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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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rshow55 - 12:19pm Feb 24, 2003 EST (# 9263 of 9264)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Gisterme , you're being astonishingly dishonest. I hope and exect a lot of people are looking.

In addition to 9205 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.0bmfavXZ4JM.2264544@.f28e622/10731 - which is correct as stated - especially for the leading edge (and yes I know the definition of adiabatic - a notion that applies to stagnation conditions - and is close to conditions at tha leading edge of the shuttle)

I posted 9241 (held up for a while after I posted 9205) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.0bmfavXZ4JM.2264544@.f28e622/10767

It is right, and worth rereading, I think.

A point I'd add is about the instability of systems of hypersonic shocks. Mechanical signals move at Mach 1. That means that the processes that "sort out" flow are unstable in hypersonic flows - if you have a turbulent mess - driven by high mach number shocks - enormous amounts of heat transfer and enormous pressure and temperature fluctuations are likely near jagged surfaces at or very near the leading edge - where stagnation or near stagnation conditions apply. It shouldn't be hard to see that.

In the layer where the elastomer "glue" connects the tiles to the aluminum - there are likely to be very energetic vortex structures (I used to work with these) - so that, once the glue layer is exposed to a Mach 10 plus shock - many tiles are likely to be stripped away quickly.

The catastrophe that occurred in Challenger had something like that happen.

It is stunning that the people at NASA were so screwed up, or repressed, that they didn't see that.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense