Re: Slow Stealth

On Feb 23, 7:21 am, Jack Tingle <wjtin...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> For example, suppose the First Marshen Republick launches an expedition
> to visit various uninhabited asteroids, a-to-b-to-c-to-d. The carefully
> selected crew (who all happen to have high security clearances and tight
> lips) visit the asteroids and publish their papers and all is right with
> the worlds. Ten years later, an unmapped giant asteroid wipes out the
> Terran Pacific Rim with giant tsunamis and earthquakes, and severely
> inconveniences the rest of the earth with several nuclear winters.

> It just so happens, that this asteroid was one that the Republick's
> survey visited. And that the Republick has a long-standing bone to pick
> with Terra.

> Mass drivers probably have the lowest radiated signature of any
> propulsion system. If you keep a very well designed radiator panel
> aligned parallel to the ecliptic (hard, when it's a few acres, but not
> impossible), very few sensors will ever see it.

> Now the whole deal can be queered if someone happens to look at the
> asteroid during the initial movement.

Or any time after the initial movement.  Everyone is going to have
asteroid detectors which do NOT rely upon detecting the signature
of a rocket drive because asteroids.  None of the current asteroid
detection programs rely upon detecting the signature of an
asteroid's rocket drive.  Why?  BECAUSE ASTEROIDS DON'T
HAVE ROCKET DRIVES.

> Still, it is a stealthy attack in space. There should be some kind of
> extra credit for that, other than the massive Terran space fleet that 20
> years later non-stealthily nukes the Republick into near-extinction.

No, it's not stealthy, because asteroids aren't stealthy.

Isaac Kuo