New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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?

almarst-2001 - 09:23am Jul 5, 2001 EST (#6624 of 6627)

Stench warfare and stink bombs-U.S. secret weapon? - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010704/80/bxdin.html

"LONDON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is developing a stink bomb to drive away enemy troops or hostile crowds, the magazine New Scientist has said."

Drive avay "enemy trrops" from American soil I assume;) That is "reasonable"!

I only wonder where the "hostile crowds" will come from in a "democratic society", so dangerous, the Pentagon is involved rather then Police? Unless of cause its just a small "present" from the "defence" industry for the 4th of July celebration;)

lunarchick - 09:46am Jul 5, 2001 EST (#6625 of 6627)
lunarchick@www.com

Or the 'Anti-Globalisation' protesters who box politicians into buildings .... and prevent them for getting to their evening banquets.

These 'bombs' are often 'returned to sender' .. to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Seems like the sort of concoction that will cause people to 'sue' the hell out of governments.

2008: China: Beijing: The Games

Seems that the water table in Beijing falls 2 meters per year. At the end of the decade Beijing will be out of water. Logic says ... they won't cope with the 2008Games!

smartalix - 10:26am Jul 5, 2001 EST (#6626 of 6627)
Anyone who denies you information considers themselves your master

There is currently an SBIR request out for acoustic-weapon tech research, as well. non-poisonous gas, low-level microwaves, high-intensity sound, and non-lethal projectiles are all going to become more important militarily, as objectives become more to do with non-lethal area control than just killing those blocking your goal.

The big problem there is that all of these technologies will be used more and more on us, as well, posse comitatus be damned.

rshowalter - 10:31am Jul 5, 2001 EST (#6627 of 6627)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Did you see Stem Cell Hard Sell by WILLIAM SAFIRE http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/05/opinion/05SAFI.html ...?

Good stuff!

Safire and I don't agree about everything -- but we agree on what's in that essay.

I'll comment on it later -- just because Safire's a conservative I respect--- but this morning, I've also got to prepare for a meeting with an old friend of mine.

The guy who, just for fun, bounced a radar beam off the moon from a homemade rig of his. Same guy teaches welding sometimes, (real, hands on stuff) , including lasar welding --- and does control stuff -- and teaches a senior undergraduate design course that the students can really use , and advises the government on radio telescope design and experiments. The guy's a really distinguished engineer, and paid well for it.

I want to be sure that, if gisterme and others find that they do have some lingering doubt that some of the stuff they've been proposing might work ..

I don't see how there could be any such doubt now, after the things that have been shown, and the misunderstandings at the Rumelseld-Rice-Wolfovitz, Hadley, Armitrage level have been so clearly and embarrassingly revealed . . .

( What a revealing "counterexample" that moon reflector case was! )

But sometime recognition comes slowly. gisterme and her associates may have some lingering doubt that some of that missile defense stuff they've been palming off on the country and the world might have a chance of working.

I'll want to be prepared to correct them about that.

It is plainly my duty, as a loyal citizen, to do so. And their duty to be for the right answer, in a case with this much at stake, even if happens not to be "their answer."

You don't need fancy new idea to explain why the controls they're proposing are hopeless.

If Isaac Newton came to life, without knowing anything that's happened since his death -- he'd have an easy time understanding how impossible all these wild "space based" and "multi-level plans" are.

Newton knew a polynomial series when he saw one -- and he'd KNOW how hopeless the control problems are -- largely because of the way the cosine series (based on the theorem of pythagorus, as all trig series are) acts for VERY small angles.

You need a painful number of decimal places, to resolve small angles with distancing schemes -- because the first variable term in the cosine series is theta SQUARED. So for 10e-7 radian resolution, you need better than 14 decimal place accuracy on the distance (time) signal. And the fact is, for real controls, you'd need closer to 10e-8 radian resolution. That isn't going to happen.

Even if lasar dispersion was 0 -- which it isn't.

Even if there was enough energy in the lasar pulse to stop a reasonably designed warhead -- which there isn't.

Even if there were ways to solve a longish list of other control and actuator problems.

Back in a while. Check out Safire's great piece!

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense