Parzival | 09 Jul 2014 2:43 p.m. PST |
The (now defunct) plan to use suborbital spaceflights for military insertions: link Based in part on Spaceship One. Of course, a staple of recent SF is suborbital SSTOL craft used as deployment systems. In terms of rapid deployment, it's a winner— you can get from any base to any hot zone anywhere on the planet in a few hours. Drawbacks would be vulnerability on the descent stage, though the UAV concept could aid with "bring along" air support. Wonder what the possibilities of combining this concept with the TALOS suit would be
space marines indeed! |
SBminisguy | 09 Jul 2014 3:20 p.m. PST |
In a former life I was a space geek, and remember sitting in on DOD discussion of "CONUS to Globe" insertions using the under-test DC-X single stage to orbit vehicle as a platform. The mission outlined would have an SSTO reach orbit with a platoon of special forces, refuel on orbit, re-enter the atmosphere and then the SpecOps guys HALO jump. Once far enough away the SSTO ascends back to orbit. Once on orbit it can refuel and be ready for an extraction mission or other support mission. IIRC the novel Firestar by Michael Flynn includes this kind of strike mission, and even has a hot insertion/extraction using an SSTO spacecraft: link |
SBminisguy | 09 Jul 2014 3:22 p.m. PST |
Oh, here's that SUSTAIN report the article mentions: PDF link |
Parzival | 09 Jul 2014 3:31 p.m. PST |
Yep, Firestar was the main novel I was thinking of (couldn't recall the title). And I was also musing on the possibilities of using the concept for HALO jumps rather than landed insertions. Nice to know somebody was already thinking that way. Thanks for the additional links. |
snodipous | 09 Jul 2014 5:44 p.m. PST |
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge takes place in the near future when the weapons of mass destruction are easily created by terrorist groups. The US (or UN? can't remember) has a threat center with elite soldiers who can be fired in one-person pods on a suborbital path anywhere in the world at almost no notice to shut down imminent threats. "Chicago was more than a decade past. There hadn't been a successful nuclear attack on the U.S. or any of the treaty organization countries in more than five years." |
fox news tea party | 09 Jul 2014 8:24 p.m. PST |
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wminsing | 10 Jul 2014 5:26 a.m. PST |
Actually this idea first came up in the 1960's!! link And you can get a model of it: link -Will |
chaos0xomega | 10 Jul 2014 6:56 a.m. PST |
I know one of the USAF officers involved with this 'project', assuming what he tells me is true, we were never all that close for a whole host of reasons that the article only someone what mentions in passing, and for those same reasons we likely won't have space marines in the foreseeable future regardless of the success of the private sector in spaceflight. Turns out there aren't that many places on earth (very few, if any at all, even remotely near any of the likely hotspots we would need to deploy to) where one could safely land a spaceplane without subjecting the human body to extreme deceleration (to the point that you would render the passengers combat-ineffective, if not outright kill them), unless you were willing to fly a more conventional flight profile, completely eliminating most of the advantages you are trying to derive by putting 'marines in space' in the first place. Also turns out that, besides the fact that you would have to somehow land a multi-million dollar space plane (read: highly sensitive piece of equipment) in what would otherwise be an unsecured warzone (or something similar), there is no way to carry enough fuel to then recover said aircraft (unless, once again, you're willing to fly a conventional flight profile, in which case, once again, you completely eliminate any benefit you are trying to derive by putting 'marines in space'). When the article says that many laughed when they heard the proposal, it is 100% correct. What it fails to mention was that a lot of that laughter occurred *AFTER* they did physics studies/a basic feasibility study and presented it to Lafontat and co, who still insisted it would be possible despite some of the best engineers and scientists essentially telling him that even if we could build a spaceplane which could do specifically what he wanted it to do (we cannot), they'd be pouring a platoon of marines out of it in the form of a bloody slush. Lets put it this way, theres a reason why Spaceship Two needs a 12,000 foot long runway. |
Legion 4 | 10 Jul 2014 7:10 a.m. PST |
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SBminisguy | 10 Jul 2014 10:03 a.m. PST |
Man, I sooo want to game that period, the fantastic Orion nuclear space battleship vision of the early 1960s space program before it got NASA-ified! |
wminsing | 10 Jul 2014 10:16 a.m. PST |
You definitely *wouldn't* want to do with this with a spaceplane, it would have to be a vertical-orientation SSTO to make it work. The SUSTAIN study actually seems like a pretty good breakdown of the issues. -Will |
Augustus | 10 Jul 2014 10:33 a.m. PST |
Just need a better power plant. With the right engine, you can go anywhere anytime anyhow. |
doug redshirt | 10 Jul 2014 10:43 a.m. PST |
But what if they were Space Marine Robots. Then you could increase the Gs. Or just send a hypersonic missile and kill them in less then an hour. |
Lion in the Stars | 10 Jul 2014 12:15 p.m. PST |
Gotta be careful with hypersonic missiles, so that they don't look like an ICBM launch! If you used something like the X20 Dyna-soar or the Sanger Antipodal Bomber you might be able to kick the marines out in a combat glider, something designed to slow down from Mach 5+ to subsonic while the hypersonic carrier vehicle bounces back up into orbit, and then have the Marines parachute out or fly the glider down. Might be able to get it to work, but talk about complex! |
SBminisguy | 10 Jul 2014 12:59 p.m. PST |
I was thinking more along the lines of squadrons of Orion-type nuclear pulse engine warships duking it out across the solar system, supported by small craft doing strike missions from space.
