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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 07:03pm Jan 31, 2002 EST (#11154 of 11160)

Ballistic missile defense (by high tech means) is one approach to ORGANIZING THE WORLD TO FIGHT TERROR. And only as effective as it happens to be. And that's not effective enough.

I very much liked this line in President Bush's State of the Union Address to Congress and the Nation , but I'd like to see it modified. The line was

" Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."

The heads of ALL nations ought to have similar goals, for THEIR nations, and THEIR allies. We need to rid the world of the idea that weapons of mass destruction are permissible.

That means striving to get rid of Russia's and our own. On a balanced basis, in the context of the world as it is, and practically can be made to be..

In this regard, I found ORGANIZING THE WORLD TO FIGHT TERROR by Igor S. Ivanov , Russian Foreign Minister http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/opinion/27IVAN.html most constructive.

Pardon me if I cite MD266-269, of mine, and particularly MD267 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:33am ...

If Russia and the United States were agreed , we could truly win the war on terror -- fully. We could deal with threats from rogue nations (and these are real) and deal with the broader threats as well. Which means, in part, adressing human misunderstandings.

It would be great for the whole world, it would be practical, and it would be fine politics, in both countries. And it would be a whole lot easier, technically, than getting "high tech" missile defense to work.

We need to proceed practically - and that means with technical means that we really have, or can make, and inter-national relationships that we have, and can make.

rshow55 - 07:11pm Jan 31, 2002 EST (#11155 of 11160)

MD10638 rshow55 1/3/02 7:02pm quotes Queen Elisabeth, and also quotes an undelivered speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, written shortly before his death:

" Today, we are faced with the pre-eminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships --- the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together in the same world, at peace."

This quote was on the last page of the American Heritage Picture History of World War II , by C.L. Sulzberger and the editors of American Heritage , published in 1966.

We need weapons, and effective military forces --- but within limits that make human sense.

That shouldn't be too much to ask, either humanly, or technically.

rshow55 - 07:18pm Jan 31, 2002 EST (#11156 of 11160)

What we need, in my view (and this is a technical view) is not trust, which is unstable, but careful distrust, with some respected and enforced rules. Distrustful relations with solid communication and mutual interest are stable. And enforceable rules can become so.

gisterme - 07:33pm Jan 31, 2002 EST (#11157 of 11160)

But . . . for five seconds . . with good adhesion to a surface that is (for this purpose) a good heat sink ? ? ? ?

Nope. The material itself (plastic) is an excellent insulator, meaning that it will not easily transmit heat through itself. Just local expansion of the material at the point of application of the energy should be enough to disrupt the microns-thick layers that give it its reflective quality, long before it would ever melt or burn. Of course that would accelerate the melting and burning. I'd estimate it might withstand 20 W/cm^2 for perhaps a milisecond without structural damage. That's a SWAG, of course.

Oh, by the way, ICBM bodies are made of composite materials I think. Those are generally poor thermal conductors. The materials in the previous reference will do what you imagine for a flashlight beam but will not do what you imagine for a laser beam.

And if you doubt that the Air Force knows about this kind of material then you're probably not being realistic. After all, Lou was an AF guy and he used it on his bicycle!

Did you check on the temperature range for that 3M material, Robert? You're always the touter of responsible checking. Well, here's your chance, ace! Why guess? Why not check????

Until you've checked, while we're still guessing, I'll guess that by the time the reflectivity index of such materials as the 3M stuff we're talking about improves by a factor of 10, the output power of lasers will have increased by more than that...and oh, by the way, improvements in reflectivity index only approach perfection asymptotically...there is no such known restriction on the theoretical maximum for laser output power.

Actually, Robert, I do like the idea of gold-plated ICBMs...but they'd look a lot cooler if you didn't hide the gold with that silly mirror-plastic. And I wonder what rogue nation could afford them? I also wonder if terrorists could be picky enough to hijack just the gold-plated ones... :-) ...the golden bee bees...hmmm. Even terrorists might rather keep golden missiles than shoot them. We humans do seem to have a deep-seated affinity for that glistening yellow metal. What a great idea you've got there, Robert! Make those missiles too pretty to use!

And what's all this stuff about concealing decoy balloons with reflective material? Decoy ballons are supposed to be detected aren't they?...so as to present a bunch of targets? It's the old convoy approach! Problem with balloons is that they need the same aerodynamic cross-section (mass to drag ratio) as the real warhead to be able to continue decoying in even the very highest reaches of the atmosphere. Otherwise they'll be quickly left behind by the real target as they reenter. They are their own parachutes.

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