How is rocket fuel maintained on a nuclear missile? Does liquid propellent solidify after sitting so many years?

How is rocket fuel maintained on a nuclear missile? Does liquid propellent solidify after sitting so many years? If a missile is near expiration, do they remove warhead and launch it for training? Are Tyrone-tier airmen allowed to maintain a weapon we haven't used in 80 years?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    who wants to know?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      just asking for a friend

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      she kinda cute ngl

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        That's an old man you sick freak

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          he kinda cute ngl

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Aren't they solid fuel for exactly that reason?
    I remember hearing that the chink nukes are liquid fueled and stored empty which significantly lengthens their launch time.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Old primers fire bullets so maybe old solid fuel fires too. It'd be funny if ching chong fuel tanks dry rot in storage then leak on doomsday kek

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      yes that is possible, and has that drawback. the old titan 2 hypergolic ICBMS could only be stored "launch-ready" - ie filled with fuel/prop - for a short time, but dry-storage was possible.

      So if a nuclear reaction happens by the release of a frickton of neutrons. Can i just shoot a block of plutonium with a neutron gun?

      yes, if the piece of plutonium was large enough and you could compress it enough to reach criticality. Which is hard.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >yes, if the piece of plutonium was large enough and you could compress it enough to reach criticality.
        I wonder if that would be feasible anti-nuke protection: just shoot them on the sky with neutron lamp so, the warhead partially detonates rendering it unable to reach critical mass. You know, like in turning 1 megaton nuke into 0.1kt dirty bomb.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          no, neutrons like that are easily stopped and disperse in the atmosphere. To reach sufficient intensity for a "beam" would require exploding a nuke itself. Even then, that would fry the warhead explosives themselves before doing anything to the plutunium which they surround.

          And if you're firing a nuke as a countermeasure, you might as well use the blast itself in a SPRINT type measure or the batteries around moscow- ie blow up the incoming warhead directly.

          Criticality in a modern hydrogen bomb is very hard to initiate; the explosives have to perfectly timed to equally compress the plutonium to reach criticality.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >SPRINT
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_(missile)

            >Sprint was a two-stage, solid-fuel anti-ballistic missile (ABM), armed with a W66 enhanced-radiation thermonuclear warhead

            >Sprint accelerated at 100 g, reaching a speed of Mach 10 (12,300 km/h; 7,610 mph) in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to 6,200 °F (3,430 °C), requiring an ablative shield to dissipate the heat.[2][3] The high temperature caused a plasma to form around the missile, requiring extremely powerful radio signals to reach it for guidance. The missile glowed bright white as it flew.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >1975
              Honestly makes me laugh that the US invented hypersonic missiles in the 70's, and now vatnigs and chinks are screaming LOOOK!!! WE DID IT!!! in 2020.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                When people talk about hypersonic missiles these days, they're talking about hypersonic cruise missiles. If you want to use the dictionary definition then technically every ICBM is a hypersonic missile.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I wish that were the case but it isn't. Hypersonic cruise missiles are actually impressive and useful. the MUH HYPERSONICS that china/russia crow about are
                >Kinzhal - literally a iskander ballistic missile strapped to a plane
                >DF-17 - boost glide IRBM
                >Avangard - boost glide ICBM
                It's all 1970s tier tech
                the only hypersonic cruise missile either of those countries claim to have is the Zircon, and every image we've seen of the Zircon is LITERALLY just a Boeing X-51 from 2010. Not a "we copied your weapon" type literally, a "literally just using your renders of your weapon for our fake weapon" copy. Zircon doesn't exist.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                That's the thing, they don't have this tech still, the "hypersonics" the chinks brag about are wiggly ICBM's, with a CEP so large you could huck the Tsar Bomba at them and it would still miss, it's worse than space shuttle tech. Meanwhile the US hypersonic tests that keep failing are more advanced than sprint, and are air-breathing maneuverable cruise missiles.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Sprint was based, they never should have canceled it

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          High power neutron beams are impossible from an engineering perspective, there just aren't any physical processes we could exploit to create one.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Well, probably not one you could aim or collimate. But particle accelerators dump tons of neutrons off the end as “garbage” after the beam is done doing whatever it’s doing.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          As far as I know liquid fuels get higher throw weights, which is why Russian heavy ICBMs and Titan II use them. Downside is that you have to handle the incredibly dangerous liquids.

          Early ABMs had neutron bomb (ERW) warheads, the idea was that the neutron flux prevents high-order detonation in the incoming warhead

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Early ABMs had neutron bomb (ERW) warheads, the idea was that the neutron flux prevents high-order detonation in the incoming warhead
            Not the same guy but I thought pretty much any small & low-yield nuke will work like an ERW? Reading about it now though I guess there is a difference depending on the radiation case design.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Didn't the soviets experiment with a plutonium bullet that would go critical and blow up a house?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >bullet
          That would have to be a pretty big bullet.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Shells could possibly do that. Bulets I doubt, it would have to be super close to criticality and I lmao.

