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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.

kalter.rauch - 05:05am Jun 6, 2000 EST (#25 of 11858)
Earth vs <^> <^> <^>

swimmah 6/5/00 9:12pm

You sound as though you didn't forget history......

......you never knew it in the first place......

wangzho1 - 09:46am Jun 6, 2000 EST (#26 of 11858)
wang zhong(ŸŠ’†)

Kalter: What is your bargain offer you are gluing to made for U.S.A?

greenpagan - 10:03am Jun 6, 2000 EST (#27 of 11858)

A Man is nothing more than a Monkey in a hurry.

Monkeys and Missiles don't mix.

edjohengen - 03:42pm Jun 6, 2000 EST (#28 of 11858)

The way some people talk about missile defense you would think it was designed to blow up Russian and Chinese cities instead of keeping American cities from being blown up by other nations. The threat is in the missiles that exist now and will be built in the future. Missile defense is not a threat to the Russians and Chinese, it is a threat to their ability to destroy us!!!

greenpagan - 04:08pm Jun 6, 2000 EST (#29 of 11858)

This is a question I have asked many persons throughout the years--ever since Teller convinced Reagan of the efficacy of SDI:

What happens after incoming missiles are destroyed in the upper atmosphere or outside Earth's atmosphere? What are the consequences regarding potential harms to civilian populations?

Teller himself thought whether SDI could work or not was immaterial--as long as Reagan believed it could work. He has never given a satisfactory reply to the question I have posed above--nor has anyone else.

johnberndt - 04:45pm Jun 6, 2000 EST (#30 of 11858)

Radioactive elements spread out with explosion, it falls off at more then the square of the distance like any radiation. Damage to human body drops even faster. If you explode an atom bomb at 2 miles and the radius of explosion is 1/2 mile, the radiation will drop at least 16 times. Likely more due to wind.

greenpagan - 06:07pm Jun 6, 2000 EST (#31 of 11858)

johnberndt 6/6/00 4:45pm

So what exactly are you saying? What would the effects be to the human populations on Earth? Food and water supplies? Etc. What about the Nuclear Winter scenario? Does SDI obviate this, in your opinion?

taleehohhhh - 06:10pm Jun 6, 2000 EST (#32 of 11858)
rain

If a missile were shot down in space, likely no nuclear explosion would occur. If it did, there wouldn't be much material wshed up into the atmosphere, as in a ground explosion (witness the plumes), which scatter light back up and away from the ground. Nuclear Winter is not a likely outcome of missiles shot down at the edge of the Earth.

sonofnils - 08:42pm Jun 6, 2000 EST (#33 of 11858)
Cogito Ergo Addendum

I've heard that emp effects can result from a detonation several hundred kilometers overhead. In the U.S. emp can do a lot of damage.

Arms reduction is stabilizing. Missile defense is not.

taleehohhhh - 08:46pm Jun 6, 2000 EST (#34 of 11858)
rain

Sono, it depends upon where the explosion occurs, I think, and the frequencey of the emitted radiation. Very high frequency radiation can penetrate a plasma, but might get absorbed in the intervening atmosphereic layers. some will reach ground level. That's not nuclear winter, however. Still, it is something to consider.

A warhead acquired and destroyed will likely not detonate.

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