List all weapons of SDI ?

[seruriermarshal]

List all weapons of SDI ?

- Braduskill
- X-Ray Laser
- NPB Neutral Particle Beam
- SBL Space Based Laser
- HVG HyperVelocity rail Gun
- GBL Ground Based Laser
- SBKKV Space Based Kinetic Kill Vehicle
- BP Brilliant Pebbles

 

[flateric]

Will post here

 

[carsinamerica]

Add:

HOE (Homing Overlay Experiment), a ground-based interceptor missile that deployed a web to catch incoming RVs.

 

[sferrin]

Add:

HOE (Homing Overlay Experiment), a ground-based interceptor missile that deployed a web to catch incoming RVs.

I don't know that that was part of SDI so much as it was a vehicle to test the hit-to-kill concept. (Like FLAGE and SRHIT - which became ERINT---> PAC-3.)

 

[seruriermarshal]

Will post here

what's this ? Neutral Particle Beam ?

 

[flateric]

picture has a caption

 

[seruriermarshal]

picture has a caption

thanks , that's a HVG .

;D

 

[phrenzy]

A neutral particle beam was one of the more sci fi sdi options explored. It's neutral because firing either positively or negatively charged particles wouldn't be very efficient as they would be attracted or repelled by other positive or negatively charged forces in the medium your firing through. The particles (hydrogen) are fired through what amounts to a fiddled with particle accelerator to high relativistic speeds and blasts the target like a shotgun blast of billions of hydrogen pellets.

Unlike a laser or other energy weapons a neutral particle beam actually relies on smashing it's target with physical matter like a gun with a muzzle velocity near the speed of light rather than burning it. It has many of the advantages of directed energy weapons in terms of immediacy of action with the additional benefits of not being as effected by the medium they are firing through (lasers don't deal well with the different layers of air with different humidities and the like which bend the light slightly differently in ways that are hard to account for over long distances making it hard to hit your target as well as bleeding off useful energy).

 

[RP1]

Unlike a laser or other energy weapons a neutral particle beam actually relies on smashing it's target with physical matter like a gun with a muzzle velocity near the speed of light rather than burning it.

I'm not sure that that is correct. NPB should cause heating of the target, it's just that the energy is from the KE of the particles rather than from photons. The particles interact at very small scale, so it's not a mechanical deformation as per hitting a target with a bullet.

Edited to add: I think I've heard of a "deep heating" effect with NPB, due to penetration of some percentage of the particles into the target, rather than being absorbed at the surface, and secondary radiation given off due to the energy of the collisions.

RP1

 

[phrenzy]

I'm sure thats true, certainly it isn't like firing a single projectile, it was perhaps a somewhat misleading description I was just trying to emphasise that it was different from a laser style weapon in that your actually firing off matter rather than just energy. You would expect significant heating from any sort of physical impact and as you say such small particles travelling at this speed are likely to penetrate, what the breakdown of useful effects (kinetic vs heating etc) is, I don't know.

The only test I've seen though in old footage does give the impression of a serious physical blow. I can't find it on YouTube but it's of a simulated missile (basically just a thin metal tube full of water) and it seems to take a fairly good wallop and blow open like a physical impact but that is a very casual and superficial observation. Plus many of those SDI tests were highly skewed to over play what the weapons could do so who knows what your really seeing.

I've been reading Zbigniew Brzezinski's book of collected essays on SDI, knowing his background it's likely a little skewed but it has writings from some very big names from Churchill to McNanara, Nixon, kissinger, Reagan, Kosygin, Gorbachev and many points in between.

 

[sferrin]

picture has a caption

thanks , that's a HVG .

;D

These were to shoot "smart rocks". Think hit-to-kill hockey pucks.

 

[phrenzy]

I completely misunderstood the question, apologies for running away with myself.

 

[Byeman]

A neutral particle beam was one of the more sci fi sdi options explored.

NPB wasn't to be used as a weapon but as a target discriminator. It would illuminate all the targets and the more dense ones would have more secondary radiation.

 

[Orionblamblam]

NPB wasn't to be used as a weapon but as a target discriminator.

There were ideas for both uses. NPB's would trash the electronics of a target. A laser would damage the surface; the NPB would cause damage all through the target, with a lot of the energy being dumped into the interior.

 

[phrenzy]

A neutral particle beam was one of the more sci fi sdi options explored.

NPB wasn't to be used as a weapon but as a target discriminator. It would illuminate all the targets and the more dense ones would have more secondary radiation.

In addition to use as a weapon, that was the plan for most of the DE systems wasn't it?
I know they pretty quickly found that the economics of SDI favored decoys/counter measures over defence. Im pretty sure they planned to use long wavelength lasers in this way too. The animation I saw seemed to imply that it would discriminate by destroying smaller mylar balloon or other lightweight decoys but it wouldn't be powerful enough to kill a bus or RV on its own.

