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AlanDoak
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Sep 15, 2016 - 10:51pm PT
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A suppressor wouldn't hide the supersonic crack of the projectile. It's still loud.
And it's not just one microphone, it's numerous staff, guards, observation equipment... And it's not like there's a bunch of jack hammers going off in the background to mask the sound.
But fine, I invite you to sneak onto an Air Force base and discharge a 50 cal at a $250M target, and not get noticed. Trip report with pictures, or it didn't happen.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 15, 2016 - 11:37pm PT
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Now a .50cal specop I might buy and maybe someone could have gotten away with it this time. But you can bet your ass during the next launch a metamaterial-cloaked mosquito won't be able to get within a mile of the site without being detected, tracked across the frequency spectrum and recorded from every angle at a 200-picosecond frame rate. Ditto any kind of directed energy source. They'll be able to pinpoint any attack or threat source within seconds - good luck getting away.
As far as VT.com speculation about an x-ray weapon causing a small nuclear explosion in the helium tank or lithium batteries? Please - as in seriously?
Both the tank and batteries are targets of an enormous scale for such a purpose. There's no way hitting either with a single beam from one side could achieve the level of compression necessary to trigger any such explosion - the tank or battery casing would simply rupture long before that and neither is exactly a hohlraum. The very idea is so moronic that only an idiot would proffer it, let alone think anyone would believe it. Do we need to get Ed on here to explain the basics of why it is the NIF needs banks of massive lasers to throw 192 exquisitely timed and sliced laser pies at a miniscule target to achieve such an outcome? Or maybe you'd rather peruse this treatment of the topic? Or maybe some folks think the launch site was surrounded on all sides by a perfectly coordinated, ginormous squadron of flying x-ray lasers using GPS, navigation, control and targeting systems with sub-millimeter accuracy (and all powered by Bosch 36v batteries). Sure, that's gotta be it.
Crikey, it's not even good or interesting as fiction, sci-fi or comics fodder and falls so far into wtf-dom that one can only conclude the internet has spawned a massive outbreak of people who are sure a large percentage of the population are idiots who will swallow anything no matter how stupid or ludicrous that sh#t is and do it without so much as a sniff test. Sigh.
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perswig
climber
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Sep 16, 2016 - 03:57am PT
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.50 BMG? So now we're fingering Carlos Hathcock?
Dale
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 16, 2016 - 07:15am PT
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Dale, just trying to keep the hilarity level up, nawmean? 😇
(can you imagine what Carlos could have done with a BMG?)
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Sep 16, 2016 - 08:31am PT
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Ballistics pfffffffffft!
It was probably Oskar Matzerath. Doesn't he live near Reilly too?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Meanwhile:
Someone -- possibly the government of China -- has launched a series of probing attacks on the internet's most critical infrastructure, using carefully titrated doses of denial-of-service to precisely calibrate a tool for shutting down the whole net.
...
There's more. One company told me about a variety of probing attacks in addition to the DDoS attacks: testing the ability to manipulate Internet addresses and routes, seeing how long it takes the defenders to respond, and so on. Someone is extensively testing the core defensive capabilities of the companies that provide critical Internet services.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 16, 2016 - 10:06am PT
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...has launched a series of probing attacks on the internet's most critical infrastructure,
Happens every hour of every day and smart, larger companies hire people to run such probes against their systems to determine their exposed surface area. They similarly stress their internal systems with random systems and network outages. In fact, Netfix is way into failure testing and runs a 'simian army' of various types of attack programs to randomly take stuff down or introduce latencies or otherwise monkey around with everything. The first member of the simian army was called 'chaos monkey'.
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chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
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Sep 16, 2016 - 07:58pm PT
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So I guess Im a conspiracy theorist. But one thing is clear. There is alot of distrust and concern floating around about our government and corporations and corruption. Even if all the conspiracies prove false, one thing is clear from this discussion. There is considerable cause for concern. Maybe not based on one particular event. But trends these days are alarming and people are getting frustrated. History repeats itself... We live in an age of skulduggery and narcissism. America is the victim of what Harvard economists call "government capture," an oligarchy of special interests that may or may not have good intentions. Keep all three eyes open.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
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Sep 16, 2016 - 09:24pm PT
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Sep 13, 2016 - 04:01pm PT
there must have been a malfunction,
No, it was an anomaly.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Sep 17, 2016 - 12:14pm PT
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It's a minimal loss in the grand scheme. It happens until the procedure is perfected.
Why would someone want to take out a private rocket launch? Motive? Just pure terrorism? Not much terror value in this case.