          By using a neutron reflector, only about 11 pounds (5 kilograms) of nearly pure or weapon's grade plutonium 239 or about 33 pounds (15 kilograms) uranium 235. But neutron reflectors are usually pretty heavy.

          Anything smaller than that weight would lose neutrons more than it produced, so would not explode unless hyper compressed, and a "bullet" as you say would need to be compressed so super hard I doubt it would work even with conventional explosives let alone impact.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    https://www.amazon.com/Ignition-Informal-Propellants-University-Classics/dp/0813595835/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=ignition&sr=8-4

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I would have sworn that Max Gergel was the author of "Ignition!" but apparently I've jumped to an alternate timeline without realizing it.

      Anyway, here's one of Gergel's books, free:
      http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/gergel_isopropyl_bromide.pdf

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        There's a sequel where Max weird about this red head and all the time they spent on his boat ..

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    That's just a armorer inspecting the barrel of a 1911 sidearm

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    > How is rocket fuel maintained on a nuclear missile?
    depends on the fuel. most ICBMS use solid fuel anyway. Sagging and cracking is the problem there, but this is checked for by good storage conditions.
    >Does liquid propellent solidify after sitting so many years?
    No, but the aggressive hypergolants or monoprops like hydrazine do eat away at seals, so those need to be monitored.
    >If a missile is near expiration, do they remove warhead and launch it for training?
    Atleast for the USA Minuteman ICBMS, test batches are chosen completely randomly from deployed missiles, the warhead is removed, they are moved to test launch ranges and launched. Expire dates of the solid rocket stages are multiple decennia longer then the missile is used; the USA doesnt actually manufacture new minuteman missile stages, all needed + spares were created at the initial contract awarding. Hypergolic propellant for the Post-boost-vehicle that allows MIRVS and fine aiming is a different beast, but that is only the upper composite.
    >Are Tyrone-tier airmen allowed to maintain a weapon we haven't used in 80 years?
    Yes, they were designed for that. test launches assess the readiness of the arsenal.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Which was a bigger factor in reducing the number of silo-based nuclear missiles: maintenance vs new delivery methods such as bombers and subs

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >maintenance
        no, cost while enabling the nuclear triad.
        Each leg of the triad has different strengths, and the balance between the considerations there leads to the division of warhead and delivery options, combined with the budget.
        There actually have been voices to scrap the land-based part of the triad, as it is the most vulnerable.
        improving accuracy (lower CEP) and addition of treaties like SALT I & II as well as the development of penetration aids and the assessed capabilities of other forces lead to a specific target, but these are again influenced by lobbying.

        long answers; it is complicated.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Xièxiè nukeanon

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Isn't the vulnerability part of the appeal in the land based deterrent? A sort of ablative armor, where the enemy will have to allocate a certain number of their missiles to destroy holes in bumfrick nowhere instead of cities, military bases or industrial sites? Or did that thinking go away after the cancellation of the MX?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            No, it still exists and is a good point. However, subs are generally regarded as unreachable and the safest way to provide a repellent or strike-back capacity after an initial nuclear exchange, which would indeed target the land-based deterrent.

            However, there is no way to target the nuclear subs, the weapons could be shifted to more subs for more assured sub-strike capacity.
            But that was only one side of the argument.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              I would imagine there is also a case for land based weapons as a visible deterrent, a few hundred silos gives your enemies something they can plot up on the big board and look at while they make their decisions.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >multiple decennia
      the erudition in this place is out of control

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >decennia
        English as a second language, sorry
        I guess decades is more usually used

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Don't be sorry. It's actually a great word, just one that you never really see in the US (maybe in niche fields). Nothing wrong with dropping some seldom-used vocabulary, it fancies the place up.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    So if a nuclear reaction happens by the release of a frickton of neutrons. Can i just shoot a block of plutonium with a neutron gun?

