Missiles, Lasers, Crappy Movies and Leidenfrost

[AngryTurtle]

Warning: This thread will contain the dreaded "mystery compound that fits what I need" scenarios and will have MS paint diagrams. Most of this stuff is just thoughts in their development stage so have fun and don't bust out your torches and pitchforks if something is wrong.

 

<this part is pointless but kinda fun>

Preface: I was watching Avatar and as many of you may have noticed there was a mind blowing number of situations that made me squirm with nerdy disgust. Many of these logical holes aside (due mainly to the fact many of them would have ended the movie many many minutes/hours early, such as "hey lets fire a cruise missle into their holy tree rather than ferrying a pallet of explosives in with a shuttle) one made me think. The helicopters and gunship couldn't hit a damn dragon bird for their life, which made me think if there really was future humans trying to wax some dragons how would they do it. the coolest most movie worthy answer i found is some crazy future version of an MTHEL (google it, its basically an anti-missile laser system) which would turn some blue dudes into roast duck in a split. that aside the real thought begins when I started thinking how exactly would one get away from getting turned into ribbons by anti air lasers.

<now onto the meat of the thread>

 

The actual thought: How could someone defeat an anti-missile laser without reinventing the wheel in missile technology (no hand-wavy plasma shield arguments or cover the missile in mirrors dude... arguments are valid) The idea I thought up while sitting around was, that basically you cover the missile in a material that would basically create a void between the missile and the outside and stay in liquid form so it could rapidly equilibrate to keep large holes from forming.

 

How? basically coat the fuselage in a substance that wouldn't transfer its energy back to the fuselage very well, something that has a leidenfrost point attainable by the outside of the missile that would allow a liquid (or mostly liquid could possibly have inlaid objects that absorb large amounts of thermal energy quickly) to more or less encase the missile in a layer that would be held in tight by a magnetic attractive force. when the directed energy from the laser strikes the missile it would be dumping its energy into the liquid shell that being vaporized off wouldn't compromise the missile because it wouldn't be in direct contact with the fuselage.

 

How#2 how do we heat the fuselage? moving the propellants to the front of the rocket and channeling the exhaust along the inside of the fuselage could be used to transfer large amounts of thermal energy to the surface to melt the substance and make it reach its leidenfrost point.

 

quick sketch to make that confusing statement make a little more sense.

 

Summary, Mystery substance would be used to encase a missile in a liquid shell while being kept off the surface so that when a laser strikes the conductive outer liquid shell it would disperse the energy and evaporate off leaving the missile fine and ready to go destroy some blue aliens.

 

I want your thoughts on if this even makes sense or if theres any materials that might be the luckily lady to fill the mystery substance candidate. Unfortunately i think if you have it being able to reach its leidenfrost point it wouldn't have a high enough evaporation point to tank a laser for very long and of course if it was a high mass substance it would add a substantial amount of weight to the rocket, so this would have to be a pretty slick substance were talking.

 

Basically a fun thought, lemme hear your opinions: still no "just coat it in mirrors" statements allowed.

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

Btw, this was all thought up in less time than it took me to draw that picture so don't chastise me for really round about answers to problems like "apply magnets here" its just quick thoughts.

[rowyto]

You're saying the liquid has to be able to stay in place via magnetic force and somehow not be affected by the centripetal force of the missle's movement and even though it's being held hard enough to stay in place it would absorb or at least not transfer the impact energy...

 

I got it... mystery substance is... flubber!

[McLuvin Science]

Since this whole flippin scenario is "farse" there really is no arguement anyone can make to this exquisit idea of yours, but I will still attempt to throw a question or two your way.

 

Question how #1

 

Since your mystery compound can absorb the energy from the laser and burn off, how long of a blast can the compound of a diety take? Is it for a one time use application and no longer good after the initial blast? I would think like most other defense systems there are counter counter measures (CCM) like a second blast or a second laser tracking the same target as a back up.

 

Question how #2

 

Most missiles have an optical seeker head on them working from heat, ir or negative uv. Will said super mystery compound cover the seeker head? If so will the compound be transparent enough to not impead the seeker head (that is not in that totally awesome ms paint pic) ? Will it block out some of the heat signals coming from the dreaded dragons?

 

Question how #3

 

With your compound from the drippings of King Midas's nut sack being heated by the exhaust of the missile, how long will it take for the compound to reach the magic temperature to make it liquid? Also with it being a liquid and traveling at speeds that most missiles travel, atleast mach 1.5 will there be no rippling in the compound to make weak spots, refering back to how #1 taking the length of a blast that it can take and making it shorter?