It was a failure. Technically insufficient. That's all. Is NASA involved in any of this, they're the one with the launch experience.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Sep 17, 2016 - 02:47pm PT
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My analysis is there was nothing wrong with the rocket, per se; the most simplistic explanation is a poorly grounded component in the refueling system, followed by a spark discharge in the oxygen rich environment where LOX was still transferring. Liquids being pumped through hoses develop lots of static electricity from internal friction. In the chemical industry, both the container from which fluids are transferred and the receiving vessel must be grounded to the same grounding rod. A connector coming loose could account for this "anomaly." This is the KISS (keep it simple, stupid!) analysis. Doesn't require foul play, lasers, shooting at the rocket, etc. Could have been a defective component in the pumping system as easily as in the rocket.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 18, 2016 - 02:42am PT
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But trends these days are alarming and people are getting frustrated.
People these days are alarming because they're being played by people who profit from them being alarmed - particularly by sh#t designed as a distraction from noticing their wallet is being pinched while so terribly alarmed.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Sep 23, 2016 - 06:14pm PT
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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 explosion likely caused by breached helium system
SpaceX’s recent Falcon 9 explosion seems to have been caused by a breach in the "cryogenic helium system" of the vehicle's upper oxygen tank, according to an update from the company. However, SpaceX says the accident is not connected to last year's Falcon 9 explosion, when a rocket disintegrated en route to the International Space Station.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/23/13031308/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-explosion-cause-cryogenic-helium-system
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Sep 24, 2016 - 07:56am PT
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The Helium tank is within the supercooled LOX tank. Any anomaly there would cause rupture to the LOX system. This is a fairly standard practice within the aerospace industry. According to Spaceflight101 website, there was a massive overpressure in the He system which destroyed the structural integrity of the surrounding oxidizer tank. SpaceX is hoping for an early November return to flight for it's Falcon 9 ver. 1.2 booster.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 24, 2016 - 11:20pm PT
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Probably part of the learning curve of figuring out all the things that can go wrong when 'super chilling' liquid oxygen to high densities.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Sep 27, 2016 - 07:15pm PT
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SpaceX said Friday that evidence points to a large breach in the rocket’s helium system during a routine prelaunch test that turned into a devastating fireball three weeks ago.
The Falcon rocket and the Israeli Amos-6 satellite were destroyed in the Sept. 1 explosion, which occurred on the pad two days before the scheduled liftoff. Most of the wreckage has been recovered and is being analyzed.
Facebook had planned to use the satellite, which was built by Israeli company Spacecom, to beam high-speed internet to sub-Saharan Africa.
In an update Friday, SpaceX said it’s still poring through video, audio and data from the moment the first sign of a problem occurs, until the actual fireball. That timeline covers less than one-tenth of one second. The data and debris indicate “a large breach” in the helium system of the second-stage liquid oxygen tank.
“All plausible causes are being tracked,” the company said on its website. There is no connection, the company stressed, with last year’s failed launch. That Falcon 9 rocket was en route to the International Space Station with supplies when it ruptured a few minutes into flight.
In that case, a support strut for a helium bottle apparently snapped in the second-stage oxygen tank, dooming the rocket. Helium is part of the pressurization system.
While the launch pad was damaged, nearby support buildings and fuel tanks were unscathed, according to the company. The control systems at the pad are also in decent condition. No debris appears to have strayed beyond the SpaceX-leased Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Ground crews had been fueling the Falcon for a brief test-firing of the rocket’s engines; the launch pad was clear of workers for the test.
SpaceX continues to work on another pad, this one at neighboring Kennedy Space Center and once used to launch shuttles. It could be ready to support Falcon launches as early as November, depending on how the investigation goes. It is also preparing a launch pad in California.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Sep 27, 2016 - 07:27pm PT
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Thanks for the recap Tom but you're kinda late to the game.
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couchmaster
climber
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I think Tom C nailed it upthread, sabatoged:
"September 4, 2016
China Enraged After Obama Orders SpaceX Rocket Destroyed On Florida Launch Pad
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Security Council (SC), with input from the Ministry of Defense (MoD), states that China became so “enraged” at President Obama’s ordering the destruction of a SpaceX rocket in Florida on Thursday (1 September) they refused to greet him as a visiting head-of-state upon his arrival at Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport (HGH) forcing America’s leader to “go out of the ass” of Air Force One and one Chinese official accosting his top National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, and screaming at her “this is our country, our airport”. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
As to why President Obama was treated so “shamefully/dishonorably” by the Chinese, this report explains, was due to the United States “deliberate and calculated” military interference of a “legitimate” international business “transaction/sale deal” between China and an Israeli company named Spacecom.
According to this report, Spacecom is an Israeli communications satellite operator in the Middle East, European Union and North America headquartered in the city of Ramat Gan, Israel who agreed last month (24 August) to the sale of their company to the privately owned Chinese company Beijing Xinwei Technology Group.
