This is one bad bomb!!!

[AK-74me]

Feature - 30,000-pound bomb reaches milestone

30,000-pound bomb reaches milestone

by Airman 1st Class Stephen Linch
509th Bomb Wing Public Affairs

12/27/2007 - WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. (AFPN) -- A team of weapons specialists loaded a 20-foot mock bomb into the bomb bay of a simulated aircraft Dec. 18 at Whiteman Air Force Base.

The bomb was a mock up of the 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000 pound bomb that has yet to enter production, and the aircraft was a mock up of the B-2 Spirit.

The MOP is approximately 20.5 feet long, with a 31.5-inch diameter and a total weight of slightly less than 30,000 pounds. The weapon will carry over 5,300 pounds of explosive material and will deliver more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor, the BLU-109. It is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet underground before exploding.

"I couldn't help but notice how enormous the bomb was hanging in the weapons bay," said Tech. Sgt. Jason Hermann, a 509th Maintenance Group weapons loader. "It looked much larger once we had loaded it into the weapons bay than when it was on the loading adapter."

The bomb's development started in 2004 when the Air Force executed a contract with Boeing for the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an agency that safeguards America and its allies from weapons of mass destruction by providing capabilities to reduce, eliminate and counter the threat. The weapon is guided by Global Positioning System navigation. Its cropped wings improve agility and storable grid fin controls facilitate internal carriage.

Northrop Grumman started integrating the MOP to the B-2 in July 2007.

The B-2 will be able to carry two MOPs, one in each bay, which will be mounted to the existing forward and aft mounting hardware currently in the B-2.

"This awesome weapon reeks of strategic deterrence," said Col. Bob Dulong, the 509th MXG commander. "America's enemies will know the destructive power of this weapon in our arsenal and they should modify their behavior, lest they learn of this weapon from firsthand experience."

 

[Sonsie]

The Massive O. Penetrator..... :titter:

 

[Gummie]

Sounds like a MOP. Maybe Carol Burnett's cleaning lady character is behind it.

 

[Novus Collectus]

Sounds awesome, but a kinetic penetrator from space would do more IMO.
Nothing says lovin' like a ton of tungsten arriving at 20,000 miles per hour.

 

[edinsomd]

Here's another pic:
http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/2007122813124.aspx
Ed

 

[Lenny]

Sounds awesome, but a kinetic penetrator from space would do more IMO.
Nothing says lovin' like a ton of tungsten arriving at 20,000 miles per hour.

Have they canceled physics? Terminal velocity is terminal velocity if it's dropped from 10,000 feet or 200 miles isn't it?

 

[edinsomd]

Have they canceled physics? Terminal velocity is terminal velocity if it's dropped from 10,000 feet or 200 miles isn't it?

No atmosphereic drag up there; ballistic missile warheads zip along at nearly five miles per second.
Ed

 

[Lenny]

No atmosphereic drag up there; ballistic missile warheads zip along at nearly five miles per second.
Ed

Until they hit the atmosphere.

 

[edinsomd]

Until they hit the atmosphere.

The following flight phases can be distinguished:
· boost phase — 3 to 5 minutes (shorter for a solid rocket than for a liquid-propellant rocket); altitude at the end of this phase is typically 150 to 400 km depending on the trajectory chosen, typical burnout speed is 7 km/s.
· midcourse phase — approx. 25 minutes — sub-orbital spaceflight in an elliptic orbit; the orbit is part of an ellipse with a vertical major axis; the apogee (halfway the midcourse phase) is at an altitude of approximately 1200 km; the semi-major axis is between 3,186 km and 6,372 km; the projection of the orbit on the Earth's surface is close to a great circle, slightly displaced due to earth rotation during the time of flight; the missile may release several independent warheads, and penetration aids such as metallic-coated balloons, aluminum chaff, and full-scale warhead decoys.
· reentry phase (starting at an altitude of 100 km) — 2 minutes — impact is at a speed of up to 4 km/s (for early ICBMs less than 1 km/s); see also maneuverable reentry vehicle.
See also: Missile Defense Agency, missile defense#Classified by trajectory phase, and Countermeasure

Intercontinental ballistic missile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I know, its wiki, but the warheads are still packing quite a speed advantage when they hit atmosphere. Pretty spectacular, too.
Ed

 

[Lenny]

The following flight phases can be distinguished:
· boost phase — 3 to 5 minutes (shorter for a solid rocket than for a liquid-propellant rocket); altitude at the end of this phase is typically 150 to 400 km depending on the trajectory chosen, typical burnout speed is 7 km/s.
· midcourse phase — approx. 25 minutes — sub-orbital spaceflight in an elliptic orbit; the orbit is part of an ellipse with a vertical major axis; the apogee (halfway the midcourse phase) is at an altitude of approximately 1200 km; the semi-major axis is between 3,186 km and 6,372 km; the projection of the orbit on the Earth's surface is close to a great circle, slightly displaced due to earth rotation during the time of flight; the missile may release several independent warheads, and penetration aids such as metallic-coated balloons, aluminum chaff, and full-scale warhead decoys.
· reentry phase (starting at an altitude of 100 km) — 2 minutes — impact is at a speed of up to 4 km/s (for early ICBMs less than 1 km/s); see also maneuverable reentry vehicle.
See also: Missile Defense Agency, missile defense#Classified by trajectory phase, and Countermeasure

Intercontinental ballistic missile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I know, its wiki, but the warheads are still packing quite a speed advantage when they hit atmosphere. Pretty spectacular, too.
Ed

All true but irrelevant. The effective point of this bomb is when it reaches an altitude of 0 feet and begins to penetrate the ground. At that point the speed will be the same if dropped from 10,000 feet or 200 miles.

 

[Novus Collectus]

Have they canceled physics? Terminal velocity is terminal velocity if it's dropped from 10,000 feet or 200 miles isn't it?

The tungsten rods would be dart shaped or just rods with fins. A long narrow projectile is going to be affected a lot less by the atmosphere. It may not arrive at 20,000 miles per hour, but it would still be way up there. It would not lose enough energy due to wind resistance to even start to come close to terminal velocity.
Even if it did not start at a relative speed in relation to the earth's surface that high and was just "dropped", as was pointed out it would not be affected by the atmosphere untill after it had already fallen ten or twenty miles and by then the accumulated speed it has will not be negated by friction with the atmosphere it finally does encounter.

 

[Novus Collectus]

All true but irrelevant. The effective point of this bomb is when it reaches an altitude of 0 feet and begins to penetrate the ground. At that point the speed will be the same if dropped from 10,000 feet or 200 miles.

Not even close. If that was true then meteroite impacts would never leave craters....and meterors are not arrow, rod or dart shaped that have less wind resisance.

 

[2ndAmendment]

Have they canceled physics? Terminal velocity is terminal velocity if it's dropped from 10,000 feet or 200 miles isn't it?

Terminal velocity only applies to objects that start with a velocity below terminal velocity and are accelerated by gravity and affected by atmospheric resistance. Terminal velocity is the velocity at which the acceleration of gravity is deceleration of atmospheric resistance are balanced.

An object that is traveling above terminal velocity and then enters the atmosphere is decelerated by atmospheric resistance but may not decelerate to terminal velocity based on original velocity, mass, and aerodynamic frontal resistance.