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[Silfurdreki]

Can't you isolate the non-antimatter the same way you isolate the antimatter?

You mean by magnetic fields? If so, no, what you're having around is is basically the constituents of the atmosphere, which are all neutral so a magnetic field won't work. Believe me, if someone knew of a way to completely remove all particles from a volume the vacuum industry would be all over it like ants on a piece of ice cream that fell in an anthill.

[GlyphGryph]

We'd have significantly more than a day to react. At least two months, probably. Remember it needs to accelerate out and THEN accelerate back - even with gravity slinging, that takes time.

[10ebbor10]

1. It's an Orion drive. Throwing nuclear bombs behind you is pretty noticeable. You can see it coming from far away, and in case of a human build device, can see it departing and arcelerating too.

2. You can project orbits with a fairly good margin. It's speed makes manoevring with it near impossible. So it won't be that hard to shoot down things with it.

3. In case of a human created object, ie the afore mentioned Orion project, you'd have at least 1 year(start of arceleration towards Earth).

[RedKing]

I love how this thread quickly derailed from "Mission Planning to Alpha Centauri B" to "Mission Planning for Destroying the Earth With Our Own Weaponized Relativistic Probe".

[GlyphGryph]

"Mission Planning for the Prevention of Destroying the Earth With Our Own Weaponized Relativistic Probe".

ftfy

[RedKing]

In order to prevent an attack, you first have to imagine how you would carry out the attack.

[10ebbor10]

In order to prevent an attack, you first have to imagine how you would carry out the attack.

Considering that the kinetic energy of any probe is at least equal to 1/4 of it's weight in antimatter(and of course 1/4 of it's weight in matter)m it's going to be quite hard.

[lemon10]

Oh, I was acting under the assumption that it was coming from somewhere besides earth (eg. aliens, some other human colony).

Because I can't think of any reason that you would: Send if away from earth, stop (gravity slinging wouldn't work at anything near .1 c), turn around, then crash back into it (especially when you already have enough weapons on board to kill 95% of the earths population.

In order to use something like this as a efficent weapon you would want to fire it from far enough away that the acceleration isn't easily detectable (+10 light years would probably be enough).
Otherwise you would be open to counterattack very easily, and its primary useage as a weapon (the complete stealth until a few days left) would be gone.

2. You can project orbits with a fairly good margin. It's speed makes manoevring with it near impossible. So it won't be that hard to shoot down things with it.

Pretty good margins isn't perfectly, especially since it could still fire up its engine and subtly change its trajectory (eg, by accellerating by a tenth of a mile per second, by changing the angle by a thousandth of a degree).
And even if we destroyed it before it could hit, once it got close (but not close enough for us to destroy it) it could fire out all its nuclear weapons for a barrage of super hard (since detection would be messed up due to the debris cloud of the ship) to detect nukes, which while not planet ending, could kill hundreds of millions.

[10ebbor10]

Oh, I was acting under the assumption that it was coming from somewhere besides earth (eg. aliens, some other human colony).

Because I can't think of any reason that you would: Send if away from earth, stop (gravity slinging wouldn't work at anything near .1 c), turn around, then crash back into it (especially when you already have enough weapons on board to kill 95% of the earths population.

In order to use something like this as a efficent weapon you would want to fire it from far enough away that the acceleration isn't easily detectable (+10 light years would probably be enough).
Otherwise you would be open to counterattack very easily, and its primary useage as a weapon (the complete stealth until a few days left) would be gone.

2. You can project orbits with a fairly good margin. It's speed makes manoevring with it near impossible. So it won't be that hard to shoot down things with it.

Pretty good margins isn't perfectly, especially since it could still fire up its engine and subtly change its trajectory (eg, by accellerating by a tenth of a mile per second, by changing the angle by a thousandth of a degree).
And even if we destroyed it before it could hit, once it got close (but not close enough for us to destroy it) it could fire out all its nuclear weapons for a barrage of super hard (since detection would be messed up due to the debris cloud of the ship) to detect nukes, which while not planet ending, could kill hundreds of millions.

