Yeah, it's the 2nd objective in order of importance. Primary objective is make a best effort attempt to get the hostages out, third is an intelligence sweep of structures if the force of action opens a time window long enough for the ground forces to do so. The reason the extraction/ground...
This particular scenario has hostage rescue, and intelligence gathering components. Thus the reason for the ground assault on a fortified position, and why it needs to become instantaneously overwhelming. The hostage takers on the surface have assets in orbit, but not total orbital supremacy...
Thank you all very much for your responses, they've really helped me to flesh out this idea. I'm going to go with the mass accelerators (coil guns) for unmanned, sturdier payloads, and tethers for manned and sensitive payloads or payloads which require a more delicate placement relative to the...
What about a ribbon, or cable, spanning a long distance between two ships orbiting in the same direction. The drop ship is fired along this cable in the opposite direction of travel, and a motor grips and pulls on the cable to further decelerate. Once the drop ship reaches the low velocity...
Who would have thought slowing down could be such a pain.
So, if you put an object inside a shell, and shot them down a gun, which hit 4km/s in the opposite direction of travel by the end of the barrel, you'd still have to figure out how to loose almost 4km/s before re-entry. So, where the...
The men and equipment landing would be part of a larger force in orbit. In order to remain in orbit, the group of ships carrying the larger force would need to have a significant amount of speed in order to remain orbiting, right? So, once "detached" from the large force, the landing craft...
That may well be the most realistic approach, and it well might be used later as a form of tactical feint. Though we can assume great leaps forward in materials science between now, and orbital insertion of troops, I still don't think we'll have any materials that will stand up to something...
I'm working of a short story of the sci-fi nature, and I'm indecisive about one of the finer details. The plot of the short revolves around combined arms warfare in the future. The particular operation in the narrative involves an insertion of men and materials from orbit. (Kind of like...
Since the SABLE project broke on slashdot and youtube, I've been kind of keeping an eye on the tech, and science these average Joe's put into it. (I'm one of these average Joe's).
For those not familiar what these projects, here's an overview. The SABLE and BEAR projects basically strap a...
Ah, ok. So if the big straw was built in the vacuum of space, and the capped end were inserted into the atmosphere, lowered to sea level, and then opened, air would rush in and fill up the straw up to the height that column of air would be if it were part of the atmosphere outside the straw but...
This is a dumb question that my coworkers and I are debating, and we can't come up with an answer.
Say one were to build a giant straw with one capped end that extends from sea level into space, out past Earth's gravitational field. What happens when the end is uncapped? Does the...