Getting to space without violating the Proscriptions

Dilandu wrote:

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!"

A mechanical autopilot is quite possible - the early DC-3's had a reliable pneumatic autopilot as did the V-1 cruise missiles. Hitting an orbital target is only slightly more difficult than hitting London from Amsterdam. Basically you can do anything with pneumatics that you can with vacuum tube electronics just a bit slower, other than send pictures and sound from place to place - optical telemetry is even possible if you really want to try. Electronics are limited to the speed of light, pneumatics (and hydraulics) are limited to the speed of sound. Up until 1960 refineries ran entirely on pneumatics, electronics were just too dangerous and unreliable. What you can't do is send in radar altimeter signals, flight updates or launch abort signals. Reaching orbit is easy, hitting a maneuvering target is hard but a mechanical version of the early Sidewinder's seeker head is possible if the target is hot enough. (Four bimetal blades at the prime focus of a big enough telescope operating pneumatic flapper and nozzle assemblies - end result - pneumatic seeker head) (Early Sidewinders used a set of photocells for the same purpose (later ones got brighter and fitted imaging cameras to permit any aspect shots)).
The Echo 1 balloon ran at low pressure with a subliming solid fill to make up the gas, the Echo 2 went a step further and needed no pressure after launch (it stretched the film to a permanent sphere and then vented the gas). They were both designed for repeated micro-meteor hits while maintaining a smooth curved shape. Whist a smart satellite will be creamed by a 1cm cube moving at escape velocity, and Echo balloon wouldn't even shiver - you would get a clean hole in both sides.

AirTech wrote:A mechanical autopilot is quite possible - the early DC-3's had a reliable pneumatic autopilot as did the V-1 cruise missiles.

Yes. Subsonic. Didn't here some difference, for example, in reaction time and percision?

Hitting an orbital target is only slightly more difficult than hitting London from Amsterdam.

Well, if you could think as "thousand times more" as "only slightly"...

Basically you can do anything with pneumatics that you can with vacuum tube electronics just a bit slower,

Really slower. And during the acceleration of rocket flight, the pneumatic system could have a lot of troubles.

Reaching orbit is easy, hitting a maneuvering target is hard but a mechanical version of the early Sidewinder's seeker head is possible if the target is hot enough. (Four bimetal blades at the prime focus of a big enough telescope operating pneumatic flapper and nozzle assemblies - end result - pneumatic seeker head)

Please. This system would be really usefull, if you want to bombard sun. And this is SPACE. To hit the object in space, you need a lot greater precision!

One simple question: how are you supposed to protect all this pneumatic and mechanic from the overheating under the daylight and overfreezing on the other side? The gaslamp, connected with the mercury thermometer?

Le'ts be reasonable, shall we? If it would be possible to hit the OBS with enough junk, then Owl would eventually suggest to use SNARK's or shuttles to transport enough junk to orbit! Yera by year, they would get enough junk, to eventually swarm the OBS. They could tranport part by part a large pile of shrapnel, and use some nuclear charges as an "Orion"-type nuclear pulse units to push the junk toward the OBS.

But they didn't try anything like this - and this plan is much more realistic than attempts to hit the OBS with local-build non-electrical planet-based-missiles!

Expert snuggler wrote: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."

Merlin also didn't ask if it was possible to build weapon systems that COULD take out the OBS with the Cave's resources.

Dilandu wrote:One simple question: how are you supposed to protect all this pneumatic and mechanic from the overheating under the daylight and overfreezing on the other side? The gaslamp, connected with the mercury thermometer?

The same way the pneumatic and mechanical equipment on current space probes and landers are protected. It's not that hard.

Dilandu wrote:

AirTech wrote:A mechanical autopilot is quite possible - the early DC-3's had a reliable pneumatic autopilot as did the V-1 cruise missiles.

Yes. Subsonic. Didn't here some difference, for example, in reaction time and percision?

Hitting an orbital target is only slightly more difficult than hitting London from Amsterdam.

Well, if you could think as "thousand times more" as "only slightly"...

Basically you can do anything with pneumatics that you can with vacuum tube electronics just a bit slower,

Really slower. And during the acceleration of rocket flight, the pneumatic system could have a lot of troubles.

Reaching orbit is easy, hitting a maneuvering target is hard but a mechanical version of the early Sidewinder's seeker head is possible if the target is hot enough. (Four bimetal blades at the prime focus of a big enough telescope operating pneumatic flapper and nozzle assemblies - end result - pneumatic seeker head)

Please. This system would be really usefull, if you want to bombard sun. And this is SPACE. To hit the object in space, you need a lot greater precision!

