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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.

rshowalter - 12:43pm Jul 9, 2001 EST (#6800 of 11911)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

MD6553 rshowalter 7/4/01 3:28pm reads in part:

" With the ingenuity the Bush administration is now devoting to making its case for missile defense (and you have to credit them with ingenuity and initiative on this) they could probably figure out how to achieve real peace, solve the global warming problem, and assure the whole world an adequate and safe energy supply, forever.

(I'd also add, we could get near thermodynamic limit water desalinization -- where a barrel of oil would trade for something like 7,000 barrels of pure water. (For 100% thermodynamic efficiency - it would be 25,900 volumes of water for the energy in a unit volume of oil.)

" The administration would get a lot more credit for that than they're getting for what they're now doing.

MD6554 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?14@63.5w8kaIsxFd2^6738073@.f0ce57b/7061... MD6555 rshowalter 7/4/01 4:19pm ... MD6556 rshowalter 7/4/01 4:19pm ...

And an entertaining posting, with a quick reply:
MD 6557 lunarchick 7/4/01 8:04pm ... MD6558 almarst-2001 7/4/01 8:15pm

rshowalter - 12:50pm Jul 9, 2001 EST (#6801 of 11911)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

ICE Case Studies ... JORDAN RIVER DISPUTE http://www.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED/ice/westbank.htm

" Another option for increasing the supply may be desalinization. There has been much hope surrounding this option, since there is an abundance of salt water, this process may be able to greatly increase water in arid regions. Currently though, desalinization has many obstacles in its path. First of all, Israel seems to have the best technology, but the process is too costly. The amount of water that desalinization converts to freshwater is too little to warrant the costs. Possibly, if countries such as the U.S. or Europe, with advanced technical capabilities, were to work on desalinization plants, the price and efficiency might decrease; but for now the price is too high."

Water's needed all over the world -- it is a decisive problem in the American West. In the Middle East, it is one of the core sources of conflict, and human need.

There are better things to do with the military industrial complex than waste their expensive time working on junk that cannot possibly work -- and can only mislead us.

These people could be productive.

rshowalter - 01:07pm Jul 9, 2001 EST (#6802 of 11911)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

Notwithstanding gisterme's interesting posts of
MD6792 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?7@63.5w8kaIsxFd2^6738073@.f0ce57b/7366 ... MD6794 gisterme 7/9/01 12:57pm
MD6795 gisterme 7/9/01 1:09pm

I feel comfortable referring again to my points and questions in the following, without modification.
MD6788 rshowalter 7/9/01 10:33am ... MD6789 rshowalter 7/9/01 10:34am
MD6790 rshowalter 7/9/01 10:35am ... MD6791 rshowalter 7/9/01 10:35am

gisterme - 01:31pm Jul 9, 2001 EST (#6803 of 11911)

rshowalter wrote ( rshowalter 7/6/01 7:43pm ): Do want to repeat the question, gisterme.

Can the government now blow something up with a lasar, at short range , in ways that can impress a Congressman? Or an ordinary voter - somebody, say, who has the technical background an auto worker would have?

http://www.trw.com/news/kits/kits_thel.asp

I'm admittedly no congressman, Robert, but I am a voter with a technical background that's probably better than the average auto worker, and this does impress me. How many miracles do you think it takes to blow up a rocket like that through atmosphere?

WRT to tracking, on the "multiple shootdown video" note how accurately the laser "hot spot" is tracked at the very leading edge of the rocket's nose cone. That rocket is undoubtedly moving at supersonic velocity and judging from the photo of the guy loading the katyusha rocket onto the launcher the rocket is about 3 meters long and perhaps 0.2m in diameter. That's a pretty impressive small-scale demonstration if you ask me.

But you already know that, Robert. This link was first posted by dirac some time back. You've already seen those pictures of what a laser can do to a rocket in flight at short range. You've already said you know what lasers can do in metal cutting and welding environments. Why do you keep asking the same question?

rshowalter - 01:34pm Jul 9, 2001 EST (#6804 of 11911)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

Because the details matter so much (emissivity of paints, for instance) and because, after all the deception I've come to suspect -- I'm not so easily convinced by videos as I used to be.

How about the question about reflective coatings?

If you want me to admit that all the mistakes made have been honest mistakes -- maybe you can convince me of that. Right now, I doubt it.

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