Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!att!cbnews!military From: sfn20715@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Norton) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Shielding Nukes Message-ID: <8694@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 31 Jul 89 12:29:30 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 28 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Steve Norton /* Written 9:55 pm Jul 27, 1989 by smb@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com in uxa.cso.uiuc.edu:sci.military */ As long as I'm being technical, an earlier poster spoke of how cold space is. Space, being a vacuum, has no temperature; only objects in space do. In many satellites -- and certainly in something like the shuttle or a space station -- the major problem is getting rid of excess heat, not in staying warm. A satellite containing a nuclear weapon may show up as warmer than other satellites of the same size and power consumption, but that's not at all the same thing. -=-=-=-=-=-=- The lower-than-low-earth orbit used by nuclear warheads during the cruise phase of flight is a long way from a vacuum. Admittedly, there is still not enough air to create noticable wind resistance, but a pure vacuum it is not. Furthermore, the energy detected by IR scanners developed as part of the SDI program detect _radiated_ energy only, not conducted or convected. As the radiation of energy (via electromagnetic waves) requries no medium, the heat developed from nuclear decay will make the warhead very visible in the IR spectrum _independent of the ammount of atmosphere surrounding the warhead_!!!!! Point 3: During the cruise phase, warheads consume zero power. Point 4: The problem of heat buildup for orbiting bodies is apparent only where the body faces the sun. This is apparently one of the problems facing space-station designers: The side of the station facing the sun is _mucho_ hot while the side away from the sun is really chilling out. Efficient heat transfer would stop this problem (but no, those silly rocket engineers just _wont_ listen to us fluid flow and heat transfer specalists. ;-)