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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 - 08:48pm Jan 24, 2002 EST (#11031 of 11047)

It would be good politics. And good defense policy.

People who are "attached" to nukes argue strongly for ballistic missile defense - - but no BMD system, so far, shows even a promise of working.

Both the midcourse and the "laser weapon" approaches are very vulnerable to reflective coatings.

Reflective Coatings for Reflective Mirrors: http://www.jmlopt.com/products/coatings/technical_reflective.html shows data for gold (suffixes 306, 308) and dielectric reflective coatings as well (500 series). 98% reflectance is now available, and has been since the 1970's (gold coated mylar, used on many space shots, and for other things.) A dielectric "augmentation" using flexible dielectrics isn't done yet - - but 99.8% % or higher reflectance at COIL laser frequencies doesn't look very hard --- even if it were needed.

gisterme said

" Robert, if you can develop a decal like you imagine for under $100K, then I'd say it's your patriotic duty to do so to save the rest of us tax payers a lot of money on BMD laser system development. . . .

That doesn't look so hard to do. Gold coated mylar, already available, should be enough to, in gisterme's eloquent phrase, "save us taxpayers a lot of money."

And gold leaf, a 5000 year old technology, would work, too.

Take away laser weapons, and the system of "space weapons" doesn't amount to much, (except, of course, for reconnaissance.)

It is in the interest of the United States to act on correct technical assumptions.

Laser weapons won't work, because they are trivially easy to defend against. We ought to make our decisions, and expenditures, accordingly.

rshow55 - 08:57pm Jan 24, 2002 EST (#11032 of 11047)

There are also many other reasons why the laser weapons aren't practical candidates for weapons systems -- discussed on this thread.

A similarly long list applies to the midcourse interception system covered by the Coyle report, which has soaked up most MD funding so far.

Nothing at the system level works, or shows any reasonable promise of doing so, though there is plenty of impressive work, at the individual component level.

MD10764 rshow55 1/14/02 7:36pm We need some islands of technical fact to be determined, beyond question.

We need to base our defense policy on things that are true - - not on assumptions that cannot stand up.

mazza9 - 09:23pm Jan 24, 2002 EST (#11033 of 11047)
Louis Mazza

And who knows better than RShow55 what works and what doesn't. Tell us RShow55, what exactly have you made/accomplished to establish your expertise in this area.

You certainly have demonstrated an ability to succintly answer a Yes/No question in 500 words or more. With the amount of camoflage that you use we should be able to "hide" the US from the rest of the world and negate the impact of ICBMs.

And what do you know about System Management. The Navy developed it to produce the Polaris Submarine System and the Air Force used it to develop and maintain the Minuteman system as well as that jolly old B-52 which is experiencing a renewal with its deployment to the Afghanistan theater.

Gold is malleable and foil easily made. It is also very fragile. Why not coat the missiles with diamonds, (say that was the premise of one of those 50s SciFi Saturday afternoon matinees that I enjoyed).

Give up the foil. Its only good for foil hats which can and do defeat the alien rays that are bathing the earth even as we speak. Ohhhhhh!

LouMazza

lchic - 03:10am Jan 25, 2002 EST (#11034 of 11047)

foil on pottery is 'baked'
'The navy got the gravy and the army got the beans'
Wouldn't the baked-bean army the more able re 'baking' gold leaf .. and save we taxpayers cash.

lchic - 06:09am Jan 25, 2002 EST (#11035 of 11047)

India MD-Testing

Pakistan says the missile test is "prejudicial" to regional stability.

It has warned New Delhi it was ready to defend itself against any aggression.

"We hope the international community will take note of this Indian behaviour which is prejudicial to the pursuit of stability in our region, especially during the current situation," a foreign office statement said.

mazza9 - 01:25pm Jan 25, 2002 EST (#11036 of 11047)
Louis Mazza

Hey gang, lchic the engineer has solved the foil issue. we're goin' to make the ICBMs out of pottery and then bake the foil on.

Years ago, during the Apollo program, NASA funded a "coating technique" which was reported in Scientific American. The technique was called metaliding. A technique, similar to putting a zinc coating on steel, was developed. Copper could be bonded to aluminum which would provide a rust proof barrier on the Saturn V rocket. The savings in weight was such that the payload capacity of the rocket was increased by about 2000lbs. How? By eliminating the paint on the rocket which allowed the rocket to withstand the weather while sitting on the pad for a month before launch. Metaliding was a weather proofing technique and would certainly not be the same as "laser proofing" a missile.

LouMazza

lchic - 02:14pm Jan 25, 2002 EST (#11037 of 11047)

Got YOU thinking mAzzA!

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