I am familiar with characterizing the FOBS type vehicle. FOBS (*Fractional Orbital Bombardment System) *was a Soviet ICBM program in the 1960s that after launch would go into a low Earth orbit and would then de-orbit for an attack. It had no range limit and the orbital flight path would not reveal the target location. This would allow a path to North America over the South Pole, hitting targets from the south, which is the opposite direction from which NORAD early warning systems are oriented. NORAD was very senitive to the FOBS system and much effort was expended to remove this capability from the Russian arsenal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System The SALT II agreement (1979) prohibited the deployment of FOBS systems: *Each Party undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy:* *(...)* *(c) systems for placing into Earth orbit **nuclear weapons** or any other kind of **weapons of mass destruction**, including fractional orbital missiles;* The missile was phased out in January 1983 in compliance with this treaty. Putting any vehicle into a suborbital trajectory is asking for problems with the SALT II agreement. On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 2:16 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Daniel Rocha <danieldi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Why escape velocity? Just orbital is good enough. A powerful ion >> propulsion can slowly add 4km/s to achieve that. >> > > You are right. I got the two mixed up. > > What would be the suborbital velocity for a trip halfway across the world, > which I assume is about as far as anyone wants to go? Unless you want to > bomb Australia. (For winning the America's Cup in 1983?) > > - Jed > >