The Beijing Xinwei Technology Group, this report continues, is one of China’s largest telecommunications companies that MoD analysts have long noted is “effectively owned and controlled” by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).
With the sale of Spacecom to Beijing Xinwei Technology Group being contingent upon the successful launching of the AMOS-6 satellite from Florida’s Cape Canaveral on Saturday (3 September), this report notes, the Obama regime “obviously/without doubt” determined that it would not be in the best interest of the United States to see this massive technology transfer take place—and in their not being able to stop this sale in any legal way, simply decided to destroy it.
As to how the AMOS-6 satellite was destroyed, this report continues, was from the firing of an advanced “laser-weapon” that was aboard an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) launched from a US Navy aircraft carrier operating in the waters off the Eastern coastal waters of the US.
Specifically, MoD analysts in this report note, the US Navy nuclear powered supercarrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) reported last week that it was operating in these waters to test F-35C Lightning II fighter aircraft capabilities—but was, instead, conducting secret test flights of a Northrop Grumman X-47B (drone) that was equipped with a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) high-energy laser type device the Pentagon had previously reported they wanted to have operational in 2017.
On 1 September, these MoD analysts in this report say, Federation “satellite intelligence” detected a X-47B departing from the USS George Washington on a course towards Cape Canaveral—where this “laser equipped” drone then dropped from its “high flight altitude”, made a “circle/diameter” around a Falcon 9 rocket (owned by SpaceX) on the launch pad, immediately after which the rocket exploded destroying Spacecom’s AMOS-6 satellite—and that was captured by video recordings. "
...and an old link about the design parameters they were looking to develop from 2015. http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/09/drones-armed-high-energy-lasers-may-arrive-2017/121583/
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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'Design parameters', also known as the 'pull-it-out-your-ass-wish-list' parameters for a tactical 150KW HELLADS system that isn't going into a Predator C anytime soon. As it is they're trying to get an operational system deployed on C-130s and destroyers in early 2020s and tactical fighters in the late 2020s/early 2030s, but the cooling and power systems integration are still substantial challenges on the C-130 platform let alone a Predator C or even an X-47B.
As it is the navy has been running tests with a 30KW laser on the USS Ponce, and the new, small Gen 3 HELLADS unit being tested running off a lithium battery pack for single thirty second 50KW+ shots still needs a ton of work on most technical aspects of the system. And keep in mind that's 30 seconds to get the beam up to power and hold it for a single shot. But they don't say whether the tests used auxiliary cooling and don't say how big a battery pack was - those omissions basically tell you the cooling and power don't scale down yet.
Bottom line is batteries are still a huge a pain in the ass and it's the same pain in the ass whether you're talking your iPhone, notebook or a Predator C laser. My guess is that even a basically useless but operational single-shot, high-KW drone laser package is a long, long way out but more likely never go to happen relative to the drone platforms like the predator. More likely it will likely have to wait for UAV fighters with bigger weapons payloads and onboard power; I mean, really, how useful is a single-shot laser and how much would you spend for one?
Here's a mockup of a 75KW gen 3 HELLADS sled - note that it doesn't have much in the way of batteries and doesn't include a targeting package which is yet more weight. It's likely they used another sled that size of just batteries to get a thirty second test shot.
Here's an army proposal for a 50KW package - 52ft long.
So, bottom line, laser drones, like x-ray drones, are out for the SpaceX explosion no matter who claims otherwise (and like you could get a drone within laser range of the launch site or heat the rocket for long enough to do the job without the SpaceX kids knowing - ridiculous of the face of it). Oh, and the USS George Washington moored at Pier 14N at NS Norfolk on September 1st after the aforementioned F-35C trials. Does anybody do basic fact-checking anymore or do we just believe any random made up sh#t off the internet? As a force for good, the internet is rapidly sinking below the level of 'Married With Children' and 'Ancient Aliens'.
And gosh - according to Faal, Obama was really busy kicking Israeli ass in Florida that week:
Florida Earthquake Reported Caused By Obama-Clinton Attempt To Destroy Israeli Sub
September 7, 2016
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
A stunning (but mostly secret) Ministry of Defense (MoD) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that the United States Navy “swiftly retaliated” yesterday against one of Obama-Clinton’s “private armies” who on 3 September attempted to destroy an Israeli submarine in the waters off the coast of Florida—and that was in that region to “observe/report on” the launching of the AMOS-6 satellite aboard a SpaceX rocket that was ordered destroyed last week by President Obama. [Note: Obama-Clinton hatred of both Russia and Israel is due to neither of these nations acceptance of what is called open border globalization.] [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
P.S. Can't wait to see what trump's "private [label] armies" look like.
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