Military Rockets: Solution For Nasa?

Orlando Sentinel ^ | December 30, 2008 | Robert Block

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

That i did not know

[Oztrich Boy]

Proton initially started life as a “super ICBM.” It was designed to throw a 100-megaton nuclear warhead over a distance of 13,000 km.

Not quite. The R-7 development started in 1953, when the Soviets didn't even have a 1Mt weapon. At the time it was thought the smallest megaton range staged thermonuclkear bomb would be 3-6 tonnes. ergo one BFICBM needed.

The 100Mt Tsar Bomba was a later 1961 device, primarily a Kruschev propaganda display. But if it had been actually deployed, the intended range would have been much shorter - 3-5 of them airdropped (in its 50Mt sans Uranium tamper form) ahead of the advancing Warpac forces in Europe in the event of unpleasantness breaking out. The biggest bomb ever built: a tactical weapon. True story.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The program may have started in 1953 but they did not launch the first rocket until 1965

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

It was eventually utilized as a space launch vehicle. It was the brainchild of Vladimir Chelomei’s design bureau as a foil to Sergei Korolev’s N1 booster.With the termination of the Saturn V program, Proton became the largest expendable launch system in service until the Energia rocket first flew in 1987 and the U.S. Titan IV in 1989.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/proton_history_000707.html

[Magnum44]

Titans are gone....last one launched several years ago.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

I have already been informed and already knew.

[Magnum44]

The safety issues are the concern. Required reliability for man rated launch is much more than for non-human payloads. That reliability come in the form of expensive redundancy, more reliable and expensive parts, and much more testing and evaluation.