Hi Guys

After September 11 I have never looked at high-speed travel in quite the same way. Kinetic energy is a very useful weapon - especially when boosted by AvGas. Hence my title for discussion: Should Deep Space vehicles carry a self-destruct?

I'm not talking about our current crop of space-probes since none of them would survive in a useful form after a re-entry at interplanetary speeds (as Gary can probably confirm...)

But if we go down the nuclear road and build large gas-core powered OutPlanet vehicles for manned missions then they're heavy enough and fast enough to hit the ground and hit it hard.

So should they have a self-destruct? A nuke to reduce them to plasma before they smack into the Earth at >60 km/s?

And gas-core nukes are just the start. Imagine the damage from an ISS mass fusion rocket coming back from Saturn at 300 km/s... etc. The bigger and faster our Deep Space vehicles get then the deadlier they become.

I would suggest a space port in a Lunar halo orbit where all the DSVs launch from, easily fuelled from the Moon, and serviced via passenger shuttles from Earth.

Eventually - if the Space Elevator ever happens - they can launch from the Counter Weight Station at 11 km/s AWAY from the Earth (and safely half-way to the Moon.)

But self-destructs and high-powered FEL lasers will be needed on every space-port - terrorists must NEVER have the chance to crash +100 tons into a city at hyperbolic speeds.

Adam