Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Recently Retired USAF General Makes Eyebrow-Raising Claims About Advanced Space Technology

posted by Fnord666 on Monday December 16 2019, @12:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the space-ace dept.

upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for Runaway1956.

Recently Retired USAF General Makes Eyebrow-Raising Claims About Advanced Space Technology

Recently retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast gave a lecture last month that seems to further signal that the next major battlefield will be outer space. While military leadership rattling the space sabers is nothing new, Kwast's lecture included comments that heavily hint at the possibility that the United States military and its industry partners may have already developed next-generation technologies that have the potential to drastically change the aerospace field, and human civilization, forever. Is this mere posturing or could we actually be on the verge of making science fiction a reality?

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Recently Retired USAF General Makes Eyebrow-Raising Claims About Advanced Space Technology | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 38 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:48AM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:48AM (#933108)

    Ballistic guidance isn't trivial. You still need actuators and a control system and some way of navigating for this to work. And a smaller weapon will be blown around in the atmosphere a lot more than a larger one, so it needs GNC even more.

    As for asteroids, you're again trivializing the problem. You can't just drop asteroids onto a target unless you're trying to wipe out a whole city. If you want accuracy, you need GNC, which means a precision-manufactured projectile with some kind of GNC system.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 17 2019, @02:20AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 17 2019, @02:20AM (#933119) Journal

    No, you don't just drag asteroids around to bombard earth. You mine them, for the materials needed. https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/9378480/giant-golden-asteroid-psyche-61-billionaire-nasa-2022/ [thesun.co.uk]

    Of course, mining the materials in space means setting up some fabrication facilities. The metals won't just take shape before our eyes, right?