1. That's was point one of my argument why Project Orion makes a bad weapon. If launched from outer space it becomes a whole different scenario. Mostly instant doom
2. They're pretty good enough to shoot the thing. Besides, changing the speed is pretty much impossible, and doesn't have much effect. Sure it has an effect on a large scale, but your ship can't change speed/ heading fast enough to evade missiles and still hit the Earth. There's only a few paths it can take, and Earth has enough missiles to cover the entire path.(Provided we get them out of the athmosphere, that is.) However, if it comes from outer space, we most likely won't see it coming. Then again, someone who manages to hit a planet from 10 lightyear away at 0.1 c deserves to have a reward. There are constant fluctuations in our Earth's rotation, and by they point you can see earth to determine where it is, they can see the trace of your nuclear engine, once again ruining your advantage. So they'd have to come from Earth with a detailed model of the planet's and such, send that data, then attack the Earth again. Sounds pretty complicated, and near impossible.
3. The nukes have only a few kiloton yield, and are not capable of individual reentry. Hell, they haven't even got their own engines. They're just nuclear pellets.  At worst they'd produce some radioactive dust. Not that there'll be anyone left to care, but...

[Eagleon]

I don't honestly get the problem. If it starts changing course, just set all the 'fuel' to detonate at once. What's the worst that could happen besides the resulting nuclear death cloud combining with Earth's orbit in some way and periodically sterilizing all life for hundreds of thousands of years?

[ISP]

The fact that alot of people in here are suggesting a nuclear pulse rocket could endanger anyone or be stolen or driven into the earth in any way that would kill people or cause any real damage thats not already been done by past nuclear testing is something I find funny, like every rocket sent up by anyone it would not be possible to steal it, hyjack it, sneak aboard, hack it, or do anything that wasnt already planned for it, in addition fissionable material doesnt explode on its own, it does meltdown on its own and does emmit radiation, but if you pile a ton of weapons grade plutonium in one spot your more likely to melt a hole in the ground then cause an explosion.

Most likely if a nuclear pulse rocket does get made and used its probably going to get taxi'ed out of earth's magnetosphere and orbital path before it even gets turned on (bow chicka wow wow).

[Jacob/Lee]

The odds are still there. That's one small step for man, one giant boot crushing alienkind.

Stop making my sigtext grow, Loud Whispers!

[Nulzilcho]

In order to prevent an attack, you first have to imagine how you would carry out the attack.

I would stab everyone while they were distracted by the possibility of being destroyed by a runaway probe.

[Darvi]

When In doubt, always use the metric system.

So much this. There's a reason why SI uses metric.

[10ebbor10]

I don't honestly get the problem. If it starts changing course, just set all the 'fuel' to detonate at once. What's the worst that could happen besides the resulting nuclear death cloud combining with Earth's orbit in some way and periodically sterilizing all life for hundreds of thousands of years?

You'll be quite sad to know that a nuclear weapon doesn't produce much radioactive waste. In fact, detonating all pellets at once will have hardly any influence. Disipation will cause most of them to miss, and the others will be neutralized way before they enter the athmosphere, as any nuclear particles that remained would be broken down by cosmic radiation, as well as their own rather short half life.

Besides, you can't actually do that. If it's starts changing course, you'd already lost control of the engine and it's nuclear bomb fuel.

The fact that alot of people in here are suggesting a nuclear pulse rocket could endanger anyone or be stolen or driven into the earth in any way that would kill people or cause any real damage thats not already been done by past nuclear testing is something I find funny, like every rocket sent up by anyone it would not be possible to steal it, hyjack it, sneak aboard, hack it, or do anything that wasnt already planned for it, in addition fissionable material doesnt explode on its own, it does meltdown on its own and does emmit radiation, but if you pile a ton of weapons grade plutonium in one spot your more likely to melt a hole in the ground then cause an explosion.

Most likely if a nuclear pulse rocket does get made and used its probably going to get taxi'ed out of earth's magnetosphere and orbital path before it even gets turned on (bow chicka wow wow).

It's not the nuclear material that's supposed to do the damage, but the sheer size and speed of the drive thing. Otherwise, agreed on all points.

I mean the best way to disable a nuclear bomb is not to try and hack the launch system, but just to blow it up. (It's bulletproof, so you'll need a grenade or something.)