Of course this is only helpful for space based systems since mylar balloons won't have anything like the momentum of an RV once it's in even close to the air of the upper atmosphere.
Given this though I always wondered why they insisted on following mid course, space based, intercepts. I know there are a few advantages for lasers operating in a vacuum but it must be much easier to generate the power you would need for most of these on the ground and anything that was still moving like a MIRV warhead re-entry phase, even if it's a decoy, is going to take the place of a warhead on the bus anyway. I suppose by that time it's a little close for comfort and you have to deal with vaporised bombs raining over the countryside though.

Can anyone recommend any good books or articles on SDI programs that have survived the cold war? I know there is a lot on modern missile defense out there but I'm particularly curious about the more exotic (non missile based) efforts and those that directly sprang out of the initial SDI effort that are still around today (or at least survived the initial post cold war cuts).

 

[seruriermarshal]

and any pics of Braduskill ?

 

[flateric]

...

 

[seruriermarshal]

...

what's these ? last is laser .

 

[flateric]

...

 

[flateric]

...

 

[bobbymike]

Project White Horse - particle beam weapon

 

[fredymac]

Project White Horse - particle beam weapon

A small subscale demonstrator was flown on a sounding rocket and validated the hardware. This was the "Beam Experiments Aboard Rocket" project. Particle beams have excellent target coupling and can deposit their energy deep inside the target material but I haven't seen any R&D projects that have continued this work.

 

[In_A_Dream]

A small subscale demonstrator was flown on a sounding rocket and validated the hardware. This was the "Beam Experiments Aboard Rocket" project. Particle beams have excellent target coupling and can deposit their energy deep inside the target material but I haven't seen any R&D projects that have continued this work.

 

[Grey Havoc]

The Space Review: Target Moscow (part 2): The American Space Shuttle and the decision to build the Soviet Buran

From the comments:

oldengg · 19 hours ago
This paragraph in the article above really has personal interest for me.

"Unlike their colleagues at IPM, the TsNIIMash researchers did not have bombing missions in mind. According to Mozzhorin, the shuttle’s 29-ton payload-to-orbit capacity and, more significantly, its 14-ton payload return capacity, were seen as a clear indication that one of its main objectives would be to place massive experimental laser and particle beam weapons into orbit that could destroy enemy missiles from a distance of several thousands of kilometers. The reasoning behind that was that such weapons could only be effectively tested in actual space conditions and that in order to cut their development time and save costs it would be necessary to regularly bring them back to Earth for modifications and fine-tuning."

These Soviet experts had anticipated Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiate (SDI, aka Star Wars) a decade before that program was initiated. And they were exactly right. The Shuttle would be used to launch prototype directed energy weapons into LEO for testing.

In 1986 my company, McDonnell Douglas, received a contract to build a subscale prototype of an operational neutral particle beam weapon that would be launched on the Space Shuttle. You can see the full scale mockup here that occupied all of the Shuttle payload bay and included the weapon prototype, and free-flying target and detector vehicles.
http://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/blog/?p=35...

My job was to design and build the output magnetic optics subsystem that interfaced the output of the linear accelerator (linac) to a distant target. By 1988 we had prototyped the ion source, the particle accelerator components, magnets, and microwave power systems for the accelerator and we had design solutions for scaleup to the full size weapon that could be launched on the Titan IV. No technological breakthroughs were needed to reach the weapons specifications. Of course, with the start in 1989 of the slow motion implosion of the Soviet Union that climaxed in Dec 1991, the Bush administration put Star Wars on the back burner.

By the way, how did this topic end up in the Bar?

 

[DWG]

Hadn't heard of Braduskill, so googled it and found the link below, which doesn't seem to appear either here or in the Braduskill thread.

SMDC History: Braduskill Interceptor Concept

SMDC remembers Braduskill Interceptor Concept

www.army.mil

 

[BAROBA]

Project Excalibur is definitely SDI.

Project Excalibur - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Which would be one laser.
There was also a Super Excalibur.
Which would look like a porcupine in space and could shoot at 100's of targets at one. ( one explosion would shoot 100's of lasers at once.)

Brilliant Pebbles is another project.

Brilliant Pebbles - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Here is a full list :

Strategic Defense Initiative - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DWG]

There was also a Super Excalibur.
Which would look like a porcupine in space and could shoot at 100's of targets at one. ( one explosion would shoot 100's of lasers at once.)

Once you have a nuclear device, the detonation laser principle is completely scalable, you can have as many lasing heads as you like, each one just needs a lasing rod and the pointing hardware.

 

[Forest Green]

Once you have a nuclear device, the detonation laser principle is completely scalable, you can have as many lasing heads as you like, each one just needs a lasing rod and the pointing hardware.

I distinctly remember that such a device caused a forest fire in Santa Barbara in Robocop (1987) though.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEYoY3NwF24&t=265s

 

[Cjc]

A neutral particle beam was one of the more sci fi sdi options explored.

NPB wasn't to be used as a weapon but as a target discriminator. It would illuminate all the targets and the more dense ones would have more secondary radiation.

