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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.

rshow55 - 02:36pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#10989 of 11008)

With the intelligence resources, we wouldn't need any ABL .

We have PLENTY of other resources to take out the missile. It would be stupid to wait till it was fired.

And putting a "Scud" on a seagoing barge, and hitting Chicago (or anyplace) isn't an easy thing to do. For that kind of effort, they could deliver 100 - 1000 weapons of mass destruction in other ways.

And countermeasures to ABL are easy.

We need defenses, including active means, and deterrance. But effective means can't include hardware that can't realistically work (like ABL for any adversary competent enough to actually field a missile) - - and can't reasonably include nukes, either. We can deter any realistic challenge, just fine, without nukes -- and there is every reason to reduce the number of them -- to 10s or 100s at the most -- and preferably to 0 -- quickly.

mazza9 - 03:28pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#10990 of 11008)
Louis Mazza

RShow55:

Why would putting a Scud on a sea-going barge be difficult. The road mobile Scuds can be launched within 20 minutes of stopping, updating the guidance system and erecting the missile. Place it on the deck of a ship and it's ready to go.

LouMazza

rshow55 - 03:42pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#10991 of 11008)

So we've got a hard time if Russia REALLY wants to get at us . . . we can't stop them.

And if another nation is advanced enough to make a "scud-like missile" of that quality, they can EASILY come up with countermeasures to defeat any MD that's been described in the literature.

Of course that's a concern. But ways to deal with that concern have to work.

Prohibiting nuclear weapons wouldn't be easy - - it would take a lot of work, and resources. But it could be made to work effectively.

The ABL, and the midcourse interception program, can't. Nor is anything else going to be easy.

rshow55 - 05:15pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#10992 of 11008)

For some purposes

"gilding the lily"

might be, not "wretched excess" -- but very effective.

Reflectance of gold leaf in the light frequency range (for COIL or any tuned laser) would be upwards of 98%. (This is standard stuff -- you can look it up.)

So black body radiation (for detection) cut by more than a factor of 50 compared to the black case. Absorbtion of light also cut by a factor of fifty.

Gold leaf has been used routinely for thousands of years.

Silver's reflectance isn't so high as gold's, or so flat as a function of frequency, but 95% relection isn't hard to come by.

Anybody doubt that these materials can be used in decal balloons, or on missile bodies, or on warheads?

Anybody doubt that these materials can be applied by decalling, and other means?

With multiple layer reflectors -- much higher reflection (much lower absorbtion) would be possible.

But gold leaf already is a very effective countermeasure against ABL - - or any space based laser.

Why wasn't that anticipated?

rshow55 - 05:21pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#10993 of 11008)

For less than a millionth of the total development cost of ABL , I'm confident that absorbtion can be cut by a decade more -- maybe two decades -- reflectivities, in economical decals, upwards of 99.8% --- and maybe upwards of 99.98%.

Powerful stuff, for making detection hard, and destruction with a laser weapon impossible.

Even if I happen to be wrong --- does anybody actually believe that the ABL and other COIL based "weapons" can work against gold leaf -- a "countermeasure" well known, if I remember correctly, to the ancient Egyptians?

rshow55 - 05:27pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#10994 of 11008)

NASA has a lot of very nice photographs from space -- many showing a lot of use of gold covered plastic (mylar, I believe). I bet the technical reasons for the stuff, and its properties, were very well understood.

Why wasn't ABL rejected out of hand, after the first design sketches and calculations?

(Looking at resolution problems would have given reason to reject it, too.)

The midcourse interception system that is the subject of the Coyle Report is no better.

rshow55 - 05:30pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#10995 of 11008)

I remember a book review, years ago, with this first sentence:

" The sad truth about this sorry book is that it should never have been written. "

That book was based on a false premise -- and there was a lot of work that went into it -- but it was a mistake.

So are the MD technologies that this administration puts so much faith in, and sacrifices so much money, time, effort, and honor for.

mazza9 - 05:41pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#10996 of 11008)
Louis Mazza

The Skylab had that mylar sheathing as a sun shield. Remember what happened to it?

Iraq has mobile Scud Launchers now,. (since Clinton was able to have the UN inspectors kicked out of Iraq.) Putting them on a barge is no big deal.

You can't just cast off the ABL in such an offhanded manner. You have no basis for this statement.............

Get off the ballons and reflectors. They don't exist. You might as well base our defense on the man in the blue tights with a big S on his chest!

LouMazza

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