[planetary scientist hat on]
Dilandu, it's not nearly as hard as you think. Getting to a specific orbit and approaching a specific point in space at a specific time is not that hard. It does not require microsecond timing. It can definitely be done by precision mechanical equipment. In fact, quite a bit of equipment on historical space probes was mechanical, not electronic.

SWM wrote:Dilandu, it's not nearly as hard as you think. Getting to a specific orbit and approaching a specific point in space at a specific time is not that hard. It does not require microsecond timing. It can definitely be done by precision mechanical equipment. In fact, quite a bit of equipment on historical space probes was mechanical, not electronic.

Well, i consulted some my friends that knew rocketry and mechanic pretty good. And he prove to me that this is possible, indeed... after couple of thousand tries.

Yes, it theory this is pretty easy. On practice - and there is always this practice, that ruined so much pretty good in theory ideas... like artillery shells with wheels (c) - the rocket motors that could be build on pre-electrical level wouldn't be reliable, and wouldn't work perfectly. In fact, they would fluctuate pretty hard. And because you haven't got any datalink with rocket, you couldn't correct the trajectory if the motor would start to fluctuate.

Simply: the mechanical system would not be able to actually determine how much speed the rocket did not gain, or how much the trajectory is erroneous because the rocket burning is erractic due to the fuel quality. It would be impossible to correct on purely mechanical system.

Please understood me: i'm not doubting that the pure mechanical system is possible. I doubt that it would be even slightly effective. Yes, you could achieve the parameters eventually - after thousands of launches.

SWM wrote:

Dilandu wrote:
Yes. Subsonic. Didn't here some difference, for example, in reaction time and percision?



Well, if you could think as "thousand times more" as "only slightly"...


Really slower. And during the acceleration of rocket flight, the pneumatic system could have a lot of troubles.

Please. This system would be really usefull, if you want to bombard sun. And this is SPACE. To hit the object in space, you need a lot greater precision!

[planetary scientist hat on]
Dilandu, it's not nearly as hard as you think. Getting to a specific orbit and approaching a specific point in space at a specific time is not that hard. It does not require microsecond timing. It can definitely be done by precision mechanical equipment. In fact, quite a bit of equipment on historical space probes was mechanical, not electronic.

The other issue is that you are aiming a, say, 100m balloon at your target (we may as well supersize it). When it hits the mylar and silver will vaporize and plate the target with silver. If the platform hits its incoming targets with optical or pretty much any electromagnetic sensors, they will be rendered inoperative due to unevenly distributed lumps of silver over a 100m diameter, not even allowing for the impact damage of the balloon itself. So now the platform is silver plated it makes a much better target for the follow on shots as silver plating will destroy most stealth technologies.
If you miss, there is a chance it will hit in the next orbit...
As for trajectory, an mechanical inertial platform will give you a sum of the accelerations accurate enough to to put an airliner (or submarine) in a 500m box after 2000km after bouncing through the atmosphere - adequate for a nuclear missile launch. The more modern electronic versions do somewhat better. The German V-2 used this system for guidance.
The other alternative if you don't like rockets could be a Verne gun, AKA German V-3 or HDP, AKA Project HARP, AKA Project Babylon , an escape velocity capable cannon. Known, if odd, technology.

AirTech wrote:
The other issue is that you are aiming a, say, 100m balloon at your target (we may as well supersize it). When it hits the mylar and silver will vaporize and plate the target with silver. If the platform hits its incoming targets with optical or pretty much any electromagnetic sensors, they will be rendered inoperative due to unevenly distributed lumps of silver over a 100m diameter, not even allowing for the impact damage of the balloon itself. So now the platform is silver plated it makes a much better target for the follow on shots as silver plating will destroy most stealth technologies.
If you miss, there is a chance it will hit in the next orbit...
As for trajectory, an mechanical inertial platform will give you a sum of the accelerations accurate enough to to put an airliner (or submarine) in a 500m box after 2000km after bouncing through the atmosphere - adequate for a nuclear missile launch. The more modern electronic versions do somewhat better. The German V-2 used this system for guidance.
The other alternative if you don't like rockets could be a Verne gun, AKA German V-3 or HDP, AKA Project HARP, AKA Project Babylon , an escape velocity capable cannon. Known, if odd, technology.

And what if the OBS just have some dust shielidng to get rid of micrometeors?

Or, what if it's simply started to shoot down rockets in stratosphere?

And why the OBS service robots couldn't just get rid of mylar?

Also, if i understood this right, nothing like "plate the target with silver" would take place. The silver would vaporise and break away in form of cloud.