issue regaring letters

[Legendary Heavy Glow]

grats on having basically no idea what you're talking about

a bare 20 year-old 386's temperature spec reaches up to 125 degrees celcius

the modern hardened versions are even more resilient

[Sannit]

There are comprehensive treaties in place banning weapons in space.

There are comprehensive treaties in place banning nuclear weapons in space.  There's nothing that disallows ten-foot metal poles from being fired at extreme velocities from satellites.  And what would be so stupid about it?  The projectile would be virtually impossible to detect by radar.  There's no way of knowing which nation it was that fired it, or even which satellite it originated from.  It's basically a tiny artificial meteor - maybe a little flash of light in the sky as it plows through the atmosphere, but shortly thereafter, the enemy is down one small city and completely oblivious as to how it happened.  Come to think of it, a "launcher" satellite wouldn't even be necessary: a single trip in a space shuttle would be enough to put a dozen of the things into orbit, each equipped with a little targeting computer and some means of propulsion.

This may be less than practical, given the fact that we have nuclear weapons on our side already, but I think this whole thing started as a comparison between satellites and mechas, and they're definitely more sensible than walking battletanks.

[mainiac]

More then 2% of american and 10% of russian heavy launches have ended in failure.  A failure in an attempt to launch communications craft is bad.  A failure in an attempt to launch 30 nuclear cruise missiles in defiance of signed treaties, which serve no defensive purpose and which anyone with a geiger counter will notice...

And what does it get you?  A few nukes hidden in orbit.  But they have to remain hidden so they don't serve as a deterent.

A kinetic weapon such as you suggested isn't possible.  It wouldn't be "virtually impossible" to detect.  It would not radiate light visible to the human eye, but it would radiate across a broad spectrum.  Hiding such radiation would be very, very, very, very, very difficult.  The orbit of every man made satellite is tracked from it's launch time anyway, spy sats included.

[LAz]

More then 2% of american and 10% of russian heavy launches have ended in failure.

Source please?

[Sannit]

Again, I'm not really focusing on nuclear weapons here.  And what does a metal pole radiate?  Does tungsten have some radioactive properties I'm not aware of?

[mainiac]

Source please?

LAz, giving you sources is a wasted effort.  Trust me or but the fuck out.

Again, I'm not really focusing on nuclear weapons here.  And what does a metal pole radiate?  Does tungsten have some radioactive properties I'm not aware of?

Any objects which are at a temperature above 0K will radiate.  Everything radiates.  It's just usually radiating as much as it's backgrounds.  However satellites are much hotter then their surroundings.

[Sannit]

Sure, but they're not in those surroundings anymore when they're in the atmosphere.  Which they'd have to be, en route to their target.  And looking back, I notice that you've cleverly transformed my claim that they'd be nearly impossible to detect with radar to just nearly impossible to detect - how'd you do that?  That's good.

[mainiac]

I read over the word radar.  Yes, they'd be nearly impossible to detect with radar.  So what?  They'd also be really hard to detect with a gravimeter.  Those are the wrong tools for the job.  Make a high rez scan of the night sky at the right frequency, everything moving quickly is a satellite or alien spacecraft.  Do it in a desert where there isn't much precipitation, do it long enough that you don't get too many false positives.  Easy?  No.  But easy compared to launching a satellite.

[Sannit]

Sure, but they're not in those surroundings anymore when they're in the atmosphere.  Which they'd have to be, en route to their target.

This is what I said.  You know missile defense?  Where you shoot down nukes coming at you so that they explode (not really very harmlessly, but not as harmfully) way up in the air?  You can't do that with these.  As satellites, they're as trackable as any other orbiting craft, yes.  But once they launch, they're much, much harder to follow than a nuke-on-the-way, and harder to shoot down.  After they've been fired, which is what I've been talking about, there is, as you put it, no tool for the job.  You can sit in a desert all you like, but if it's already on its merry way to your home, your only recourse is to drive very fast out of town.

Again, I realize it's impractical.  But it's not impossible.  Fast-moving objects do indeed hurt, believe it or not.

[mainiac]

They're much much harder?  Really?  Care to explain how?

[Sannit]

Well, they're smaller, faster (by at least an order of magnitude, by a quick look at Wikipedia and some lousy math), and don't self-propel past that first stage, though that factor's mitigated by the fact that some missiles do the same thing and it's pretty hot on reentry - though with the proper materials, that wouldn't be as much a problem.  Note that I wasn't actually intending to qualify "much much."  The emphasis might be uncalled for, or perhaps it only deserves a "much."

[Legendary Heavy Glow]

lol you know I'm right so you don't bother replying

[Andrew]

Seriously, what the fuck is this shit

[mainiac]

lol you know I'm right so you don't bother replying

Up to my ass in comments.

what's the specific heat?

[TTS]

Seriously, what the fuck is this shit

A bunch of names that don't mean diddly shit.