New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

dirac_10 - 02:22pm Jun 8, 2001 EST (#4617 of 4624)

Shooting down the missles is a piece of cake.

Heck we got a laser that shoots down missles at 10km right now. Common enough that we even sell it to foreign governments.

They are way over a megawatt already. That's a lot, by the way. A typical powerplant is only 200 megawatts.

One thing's for sure, If you aim one of these existing lasers at a rocket (as opposed to a warhead) it will blow up. As long as you are above the clouds/weather, the range is many hundreds of miles. Pretty much line of sight.

And of course, the antimissle missles. I mean these kinda things have made all airplanes sitting ducks if you can see them. Work like a charm.

Why would one think the same thing can't be done with the slow boosters, or fast warheads?

rshowalter - 02:32pm Jun 8, 2001 EST (#4618 of 4624)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It would take some complex cooperation -- but, often enough, people find ways to make that work.

And just the "threat" of such a thing would have some strategic value.

The Bush administration is holding a pluperfectly empty bag - it has nothing workable in missile defense (something discussed before, that I'd be pleased to discuss again - more pleased than before with a Democratic Senate majority.) It is proceeding on the basis of a nearly pure bluff -- in an area where the people involved are very afraid, and nobody is nearly as confident of solutions as they claim to be.

Folks in the oil business, especially the OPEC side of it, are in similarly insecure circumstances. Any halfway credible technical effort to make the "monopoly of oil" a thing of the past might have VERY interesting strategic consequences -- and peaceful consequences, too. There'd be less to fight about.

And, if energy was available, we'd know how to alleviate most world poverty. Now, we don't.

rshowalter - 03:22pm Jun 8, 2001 EST (#4619 of 4624)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We could also do without nuclear power.

And the supply of energy could not be monopolized - because, after development, the inherent cost of solar power - gathered on such a floating basis -- would mostly be reasonable capital and labor flows - ones low enough, and low tech enough - that any large nation state, or reasonably sized consortium of small states -- could build their own supply.

rshowalter - 03:27pm Jun 8, 2001 EST (#4620 of 4624)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Russia would be perfectly capable of doing this large scale solar energy job alone -- so would China, or Japan, or UK, or Germany, or France, or India.

The job is small enough that even a population the size of Australia might do the job alone.

Hydrogen, coming on line, could be integrated nicely with natural gas pipelines and refinery capacity in place - - not replacing oil or coal, but supplementing it more and more as adjustment was made.

rshowalter - 03:28pm Jun 8, 2001 EST (#4621 of 4624)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Very efficient large scale electrical generation with fuel cells would also be practical and economic, with hydrogen as a fuel.

rshowalter - 03:30pm Jun 8, 2001 EST (#4622 of 4624)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The big problem is floating a plastic sheet.

alty53 - 03:35pm Jun 8, 2001 EST (#4623 of 4624)

If dirac 10 had any sense of physics he/she would quickly recognize that you can not shoot a missle down traveling at 6.9 miles per second or more than 36,000 feet per second (take your choice). Scraping the ABM Treaty and the Missiles in Space Treaty of 1967 is really designed to place missile loaded platforms in space orbiting at about 400 miles above your head. After launching one of these missiles , it will reach its target in under two minutes. The Europeans/Russians and the Japanese/Chinese will most certainly build their own missile platforms targeting US cities in response to the US threat to their cities. Soon we all get to go to bed at night with nuclear tipped missiles orbiting overhead just two minutes away from vaporizing you and your family. At least with the present system we have a half hour before the missiles arrive......a half hour to prevent World War III.

rshowalter - 03:42pm Jun 8, 2001 EST (#4624 of 4624)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

This thread is an attempt at something new -- a format for workable, traceable, checkable communication and negotiation between staffed organizations, with openness, and more effective memory and accomodation of complexity that was possible before. MD4532 rshowalter 6/6/01 1:48pm

I believe a great deal of progress has been made, both in working out such a format, and in clarifying what peace and safer military balances would take for the inherently complex organizations and nation states that would actually have to agree, and come to feel safe in peaceful cooperation and competition with each other.

The thread is too extensive for any single person to read and refer to in its entirety - with all the crosslinks it contains -- but the thread, in form and to some extent in content, would be well suited for the degree of complex discussion increased nuclear safety is likely to actually take.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense