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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?

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rshow55 - 07:57pm Sep 4, 2003 EST (# 13513 of 13522)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

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Gisterme either has more rank than Secretary Powell - who also speaks carefully - or the United States government has a "loose cannon."

Can that be a mystery to the US government?

I once saw my Windows display switched from the right hand side to the left hand side - and quickly - after I made a comment that might have displeased the far right wing of the Bush administration.

When I played a recording of a speech by Bill Casey before posting it - I got to listen to an overlay of some very threatening music (A night on Bald Mountain, as I recall) overlaying the sound track. 10076-79 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.6AtrbedLD9P.7312897@.f28e622/11623

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In very many of the most unstable situations, things do not look good, things do not make sense, and there is nothing like good will on all sides. When that's true - it is important to avoid sign errors - where people get messages exactly backwards, either intentionally or unintentionally.

We're in a situation where some very good solutions are reasonably close at hand if people are honest - and check when it matters enough.

And in a situation where "the same old nightmares" will recur - with more agony than anyone can look at straight - if we don't.

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International law is being renegotiated - - - and facts matter.

mazza9 - 08:01pm Sep 4, 2003 EST (# 13514 of 13522)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

ABL: Since 1996, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Air Force have concentrated on developing and testing various system components--the megawatt-class laser, optics, battle management suite, the modified Boeing 747-400F--but during the course of the next year all those elements will have to be integrated to confront one major remaining challenge: shooting down a boosting ballistic missile over the Pacific.

What lies ahead in the coming months is expected to be a difficult engineering endeavor. Program managers recognize that they still have to overcome high hurdles, and indicate the shootdown attempt is likely going to occur in 2005, not late 2004. "It gets more and more challenging to hold to the 2004 date," notes ABL program director USAF Col. Ellen M. Pawlikowski.

The shootdown attempt should go a long way toward addressing the main questions hanging over ABL: can adequate laser energy be generated to overcome atmospheric absorption, can the energy be focused on a small enough point to damage a missile, and will the software-intensive battle management system work? Even a successful test won't convince all critics, since the first test will be at relatively close range, intentionally designed to demonstrate system functionality rather than determine if the ABL can accomplish its mission in a stressful setting.

There's more but I don't to stress the Robt's and Alarmists. Let's remember that the Flat Earth Society is still proseltyzing their position. anyone fall off the edge recently Robert?

almarst2003 - 08:14pm Sep 4, 2003 EST (# 13515 of 13522)

UN retains enough of this legitimacy to allow the French and other major powers, as well as NGOs, to help rebuild Iraq--but only if the UN is formally granted authority over the occupation. Will the US grant that authority? Doing so would compromise the three goals which drove the US invasion:

unilateral US leverage over the world oil supply;

unassailable US hegemony over western and central Asia; and

fabulously lucrative contracts to its crony capitalists.

With these glorious goals seemingly in their hands, will the neoconservatives running US foreign policy sacrifice them by inviting rival states to share in them, for the sake of Iraqi welfare and reconstruction? - http://www.counterpunch.org/tilley09032003.html

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