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I'm with you here. The RIM-161 standard anti-ballistic missile used by the US is quoted by wikipedia as having a speed of 9600km/h or 2.7km/s. Speeds in low-Earth orbit are about 7-8 km/s, objects entering from a solar orbit likely several times that. There is absolutely no way you would have significant success probability of intercepting it with a missile unless you knew the incoming orbit very precisely.

Just look at that dashcam footage: from entering the atmosphere to breakup was just a couple of seconds. On a very tangential orbit, no less.



Gazelle does at least 5.5km/s.


But how long does it take to get to that speed?


By the time its left the silo. Russians are dead keen on their one-shot silos packed to the gills with various devices (pneumatic, hydraulic, explosive) to bring a missile up to ludicrous speed very, very quickly.

Spent a very enlightening afternoon down an old bunker near pervomaisk.

Found some stats in the tourist brochure from there. 9.4m high,1.1m dia, 4km/s in 4s, which gives an acceleration if about 102g. 80-100km range. Max speed 7km/s. "directional blast" also, which is interesting.


The US Nike-X Sprint had similar performance (Wikipedia says only 90 gravities, and there's some nonphysical-looking footage of test launches on youtube somewhere). Pretty crazy, and I gather that MIRVs made that whole category of ABM obsolete.


Yup. Aforementioned satan missile can carry hundreds of warheads, and an equal number of decoys. Two of them, they said, could wipe out all US cities.




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