Getting to space without violating the Proscriptions

cralkhi wrote:
Why? Solid rockets can be made rather large.

Yes - but, as it mentioned above, with the fuel, that Safehold couldn't produce in anything more than laboratory samples.

And also, the burning process of big solid fuel rockets need a lot of complex construction works, that the Safeholdian technology simply wouldn't be able to do in neccesary persision.

put up more projectiles than the OBS defenses can physically shoot down in the window they have.

Probably that would need hundreds of millions projectiles. Because your chances that even one unguided rocket - without any control! - would be aimed near the OBS platforms is pretty low. Space is big.

So for low orbits the propellant/mass-ratio needed is immensely less, and still much less for higher LEO-orbits (where I think the OBS probably is... balancing stationkeeping needs with a short orbit time for rapid response).

For what reason the OBS should be on the low orbit?

Dilandu wrote:Assuming that the OBS defenses would not just started to shoot down anything unauthorised, that appeared over the stratosphere. And there are a lot of reason to believe, that they would do just that. The side, that controlled the OBS during the War against the Fallen have a lot of reasons to control the air-and-space communication and didn't let anything to get out of atmosphere to attack OBS or "Hamilcar". Because the space traffic was relatively limited, it wasn't too hard to program OBS to hit anything unauthorised to flight.

Also, how exactly you are proposed to send the decoys toward the OBS? For all that we could learn, the OBS is on the high Safeholdian orbit, or, possibly, even in Largange points of the Safehod moon system. There is no way that the unguided rocket could get even close to the high-orbital target.

Also: how many unguided rockets you need to put enough metalized plastic on orbit to impare the OBS sensors? Hundreds of thousands? Millions, perhaps? The maximum you could realisticly launch, is a few pounds on the LSO - to put enough to impare the OBS detection capabilites you need an AWFULLY AWFUL big armada of rockets.

The low pressures means that from the OBS's perspective it might even think its missing. Echo's are BIG (30m) but light (70kg). The Germans had no problem building thousands of V-2's in two years, so scale shouldn't be a show stopper. The question is how big is the OBS? 1km? The idea is to saturate its defences with targets that don't change state or course when hit (and sooner or later you hit the target with a rocket body...). Active guidance is possible to a limited extent - inertial guidance is certainly possible and remote targeting using infrared lasers is also achievable using mechanical means (you just need a weapons grade laser to mark the target...).

AirTech wrote:

Dilandu wrote:Snip Comments from Dilandu

The low pressures means that from the OBS's perspective it might even think its missing. Echo's are BIG (30m) but light (70kg). The Germans had no problem building thousands of V-2's in two years, so scale shouldn't be a show stopper. The question is how big is the OBS? 1km? The idea is to saturate its defences with targets that don't change state or course when hit (and sooner or later you hit the target with a rocket body...). Active guidance is possible to a limited extent - inertial guidance is certainly possible and remote targeting using infrared lasers is also achievable using mechanical means (you just need a weapons grade laser to mark the target...).

What do you mean the low preassure means it's missing? it will still be obliterated by anything that hits it, put a hole in it and it goes pop.

BTW those easily made V2's they have no-where near the power and lift capability for the task you are describing and had a range of 200k straight line up and 88k max height if on a parabolic arc. These numbers are no-where near where you need for orbital insertion.

also they need gyroscopic stabilisation, you are not making a lot of those with non violating tech anytime soon. Getting gyro's spun up using compressed air or steam power is really really going to suck.

The idea here, if I am getting it correctly, is basicly to throw up some solid projectiles to be in the way of the OBS as it passes by, creating an artificial meteor shower for the OBS to run into.

Is it doable? The answer would be a qualified yes. The qualification would be coming up with the propellant to get it to the same altitude as the OBS. Otherwise, it would be a matter of tracking the OBS which Owl could do, thus establishing the orbits time and place. Then you don't worry about specific guidance. You simply properly time your launch to have your projectiles where you want them at the proper time. If you are able to shoot up enough of them, your aim wouldn't have to be all that precise.

