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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?

rshow55 - 05:57pm Jan 9, 2002 EST (#10716 of 10724)

A little while ago, gisterme said, rightly, that arguments on this thread aren't "complete." That is, complete enough to stand up in a court of law, as presented. It seems to me that many of the key arguments about missile defense are not getting through to enough people because these arguments aren't being well enough explained - ideally with words, pictures, and ways of illustrating proportion together.

We need some "islands of technical fact" to be determined, beyond reasonable doubt, or in a clear context.

We need those "islands" to be clear, at a level beyond politics - - at a level where people with very different interests and feelings can refer to "the same page" - and a page including points that can be both widely understood, and widely trusted.

When missile defense proposals are set out in words and pictures only, they can "make sense" to people who look at them. But very often, when NUMBERS are applied to what is being proposed -- these projects are shown to be wildly impractical. Or to require one miracle after another, compared to what the open literature could do.

I believe that it makes sense to annotate, expand and explain the key points in The Coyle Report , which shows how weak our missile defense program is, but which which is practically unreadable to most people.

It would be good to illustrate some of the technical arguments connected to lasar weapons in the same way. The lasar weapons can't work. I've shown that in arguments that need to be checked, discussed, and illustrated. Some other missile defense proposals are very far-fetched, too - -and when the proposals are unworkable for clear reasons, it would be good to show those reasons.

I'd like to cite something I believe would be in the interest of both this nation and the world, using a NYT article as a partial exemplar, in

MD8211rshowalter 8/28/01 4:35pm ... MD8212 rshowalter 8/28/01 5:07pm
MD8213 rshowalter 8/28/01 5:15pm ... MD8214 rshowalter 8/28/01 5:23pm
MD815 rshowalter 8/28/01 5:42pm

I believe that now is a time where progress can be made, for peace, by solidly establishing "islands of technical fact" about missile defense and the weaponization of space.

Right answers, on this subject matter, are worth getting.

rshow55 - 06:52pm Jan 9, 2002 EST (#10717 of 10724)

In rshowalt 1/9/02 8:00am I asked:

" Aren't lasar weapons completely defeated by easily appled reflective coatings?

Mazza has pointed out a limitation on "completely" -- boost phase destruction of sufficiently dirty missiles fired in a dirty way from silos might be possible, because the dirt would defeat the reflectivity of the coatings. The reflective coatings would, at the least, make a very tough job very much tougher.

I believe that the remaining lasar weapon applications are ruled out. Perhaps I've missed something.

Reflective coatings make problems of detection on which MD success depends for warhead interception much more difficult -- perhaps impossibly more difficult (for a situation already extremely difficult.)

mazza9 - 11:24pm Jan 9, 2002 EST (#10718 of 10724)
Louis Mazza

The light propulsion system that I linked you to demonstrates what happens when a laser hits a spacecraft designed to utilize laser energy to form a plasma. Should a laser hit a missile with a "bit" of dirt on it's surface, that dirt would be heated to a plasma intensity and might be the actual kill mechanism or punch a hole for the laser to deliver it's energy to the propellant.

I still believe that there is also a mechanical impact, indeed the Boeing Theater Defense laser that is to be deployed uses an iodine laser which would produce an untraviolet pulse of energy not visible to the unaided eye. The adaptive optics for delivering the laser without "blooming" have already been developed and indeed there are MEMs mirrors to improve this methodology.

LASER PUSH!

Please browse as ther are several BMD articles.

LouMazza

lchic - 04:40am Jan 10, 2002 EST (#10719 of 10724)

Rocket's incapable of shedding outer launch corset to reveal their decal?

lchic - 05:29am Jan 10, 2002 EST (#10720 of 10724)

An interesting article here, implying co-operation arises via a society perceiving injustice and becoming angry. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991766 The question to ask is when should leaders determine a correct path that doesn't disadvantage minority citizens. Anger can arise in dominat groups related to their perception of a non-dominant group having perceived (not real) advantage .. as per red-neck driven policy making.

rshow55 - 10:16am Jan 10, 2002 EST (#10721 of 10724)

So, Mazza, we're agreed that lasar weapons based on destroying a target by heating are completely defeated by a clean reflective decal?

Are we agreed that energy is conserved, and geometrical optics works?

So now, the destructive effectiveness of lasar weapons is based on a new theory - a theory of "light impact?" One you can't find references for.

That theory, of course, is subject to arithmetic - to numbers.

Do you have any numbers indicating that a lasar can "implode" a target?

Your last posting was evasive, to say the least, on that point and some other questions I asked you.

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