Some of what we do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1SkjgBWvjQ
Can't say anymore -- would have to shoot you if I did.
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Some of what we do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1SkjgBWvjQ
Can't say anymore -- would have to shoot you if I did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1SkjgBWvjQ
Can't say anymore -- would have to shoot you if I did.
Sweeeeet. That's a whole lot cooler than makin' radios.
Nice shootin' Kelly!
Pretty cool, Dude.
Awesome coolness!
It's cool to run the codes and do the math, but nothing quite beats smoke and fire. And this is what is called a kinetic kill, which is to say there is no bomb or warhead in the interceptor, and in this case not one in the target either. The "explosion" you see is all from the enormous kinetic energy of the two bodies colliding at a closing speed of many kilometers per sec. Very effective. Also, such intercept precision is no small feat when the two starting points are very, very far away. You may recall much press back in the early days of Star Wars development, and all of the very smart folks who said that such a thing was next to impossible, and at least a fool's errand plus a terrific waste of time and money to even try. Which reminds me of the folks back in the late 1800s that professed that technology and the industrial revolution were essentially over because everything that was needed had already been invented. You can look it up.
Or, you coulda been a Luddite......
Many years ago while at Northrop corp, I helped design the inertial guidance platform for the Harpoon missile, then quickly moved on to another company (the growth path in defense companies was measured in decades and I couldn't wait). Years went by, and then the Brits had a minor skirmish with the Argentinians over the Falkland Islands, which sit in the south Atlantic.
Anyway, the Brits used a Harpoon Missile to take out an Argentine Frigate (the boat, not the bird) and, son-of-a-gun, the damn thing WORKED! Exactly as we designed it!! Friggin amazing!! Blew a big hole right below the waterline, coming in from about 15 miles away.
All of a sudden, I got a bunch of emails (and email was only 1 or two years old back then....1982) from guys on the old Harpoon design team sending congrats. I didn't even know that the Brits HAD Harpoon missiles!!!!
There's nothing like seeing your designs doing things as you designed them.
Oh, and what did I move on to away from weaponry? I helped design the Data General computer used on the GE Medical CT and CAT scanners.
One extreme to another....
Many years ago while at Northrop corp, I helped design the inertial guidance platform for the Harpoon missile, then quickly moved on to another company (the growth path in defense companies was measured in decades and I couldn't wait). Years went by, and then the Brits had a minor skirmish with the Argentinians over the Falkland Islands, which sit in the south Atlantic.
Anyway, the Brits used a Harpoon Missile to take out an Argentine Frigate (the boat, not the bird) and, son-of-a-gun, the damn thing WORKED! Exactly as we designed it!! Friggin amazing!! Blew a big hole right below the waterline, coming in from about 15 miles away.
All of a sudden, I got a bunch of emails (and email was only 1 or two years old back then....1982) from guys on the old Harpoon design team sending congrats. I didn't even know that the Brits HAD Harpoon missiles!!!!
There's nothing like seeing your designs doing things as you designed them.
Oh, and what did I move on to away from weaponry? I helped design the Data General computer used on the GE Medical CT and CAT scanners.
One extreme to another....
Oh goodness... It's a good thing you guys act low key because otherwise it would be DANG hard to hang out with a buncha rocket scientists!!!
Just to show where I fit in the group... The video Kelly posted? You know the part where the missile is launching but it hasn't cleared the tube? Where all the FIRE is coming out!!! Oh, I watched that about eight times!
FIRE! COOL!!!!
angela
Just to show where I fit in the group... The video Kelly posted? You know the part where the missile is launching but it hasn't cleared the tube? Where all the FIRE is coming out!!! Oh, I watched that about eight times!
FIRE! COOL!!!!
angela
Yes, we like fire and smoke, and these machines that can go Mach Alot make prodigeous (?) amounts of fire. Hmmm, smoke/fire -- sounds like a night at the drag strip.
Gordo: I also worked Tamahawk/Harpoon, the Lab here having been in on the invention and development of same from Day 1. And they do seem to work more or less as designed. Just ask Ghadafi, he will know . . .
Gordo: I also worked Tamahawk/Harpoon, the Lab here having been in on the invention and development of same from Day 1. And they do seem to work more or less as designed. Just ask Ghadafi, he will know . . .
Kelly, congrats!!
It's truly amazing how far these missions have come thanks to the determination & persistence of some brilliant people. Man I'm glad the SM3 team is on our side.
It sure is rewarding to see years of work in action. Back in the day, after I moved on from building spacecraft for Hughes, I was walking by a TV with CNN showing one that I had built being cradled in space by 3 shuttle astronauts! You never get to see these things after you're done with them, something about being 23k miles out.
The Perigee Boost Motor had failed on this one (we subbed that out to another company, probably had clogged idle jets...), so it was stuck in a useless orbit. Amazingly, the crew bolted on a new motor & sent it on its way.
