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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 - 12:01pm Feb 6, 2002 EST (#11301 of 11317)

The report: http://www.csis.org/polmil/dibreport.html

lchic - 12:09pm Feb 6, 2002 EST (#11302 of 11317)

A line in the sand - time for new beginnings.

A line in the sand - time for reassessment.

rshow55 - 12:14pm Feb 6, 2002 EST (#11303 of 11317)

New beginnings ought to be fairly easy. Everything the military claims it wants to do for the nation could be done -- faster than it is being done, by a great deal - - the world and the United States could both be safer.

It would take some honest accounting -- and a willingness to deploy assets where they can be used.

We could win the war on terror -- at all the levels where it has to be won - - if we could be honest, and competent ourselves.

On some technical issues, where stakes are very high, and traditions of deception and hiding very entrenched, umpires would be useful.

rshow55 - 12:43pm Feb 6, 2002 EST (#11304 of 11317)

It seems to me that gisterme asked some questions yesterday that truly deserve some answers - - alas, the answering takes time. I'm trying to think of correct, proper, constructive, just things to say.

It takes some time, and sometimes some self control. It seems to me that if gisterme really cared about the welfare of the United States, she'd be for right answers, that could be checked by umpires, on technical matters we've spent so much time on. It would seem to me that serving officers, and people with national responsibility, ought to want correct answers -- not fantasies -- here.

Perhaps, after all, I've made some key mistakes. Try as they will, people make them. But when the stakes are high, there is an obligation to get right answers.

I'm scratching my head, trying to imagine gisterme as a person of good faith -- but making the effort.

In the past, when I've made mistakes, and known it, I've admitted that. I'll try to do the same in the future. It would be good if others would do the same. We're talking about big stakes matters of life and death here. Our own careers ought to matter only so much -- with the stakes here. Also, in the United States, honorable conduct is sometimes a good career move -- sometimes the only safe approach, when people are watching.

mazza9 - 01:50pm Feb 6, 2002 EST (#11305 of 11317)
Louis Mazza

RShow55:

"Among them, the fact that the "adaptive optics" of ABL can't possibly work -- because it has nothing to adapt to remotely good enough to make it function as a weapon. There is no adaptive feedback loop worthy of the name for the purpose the weapon is supposed to serve."

I posted links to several astronomical sites where adaptive optics is described and displayed in "before" and "after" the adaptive optics techniques are applied.

To say that no adaptive feedback loop exists is to ignore the evidence presented.

Active AO reads the turbulence in the atmosphere using a "guide star" that is projected from the viewing site. The distortion of this known light source is read and the optical distortion is measured and relayed to mirror for the deforming to occur which will cancel our the distortion.

Mind you this is not new. Regenerative feedback has existed in the electromagnetic since the 1930s when global RF transmissions were becoming commonplace. The only difference is the frequency involved. Mind you, the advances in computer digital signal processing that have occurred over the last 30 years have had major impact on theories that were forwarded much earlier. Example: Hedy Lamar was married to a German Industrialist during the early 30s. She divorced and emigrated to the US because of Hitler. In 1939 she, (she was very intelligent), described a radio frequency technology to an engineer and was awarded a patent for "spread spectrum processing".

AO works because of the underlying scientific principles which cannot be denied due to your inablility to understand.

Hedy Lamar

LouMazza

rshow55 - 02:54pm Feb 6, 2002 EST (#11306 of 11317)

mazza9 2/6/02 1:50pm

I don't doubt that adaptive optics works -- in specific cases. A star is a point source reference --- and the adaptive optics can adapt so that the real optics gets a better and better approximate focus on that point source (and the adaptation, these days, can be faster than the changes in air flows.)

But in the ABL case - the adaptive optics has to adapt (and adapt fast enough) to the target .

There is no "ideal reference" to the target analogous to the case of the star.

There is no adaptive feedback path to the target.

None. And the weapons system has to have its optics adapted to the target.

Mazza, your reaction here is good reason why umpires are useful.

mazza9 - 03:04pm Feb 6, 2002 EST (#11307 of 11317)
Louis Mazza

RShow55:

The adaptive optics adapt to the atmosphere not the missile. The reference beam reflects off of the missile and is viewed by the ABL systems. Any distortion is caused by the atmosphere not the target. The "gun" mirror is adjusted for the atmospheric distortion so that the laser reaching the missile will arrive without distortion and at maximum power impact to "kill" the missile.

I think we have a misalignment of our communications path. Maybe some adapting is in order.(?)

LouMazza

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