Launching ICBMs into the Sun

[hieywiey]

Actually, You could use some nukes to get to the sun-Orion Style. Just load up all of them (make sure there are no demon cores first) and launch! All political problems solved.

[kerbiloid]

7 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

If you just detonate a nuke behind an ICBM bus, the propellant is going to be...bits of the ICBM bus.

You really know how to cut off wings of a dream...

[p1t1o]

5 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

You really know how to cut off wings of a dream...

*siiiiiiigh*

[linuxgurugamer]

1 minute ago, p1t1o said:

*siiiiiiigh*

What?

Hard landing, except it's not on a runway.

[p1t1o]

2 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

What?

Hard landing, except it's not on a runway.

Hmmm? Its a broken dream.

[AeroGav]

On 10/11/2016 at 5:21 PM, p1t1o said:

*siiiiiiigh*

It wasn't a landing accident, it was a fuelling accident.    They were filling it up, and forgot to remove the stoppers on the air vent lines for the wing tanks.   Remaining air volume in the tanks got compressed and compressed as the liquid level rose till the wing box structure burst.   It'll buff right out I'm sure.

Back to the question of nukes, so what if they can't reach escape velocity.  Launch them without arming the warhead.   Ground impact at several thousand km/h is going to spread the weapons grade material over many acres...   so all you need to do is get a bulldozer, collect the topsoil from this geographic area and run it all through a centrifuge to extract the uranium.    It'll buff right out.

Or maybe just have them crash into the ocean over one of the abyssal plains.   Or if you insist on fireworks, send them all up at the same time and have them detonate in the upper atmosphere , ah no that would fry every electric circuit on earth including my Remington nasal hair remover,  mankind would be back in the stone age.   

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

You guys forgot to read the alt-text.  

"It took a lot of booster rockets, but luckily Amazon had recently built thousands of them to bring Amazon Prime same-day delivery to the Moon colony."

So the idea is that the ICBMs (or maybe just the warheads?) were put on much larger rockets.

[Andrew2070]

Orion is a sham.

I don't think the Japanese people colonized the moon after hiroshima.

I mean it is possible to propel a spacecraft with nuclear explosions, but it's rather insufficient.

 

I believe that if a very large spacecraft like those seen in Science-Fiction movies with Submarine like architecture we'd be better off.

A submarine uses a 10 KG uranium pellet to do so many functions that allow naval officers to live under sea for many months.

Sea Water --> Reactor --> Steam --> Turbine --> electricity/propulsion --> drinkable water/Breathable Oxygen --> urine --> reactor etc.

If we can solve the problem of transporting a huge ton of water into space in a contained enviornment, I think space travel would be easier.

 

But to answer the O.P.

We cannot nuke the sun because coming close to it would either do two things.

1. Spontaneously combust our missile.

2. Irradiate the warheads and force them into super-critical state (mushroom cloud before reaching sun's atmosphere).

 

 

[NSEP]

ICBM? More look Deep Space Missle/DSM

[magnemoe]

On 11.11.2016 at 6:43 PM, AeroGav said:

It wasn't a landing accident, it was a fuelling accident.    They were filling it up, and forgot to remove the stoppers on the air vent lines for the wing tanks.   Remaining air volume in the tanks got compressed and compressed as the liquid level rose till the wing box structure burst.   It'll buff right out I'm sure.

Back to the question of nukes, so what if they can't reach escape velocity.  Launch them without arming the warhead.   Ground impact at several thousand km/h is going to spread the weapons grade material over many acres...   so all you need to do is get a bulldozer, collect the topsoil from this geographic area and run it all through a centrifuge to extract the uranium.    It'll buff right out.

Or maybe just have them crash into the ocean over one of the abyssal plains.   Or if you insist on fireworks, send them all up at the same time and have them detonate in the upper atmosphere , ah no that would fry every electric circuit on earth including my Remington nasal hair remover,  mankind would be back in the stone age.   

Fueling accident makes some sense an plane like that would not move from runway to service station in one piece. 
Still relief valves on the fuel tanks make sense, for one you might fuel it with cold fuel from underground tanks then have the plane stand in the sun. 

For nuclear bombs pulling them apart would give you plutonium who you store, you might have some medium level radioactive stuff from neutron bombardment from the plutonium including, mostly explosives I guess who you need to do chemistry on before storing. Loads of nuclear bombs has been disabled over the years. 

[kerbiloid]

As reaching the Sun requires delta-V ~30 km/s, while reaching hyperbola - just 12 km/s, every anti-Sun missile is by definition Interstellar Ballistic Missile (ISBM) and should fall under Pangalatic Cooperation Treaty.
Violators face aftermath.

[GoSlash27]

No, you can't launch ICBMs into the sun. They lack the DV to attain orbit with their warheads, let alone escape Earth's gravity well and continue on to achieve solar impact.

Sorry,
-Slashy

[_Augustus_]

1 hour ago, GoSlash27 said:

They lack the DV to attain orbit with their warheads

Hmm, let's see.

The Minotaur I is literally a Minuteman III without the warheads. The Minotaur I carries 580 kg to orbit. The Minuteman III carries 2 warheads. Each warhead is around 200-240 kg.

Thus, the Minuteman III could technically make it to orbit. To the sun, though? Definitely no.

[Kryten]

1 hour ago, _Augustus_ said:

The Minotaur I is literally a Minuteman III without the warheads.

No, it's extensively modified. Minuteman third stage is replaced with an Orion 50XL, which gives over twice the impulse; and an Orion 38 is fitted as a fourth stage.