Space race seems to be heating up again

Oh we did, ... it's just Metakron ignores it!

I also pointed out the with the Earth rotating wrt the Moon, and it being a several day journey from the Earth to the Moon, targetting was going to be problematic and reduce the available launch windows. He hand waved and said the missile would just adjust it's speed, ... somehow, I think it's CEP would be pretty crappy, compared to a regular ICBM.

He also handwaved over the required heat shield, and that this would require a radical re-design of a missile, and that an incoming exo-atmosheric vehicle might just give itself away, ....

 

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Yes, he is incapable of learning so ignores all that contradicts his opinions.

Not only the turning of the Earth makes it much harder to hit a target on Earth than on the moon, (which always keeps the same side towards Earth), but also there are great aerodynamic forces on the missle, especailly if entering the atmosphere at the full speed of a fall from the moon, instead of the much slower ICBM's speed. These forces would significantly deflect it from the desired target. (None of that problem on the airless moon, of course.) Also if that moon launched missle had an adequate ablative heat shield, (thick and heavy), then the outgassing forces as this heat shield ablates away cause additional defecting forces, which are both very significant and impossible to predict.

Yet despite all these facts, MetaKron foolishly claims that it is harder to accurately hit a target on the moon than one on the Earth. The Earth launched ICBM, using GPS, could attack and have an impact "circle of error" of one meter radius!* It is amazing how a paranoid can be so blind to things that are obvious! even after many have pointed them out to him!
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*With GPS and terminal imaging, the tomahawk cruise missle can fly in thru one particular designated window of a building it is targeting after a 1000 mile flight! An ICBM can at least hit the designated building with only inertial guidance, but no reason why it could not also use GPS to impact near a designated spot on the roof, if a "ground burst" is desired.

Even if MetaKron's moon lauched missle is not intercepted during the 4 or 5 day it requires to get to Earth and also does not burn up in the atmosphere (I.e.uses very thick ablative heat shield) it would be luckly to hit within 200 milles of its designated target when both the huge aerodynamic and out gassing (a sideways, rocket-like, thrust) forces of the ablating heat shield are considered.

 

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Going to the moon is so wasteful. They need to send more probes. The real science comes out of that.

It reminds me of a skit Jerry Seinfeld did about how there was no more manly idea than going to the moon to drive around.

 

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Chinese officials were in peak cheer leading form, heralding their Long March on space in terms that melded science with classic propaganda campaigns. Dates were extolled not only for the first manned launch-within the next year-but also lunar landings by 2010, and moon colonies and Mars missions within another 10 years.China is expected to complete its first exploration of the moon in 2010, and will establish a base on the moon as we did in the South Pole and the North Pole, promised Ouyang Ziyuan.

 

China got high aims...but not much to backup it up

Nations like it that steal other technology will not achieve anything grandeur

 

Dude, the US rocketry program was led by Werner Von Braun, he was chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle.

So the USA did pretty well with 'stolen' expertise.

 

The US might have gotten Warner Von Braun, but the Soviet Union got thousands of Germans who worked in the German rocketry industry, including several prominent rocket scientists, and the detailed designs and hardware that the Germans failed to destroy. So the Soviet Union did pretty well with 'stolen' expertise as well.

For more, see http://www.russianspaceweb.com/rockets_german_legacy.html.

 

True, but the designs used by the Soviets came from Sergei Korolyev, the German scientists worked in a different team, and afaik, had very little input.

 

D H...Soviet Union got scraps of information compared to what USA got out of Von Braun's lab/slave aerospace factory.