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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?

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kate_nyt - 06:51pm Feb 21, 2002 EST (#11702 of 11713)
Senior Community Producer, NYTimes.com

All-

The database is getting too big again, so we're going to have to restart en masse some of the large forums. That will be happening next week.

When the db gets too big, between it and search, the server is slooooooowwww. This is why you've been getting Service Unavailable notices with frequency recently.

Please gather anything from this forum you want to save before the restart. Sorry for the inconvience.

rshow55 - 06:53pm Feb 21, 2002 EST (#11703 of 11713)

U.S. and China Aim to Open Talks With North Korea By ELISABETH BUMILLER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/21/international/asia/21PREX.html

"Mr. Bush said that he told Mr. Jiang that the United States has "just recently gotten out from underneath the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty’’ – a reference to the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty in December – and so members of the Bush administration "are beginning to explore the full options as to whether or not a system will work.’’

Since the missile or warhead has to be seen, and the only way to do that is with electromagnetic radiation, a lot of "exploration" can be done directly.

The ways electromagnetic radiation can be sent, detected, and reflected are well known. That's true for radio waves, and true for light. Countermeasures are easy -- the job of defeating an interception system with countermeasures that make good enough detection for interception VERY unreliable is far easier than the job of hitting the missile for any set level of countermeasure sophistication.

Perhaps a million times easier. Perhaps only 10,000 times easier.

But it will always be so much easier to defeat a BMD system than to build one, that BMD programs are bad bets. They have failed to work tactically after fifty years of effort for reasons that aren't going to change.

rshow55 - 06:56pm Feb 21, 2002 EST (#11704 of 11713)

So naturally, the program has to be more deeply classified, to shield the shield from scrutiny.

Rumsfeld Pares Oversight of Missile Defense Agency By Bradley Graham Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, February 16, 2002; Page A02 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18542-2002Feb15.html

"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has granted the agency that is overseeing development of a national missile defense system extraordinary freedom from normal Pentagon procedures for controlling and monitoring new weapons programs.

"Under the special authority, the agency will be exempt from regulations that compel military commanders to specify requirements for new weapons. The agency also will not be subject to traditional reporting about program timelines and costs. And many of its testing efforts will be free from oversight by the Pentagon's test evaluation office.

". . . . the wide latitude the administration has given missile defense planners to skirt traditional Pentagon accountability and oversight rules also has drawn warnings from watchdog groups and some members of Congress concerned that the Pentagon is handing missile defense officials what amounts to a blank check.

. . .

"The administration intends to pursue a host of possible weapons -- land- and sea-based interceptors, airborne lasers and space-based devices -- aimed at knocking down enemy warheads in various stages of flight.

. . .

"Normally, work on a new weapon system is guided by detailed operational requirements that, in turn, are based on specific projected threats. Instead, the Bush administration intends to define a more general set of capabilities and attempt to reach them in phases or developmental "blocks" spaced in two-year intervals.

rshow55 - 06:57pm Feb 21, 2002 EST (#11705 of 11713)

Sorry it is happening, but thanks for the warning.

kate_nyt 2/21/02 6:51pm

lchic - 09:05pm Feb 21, 2002 EST (#11706 of 11713)

Scott Armel knew what he was doing. Scott's departure gave RShow55 an opening to reacquire this chat room for his own use.

Perhaps the aliens came and abducted the former host ... and are busy detailing him before returning him to an obscure isolated desert somewhere on earth ....

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Showalter | let's hope we can rely on you to have a store of links that will keep the revised board on track.

Trust the host won't have too large a header.

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The big question regarding MD is here - lchic 2/21/02 5:49am - if everybody is saying space wars don't work and are a sham .. then why isn't the USA Congress listening and placing it's monetary allocations towards more urgent and necessary matters?

lchic - 09:35pm Feb 21, 2002 EST (#11707 of 11713)

May be possible to have access to an archived thread for a while - perhaps.

(6 following messages)

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