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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.

manjumicha - 08:05pm Sep 29, 2002 EST (# 4653 of 4676)

Hello, rshow

It is good to see you still active on this site....I have been away on some private business matters for a few months.

I recently came across this article, reprinted in relevant part, dealing with NK's unique missile threat. Please let us have your thoughts as a trained physicist, hopefully straight forward and in simple terms (i.e plain english)....thanks.

QUote:

____the Pentagon last week authorized the clearing of 135 acres (55 hectares) in Alaska to prepare an anti-missile base. And officials are planning interceptor flight tests meant to track and destroy mock tumbling warheads, but only years from now. . Interceptors that would be installed in Alaska would represent the first weapon against long-range missiles that the United States has fielded in a quarter-century. In theory, interceptors from Alaska could thunder out of their silos to repel a missile attack from North Korea by as early as 2004. . But military experts concede that a North Korean strike would most likely involve tumbling objects. Federal and private experts say a tumbling warhead poses an especially challenging target. Anti-missile sensors, rather than seeing steady dots in the distance, would see twinkling points of light, like stars. The tumbling objects could include not only warheads and rocket debris, but also unarmed decoys meant to confuse an anti-missile system. . Tumbling hampers a defender's ability to identify subtle differences between warheads and decoys, and that increases the odds than an interceptor will zero in on the decoy. . To date, the Pentagon has conducted four tests of its prototype anti-missile interceptor, and succeeded twice. But in none of the cases has it faced tumbling warheads, experts say. Military leaders say that step is too daunting. . . "Our test philosophy is to add step-by-step complexities over time," said Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish of the Air Force, the anti-missile program's director, in an appearance before a House Armed Services subcommittee. "It is a walk-before-you-run, learn-as-you-go development approach." . He cautioned that rushing to add complexity to anti-missile testing could backfire, making it hard to understand what failed and why. . "Our test evaluators," General Kadish said, "cannot learn by overloading system components with multiple test requirements and testing them too early under highly stressing conditions." . Critics say the anti-missile program is ignoring an intractable problem. "Tumbling is a terribly big deal," said Theodore Postol, an arms expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is critical of some anti-missile systems. "It's totally unpredictable, a wild card. It makes it much harder to know what to look for." . The problem is so difficult, some critics say, that it threatens to defeat any foreseeable anti-missile weapon.

Experts agree that its hardest job is sorting out the real enemy targets from the fakes, a task it tries to do in a few dozen seconds with a telescopic sensor and a computer.

Nearly a decade ago, when work on the current ground-based interceptor began, its proposed agenda was dominated by the problem of tumbling warheads..................The "highest priority" threat refers to attacks with tumbling warheads. As examples, Mr. Cavender listed hypothetical attacks by North Korea, firing at Los Angeles. . Starting in 1999, when the prototype interceptor began zooming into space on flight tests, none of the targets slated for destruction included tumbling warheads. Critics say the Pentagon found the problem too formidable and ignored it. But in an interview, Mr. Cavender, now retired, said the effort to address the problem had been dropped because there was not enough money for realistic testing. Each flight costs about $100 million. "Just trying to execute a single test was hard," Mr. Cavender said. "It's a matter of priorities. First you have

manjumicha - 08:07pm Sep 29, 2002 EST (# 4654 of 4676)

First you have to prove you can handle a favorable engagement. Then you start doing the other ones."

End of Quote

So what do you think? Can physics overcome this challenge?

lchic - 08:13pm Sep 29, 2002 EST (# 4655 of 4676)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Showdown - has a cowboy 'ring' to it ... as do bullets http://www.smrn.com/tommy/tombstone.htm

manjumicha - 08:27pm Sep 29, 2002 EST (# 4656 of 4676)

chic, I think you prove to be too much of an attractive target for armchair warriers and wannabe veterans...their collective obsession with you is becoming border line creepy. You aren't secretly enjoying their obsession with you, hope not.

lchic - 09:01pm Sep 29, 2002 EST (# 4657 of 4676)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

"" chic,
I think
you prove ..."

Proof is of the higher order!

(19 following messages)

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