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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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kalter.rauch - 04:09am Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5906 of 5911)
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rshow55 11/13/02 6:24am

kalter.rauch 11/13/02 4:42am - - - I stand by my estimates - I think you're doing a lot of fast talking - and the physics I said was easy is easy.

So is the manufacturing.

With nukes, even when the structures are easy and the math is easy - there's a component in the drawings that has to be made of "unobtainium" . - An unavailable metal.

For EMP weapons, there are no such restrictions. Fig 2 in The E-Bomb - a Weapon of Electrical Mass Destruction by Carlo Kopp http://www.infowar.com/mil_c4i/mil_c4i8.html-ssi works on simple compression of a magnetic field by simple, predictable distortions of a cylindrical conductor by a simple explosive package.

Rshow...unless you simply don't care about salvaging what's left of your "reputation", you will here and now admit that you don't have the slightest clue about what you're talking about. I'm serious!!!

You prattle on about $20 EMP grenades and "standing by your estimates" when, IN FACT, your "estimates" aren't based on anything but wishful thinking...much less physics.

I originally brought up the subject of EM weapons in terms of an alternative to laser based missile defense. You chose to ignore my sources, "estimating" that I was a "dishonest idiot". Then you retrenched when one of your disciples cited a source of his own which, although saying basically the same thing vis the science, conformed to your political bias. Suddenly, it "made sense" to you although only insofar as it posed yet another "danger" to be shunned.

It's my fault that I haven't been attentive on a daily basis to the evolving arguements vis the issue....otherwise I don't think you'd have gone as far as you have in weaving these webs of illusion.

Setting aside my initial intentions for the moment, let me dismiss your favorite mantra of "Simple".......

Your description above of an activated FCG makes it sound as "simple" as flushing a toilet. It must look that way to you in those simplified diagrams. In fact, the question of whether FCGs can reliably AND consistently function is itself controversial (publically anyway) given the scathing rebuttals heaped on me by military people when I've mentioned the subject. There HAVE been press reports of the electrical subsystems of US adversaries being "taken out" by means of graphite-based conductors dropped onto high tension cables...or so the DoD says. I think it's far more likely that FCGs, Vircators, etc. DO exist and ARE highly effective.

In any case, you either conveniently or by ignorance left out of your "estimates" the POWER SOURCE for the FCGs magnetic field. This, in itself, eliminates your putative $20 EMP grenades or any other inexpensive devices fielded by irregular forces. Think about it, Rshow......to effectively power a coil operating in the RF band such that the collapse of its magnetic field would deliver a significant EM pulse to, say, an area of several hundred sq. meters requires, shall we say generally, an extremely high rate discharge current source. Ruminate on that, if you please......Furthermore, such a current source must be able to deliver its TOTAL potential energy in the precise moment just before your "simple compression of a magnetic field by simple, predictable distortions of a cylindrical conductor by a simple explosive package" occurs......

?!?!?

I submit to you that this "package" is no "simple" proposition at all......certainly not in the form you envision...eg. an EMP "monkeywrench" tossed into the works by a fanatic. I submit to you that explosives are NOT so predictable, and that therefore the broad, low-Q bandwidth of the pulse can only be sharpened by encasing the ENTIRE device...power source AND emitter...in a munition equivalent to a 2,000 lb. air-dropped bomb.

lunarchick - 05:36am Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5907 of 5911)

Benchmarking

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lunarchick - 05:36am Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5908 of 5911)

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