Subj: Re: Nuclear Warfare in Space
>I've thought along similar lines as well. Find a small asteroid (say, a few
>100's of tonnes). Attach a power plant, manoeuvre drive and control system to
>it. Move it out of orbit, to a suitable distance, and let it head for the
>target world for 4 weeks at 1G (keep the drives cheap, simple and expendable).
>Resulting velocity = 10 x 4 x 7 x 24 x 60 x 60 = 0.24e8 m/sec. I'll let
>someone else add in any relativistic calculations. But the gear needed could be
>stuffed into an empty 50 tonne weapon bay on a cruiser.
I think you would be better off using the Bulk Cargo carrior in Fighting ships.
That way you could get that sucker going a good speed. You then jump the ship
and meteor into the correct star system. This way, you can be out of the
system before anyone even sees the meteor comming. You simply cut the jump
cables once you enter the system. Or if you have time, remove them for reuse.
You don't have to worry about sticking around and getting shot at while you
take the asteroid up to speed. You do that in an already occupied parsect.
Admittedly, it is a more expensive way to enter the feild, but then again,
you can reuse the ship. You also don't have to worry about the enemy comming
and taking over the asteroid while the engines are still emplaced. Then
turning it to s new and safe trajectory.
> If anyone is interested, I'll dig out the figures from an old article
> on giant meteor strikes and convert the data to ship impacts on planets.
I'm interested.
David
[email removed]