I have a bad feeling about this.
If a nuke could landed on and attached *to *the Death Star itself (via unmanned space vehicle,) wouldn’t the detonation send powerful shock waves through the Star, since it would actually be in physical contact?
That’s pretty much what happened when the first proton torpedo detonated at the surface.
We don’t have any heat-seeking weapons that function outside the earth’s atmosphere, or in zero gravity. Missile control systems don’t work without air and I suspect an IR guidance system would not function without it either; they’re tuned to Earthlike temperature ranges.
One thing you’re missing here is actually getting a weapon to the target. I don’t think Star Wars tech requires them to worry about running out of propellant. Also, the fact that a vehicle the size of the millenium falcon can trivially lift off the ground and proceed into orbit indicates that they do not need propellant to change their velocity in a vacuum (conservation of momentum says : nice knowing you) and also they can generate huge accelerations with these engines. (the falcon’s reaction-mass less drives must be capable of a TWR greater than 1 for a planet with gravity comparable to earth’s (referring to Tatooine, where they pile into the ship and lift off and cruise up into orbit like there is nothing to it)
NASA actually has a few scientists claiming they might have prototype reactionless drives that work due to <mumble mumble>, but even in the hugely unlikely event that these devices work, they would be capable of very tiny acclerations and in no way could allow you to rocket off the ground and proceed into space on a vehicle the size of a couple campers.
So if we fired at the Death Star, all it would have to do is activate it’s cheat engines and accelerate at 1 G or so for a couple minutes. This would instantly make an intercept impossible - the missile would not have enough fuel to maneuver to impact the death star on it’s new course.
Actually, some missiles (including the Sidewinder, which is heat-seeking) use thrust vectoring, so they might be able to function in vacuum after all. I still doubt the flight control system would work in zero gravity.
The Deep Impact probe was able to hit comet Temple 1, which was 7.6Km by 4.9Km. The Death Star was 160Km in diameter. So we could hit the broad side of a Death Star if needed.
Well, that would look terrible! I mean, we got to think about re-sale.
I think a line has to be drawn in the discussion - are we supposed that Earth has tech that could be adapted to destroying the Death Star, given some reasonable window of time for adaptation and construction, or are we considering that Darth might show up unannounced and start warming up the big particle gun? That is, if it’s not something we can pick up and fire/launch/send pretty much right away, it will be too late?
If the OP’s question is whether current military tech can hit a 2-meter target at some reasonable distance the answer is clearly yes. A Predator can take out a car from at least 500 yards just for starters.
If the question is “Could Earth kill the DS in the manner shown in the movie” then the answer is probably no. Given a delivery vehicle like an X-wing I have no problem believing that humans could come up with a small maneuverable nuke-carrying space drone that could get into the exhaust port; except we don’t have anything that can fly like an X-wing.
But this is one of those questions you can’t really answer. The SW universe has tiny ships like X-wings that are capable of FTL flight and “energy shields” that protect the Rebel base on Hoth. (Why isn’t the DS shielded? Errr…)
I think that this would hinge on what distance and what energy expenditure would be necessary upon impact with the target.
You can throw a sword to get the required ending.
Well you do that at your own risk and certanally will void the warranty.
The problem isn’t hitting the smallish exhaust port - any guided projectile worth its salt can do that. But after going through the exhaust port it also has to travel all the way down the chute and into the reactor. Meaning the bomb has to be *perfectly *lined up, never ever hit the chute walls etc… when fired from the rough perpendicular of that vector at low altitude to boot.
I don’t really see that happening without the bomb being a device specifically designed to do just that, festooned with fins and course-correction thingamabobs on a hair trigger, proximity detectors and so on. Or a full-blown drone, but even then you’d run into the lag issue… Tricky, tricky problem.
Looking over the video it is obvious that we don’t have anything that can make that turn, unless the plasma is being ‘sucked/channeled’ into it somehow, maybe the thermal exhaust port itself has some magnetic containment or other containment that would cause that bend, and not the rebel weapon. That would make sense since it is a extremely small exhaust port for such a station. Is there any mention of if the rebel weapon was modified to make this bend?
I don’t think the right-angle turn is the projectile’s doing: They appear to be blobs of plasma, not devices of any sort, and if they had the capability to turn under their own power, then they’d be guided in on the shot, not aimed at firing. I think that channeling has to be some consequence of how the thermal exhaust port works.
It is shielded. But the shields were set up to stop big capital ships, not small craft like X-wings. They didn’t think small craft could do any appreciable damage at all, and even if they could, they had TIE fighters to dogfight them.
Star Trek photon torpedoes and Star Wars proton torpedoes both glow. It’s just a practical consideration: space is dark, and if they don’t glow the audience won’t see them.
I always thought the last-second turn into the exhaust port was Luke using the force to guide it in.
Pretty sure the Rebellion wouldn’t have sent its entire air wing to attack if there was only one dude who had the magic powers necessary to make the torpedo go in the hole.
And the computer simulations they show in the briefing also show the projectiles moving initially horizontally before turning down the shaft towards the center. The projectiles turning was part of the plan.
but you know that the hole has an angle…i doubt a missle can fly in and immediatly shift to a 90° angle downwards…maybe it will hit the the hole but it would immediatly explode on the entrance