Bringing ICBM to It's Silo

Save fuel; just blow it up in the silo.

Do your parents know you're playing with their PC?

I'd imagine they would put it in place the same way they did it the first time.

Kind of like driving your car around town and putting it back in the garage.

Unless you're talking about flying it around the globe under it's own power, which is impossible...so, no.

Exactly, I was looking for the same manner we are parking our car after a ride around town.Suppose during a war, by mistake somebody ordered to fire an ICBM to attack another country.After couple of seconds the attacker realised that it is not a wise decision to attack another country by an ICBM; then attacker want to change the direction of the ICBM and bring it back to it's original location safely so that the attacker can save billions of dollars(New ICBM cost including material,technical staff salary, Fabrication cost, miscellaneous expenses etc).After reviewing the comments so far,I realised that aerospace technology is not yet developed from it's cocoon state!

ICBMs are like toothpaste. After it is fired you can't stuff it back into the tube.

The only recourse would a self destruct mechanism, much like the ones employed on rockets.

These are used in the event of a malfunction of the vehicle to prevent it from going someplace it was designated.

When they decide to fire a nuke off its never by accident.

There are lots of safety and logistical protocols that have to be gone through in order first. Plus multiple levels of the chain of command orders and the like.

There is no single "FIRE" button some place that somebody can accidentally set their cup of coffee on.

How To Launch A Nuclear Missile In The 1960′s « Scouting NY

Don't know about today.

I expect it doesn't take two people any more.

Actually, a number of nuclear missiles have been launched by accident. One from an aircraft due to a cross of wiring in the aircraft at a target in Vietnam and at least two land based missiles that the military is not providing details on the mishap. Another mishap happened from a submarine, I think,

So, there is imperial evidence for this possibility.

In an unrelated incident, two nuclear warheads were dropped as a result of a B-52 mid-air mishap over North Carolina in the early 1960s. One of the two bombs actually had armed five of its six arming mechanisms as a result of the fall! The charging capacitors for the detonator had begun to charge and a 100' parachute had deployed. Thank God for the 6th mechanism.

Incidentally, each bomb was a 3.8 megaton nuclear bomb. The Nagasaki blast was a 21 kiloton blast, by comparison.

That's something that has always amazed me. No matter how sophisticated and complex a security system is at some point it all comes down to small motors, solenoids, or other such rudimentary electromechanical devices that can be triggered by a simple signal.

It's truly amazing how many US Thermonuclear devices have been lost to accidents.

Please read on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents

I am sure someone thought of this (possibly for training or test firing purposes with the warhead removed and replaced with a parachute) but the cost vs benefit is way to high for existing ICBMs so it isn't done.

Besides, where would you stick the parachute in the nose cone as that is where the warhead and guidance systems are?

And the parachute would have to be massive to support such a large weight (missile housing, warhead AND fuel which weighs a lot)!

And how do you stop the ICBMs rocket engines(s) mid flight (can be done but needs to be completely redesigned which costs money)?

AND would you really want one of these dropping to earth in your neighborhood?

This is not possible today. Maybe one day it can be done but I seriously doubt it. The reason for my doubt is a lack of a reason to launch a rocket from an underground facility of a silo to just orbit and return to the silo.

Maybe he is going to hack its security and launch it then hack the guidance system to fly it to his own silo and park it for later use!

This sounds like a plan a certain dictator would consider completely doable. (In his own fantasy anyway.)

Yes,but it blows up the silo.

Yes, but first we would like to add:

Congratulations on purchasing your Minuteman LGM-30 Missile. With proper care and maintenance the LGM-30 will give you the highest degree of carnage, incineration, and maiming. Please read the instruction manual before deployment and remember to fill out your warranty card before installation.

Here is how you can replace your LGM-30 from its silo after flying around the globe...

1. Fly around the globe. Remember, the TSA will not allow certain items on board. When in doubt, call your airline.

2. Return to your departing airport and take a cab to your ICBM silo.

3. Remove the ICBM from the silo as per pages 1283 through 1645 in your Routine Maintenance and Adjustment Manual.

4. Replace the ICBM back into its silo as per pages 1862 through 2196 of your Routine Maintenance and Adjustment Manual.

5. Always remember to wear safety glasses anytime you are working around the LGM-30.

If you have questions, feel free to call our new Tech Support facility in Bangalore India 24 hours a day. Please note, we are closed Sundays and Wednesdays.

The structural integrity of the rocket depends on it being filled with fuel. Without the outward pressure of the fuel holding the walls in place, the rocket will buckle under it's own weight. You could increase the wall thickness but then the rocket would need more fuel to lift and fly it, that would make it bigger so it would need even thicker walls...

Given this, it would be impossible to land without crumbling.

The other issue is that the space vehicle carries only enough fuel in its stages to achieve sub orbital flight. By the time that happens only the warheads are left, actually called reentry vehicles, which contain guidance electronics and the warhead.

'....The structural integrity of the rocket depends on it being filled with fuel.....'

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This doesn't apply universally to ICBMs, in fact I think it only applies to early versions of Atlas missile and possibly North Korea's latest attempt. Pretty much everything else has rigid structure that doesn't require inflation to be structurally sound.