I find myself wondering if Owl would be able to hack into the system and shut it down.

Don

AirTech wrote:The idea is to saturate its defences with targets that don't change state or course when hit (and sooner or later you hit the target with a rocket body...).

The idea isn't gonna work with unguided rockets. Simply speaking - of a all rockets you would launch, only a few would go anywhere near the OBS.

Active guidance is possible to a limited extent - inertial guidance is certainly possible and remote targeting using infrared lasers is also achievable using mechanical means (you just need a weapons grade laser to mark the target...).

Mechanical means? You are joking, right? There is no means you could build the mechanical guidance for a space rocket, that supposed to do something better than unguided! The most that you could achieve is "to send it somewhere to space!"

n7axw wrote:You simply properly time your launch to have your projectiles where you want them at the proper time. If you are able to shoot up enough of them, your aim wouldn't have to be all that precise.

And now the bad part - you need hundreds of thousands projectiles. Possibly millions.

Seriously, guys! Be serious at least! You need to intercept something, that moved in space! Even if we assume that the OBS is on the LSO - and it's highly unlikely! - you need to hit object ins space with unguided or mechhanically-inertially-guided rocket (and i believe that the second would work worse than the first).

The slighest inaccuracies in aiming, unevenness in the engine working, the atmospherical turbulenses - they would make hit impossilbe. The only thing that you could do, is to build a REALLY enormous armada of rockets in hope that one of million would assidently stumble upon OBS!

Um, you're attacking the OBS, the source of the Rakurai that enforces the Proscriptions, yes?

So why is anyone who is doing this concerned about not violating the proscriptions? Just go all out and mass produce Federation technology using Nimue's Cave equipment as your starting base.

Need a guidance system for your rocket? Don't bother trying to make one from native Safeholdian technology. Just slap in a FedTech guidance system. By the time the OBS can even see its power signature, it should already be in attack position.

But why bother with a chemical rocket? Find (or make) a suitably large cavern using the Nimue's Cave equipment, and build a FedTech shipyard in it. Then build a cut rate FedTech warship (some tools to build tools may be needed here) that only has to make it as far as orbit and able to blast the OBS at its leisure.

Heck depending on the weapons tech, it may not even need to make orbit. It could just surface in the ocean and then snipe the OBS from there.

I see no point in trying to use native Safeholdian tech to attack the OBS. Especially since the OBS' designers were likely paranoid enough to armor the damn thing enough to laugh off many of the proposed attack methods in this thread.

evilauthor wrote:Um, you're attacking the OBS, the source of the Rakurai that enforces the Proscriptions, yes?

So why is anyone who is doing this concerned about not violating the proscriptions? Just go all out and mass produce Federation technology using Nimue's Cave equipment as your starting base. *snip*

Because we have text evidence that nothing in the cave/owls arsenal including bombarding it with rocks from elsewhere get through to the OBS. On a more meta level handing out guidance systems that no-one on safehold made without help violates the need to promote original thinking that drives everything Merlin is doing.

On a more fundamental level I will bet a lot of money that one of the unstated prohibitions that triggers the bombardment system is a line of logic that goes somthing like this:

IF - detect high energy event on surface
AND
IF - detect high energy heat source raising from surface to over 50 miles height
AND
IF - detect metal in heat source
THEN
Destroy source point of high energy event.

This would destroy the launch site as this combination can only mean an attempt to violate the proscriptions and/or disable the OBS.

evilauthor wrote:Um, you're attacking the OBS, the source of the Rakurai that enforces the Proscriptions, yes?

So why is anyone who is doing this concerned about not violating the proscriptions? Just go all out and mass produce Federation technology using Nimue's Cave equipment as your starting base.

This is a purely speculative thread, a "what if" discussion on how it could be done. It does not mean that posters think that it will be necessary; it is simply an mental exercise. The question is, Would it be possible. People are not saying it would be necessary.

Fuel for speculation is that when Owl said he couldn't neutralize the OBS, he was still in limited mode and would not have been thinking outside the box about native help.

"Low-tech Charisian rockets? You didn't ask me to think about that."