So just what would happen....

Mint Sauce

If all the worlds Nuclear War Heads were fired into the sun simultaneously?

Watching Superman 4 here, were he has attempted to end the Nuclear War Race by pretty much doing this. He gathered all the worlds Nuclear Missiles, with of course all the governments permission, before throwing them all into the sun. Nothing really happened barr a few explosions.

wazky

Next week would still be cloudy with a strong chance of rain.

bumper234

Mint Sauce wrote: »

If all the worlds Nuclear War Heads were fired into the sun simultaneously?

Watching Superman 4 here, were he has attempted to end the Nuclear War Race by pretty much doing this. He gathered all the worlds Nuclear Missiles, with of course all the governments permission, before throwing them all into the sun. Nothing really happened barr a few explosions.

Well since the sun is already for better words one massive nuclear explosion already then nothing would happen.

kneemos

Sun big.

entropi

Nuclear explosions occur on and in the sun all of the time, I wouldn't reckon anything changes except a decreased chance of a nuclear winter happening.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Absolutely nothing. It might cause a bit of extra fizzle but nothing worth mentioning.

Banjo String

wazky wrote: »

Next week would still be cloudy with a strong chance of rain meatballs.

fyp

PizzamanIRL

I hate threads that have titles like that, making you click on it see what ****e might be inside it.

AnonoBoy

I'd still be thankswhoring.

kneemos

Superman should feck off back to whatever underwear fashion statement hole he crawled out of.

Karl Stein

Very little.

The Sun is big. Here's an exact to scale representation of the Earth next to the Sun.

o .

Shout Dust

They'd probably melt. And the liklihood of war increases on earth

Inbox

They'd burn up before they even hit it.

canadianwoman

wazky wrote: »

Next week would still be cloudy with a strong chance of rain.

---

FloatingVoter

If global nuclear disarmament were to actually occur, it is exactly what would happen (a highly visible version of "No ma, I didn't sweep it under the carpet").
Expect to see Superman kissing Santa Claus under a Christmas tree first.

and oh yes: as Inbox implied, you'll need bigger rockets.

Curly Judge

The warheads wouldn't explode unless the were deliberately armed - and why would we do that?
As the warheads, stripped to their bare minimum presumably, would vaporise long before reaching the suns surface the only thing you'd have to worry about is the bill for transporting them there.
Because of local astrophysics it is far more expensive to send material in towards the sun than out into the wider solar system.

KilOit

Would need to be shielded like in the movie Sunshine to even get near the sun.
Don't think much would happen really, look at a size comparison of the earth and sun, biggest bomb detonated was the Tsar and that explosion would be barely a spec of dust on the sun

wazky

Curly Judge wrote: »

Because of local astrophysics it is far more expensive to send material in towards the sun than out into the wider solar system.

Excuse the pun but its hardly rocket science?, aim them at the orange glow in the sky and make sure they have enough juice to get there, not as if you have to worry about landing them?

D1stant

The Sun would merely melt them and snigger at Superman

If, however we could propel Chuck Norris towards the Sun it might be very different.

Amirani

wazky wrote: »

Excuse the pun but its hardly rocket science?, aim them at the orange glow in the sky and make sure they have enough juice to get there, not as if you have to worry about landing them?

You have gravity and planetary orbits to consider. It's not as simple as just aiming.

kneemos

I think we should get it before it gets us.

JustAddWater

Charlie Rock wrote: »

Very little.

The Sun is big. Here's an exact to scale representation of the Earth next to the Sun.

o .

More like
O.

wazky

NiallSparky wrote: »

You have gravity and planetary orbits to consider. It's not as simple as just aiming.

We could get someone we don't like to pilot the thing, would that work?.

FloatingVoter

wazky wrote: »

We could get someone we don't like to pilot the thing, would that work?.

Bertie Ahern has a speaking engagement in North Korea that day.

wazky

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Bertie Ahern has a speaking engagement in North Korea that day.

Actually come to think of it, we will probably need a full team to pilot it, just in case.

Defiler Of The Coffin

I doubt any of the world's nuclear missiles are capable of flying anywhere near the sun...

Standard Toaster

JustAddWater wrote: »

More like
O.

More like:

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Absoluty nothing would happen, nothing at all. Our largest nuclear weapons would be like a drop of rain in the ocean, and it would be vaporized long before it reached the Sun's surface anyway.

Standard Toaster

Defiler Of The Coffin wrote: »

I doubt any of the world's nuclear missiles are capable of flying anywhere near the sun...

Only if you send them up at night time.

Defiler Of The Coffin

Standard Toaster wrote: »

Only if you send them up at night time.

Blofeld is that you?

Wotsername

Charlie Rock wrote: »

Very little.

The Sun is big. Here's an exact to scale representation of the Earth next to the Sun.

o .

More like

Ooooh look! I can see our house from here :-)

mfceiling

The world would end..

How far do you think the sun is from the earth OP - 10 or 12 miles?