In addition to use as a weapon, that was the plan for most of the DE systems wasn't it?
I know they pretty quickly found that the economics of SDI favored decoys/counter measures over defence. Im pretty sure they planned to use long wavelength lasers in this way too. The animation I saw seemed to imply that it would discriminate by destroying smaller mylar balloon or other lightweight decoys but it wouldn't be powerful enough to kill a bus or RV on its own.

Of course this is only helpful for space based systems since mylar balloons won't have anything like the momentum of an RV once it's in even close to the air of the upper atmosphere.
Given this though I always wondered why they insisted on following mid course, space based, intercepts. I know there are a few advantages for lasers operating in a vacuum but it must be much easier to generate the power you would need for most of these on the ground and anything that was still moving like a MIRV warhead re-entry phase, even if it's a decoy, is going to take the place of a warhead on the bus anyway. I suppose by that time it's a little close for comfort and you have to deal with vaporised bombs raining over the countryside though.

Can anyone recommend any good books or articles on SDI programs that have survived the cold war? I know there is a lot on modern missile defense out there but I'm particularly curious about the more exotic (non missile based) efforts and those that directly sprang out of the initial SDI effort that are still around today (or at least survived the initial post cold war cuts).

I think the issue was traking, mirv warheads were to small and fast to be reliability hit with a ground launched missile without said missile also haveing a nucular warhead. Eseyer to aim and disrupt in the space portion. Even then I recall a paper that showed with a more powerful and shorter burn you could still make missile fiendishly difficult to find in space.

Now a days lasers are still considered to have economic benefits that an icbm shield would still be bilt in space but tech has advanced enough that missile based shields are all on the ground.

 

[publiusr]

I seem to remember talk about particle beams firehosing.

Looks like they can be made smaller:
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-machine-paves-smarter-particle.html

AWAKE sows seeds of controlled particle acceleration using plasma wakefields

From the tunnel that hosted the now-retired CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso (CNGS) facility, AWAKE (Advanced Wakefield Experiment) is looking to revolutionize the field of particle acceleration. The 23-institute-strong collaboration aims to introduce a viable and more efficient alternative to...

phys.org

 

[Forest Green]

I seem to remember talk about particle beams firehosing.

One of the things about NPBs is that their use is undetectable, so they're essentially a stealth weapon.

 

[Forest Green]

Quite an interesting study on some of the weirder ideas.

Projectile Weapons - Atomic Rockets

www.projectrho.com

 

[Forest Green]

Beam Weapons - Atomic Rockets

www.projectrho.com

 

[publiusr]

The orbital rail gun could at least be a cube-sat launcher…fire and reboost both.

 

[martinbayer]

I am honestly, truly surprised, disappointed, and saddened, that, in of all places, a forum named secretprojects, after over eight years of asking the initial question on the top of this thread, there have been exactly zero attempts to systematically update and curate the original list.

 

[Archibald]

"Be our guest"

 

[Orionblamblam]

 

[Forest Green]

Combat Mirror



Airborne Laser

 

[Forest Green]

Project Excalibur is definitely SDI.

Project Excalibur - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Which would be one laser.
There was also a Super Excalibur.
Which would look like a porcupine in space and could shoot at 100's of targets at one. ( one explosion would shoot 100's of lasers at once.)

Also Zenith Star

Orbital Planetary Attack - Atomic Rockets

www.projectrho.com

Martin-Marietta Zenith Star. Hydrogen fluoride laser (2.7e-6 m, 2700 nanometers near infrared), about 2 MW. 2 meter radius mirror. Maximum effective range about 300 km. 4.6 m diameter, 24.8 m long, 39,000 kg. At 300 km spot size is 0.25m radius, brightness is 10.4 MW/cm2 or 1.04 kW/cm2. Artwork by Scott Lowther. For more details see US Spacecraft Projects #01

 

[Forest Green]

- HVG HyperVelocity rail Gun

An illustration from 1984 showing the main features of an orbital railgun for the Strategic Defense Initiative program. While the design looks reasonable enough, almost certainly this is either missing a whole lot of important details or has changed them into unrecognizability. Scale is impossible to determine, but a practical space-based railgun capable of generating the projectile velocities needed (typically 10 km/sec) would have been an impressive structure indeed.


Boeing hypervelocity railgun. Projectile velocity 32 km/sec
Note Rocket Control Section at gun tip and gun rear

General Electric “Have Sting” SDI orbital railgun
Spine is railgun barrel. Gold umbrella is SP-100 nuclear reactor with 100 kW, used while in "peacetime" mode. Wide cylinder (radiator for cryogenics) contains LH2/LOX tanks fueling turbine and homopoloar generator (90 MW) for energizing railgun. Railgun projectile velocity 16 km/s. Torus is overpowered RCS for rapidly slewing railgun on target. Green plates are 60 GHz phased array tracking radar with range of several thousands of miles. Entire unit is approximately 80 meters long.