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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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jorian319 - 12:20pm Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14653 of 14663)
"Statements on frequently important subjects are interesting." -rshow55

Damme if these posts don't seem worth another loop through .

Damme, then.

rshow never met a post (of his own) that he didn't think worth repeating.

rshow55 - 12:24pm Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14654 of 14663)
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.

You'd be surprised.

And I was surprised, Jorian319 - to see something directly connected to MD ( and sensible, too - though maybe wrong) in one of your posts. Your forth real MD reference is some hundreds of posts.

I'm not sure the decoys would be that tough to build. But if the US did work to get much better x - y - z resolution on their radars - which I've told them how to do - and then do better signal analysis - which I've also told them how to do - they'd have a better shot.

For the money involved in developing the weapons, though - we could buy a real peace with the North Koreans - and that would be a safer, better deal.

fredmoore - 12:29pm Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14655 of 14663)

Will,

The following reference hints at the possibility of decoy discrimination

http://www.cdi.org/hotspots/issuebrief/ch4/

"Four but possibly as many as nine (including one each in the UK, Greenland, and South Korea) X-band (high frequency, short wavelength) radars whose function is to discriminate between incoming real warheads and decoys. The first of these for the NMD system is to be built on Shemya Island in the western Aleutian Islands of Alaska"

Boost phase decoys would be too expensive for minor powers to field in great numbers. What is it? $10000 per pound to get into orbit? There would be easy discrimination against anything other than fully thrusted decoys.

Hope that helps.

wrcooper - 12:35pm Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14656 of 14663)

In re: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Hby2b7cSLYO.1186731@.f28e622/16363

jorian319

You wrote:

Maybe not "remove", but it does place considerable additional burden. In-flight decoys can be simple objects, but launch/boost decoys would have to emit credible IR signatures - a very expensive per-unit undertaking.

How hard would it be to fake a strong IR signature? Let's say your boost phase takes you up to about 100 Km. Consructing a rocket that had that capability and carried a heat-emitting nosecone with the appropriate characteristics wouldn't be that tough, not for a power with the technology to build ICBMs or long-range missiles.

How about methods of disguising or masking the signature of the attacker's missiles?

In other words, if we get involved in an arms race involving missile defense, it seems pretty obvious to me that the attackers have an easier time of it. That doesn't change with boost phase interception.

rshow55 - 12:39pm Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14657 of 14663)
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.

And easier is a lot easier - maybe - in dollar terms - 1000 to 10,000 times easier.

Plus - there are other ways of delivering WMD.

Even for the US - it is dangerous to pick fights - and push them to conflict - when the "threatening countries" involved actually want a stable, peaceful resolution.

wrcooper - 12:39pm Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14658 of 14663)

fredmoore

Four but possibly as many as nine (including one each in the UK, Greenland, and South Korea) X-band (high frequency, short wavelength) radars whose function is to discriminate between incoming real warheads and decoys.

No, Fred, this doesn't help at all. Exasctly how can these radars discriminate between decoys and genuine warheads? In tests done so far, the actual target was given a radically distinct signature, so that the interceptors would have an easy time of it. In an actual attack, we wouldn't know what the real warhead would look like, or the decoys for that matter. You can bet that they'd have a highly similar appearance and flight characteristics.

Just because some military flack says that the radars will discriminate between warheads and decoys isn't particularly convincing to me.

Will

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