. Russians are going to increase those number to 350.