The photos are beautiful:
http://publicimages.org/freeimage/ViewImage.aspx?imageId=3170775
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:INTELSAT_VI_F3_sperates_from_Shuttle_after_repair.jpg
It's truly amazing how far these missions have come thanks to the determination & persistence of some brilliant people. Man I'm glad the SM3 team is on our side.
It sure is rewarding to see years of work in action. Back in the day, after I moved on from building spacecraft for Hughes, I was walking by a TV with CNN showing one that I had built being cradled in space by 3 shuttle astronauts! You never get to see these things after you're done with them, something about being 23k miles out.
The Perigee Boost Motor had failed on this one (we subbed that out to another company, probably had clogged idle jets...), so it was stuck in a useless orbit. Amazingly, the crew bolted on a new motor & sent it on its way.
The photos are beautiful:
http://publicimages.org/freeimage/ViewImage.aspx?imageId=3170775
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:INTELSAT_VI_F3_sperates_from_Shuttle_after_repair.jpg
Went back and checked out the company releases on your intercept. I didn't realize this was launched on remote. Geezuz, that's even more impressive.
(anybody else find it funny you posted this in the "non-technical" thread?)
(anybody else find it funny you posted this in the "non-technical" thread?)
I find it funny that with all the technology we have, we can't win a frigging war.....
If I want to see a bunch of colors, I can drop a tab of Window Pane or Orange Sunshine....
If I want to see a bunch of colors, I can drop a tab of Window Pane or Orange Sunshine....
Oh we have all the good techno stuff, Vinny! It's the twat in charge that gets in the way of using them.
~WB
~WB
One single MOAB and that, will get their attention~
The MOAB is 30 feet,360 inches (9.17 m) long, has a diameter of 40.5 inches (102.9 cm) and weighs 22,600 lb (10.3 tons) (of which 18,700 lb (8.5 tons) are high explosives.) Its blast radius is 450 feet (137.16 m, 150 yd), though the massive shockwave created by the air burst is said to be able to destroy an area as large as nine city blocks. Due to its large size and weight, it was designed to be dropped via parachute extraction out of the back of a C-130 cargo aircraft.
The MOAB is a precision guided munition which uses global positioning technology to impact at the target location. Detonation of the warhead is triggered by fuzes on 4 foot long extenders on the nose of the weapon. It is the first U.S. weapon to use Russian-style lattice control surfaces (referred to as "Belotserkovskiy grid fins"),[5] like those used on the R-400 Oka and Vympel R-77.
The MOAB uses 18,700 pounds of H6 as its explosive filler.[6] At 1.35 times the power of TNT, H6 is one of the more powerful explosives used by the U.S. military. H6 is an explosive combination of RDX (Cyclotrimethylene trinitramine), TNT, and aluminum. H6 is typically employed by the military for general purpose bombs and is an explosive composition which is produced in Australia. H6 is a widely used main blast charge filling for underwater weapons such as mines, depth charges, torpedoes and mine disposal charges. HBX compositions (HBX-1, HBX-3, and H6) are aluminized (powdered aluminium) explosives mainly used as a replacement for the now obsolete explosive known as Torpex.[2] HBX-3 and H6 have lower sensitivity to impact and much higher explosion test temperatures than torpex. The warhead is designated the BLU-120/B.
The MOAB is 30 feet,360 inches (9.17 m) long, has a diameter of 40.5 inches (102.9 cm) and weighs 22,600 lb (10.3 tons) (of which 18,700 lb (8.5 tons) are high explosives.) Its blast radius is 450 feet (137.16 m, 150 yd), though the massive shockwave created by the air burst is said to be able to destroy an area as large as nine city blocks. Due to its large size and weight, it was designed to be dropped via parachute extraction out of the back of a C-130 cargo aircraft.
The MOAB is a precision guided munition which uses global positioning technology to impact at the target location. Detonation of the warhead is triggered by fuzes on 4 foot long extenders on the nose of the weapon. It is the first U.S. weapon to use Russian-style lattice control surfaces (referred to as "Belotserkovskiy grid fins"),[5] like those used on the R-400 Oka and Vympel R-77.
The MOAB uses 18,700 pounds of H6 as its explosive filler.[6] At 1.35 times the power of TNT, H6 is one of the more powerful explosives used by the U.S. military. H6 is an explosive combination of RDX (Cyclotrimethylene trinitramine), TNT, and aluminum. H6 is typically employed by the military for general purpose bombs and is an explosive composition which is produced in Australia. H6 is a widely used main blast charge filling for underwater weapons such as mines, depth charges, torpedoes and mine disposal charges. HBX compositions (HBX-1, HBX-3, and H6) are aluminized (powdered aluminium) explosives mainly used as a replacement for the now obsolete explosive known as Torpex.[2] HBX-3 and H6 have lower sensitivity to impact and much higher explosion test temperatures than torpex. The warhead is designated the BLU-120/B.