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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 06:02pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3058 of 3070)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

98 postings yesterday.

108 postings today.

People are interested. Maybe we'll get to some checked right answers -- if people care enough.

They should.

rshowalter - 06:09pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3059 of 3070)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

And sometimes, after a technology is already rather mature -- big advances become -- far fetched.

How big an airplane does it take to house a chemical lasar that might shoot an airplane down at 10 miles? How many shots/sec (or per hour) does that lasar have?

Now, how much better would specs have to be, to knock out missiles.

Sometimes, the place where technical work is, after resources are spent, tells a lot about how optimistic you can be.

---- Trends exist:

For instance, I'm an old man in my 50's, and out of shape. So I'm trying to get back into a little bit better shape, because I used to like to be. To do it, partly to strengthen my bones, one of the things I'm doing is cheater 1/4 squats with 435 lbs on my back -- for an old 180 pounder, 435 is heavy enough for me. Sets of 10.

I won't EVER lift 4000 lbs in the same lifts. It is just not on.

Star wars requires order of magnitude advances in a number of areas . . . .

gisterme - 06:25pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3060 of 3070)

rshowalter wrote: "...And missile defense, to be any good, has to handle the hardest interceptions, under the noisiest conditions, that an adversary can arrange.

As the brits would say"

" It is just not on." ...

The BRITS! Oh my, now I'm impressed. If that's what the Brits would say then BMD must be impossible after all. :-) But wait! Your assertion about what the Brits WOULD say has as much evidence presented as the pseudo-technical arguements you've presented so far about why the BMD can't work. None whatsoever. I mean, it's easy to say "the radar doesn't have ANYWHERE NEAR the resolution to do this or that" or "fancy optics have been around for a long time" but you really don't have a clue about the true performance of the existing technology any more than I do. If you did, you wouldn't be able to make those statements.

By the way, good luck on getting a web video feed right into some US DOD research lab (so you can check their work). I'd suggest you go directly to the FBI and see if they can help you set it up... :-)

possumdag - 06:26pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3061 of 3070)
Possumdag@excite.com

So when a President boasts he can lift 4000lbs with his little finger - be skeptical - right !?!

possumdag - 06:28pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3062 of 3070)
Possumdag@excite.com

If it could already be done, it would be done, but it isn't done, some say won't be done.

possumdag - 06:30pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3063 of 3070)
Possumdag@excite.com

Chairman Moa's 'little red book' has been outsold by 'Henry Potter' ... a book written in such a way as the reader 'fills in with their own imagination' to create their own story. So, although readers are reading from the same page, they are actually creating different stories from it ... a bit like this board!

possumdag - 06:35pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3064 of 3070)
Possumdag@excite.com

Brits talking MD here:

possumdag - 06:42pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3065 of 3070)
Possumdag@excite.com

http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm#3 --

possumdag - 06:51pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3066 of 3070)
Possumdag@excite.com

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010502/3282390s.htm
http://www.latimes.com/print/20010502/t000036977.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views/051100-101.htm

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