Helping Disaster-Stricken people by firing missiles at them

JupiterKid

A Japanese scientist has proposed that communities stricken by
Disasters such as earthquakes, asteroid impacts, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis etc could be helped if...

...we launched ballistic missiles packed with emergency supplies
at them. Ingenious idea or idiotic ill-considered notion?

http://m.space.com/23188-ballistic-missiles-disaster-relief-launches.html

Gatling

Its an interesting idea actually ,
But been you can drop supplies and vehicles from cargo planes might be a waste of a good rocket,

Planes carry more and easy to control drops

shruikan2553

If they could drop them safely and accurately it may work. A plane can already do the same job but no idea how much longer it would take.

darkpagandeath

whats next putting gold in bullets ?

Karl Stein

Those democracy bombs they dropped in Afghanistan weren't up to much.

JupiterKid

This idea does seem like a bit of an oxymoron - helping those in distress by firing an ICBM at them. How on Earth would the missile slow down?

zl1whqvjs75cdy

IS that not exactly how America helps people at the moment.

bilston

If they took only an hour or so to get to the destination and they could land safely then it's a good idea.

BUT here's the dealbreaker. Say there is an earthquake in Iran and the US want to send aid to help, does anyone honestly think they are going to launch an ICBM to land safely and intact in Iran full of goodies for the stricken but also full of goodies for Iranian scientists who I'm sure would love to reverse engineer such a thing?

Ten of Swords

JupiterKid wrote: »

launched ballistic missiles packed with emergency supplies

Detecting an ICBM on radar might cause a bit of a panic for some nations.

I'm not really sure how you'd convince them it contains food and medical supplies instead of a nuclear warhead either, could get messy.

snubbleste

2018: Today a rocket took off from the UN in New York with much needed koolaid for the famine victims in Bangladesh.

Capt'n Midnight

WTF ?

Do they have any idea of how much rockets cost ?

It would cost a fortune to test the system. The payload is measured in 100's of Kg at best. You'd need some sort of pod system like on thunderbird 2 with all pods containing EXACTLY the same weight and balance of supplies to get reliable ballistics. And vials of vaccine or what have you needs to take the g's involved in a launch and landing. (good luck with that)


In the real world we often see C130's flying to areas and pushing out bags of food out on parachutes. Great PR. But a waste of fuel and parachutes because in most cases you could get the same amount of food there in the same amount of time by hiring a local truck and buying local food.

A four engined propellored military transport typically carries one truck load of food.

In 2011 there was a famine in Turkana, northern Kenya. People were dying. The solution was to top-up mobile phones in the area using mpesa so people could buy food locally. But you didn't hear about it on TV because it was nipped in the bud and there wasn't rockets or planes racing in a desperate need to trill the viewing public. Text messages go faster than rockets.


The point is most equipment needed can probably be sourced locally. Unless you are looking for something very, very specific and it's unlikely to be in your pod.

Oh yeah you can't put the technical people needed to use very specialised equipment into a rocket so there really is no advantage over aircraft.

Manic Moran

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

WTF ?
In the real world we often see C130's flying to areas and pushing out bags of food out on parachutes. Great PR. But a waste of fuel and parachutes because in most cases you could get the same amount of food there in the same amount of time by hiring a local truck and buying local food.

I think the presumption is that in cases of such disasters, there are often issues with road transport. Bridges knocked down by earthquakes, coast roads subsided away, and so on. There is always a purpose for air delivery. Or, as the Japanese tsunami in 2011 showed, amphibious delivery. Not only for aid, but also equipment: US Navy assault craft were used to land civilian trucks where roads or ports were knocked out. You can't rely purely on the local road network. I'm involved in the disaster planning for Nevada, and I am rather ashamed to say I had to point out some really obvious bloody flaws in the extant plans, such as driving, even military trucks, through deep floodwater to get to where they were going.

A four engined propellored military transport typically carries one truck load of food.

Eh? A C-130 has an internal usable volume of about 130 cubic meters, compared to 67m3 for a 40' truck trailer. Food is bulky, but not that heavy. It's not a fair comparison anyway, as fixed-wing aircraft are rarely a distribution method, only a method of transporting assets for further distribution by other means. The places that can't be reached by truck, we have plenty enough helicopters to do the job.

In 2011 there was a famine in Turkana, northern Kenya. People were dying. The solution was to top-up mobile phones in the area using mpesa so people could buy food locally. But you didn't hear about it on TV because it was nipped in the bud and there wasn't rockets or planes racing in a desperate need to trill the viewing public. Text messages go faster than rockets.

Famines also tend to be less destructive and less immediate. It's something of a special case.

NTM

Capt'n Midnight

It's more of a rant over the "sexy" parts of famine relief, flying in food from the UK / US when it's locally available in nearby market towns. And the economics involved.

Packaged food is light. This is why we have supercube trucks whose main function is transporting packaged air.
Bags of grain/spuds/water etc. are much closer to 1 tonne/m3 so the greater volume carried by the C130 is really only of use for transporting lots of individually packaged stuff. Regardless a rocket don't have a lot of usable volume. During the Berlin airlift they changed from flying in bread to flying in flour even though they had to fly in the coal too.

TBH drones would probably be a better way of getting pictures from and small stuff to remote sites.

+1 for helicopters getting stuff to the right place.