Capt'n Midnight

In its core, the Sun fuses 620 million metric tons of hydrogen each second, of this 4 million tons is converted into energy

1 gram converted to energy is 20KT

So every second the Sun goes through the same energy as 4,000,000,000 Hiroshimas/Nagasakis

Karl Stein

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More Like this Mr Toaster

COYVB

Mint Sauce wrote: »

If all the worlds Nuclear War Heads were fired into the sun simultaneously?

Watching Superman 4 here, were he has attempted to end the Nuclear War Race by pretty much doing this. He gathered all the worlds Nuclear Missiles, with of course all the governments permission, before throwing them all into the sun. Nothing really happened barr a few explosions.

If all the world's nuclear warheads were detonated simultaneously on earth, there'd be bugger all damage in comparison to a large earthquake, for example (not talking about loss of human life, but damage to the big rock we're travelling through space on). given that the sun is, to say the least, quite a bit larger (lol) and a raging ball of nuclear explosions, it wouldn't even register as a blip

wazky

wazky wrote: »

Excuse the pun but its hardly rocket science?, aim them at the orange glow in the sky and make sure they have enough juice to get there, not as if you have to worry about landing them?

All they would to aim them is a simple light seeker guidance system.

Edit: just be sure to switch it on after the rockets have got out of sight of the jacks light! :P

Wotsername

O.K Agreed. But I can still see our house from here :-)

PickledLime

wazky wrote: »

Excuse the pun but its hardly rocket science?, aim them at the orange glow in the sky and make sure they have enough juice to get there, not as if you have to worry about landing them?

Erm, it's far more complex than that, hence "rocket science" is most definitely, rocket science.

Curly Judge

wazky wrote: »

Excuse the pun but its hardly rocket science?, aim them at the orange glow in the sky and make sure they have enough juice to get there, not as if you have to worry about landing them?

Imagine you are out shooting pheasants and one flies up 40 meters in front of you, flying across your line of sight from left to right.
If you fire directly at the bird you will miss because by the time the shot pellets reach it the bird will be somewhere else.
Good "shots" learn to "lay off" and instantly calculate how much in front of the bird they need to point the barrel of the gun before pulling the trigger.
Now imagine the distance and speed of the sun relative to the distance and speed of the pheasant and it will give you an inkling - only an inkling mind you - of the complexity of space navigation.
It would take a Boeing 747 eighteen years to reach the sun.

Capt'n Midnight

PickledLime wrote: »

Erm, it's far more complex than that, hence "rocket science" is most definitely, rocket science.

Not anymore because computers.

Rocket science is easy, it just involves lots of maths. If you are good at maths, like the Russians were, you get better designs.


Ever do those physics questions about how far you can throw a ball where you are allowed ignore air resistance ? By the time the space shuttle clears the tower it's doing over 300Km/hr and air resistance is very important.

Force = mass x acceleration.

in laymans terms
engine thrust = rockets weight x how quickly it gains speed

'cept the rocket is about 15 tons lighter every second so you accelerate faster. Which means you climb to thinner air which affects the air resistance which affects your speed...

Today you would just use excel to re-calculate the position of the rocket every second using. But before computers it was a long slog even when you have very smart people figuring out short cuts.


A Saturn V weighed 2,800 tons. The Ascent stage that took off from the moon weighed 4.5 tons, the command module that splashed down weighed 5.8 tons. Overall 99.8% of the take off mass was discarded en route.

Rocket science is easy. The hard bit is improving on that 0.2% payload without taking unnecessary risks or letting the beancounters or politicians make decisions that impact on safety.

krudler

wazky wrote: »

Excuse the pun but its hardly rocket science?, aim them at the orange glow in the sky and make sure they have enough juice to get there, not as if you have to worry about landing them?

They wouldn't make it anywhere near the sun without burning up, and it'd take years to get there, so yeah, this is where the rocket science part comes in :pac:

Curly Judge

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Not anymore because computers.

Rocket science is easy, it just involves lots of maths. If you are good at maths, like the Russians were, you get better designs.


Ever do those physics questions about how far you can throw a ball where you are allowed ignore air resistance ? By the time the space shuttle clears the tower it's doing over 300Km/hr and air resistance is very important.

Force = mass x acceleration.

in laymans terms
engine thrust = rockets weight x how quickly it gains speed

'cept the rocket is about 15 tons lighter every second so you accelerate faster. Which means you climb to thinner air which affects the air resistance which affects your speed...

Today you would just use excel to re-calculate the position of the rocket every second using. But before computers it was a long slog even when you have very smart people figuring out short cuts.


A Saturn V weighed 2,800 tons. The Ascent stage that took off from the moon weighed 4.5 tons, the command module that splashed down weighed 5.8 tons. Overall 99.8% of the take off mass was discarded en route.

Rocket science is easy. The hard bit is improving on that 0.2% payload without taking unnecessary risks or letting the beancounters or politicians make decisions that impact on safety.

So....the Jet propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena are now hiring high school dropouts because they have installed Excel on their computers?

WindSock

MORE LIKE!!!

Capt'n Midnight

krudler wrote: »

They wouldn't make it anywhere near the sun without burning up, and it'd take years to get there, so yeah, this is where the rocket science part comes in :pac:

Each shuttle launch depending on how you fiddle the books cost up to €1.2Bn dollars.