Land based ICBM's are kinda a mute point anymore since there are an unknown number of 'boomer' subs sitting quietly on the bottom of all the oceans near foreign shores quietly waiting...

'....there are an unknown number of 'boomer' subs....'

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....So.....to be an 'unknown number', what is the requirement for the minimum number of people who must not know?

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Or...what is the maximum number of people who could know the number and still have the number qualify as 'unknown'.

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The number of boomers and even the number of SLBM is pretty well known (albeit not widely).

The military statisticians of every country that has a "boomer" submarine obviously knows how many of their own submarines are deployed. They only have a reasonable guess how many of the other countries "boomers" are deployed at any given time.

'...The military statisticians of every country that has a "boomer" submarine obviously knows how many of their own submarines are deployed....'

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Every country? You make it sound like like a daunting number. 5 going on 6 countries have boomers. US UK France Russia China with India in sea trials.

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The number of boomers each country has and even the number deployed at any given time also does not warrant enlisting the help of a statistician.

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As an example, the US has 14 boomers (although many former boomers have been retrofitted and now can function as spook boats of special ops support, they aren't still boomers since they aren't carrying SLBMs). This is not classified information.

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Significant measures are taken to keep 'where they go' a secret, but 'that they are deployed' and 'when they deployed' isn't really a secret that can be kept.

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Boomers are not small things. The construction of boomers is hard to hide. They don't submerge in port typically. The number of boomers on patrol from each country is something of interest. The information isn't something that requires a statistician, just certain integers.

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This isn't merely conjecture on my part.

Excuse me for disagreeing but I believe you missed my point. While the US, UK and France being members of NATO certainly do coordinate with each other these will be known by NATO. I do agree that boomers in general are difficult if not impossible to hide while being constructed and thus the total number completed by all is known. But I do not believe for one minute that any intelligence gathering of a covert vessel like a boomer is flawless. Intelligence is certainly more sophisticated than it was fifty years ago. But I have faith that a few of those rabbits know how to elude from a hound when asked.

I'm not saying finding boomers on patrol is easy or even likely.

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What I'm saying is that the number deployed is NOT an 'unknown number'.

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They are not hard to spot entering and exiting port.

When they aren't in port, they are either running drills (and everyone will likely be alerted in advance) or far more often they are on patrol.

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Nuclear deterrents are deployed as much as possible. They don't visit foreign ports generally except in an emergency.

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The information about coming into port or leaving is easily tracked even with relatively low resolution satellite images, or someone nearby on the ground.

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Far more often than people realize, to this very day, when a Boomer exits port, many times there is at least one and sometimes more foreign fast attacks trying to get sound signatures and practicing tracking. Boomers often get assistance in the form of one of their country's fast attacks physically getting in between the foreign fast attacks and the boomer until it can silently slip away.

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The number of boomers in the world and per country is known.

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The number of boomers underway, i.e. on patrol is known per county and for the world.

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These are not idle curiosities, a lot of attention is paid to this kind of thing. Its like a bunch of people who all have a couple body guards pointing guns....no one fails to notice that one more gun is in the room.

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By the way, most boomers don't 'lurk off the coast' of the intended target.

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SLBM have sufficient range that the subs can hide practically all over the worlds oceans.

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The subs that lurk off the coast don't carry SLBMs, they are fast attacks. Some Fast attacks can still deliver a nuclear warhead via cruise missiles. Cruise missiles have far less range than SLBMs so fast attacks need to be close to be a threat.

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All that aside.

The number of boomers, deployed, total, per country, is not an unknown number.

Very valid points but you are still not understanding my point. With boomers being modified to perform other tasks and specifically stripped of their nukes. The number of submerged nukes has a new uncertainty just as overhead detection gets improved. Long before this wrinkle of confusion there was also the uncertainty of decoys in dry dock. The intelligence gathering community interpreting the data are human. The number deployed by the adversary is unknown. There is a high percentage of certainty range of likely boomers. However, counter-intelligence efforts do murky the waters.

I still maintain that there is very little uncertainty in the number or number deployed. If there were any significant uncertainty, it would probably have to be with Chinese boomers.

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In light of the whole picture, I'm going to concede the argument. While I maintain that the number of boomers is well known, it really doesn't matter. With many fast attacks capable of delivering nuclear warheads, the argument of whether we know the number of boomers isn't really that important.

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Fast attacks are much harder to keep track of, and many more countries have fast attacks.

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Won't much matter to someone who dies when a nuclear warhead detonates whether it was delivered by cruise missile, ICMB, SLBM, commercial airliner, or in the hull of a sailboat brought into harbor.

Also, just in case you were being serious....

...boomers don't sit on the bottom. There are a few ex-boomer boats that have been modified to sit on the bottom. Boomers don't do that though.

Is the OP an Iranian or North Korean missile engineer? LOL

Probably Iranian since North Korea still have one rocket left.

If it looked like this you could...
http://io9.com/5705672/the-xb+70-valkyrie-almost-the-worlds-first-nuclear-aircraft

The last one is inside one of the Dayton Air Force Air Museum near the SR-71. Both are impressive aircraft.

The museum is well worth a visit, but will take you all of a day to see everything they have.

I'm gonna do it this way since I probably will never get up there...but never say never.

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/virtualtour/index.asp

Jeez, no way I could do that in one day and read all the plaques!