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Most liquid oxidizers are naturally unstable and will slowly break down on their own, so you have to pump those into the rocket immediately before launch or the engine will just give out a big wet fart and won't even leave the silo.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >How is rocket fuel maintained on a nuclear missile?
    Stored in a separate tank, ready to be pumped into the missile at the first serious sign of trouble.
    >Does liquid propellent solidify after sitting so many years?
    Umm . . . no, because it doesn't sit, the chemicals degrade over time and have to be replaced. The Gergel book discusses how they finally figured out that nitric acid decomposes over time, which was why they kept having explosions in storage.
    >If a missile is near expiration, do they remove warhead and launch it for training?
    The military periodically test-launches our aging Minuteman III missiles to make sure they still work, so kinda.
    >Are Tyrone-tier airmen allowed to maintain a weapon we haven't used in 80 years?
    I don't know what "Tyrone-tier" means, but if you mean really stupid Black folk, they get assigned as cooks and oil-change "mechanics", not as missile techs.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Stored in a separate tank, ready to be pumped into the missile at the first serious sign of trouble.
      all the USA ICBMS and SLBMS use solid fuel stages. no fuel is pumped.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Yeah, I know,

        BTW, the U.S. no longer uses liquid-fueled ICBMs, and hasn't for decades. I'm not sure if any of the U.S. military's missiles are liquid-fueled any longer; maybe there are some research programs or something, but certainly none of the major programs are liquid.

        The Russians still have liquid-fueled ICBMs, though. Last time this came up, I had to go dig up a chart to prove it to some moron shill who insisted that the Russians were too advanced to be stuck with 1950s technology rotting in their silos.

        Not sure about China.

        Note, I'm obviously not talking about SpaceX or ULA orbital launch systems. I should note however that they minimize the use of hypergolic fuels, unlike the Soviet-era Proton that Russia still uses. Go watch that 2013 Proton failure to see a beautiful shot of RFNA spilling out into the atmosphere as the booster flipped over and headed for the dirt; I hope no one was downwind of that.

        I was speaking generally since OP wanted to know about liquid fueled rockets.

        But you know what, I actually don't know if the Russians and Chinese are dumb enough to leave everything fueled for years at a time.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Yes Black folk is what I meant. Imagine coons maintaining nukes. They'd hang a basketball hoop on it.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >they get assigned as cooks and oil-change "mechanics", not as missile techs.
      DATS RACIST CRACKA

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    BTW, the U.S. no longer uses liquid-fueled ICBMs, and hasn't for decades. I'm not sure if any of the U.S. military's missiles are liquid-fueled any longer; maybe there are some research programs or something, but certainly none of the major programs are liquid.

    The Russians still have liquid-fueled ICBMs, though. Last time this came up, I had to go dig up a chart to prove it to some moron shill who insisted that the Russians were too advanced to be stuck with 1950s technology rotting in their silos.

    Not sure about China.

    Note, I'm obviously not talking about SpaceX or ULA orbital launch systems. I should note however that they minimize the use of hypergolic fuels, unlike the Soviet-era Proton that Russia still uses. Go watch that 2013 Proton failure to see a beautiful shot of RFNA spilling out into the atmosphere as the booster flipped over and headed for the dirt; I hope no one was downwind of that.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >not sure about china
      the majority of china's landbased deterrent is 20-30 DF-5 liquid fueled ICBMs. They are stored on their launchers, driven out of their bunkers, fueled outside and fired. Extremely vulnerable system.
      They've started replacing them with DF-31 solid fueled road mobile ICBMs but for now the majority are liquid fueled relics.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    you have basically 3 options of what "rocket fuel" even is
    >solid fuel
    basically a tube of rubber-based gunpowder
    you can seal it pretty easily and in theory it should lasts a couple decades if you don't let it rust and so on, like an ammo cartridge
    the disadvantage is relatively poor performance (= lower range and payload), but that can be solved with better warheads

    these are typically used today - Minuteman, Polaris, M51, Topol-M, etc.

    they do have a limited shelf life, so what they do is when they expire is selling them as milsurp to private companies (Orbital ATK, now Northrop Grumman - for example)
    These companies add fairing, another upper stage and use them to launch small satellites instead of MIRVs
    Minotaur for example is converted Minuteman, Shtil is a converted converted submarine launched missile, etc.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >cryogenic liquid fueled
      liquid oxygen + RP-1 (very pure jet fuel)
      problem is you need to keep the oxygen at -180°C, which means your silo needs to have some sort of huge devar flask underground tank and act as a liquid oxygen factory to continuously refill the tanks because it just keeps constantly boiling away
      facilities like these are incredibly expensive to build and maintain
      you generally can't keep the oxygen it inside the rocket for a long time either. The rocket needs to be light and thin-skinned. Thin skin means poor insulation and therefor faster boil-off, not to mention it might simply crack from how brittle metal gets at these temperatures after some time.
      So before launch you first need to fill it with liquid oxygen, which takes some time.
      And if you want to be mobile, you need to carry this crap along with you (so forget about it)
      the upside to all that bullshit is by far the best raw performance

      these were used in the first generation of ICBMs - Atlas, Titan, R-7 (aka Soyuz) and nobody uses them anymore as far as I know (maybe North Korea)
      they gained a lot more fame and success launching people and probes into space

      only US actually built silos for cryogenics, soviets figured it's not worth the hassle digging a hole and had them in the open before they retired them

