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To: Travis McGee
How big do you think the body of an 8 kilometer range 5 kilo HE rocket is? What do you guess the propellant is?

Depends on the fuel used. The shuttle's boosters have a specific impulse of 300 (one pound of fuel generates 300 pounds of thrust). That fuel is, IIRC, powdered aluminum and ammonium perchlorate. You can get up to about 450 or so with liquid hydrogen and oxygen, but that isn't practical for a weapon. Black powder will get you about 100-110, and the "smokeless powder" (actually a plastic compound) used in the WW2 bazooka will give you somewhere around 200 or so.

Now, you have to do a whole boatload of math to calculate how much fuel you need, because in addition to lifting the warhead, you have to lift the fuel you haven't used yet and the rocket carcass as well.

My vote on the fuel is some variant of smokeless powder.

13 posted on 01/28/2002 4:11:11 AM PST by Poohbah
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To: Poohbah
Lots of math aside, are we talking about rockets that fit in a car trunk to move around, or fit in a garage and need to be fired close to where they are built?
14 posted on 01/28/2002 6:25:21 AM PST by Travis McGee
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