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Subject: Could we attack (nuclear) a planet light years away.........
Herc the Merc    6/13/2005 7:12:02 PM
??
 
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Burncycle    RE:Could we attack (nuclear) a planet light years away.........   12/4/2005 8:14:37 PM
Sure. Why?
 
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mithradates    RE:Could we attack (nuclear) a planet light years away.........   12/4/2005 8:33:33 PM
Are you kidding me? Of course not. To send like 1 nuclear warhead to Alpha Centauri at 1/10 speed of light will take like the total amount of energy produced by humanity for 10 years.
 
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Yimmy    RE:Could we attack (nuclear) a planet light years away.........   12/5/2005 9:46:45 AM
Why is that? We could send a nuclear missile a fairly great distance I would imagine. Just take the largest rocket we have designed for launching probes, stick a few extra stages on it, and stick the nuclear warhead on the top. If you were attacking a planet with no atmosphere, you could likely have multiple small warheads, released ashortly before impact, to increase the chance of a hit. If the planet had an atmosphere, I would assume you would have to build one large warhead with its own heat shield. How far the missile could go, would depend on how many favourably positioned planets there are to sling-shot it off.... of course, it would be many generations until it eventually made it to its target.
 
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andyf    RE:Could we attack (nuclear) a planet light years away.........   3/23/2006 4:03:20 PM
if you got a space drive that does a reasonable chunk of c you dont need a warhead.. just mass. imagine a 20% c 1 ton lump smashing into an atmosphere- itd knock a crater 1/2 way to the core i should think
 
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