 

Let me know what the angryturtle has to say back, laters.

 

McLuvin Science

[AngryTurtle]

Since this whole flippin scenario is "farse" there really is no arguement anyone can make to this exquisit idea of yours, but I will still attempt to throw a question or two your way.

 

Question how #1

 

Since your mystery compound can absorb the energy from the laser and burn off, how long of a blast can the compound of a diety take? Is it for a one time use application and no longer good after the initial blast? I would think like most other defense systems there are counter counter measures (CCM) like a second blast or a second laser tracking the same target as a back up.

 

Question how #2

 

Most missiles have an optical seeker head on them working from heat, ir or negative uv. Will said super mystery compound cover the seeker head? If so will the compound be transparent enough to not impead the seeker head (that is not in that totally awesome ms paint pic) ? Will it block out some of the heat signals coming from the dreaded dragons?

 

Question how #3

 

With your compound from the drippings of King Midas's nut sack being heated by the exhaust of the missile, how long will it take for the compound to reach the magic temperature to make it liquid? Also with it being a liquid and traveling at speeds that most missiles travel, atleast mach 1.5 will there be no rippling in the compound to make weak spots, refering back to how #1 taking the length of a blast that it can take and making it shorter?

 

Let me know what the angryturtle has to say back, laters.

 

McLuvin Science

 

Since this whole flippin scenario is "farse" there really is no arguement anyone can make to this exquisit idea of yours, but I will still attempt to throw a question or two your way.

 

all compounds obey the laws of physics so for a compound to exibit one set of required properties it will sometimes be mutually exclusive with other properties, so while you might think its a farse its actually just a dynamic idea rather than a set of numbers, like if i said my compound expands when it freezes to do _______ it no longer can shrink if it freezes. or if it melts at a low point it can no longer remain solid when exposed to tons of heat. now onto your questions.

 

Question 1:

would depend on the amount of energy put into the shell, the more it took the more would vaporize and the thiner the coat would become, and yes i do believe it would be one time use, so you can't use it for your reusable missiles.

 

Questions 2:

Valid point, but you could probably do something like mounting magnets of the opposite polarity in the end of the nose to repel super mystery liquid away from the necessary electronics.

 

Question 3:

a conductive metal fuselage would transfer heat remarkably quickly, but however for some reason you think all liquids are as viscous as water, which they are not. When a highly viscous more rigid liquid encounters the impact of wind it wouldn't be massively effected however while being pumped full of energy by a laser it would become far more fluid as necessary to fill in gaps so i don't think kind midas would really bend the mind to imagine a extremely nonviscous liquid that can reach a vaporization point relatively low possibly even a nonnewtonian liquid if we really wanted, i mean ****ing cornstarch and water can do it.

[npts2020]

Since this whole flippin scenario is "farse" there really is no arguement anyone can make to this exquisit idea of yours, but I will still attempt to throw a question or two your way.

 

all compounds obey the laws of physics so for a compound to exibit one set of required properties it will sometimes be mutually exclusive with other properties, so while you might think its a farse its actually just a dynamic idea rather than a set of numbers, like if i said my compound expands when it freezes to do _______ it no longer can shrink if it freezes. or if it melts at a low point it can no longer remain solid when exposed to tons of heat. now onto your questions.

 

Question 1:

would depend on the amount of energy put into the shell, the more it took the more would vaporize and the thiner the coat would become, and yes i do believe it would be one time use, so you can't use it for your reusable missiles.

 

Questions 2:

Valid point, but you could probably do something like mounting magnets of the opposite polarity in the end of the nose to repel super mystery liquid away from the necessary electronics.

 

Question 3:

a conductive metal fuselage would transfer heat remarkably quickly, but however for some reason you think all liquids are as viscous as water, which they are not. When a highly viscous more rigid liquid encounters the impact of wind it wouldn't be massively effected however while being pumped full of energy by a laser it would become far more fluid as necessary to fill in gaps so i don't think kind midas would really bend the mind to imagine a extremely nonviscous liquid that can reach a vaporization point relatively low possibly even a nonnewtonian liquid if we really wanted, i mean ****ing cornstarch and water can do it.

 

If you don't use a liquid similar in viscosity to water, how are you going to get it to flow back together when the laser burns a hole through it? How much added weight to the missile are you going to have? Even if you could find your magical substance, it seems highly unlikely to me that it could be used in the manner you are proposing because of weight and aerodynamic considerations.

[AngryTurtle]

a laser dumping copious amount of energy into it would hopefully losen it up a bit and on the weight issue, it could be reasonable on a larger missile, but obviously this was just a fun thought and clearly has holes of practicality.