I’ve never considered it in this way but dammit you’re so right
SlickDillywick on
It’s a common trend of humanity. Two people or groups inventing the same thing at the same time separated by distance and maybe never interacting. Like calculus, or manned flight
DragonFire003 on
That’s because they were both using the same people
CardLeft on
Where a nuke can go, a man can go. Where a man can go, he can drag a nuke.
WolfsmaulVibes on
the space race was all about inventing how to build sophisticated nuke missiles
Invade_Deez_Nutz on
In very early rocket designs this was true, but very quickly spacecraft and ICBMs diverged so much they were on entirely separate tech trees
An ICBM needs to be constantly at a high state of readiness. This means you can store it in a silo for years and be ready to launch in minutes. This requires using very stable solid fuel.
Spacecraft do not have those storage and readiness requirements, so they use primarily liquid fuel to reduce weight relative to delta v. A spacecraft can be fueled just before launch
The liquid fuel used in spacecraft can also be throttled, turned on, and turned off. Solid fuel rockets basically just burn at full intensity until they’re out of fuel
Attrexius on
Strictly speaking, that’s the reverse of what happened. Scientists wanted to explore space, superpowers weren’t interested, so scientists managed to tack space programs onto the tail of nuke delivery system development under the pretense of “but we need additional research”.
DetailOrDie on
Spaceships are ICBMs.
America pointed at a spot in the moon and hit it with an ICBM.
Then we called our shot on earth an hit it from the moon.
And we did it in such a way that anyone in the world could verify that we did.
If we can do that with astronauts, we can sure as shit park a nuclear tipped ICBM anywhere between here and the moon whenever eea want.
Unlike the rest, the American nuclear threat isn’t a hypothetical. It’s proven.
Fantastic_Return_762 on
It’s kind of the other way around the first space race was basically r&d for the icbm
11 Comments
Just replace (really reduce in size) fuel and engines with nukes. Problem solved
[Why not use the nukes as the fuel?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion))
I’ve never considered it in this way but dammit you’re so right
It’s a common trend of humanity. Two people or groups inventing the same thing at the same time separated by distance and maybe never interacting. Like calculus, or manned flight
That’s because they were both using the same people
Where a nuke can go, a man can go. Where a man can go, he can drag a nuke.
the space race was all about inventing how to build sophisticated nuke missiles
In very early rocket designs this was true, but very quickly spacecraft and ICBMs diverged so much they were on entirely separate tech trees
An ICBM needs to be constantly at a high state of readiness. This means you can store it in a silo for years and be ready to launch in minutes. This requires using very stable solid fuel.
Spacecraft do not have those storage and readiness requirements, so they use primarily liquid fuel to reduce weight relative to delta v. A spacecraft can be fueled just before launch
The liquid fuel used in spacecraft can also be throttled, turned on, and turned off. Solid fuel rockets basically just burn at full intensity until they’re out of fuel
Strictly speaking, that’s the reverse of what happened. Scientists wanted to explore space, superpowers weren’t interested, so scientists managed to tack space programs onto the tail of nuke delivery system development under the pretense of “but we need additional research”.
Spaceships are ICBMs.
America pointed at a spot in the moon and hit it with an ICBM.
Then we called our shot on earth an hit it from the moon.
And we did it in such a way that anyone in the world could verify that we did.
If we can do that with astronauts, we can sure as shit park a nuclear tipped ICBM anywhere between here and the moon whenever eea want.
Unlike the rest, the American nuclear threat isn’t a hypothetical. It’s proven.
It’s kind of the other way around the first space race was basically r&d for the icbm