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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?

gisterme - 06:13pm Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6716 of 6732)

smartalix wrote: "...I dismiss the "one or two" missile red herring. No "rogue" nation would launch at us anyway, so I am basing my arguments upon a launch by a nation with a realistic nuclear capability..."

There's a point where we really disagree, smartalix. Suppose Saddam decides to "purchase" (meaning a half-billion dollar bribe) a Russian or Chinese mobile ICBM like an SS-27. That missile could easily be launched from Saudi or Iranian desert territory without either government having any knowledge. So if the missile were launched from the Saudi desert, do you suppose that the US would obliterate Saudi Arabia? I hope not. Would we just assume the attack was from Saddam and obliterate Iraq? I hope not, because the Iranians or even Lybians could have done the same thing. The same missile could probably be launched from the deck of a large ship at sea just as easily, using civilian GPS data as a navigation tool. The ship would be scuttled and the crew would most likely be sacreficed, or perhaps escape by other means. At any rate, who would you nuke in that case? It might take months or even years to find out for sure who was behind the launch. Sure, we'd find the ship and identify it eventually but that would take time. Even if you find that Saddam was behind the destruction of Detroit, do you obliterate the entire nation of Iraq because of one madman?

If a defense against a terrorist act like that cost $100 billion over 10 years and there are 200 million Americans, that's $50 apiece per year. Less than $5 per month. That's less than one hour's labor per month at MINIMUM WAGE. Less than a pack of cigarettes. I'd gladly pay that to get even a 50-50 chance of saving Detroit, Chicago or even Washington DC, wouldn't you? How about London or Paris? US European allies would probably get some level of protection at US taxpayer expense. Do I care about that? Not at all. I probably spend more than that on lottery tickets...and if such a defense saved one or two cities being nuked, especially foreign cities...perhaps we'd find some bit of atonment in our own soul for the Hirosima and Nagasaki bombings. And I'm also certain that if the money IS spent for a BMD we'll get a much better than 50% probability of success for overall system performance.

rshowalter - 06:27pm Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6717 of 6732)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There are very good reasons we want to be as safe as we reasonably can be from nuclear attack.

A big part of that is peacemaking. But not all.

I find I've go to get something done - - for the next hour anyway.

gisterme - 06:38pm Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6718 of 6732)

rshowalter wrote( rshowalter 7/6/01 4:35pm ): Well, for a lasar weapon, the reasons you can't necessarily hit what you can see are basically independent of brightness (how big N is) if the signal is bright enough.

What we were talking about, Robert was locating and tracking the target. According to dirac, a lower power wider beam laser would be used to illuminate the actual rocket body so that the high power narrow beam laser can hit it.

And for burning a hole in something with a lasar, the target you hit has to have a small area, so that the lasar energy can be concentrated enough to do some damage. (So your target is an upper practical value of M , and that value stays small)

According to the sites previously posted,

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/occppr02.htm

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm

The amount of energy that needs to be delivered to a point on the surface of an ICBM is about 1kW/square cm. With a 10MW source that can be done with a parallel beam at 500km using optics of quality similar to the HST. That configuration can deliver that energy level over an area of about 1 square meter. A focused beam should be able to deliver the same energy over a smaller area at a longer distance. Also recall, from the same links, that the strategy isn't to "burn through" the ICBM shell from the outside...it's just to soften it enough so that the tremendous internal pressures containted within the rocket tube will blow out.

lunarchick - 07:36pm Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6719 of 6732)
lunarchick@www.com

\____/ ?'s Pin-ups

rshowalter - 07:43pm Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6720 of 6732)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Back later (may have to be tomorrow).

Do want to repeat the question, gisterme.

Can the government now blow something up with a lasar, at short range , in ways that can impress a Congressman? Or an ordinary voter - somebody, say, who has the technical background an auto worker would have?

How big is the rig? How many shots per unit time?

If such tests haven't been done many times by now, I've got to ask why.

lunarchick - 07:48pm Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6721 of 6732)
lunarchick@www.com

;) >^<

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