When you are sloshing that sort of money around you can hire a few eggheads.

BTW NASA pay about $1,000 a line for mission critical software. And they employ the worlds most boring programmers to get boring but totally predictable code with "no fancy stuff thank you very much".

TBH they could have saved billions on the ISS by using the Saturn V instead of the shuttle. Shuttle could carry 25 tons into orbit. The Saturn V go the 77 ton Skylab AND the 49 ton second stage into orbit ( it re-entered 2 years later). 5 times the shuttle payload. Actually if you'd build skylab into the stage II Hydrogen tank then you'd have had more habitable volume than the ISS has today. - yet another "what might have been" from the space race.

NASA have screwed up on so many stupid things that you just have to wonder. The Russians with 1/10th of the budget and insane levels of political interference can usually give them a good run for their money. NASA were the first to get a rover working on Mars. The Russians soft landed Mars-2 in 1971 but lost transmission before they could deploy their lander. That's 25 years before pathfinder.

kneemos

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Each shuttle launch depending on how you fiddle the books cost up to €1.2Bn dollars.

When you are sloshing that sort of money around you can hire a few eggheads.

BTW NASA pay about $1,000 a line for mission critical software. And they employ the worlds most boring programmers to get boring but totally predictable code with "no fancy stuff thank you very much".

TBH they could have saved billions on the ISS by using the Saturn V instead of the shuttle. Shuttle could carry 25 tons into orbit. The Saturn V go the 77 ton Skylab AND the 49 ton second stage into orbit ( it re-entered 2 years later). 5 times the shuttle payload. Actually if you'd build skylab into the stage II Hydrogen tank then you'd have had more habitable volume than the ISS has today. - yet another "what might have been" from the space race.

NASA have screwed up on so many stupid things that you just have to wonder. The Russians with 1/10th of the budget and insane levels of political interference can usually give them a good run for their money. NASA were the first to get a rover working on Mars. The Russians soft landed Mars-2 in 1971 but lost transmisosion before they could deploy their landwer. That's 25 years before pathfinder.

So was the Shuttle a complete waste of time and money?

biko

BrokenArrows

It would have the same impact on the sun as someone throwing a match stick into a nuclear explosion. Lol

MonaPizza

Mint Sauce wrote: »

If all the worlds Nuclear War Heads were fired into the sun simultaneously?

Watching Superman 4 here, were he has attempted to end the Nuclear War Race by pretty much doing this. He gathered all the worlds Nuclear Missiles, with of course all the governments permission, before throwing them all into the sun. Nothing really happened barr a few explosions.

Well they wouldn't make it for starters. The surface of mercury during daytime is about 415 degrees celsius....hot enough to melt lead. So once these missiles got past mercury they'd just melt into blobs and cease to function, then they would just vapourize.

But if they could get close enough to explode it would be akin to throwing a match into a bonfire....fcuk all difference.

Capt'n Midnight

kneemos wrote: »

So was the Shuttle a complete waste of time and money?

On no. It provided employment in marginal constituencies.

Seriously the O-rings in the rocket boosters only exist because the factory was in the mid-west. Moving it to the coast would have meant lighter, simpler, stronger boosters. Did you know that some of those SBR sections were used up to seven times !

When the Americans want to go to space they hitch a ride in a Russian capsule whose design dates from the 1960's sitting on top of a uprated 1950's ICBM.

NASA are paying $62.7 million per seat.
http://www.space.com/11125-nasa-russia-soyuz-deal-spaceflights.html

ESA are paying $30-40m per rocket.
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz2_lv.html

Actual launch costs are more but it's reckoned that the Russians can get three people up to the ISS for about $45m



http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/04/18/5-horrifying-facts-you-didnt-know-about-the-space-shuttle/

Nature followed up in 2011:

The US Congress and NASA spent more than US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars) on the shuttle from 1971 to 2010 (see ‘A costly enterprise’)…. During the operational years from 1982 to 2010, the average cost per launch was about $1.2 billion. Over the life of the programme, this increases to about $1.5 billion per launch

NASA is subsidising billions to build new "cheaper" rockets. The maths on these is very simple. It would take dozens of cheaper flights to begin to recover the development costs.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/rockets/8-countries-angling-to-dominate-the-launch-business-15222860
Or look at commercial launches. Last year the USA didn't even get 10% of them.
USA 3 (I'm guessing this includes "commercial" resupply of ISS)

Russia 15
EU 12
China 5
India 1



As for the ISS - look at the duplication on this list, then visit the pages and look at the development costs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_space_station_cargo_vehicles



But you have to laugh at the BS that comes out of the Americans
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/rockets/the-race-to-cash-in-on-earth-orbit-15222825-2

SpaceX skeptics see inexperience, but the company's supporters note that the rocket worked as planned—one of nine engines shut down after detecting a problem. Its design makes the Falcon 9 the only vehicle that could have delivered anything to space after losing an engine.

Actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

Apollo 6 experienced three engine failures,[25] and Apollo 13 one engine shutdown,[26] the onboard computers were able to compensate by burning the remaining engines longer to achieve parking orbit.