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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.

cantabb - 11:16am Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16500 of 16514)

bluestar: Did you provide your name, rank, and serial number yet to the Commandant ? She's gonna be BAAACK ....

Just 'binge' posting by the duo !

Justifies why this forum needed to be shut down. More of the same doesn't undo the abuse or the damage they caused.

They're just expediting its demise !

cantabb - 11:19am Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16501 of 16514)

True, you don't need a 'super-weapon' just to kill people, in a fight or as targeted. You need a 'super-weapon' to kill lot of innocent people, along with the target.

jorian319 - 11:24am Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16502 of 16514)

You will note the Palestinians came up with an explosive charge to blow up an Israeli tank or two

This appears to be something a bit more exotic than that...

the mystery projectile punched through the vehicle’s skirt and drilled a pencil-sized hole through the hull. The hole was so small that “my little finger will not go into it,” the report’s author noted.

The “something” continued into the crew compartment, where it passed through the gunner’s seatback, grazed the kidney area of the gunner’s flak jacket and finally came to rest after boring a hole 1½ to 2 inches deep in the hull on the far side of the tank.

rshow55 - 11:32am Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16503 of 16514)
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.

Jorian, that was a good article. It looks to some experts like an improved shaped charge on an RPG round - and that looks reasonable to me. Detonation "optics" of shaped charges in mass production requires the same sorts of things other optics does (accuracy, homogeneity) plus some fairly obvious things to produce a very homogeneous explosive characteristic - both microscale and batch to batch. They got a more coherent shaping of a detonation than people were used to - looks like to me. Can't tell a lot from the article, of course.

Military technology, like other technology, gets refined - and effective things aren't necessarily expensive in mass production.

Good reason for avoiding fights when possible - and learning to make peace more stably - without conceding anything important about security.

Bluestar says I'm pushing the same old stuff - and he's right - but I think the stuff is important. Here's a formula for a "win-win" under circumstances of acknowledged distrust - from the first day I posted here. http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md266.htm . Do I propose "obvious" and "simple" symettries? Sure. But the form of the proposal is worth a look, maybe - in that I've been trying to explain such approaches, so people can hear - for some time since Sept 25, 2000. I've thought the point a matter of life and death - and so I've been a bit insistent.

bluestar23 - 11:41am Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16504 of 16514)

well, it's the end of Showalter's thread.....he'll have to go on to another thread..he will, but I'll follow him this time....

cantabb - 11:45am Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16505 of 16514)

rshow55 - 11:32am Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16503 of 16504)

...but I think the stuff is important.

It's NOT ! You've been told that numerous times. And after careful examination.

Here's a formula for a "win-win" under circumstances of acknowledged distrust - from the first day I posted here.

No such thing as a "win-win" -- Just a compromise, both sides give some, take some.

bluestar23 - 11:49am Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16506 of 16514)

rshow:

"I deeply appreciate the chance to post here. If I can find a way to make the Guardian glad I did so, I'd be honored to do so - and would be grateful for the chance of going to considerable trouble doing so."

Just try to read this sentence...like so many others of rshow's it doesn't make any sense. No one can figure out what he's saying, and I'm sure he can't either...

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