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John Treadaway | 11 Jul 2014 4:49 a.m. PST |
This is a very interesting thread. L4, other than the fact that that's it's $125 USD, why haven't you got several of the link things to drp your 6mm Slammers from? :)
I had a book on them – which I still have – bought for me as a ten year old (when this technology was the 'latest thing' – or at least the latest thing the governments of the west would admit to…) and always thought they looked terrific :) John T |
wminsing | 11 Jul 2014 6:35 a.m. PST |
@SBMinisguy- you might want to check out the start of the 'Torch War' line here then: link It's still in development but similar ideas. -Will |
javelin98 | 11 Jul 2014 10:28 a.m. PST |
We already had a space marine in 1962:
link |
Lion in the Stars | 11 Jul 2014 11:00 a.m. PST |
@John Treadaway: Holy Crap!!! I remember that book, and that spaceship! Do. WANT!!! |
Parzival | 11 Jul 2014 11:56 a.m. PST |
Also turns out that, besides the fact that you would have to somehow land a multi-million dollar space plane Doesn't need to be a plane. Can be an SSTSO VTOL craft as the DC-X Delta Clipper was, or SpaceX's current in-test system is. Doesn't necessarily need to land to deploy. HALO jumps or other insertion re-entry concepts are possible approaches that would not require the main delivery vehicle to land on site for deployment. Retrieval is another matter. hey'd be pouring a platoon of marines out of it in the form of a bloody slush Baloney. If somebody thinks that, they know nothing about physics and have no business making any decisions regarding space-based operations. A controlled vertical decent can be accomplished in a number of ways. Spaceship Two needs a 12,000 foot long runway. Right. Because high-paying jet setters don't like rough, high-G landings. Marines ain't luxury passengers. They may grumble, heck, they may even complain, but they ain't the ones writing the check for the trip. But, as I pointed out, a SSTSO VTOL doesn't need a runway. It just needs a flat spot slightly bigger than the craft. The drawback in all of this remains engineering, not physics. VTOL requires a lot of fuel— not only does the launch phase have to lift the vehicle and its payload, it has to lift the vehicle, its payload, AND the fuel required for the landing… and then the fuel to lift the vehicle again from the landing site AND the fuel to land the vehicle back at home base. That's a lot of fuel. Of course, we have built and flown just such a vehicle, multiple times, with a manned payload. Guess what it was, when, and where. (Hint: It doesn't solve the problem of deploying marines on Earth…) EDIT: By the way, the Virgin Galactic spaceport runway is 10,000 feet, not 12,000 feet. That happens to be the same as conventional international wide-body aircraft. Long, yes, but within normal aircraft ranges. Also, my guess is that runway has been planned and built with a large safety margin for the landing; actual minimal footprint for the landing is probably much less. Marines, as I said, would get the minimum. |
Legion 4 | 11 Jul 2014 12:42 p.m. PST |
JT, that is a nice bird, but my Slammers use another Lander …
It's a an old Star Trek Movie toy from Burger King … with some modifications … Those are not Slammers, in the pic, but some curious GW IG Grunts [for scale] … |