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >storable hypergolic fueled
        typically concentrated nitric acid (super toxic and extremely corrosive) + dimethylhydrazine (extremely toxic)
        you don't want to get doused in it
        unlike cryogenics, it does not require super special storage facility (as long as it does not leak)
        they are viable to move around, unlike cryogenics
        another advantage is relatively high reliability - hypergolic means the two liquids ignite on contact. So you don't need any special igniter, just open the valves and there it goes (as long the valves do not corrode, which does happen, most recently on the piece of shit Starliner spacecraft)
        they are sort of compromise between cryogenics and solids in terms of overall performance

        Soviets (namely Valentin Glushko in particular) loved them, Americans used hypergolics only on the last stage to guide the reentry vehicle (it can easily reignite itself in vacuum as many times as you want)
        Proton rocket that launched Russian part of ISS and MIR was originally intended to launch tzar bombas, as it was the only missile at the time powerful enough to carry it

        so again, the way you retire the big ICBMs is to remove the nukes, put another stage on top and sell the ride to telecommunication companies

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          thanks for teh explanation

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          One thing missed here is that hypergolics aren't just toxic as frick, they are also corrosive as frick. If you keep them inside your thin skinned missile it's going to corrode the shit out of your tanks, plumbing and valves. So you either need to drain your rockets and clean/replace lines constantly or you need to keep the fuel outside of the rocket until near launch time, meaning much slower response time.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      https://i.imgur.com/ubpxwwj.jpg

      >cryogenic liquid fueled
      liquid oxygen + RP-1 (very pure jet fuel)
      problem is you need to keep the oxygen at -180°C, which means your silo needs to have some sort of huge devar flask underground tank and act as a liquid oxygen factory to continuously refill the tanks because it just keeps constantly boiling away
      facilities like these are incredibly expensive to build and maintain
      you generally can't keep the oxygen it inside the rocket for a long time either. The rocket needs to be light and thin-skinned. Thin skin means poor insulation and therefor faster boil-off, not to mention it might simply crack from how brittle metal gets at these temperatures after some time.
      So before launch you first need to fill it with liquid oxygen, which takes some time.
      And if you want to be mobile, you need to carry this crap along with you (so forget about it)
      the upside to all that bullshit is by far the best raw performance

      these were used in the first generation of ICBMs - Atlas, Titan, R-7 (aka Soyuz) and nobody uses them anymore as far as I know (maybe North Korea)
      they gained a lot more fame and success launching people and probes into space

      only US actually built silos for cryogenics, soviets figured it's not worth the hassle digging a hole and had them in the open before they retired them

      https://i.imgur.com/gCJDAdE.jpg

      >storable hypergolic fueled
      typically concentrated nitric acid (super toxic and extremely corrosive) + dimethylhydrazine (extremely toxic)
      you don't want to get doused in it
      unlike cryogenics, it does not require super special storage facility (as long as it does not leak)
      they are viable to move around, unlike cryogenics
      another advantage is relatively high reliability - hypergolic means the two liquids ignite on contact. So you don't need any special igniter, just open the valves and there it goes (as long the valves do not corrode, which does happen, most recently on the piece of shit Starliner spacecraft)
      they are sort of compromise between cryogenics and solids in terms of overall performance

      Soviets (namely Valentin Glushko in particular) loved them, Americans used hypergolics only on the last stage to guide the reentry vehicle (it can easily reignite itself in vacuum as many times as you want)
      Proton rocket that launched Russian part of ISS and MIR was originally intended to launch tzar bombas, as it was the only missile at the time powerful enough to carry it

      so again, the way you retire the big ICBMs is to remove the nukes, put another stage on top and sell the ride to telecommunication companies

      You are a true gentleman and a scholar.
      Thank you anon.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        no problem
        bumping with Rokot commercial satellite launch vehicle, aka SS-19 Stiletto
        the orange smoke are nitrogen dioxide fumes, which is about as toxic as chlorine is

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I'm not as into the chemistry side to be able to ID the rocket fuels by the color of the exhaust, but I do know the soviets basically had no compunctions against using heinously toxic and difficult to handle propellants as long as they fit the performance window.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Like painting RESEARCH on a Jap whaler

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Or building a solid fuel ballistic missile for totally peaceful satellite launches, we swear gaijin :^)

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Solid fuel for missiles.

    For modern space rockets like SpaceX's Falcon9, liquid fuels are great.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Oppenheimer would have explained this shit easily.
    I miss Oppenheimer so much bros.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I miss Oppenheimer so much bros.
      What happened to him?
      There is an oppenheimer shaped hole in my heart.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        if i recall someone doxxed him, revealing he really did work at some nuclear policy thinktank, and he left

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >How is rocket fuel maintained on a nuclear missile?
    it gets maintained by knowing where it isn't

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

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