Re: Missile Defence Shield


Message posted by gary on August 24, 2001 at 1:54:22 PST:

Divide the problem into launch phase shield, ballistic intercept, and space based. Launch phase missile defense needs to hit a slow bullet (just after take off) with a slow bullet (our missile located nearby). The trouble with this plan is it requires friendly nations very close to our enemies to build the missile base. Of course, yesterdays friends are often tomorrows enemies. (Iran for example.) So much for slow and low.

Intercept missile defense is much tougher. You have to hit a speeding bullet with a speeding bullet, and unfortunately, our enemies won't place a homing device in the target such as has been used in our tests, including the two tests that missed. To make this fly, you need radar stations near your enemies, which is a lot less offensive than a missile base. Plus when your friendly nation where you based the radar becomes your enemy, all you left them was a radar site. Much better than leaving them a missile base.

Spaced based missile defense could work. This is generally comprised of chemical lasers in satellites. You still need the nearby radar sites. The problem with space based missile defense is you have violated a treaty not to militarize space. Further, what happens when a nation zaps your satellite? Is destroying a defensive satellite an act of war. The fact the US paid the Red Chinese money for housing our prisoners (surveillance plane airmen) indicates we don't have the balls to defend our missile defense satellites.

Then there are the counter measures. The missile defense system will be able to handle a finite number of threats. Hence you launch some dummy missiles and the problem of missile defense is much more complicated. The Russians have vowed to develop multiple warhead missiles if we violate the ABM treaty.

Lastly, the US borders are totally out of control. It is so easy to sneak a bomb into the country, just like drugs are smuggled, not to mention illegal aliens. Thus you spends all this money and really are not any more secure than when you started.

Let's pretend the system works and we stop a North Korean missile for example. What happens next? Do we say "hey, cut that out!"? Do we attack them with missiles even if we had no casualties? Please your case in the UN?

Compound all these problems with the fact that the surplus, which was 281 billion 6 months ago, is down to a billion. Hence there is no money to build any of this stuff.

One possible system that might work is the laser based airplane to shoot enemy missiles. Because it is not a satellite, we have violated no treaties. The laser in a plane can be more powerful than those in a satellite because there is more room. You still need the radar sites to get the early warning.

So what do you do? Well, go ahead and build the radar site in Alaska. There is no doubt the radar will work, and snooping on the Russians is a good idea.


In Reply to: Missile Defence Shield posted by Magoo on August 23, 2001 at 23:59:42 PST:

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