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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.

wrcooper - 09:12am Oct 19, 2003 EST (# 15230 of 15233)

bluestar23:

You wrote:

I]will take a long time for MD to be proven "false", therefore there will be no "rapid" crumbling...

Before we erect a rocket-powered picket fence, a Maginot Line on the High Frontier, we should have some reasonable assurance that it will keep out the nasty neighbors. So far, it has not been shown to work.

Call me nutty, but before I sign on as a taxpayer and concerned citizen to Bush’s NMD program, I’d like to see strong evidence that the fence doesn't have gaping holes in it. Let's see some realistic tests before deploying the thing.

wrcooper - 09:33am Oct 19, 2003 EST (# 15231 of 15233)

In re: <a href="/webin/WebX?14@13.W4ohbwSVPFc.3498402@.f28e622/16931">gisterme 10/18/03 3:18pm</a>

gisterme:

I have no doubt that the decoys used so far have been plenty good enough to accomplish the goals of the particular test shot.

Before deploying a system, let’s see if it can defend against a realistic attack.

Test programs are complex incremental procedures. Just because they're not doing a particular thing right now doesn't mean that it isn't on the schedule or won't be done...or needs to be done.

Fine. Then you agree that there should be tests performed that, as closely as possible, simulate an actual attack, with warheads traveling at max velocity (so far tests have used target vehicles traveling at about half speed) and plausibly tricky decoys (so far the warheads and "decoys"" have been easily distinguishable (in fact the interceptors have been given precise targeting information in advance).

That the designers say "we can discreminate the target from the decoys" is enough for me.

You are a trusting soul. Well, it’s definitely not good enough for me.

Just as an adversary would want to have his countermeasures unknown to us, wouldn't we want our anti-countermeasures abilities unknown to him

I am not saying we should lay out our blueprints for an enemy to study. However, much of the technological capability of our sensors is already public knowledge. Experts who look at the problem of countermeasures, such as radar-reflective mylar balloons, stipulate that X-Band radar and SBIRS will not be able to distinguish between suitably outfitted decoys and actual warheads during midcourse flight. So let’s put it to the test. Let’s design a missile test in which the "Red Team," the attacker, uses the most sneaky and devilish countermeasures it can, and the "Blue Team," the defender, doesn’t have any advance knowledge of the time of launch, precisely, the trajectory of the attacker, the nature of the decoys and the pattern of their deployment, etc. If the system passes the test, I’d be willing to change my tune.

How would we know if they're not telling? :-)

We’d know if they’re bluffing by looking at the results of a realistic test.

"...and the infrared detectors in orbit, what their capabilities are. They’re not adequate to the job, so the experts say..."

Not experts who have their hands on the sensors that are actually being used. Otherwise the program wouldn't be going ahead.

Many military procurement programs in the past have "gone ahead" when they should have been terminated. It’s called pork barrel politics.

Why do you say we know what the capabilities of the IR sensors are? Do you have a link?

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/nssrm/initiatives/sbirlowd.htm

What other types of sensors might be on board other than IR? Unknown? Good.

Let’s see a realistic test.

wrcooper - 09:43am Oct 19, 2003 EST (# 15232 of 15233)

In re: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.W4ohbwSVPFc.3498402@.f28e622/16933

fredmoore:

If a potential attacker performs such tests then the US could easily characterise that materiel for future deletion. So, I don't think attackers would be keen to test decoy systems outside of a supercomputer simulation.

I disagree. How would the US know what was a decoy and what wasn’t? Also, such tests could be designed to provide misinformation, possibly, were the US spy sats able to monitor them closely.

Also, there are significant problems in developing countermeasures.

Not nearly as much difficulty as in developing an interceptor.

The US detection capability may not be up to scratch as we post but from my limited knowledge of coherent source techniques, I can see the possibility of ultimately ruling out realistically fielded decoy countermeasures

Why? If a warhead were encapsulated in an aluminized mylar balloon, it would be indistinguishable during midcourse flight from an empty balloon. Infrared signature differences between the warhead package and decoys could be simulated with simple heaters in the decoys. Such decoys would be relatively easy to make and a large number of them could be contained in the rocket nose cone with the warhead.

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