ARTICLE: Cloudy Skies Knock Out Anti-Missile Defense!

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'm not saying he isn't crazy. I'm just not saying he is. There is plenty of evidence for both arguments so I'm agnostic on the issue. I don't think you're taking a stand on the evidence, but simply declaring him crazy because he's a dictator.

No, actually, I am saying it is prudent to take precautions to defend North America against him, and others who might turn out like him.

Iran, 'we would gladly perish if we could kill the Great Satan' is a whole other conversation.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by notyoueither
No, actually, I am saying it is prudent to take precautions to defend North America against him, and others who might turn out like him.

I don't value a North American city over Seoul, except maybe the one I'm living in. Kim already has the capacity to kill a million human beings within a few hours. Adding Seattle to that list makes him no more dangerous than he was ten years ago. While I'm sure that gives no comfort to those living in Seattle, they long ago excepted the possibility of sudden death, living in a the path of a massive lahar should Mt. Ranier erupt. Now that I've gone off in a completely silly tangent . . . .

I don't have a problem with developing an ABM system. No one here is arguing against developing an ABM system.

Let's put it this way. Do you think we should build an interstellar startship today? We could build one. It would reach Alpha Centauri in about 45 years. It might even work. Do you think it's worth it?

The system that is being built does not work. It's not that it has a less than 100% chance of working. It has a less than 10% chance of working. That's not a system I want our government deluding itself into relying on. It does not work. The money spent building it is completely wasted money. It's not protecting us.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


I don't value a North American city over Seoul, except maybe the one I'm living in. Kim already has the capacity to kill a million human beings within a few hours. Adding Seattle to that list makes him no more dangerous than he was ten years ago. While I'm sure that gives no comfort to those living in Seattle, they long ago excepted the possibility of sudden death, living in a the path of a massive lahar should Mt. Ranier erupt. Now that I've gone off in a completely silly tangent . . . .

Yup, I'd say so.

I don't have a problem with developing an ABM system. No one here is arguing against developing an ABM system.

Let's put it this way. Do you think we should build an interstellar startship today? We could build one. It would reach Alpha Centauri in about 45 years. It might even work. Do you think it's worth it?

The system that is being built does not work. It's not that it has a less than 100% chance of working. It has a less than 10% chance of working. That's not a system I want our government deluding itself into relying on. It does not work. The money spent building it is completely wasted money. It's not protecting us.

I am not so sure. It does not look great right now, but nor did airplanes vs dreadnaughts in the 1920's. Conventional wisdom was that the new technology (aircraft) employed against the old (ships) was hopeless. Still, some persisted. They were right.

You are never going to succeed if you do not try.

Arguments that it does not work right now, therefore it is useless, do not seem very wise, to me.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Let's put it this way. Do you think we should build an interstellar startship today? We could build one. It would reach Alpha Centauri in about 45 years. It might even work. Do you think it's worth it?

If you had asked that question about 3 years ago, I would have said 'no' but the way things have been going lately...

And no, I'm not kidding. We're likely looking at some pretty devastaing wars in the next few decades, so having colonies elsewhere in the Sol system might help in recovery here at home. Other star systems, probably not as much, but maybe still a good way of stacking the deck in our survival's favor.

[Q Classic]

Timewarp to nearly 70 years ago...

except every action of his has had a readily identifiable motive and purpose: that is, to roll back the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles.

Right, he couldn't be mad at all.

Your example is of a man who didn't care so much about maintaining power--a person who wanted to dominate the world.

Kim wants to stay in power. Notice how he always rattles his saber just enough so that the world pays attention to him and then panics, but not enough for them to actually do anything?

Sure, go ahead and consider him insane. Most everybody else underestimates him and does the same thing.

Personally, I'm more afraid of the person who uses apparent insanity as a diversion while he hatches more diabolical schemes.

[Patroklos]

Who says our government "relies" on the system. It is actually our last line of defense, so naturally our least effective. There are several other military options alone before that one, let alone others before that.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I am not so sure. It does not look great right now, but nor did airplanes vs dreadnaughts in the 1920's. Conventional wisdom was that the new technology (aircraft) employed against the old (ships) was hopeless. Still, some persisted. They were right.

The difference is, when Billy Mitchell tested his hypothesis, it worked so well it embarressed the hell out of the Navy, and they killed his carreer.

Please show me when this ABM system pwned anything? It CAN'T hit anything that doesn't try to be hit. So WHY ARE WE PUTTING IT IN THE FIELD??? We don't we leave it in development until it actually works!?!

If I was developing a shield that could deflect bullets, would you buy it from me when I said 1% of the time, it will stop a bullet. It costs $1,000,000. Your life is worth more to you than that. And someday I might even have it working better. So you should buy it RIGHT NOW, in case you get mugged walking home tonight.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by notyoueither
except every action of his has had a readily identifiable motive and purpose: that is, to roll back the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles.

The difference is Kim hasn't done a thing that would make him deemed mad. At least power mad. OTOH, the other person started off by rolling tanks into various places...

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


The difference is, when Billy Mitchell tested his hypothesis, it worked so well it embarressed the hell out of the Navy, and they killed his carreer.

Please show me when this ABM system pwned anything? It CAN'T hit anything that doesn't try to be hit. So WHY ARE WE PUTTING IT IN THE FIELD??? We don't we leave it in development until it actually works!?!

If I was developing a shield that could deflect bullets, would you buy it from me when I said 1% of the time, it will stop a bullet. It costs $1,000,000. Your life is worth more to you than that. And someday I might even have it working better. So you should buy it RIGHT NOW, in case you get mugged walking home tonight.

The difference is that the history of flight is anything but an uninterupted string of successes you would like to portray. Then there is rocketry. The space program was an unending series of successes, yes? How many rockets blew up on launch? Should they have stopped?

You are demanding perfection IN CAPS from a technology that is being developed. People with such attitudes stood on the docks screaming at steamers, they stood on the ground screaming at aircraft, and they said that sending men to the moon was impossible. But I understand, we are supposed to listen to your shouting now, when shouters in the past have an unbroken record of being wrong.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


The difference is Kim hasn't done a thing that would make him deemed mad. At least power mad. OTOH, the other person started off by rolling tanks into various places...

Firing a missile over Japan was a very sane thing to do.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by notyoueither
You are demanding perfection IN CAPS from a technology that is being developed.

Yet again, you ignore what I said to go off on how we're demanding perfection and saying it will never work. :rolleyeys: At this point I can only conclude you are trolling, since we have repeated time and again, that is not the case.



It's funny. People ***** and moan about buying buggy software that just needs a patch. The "missile shield" isn't even in a pre-release version, but we're being forced to shell out $20 billion. Again, how would you feel about being forced to buy and use a "proof of concept" piece of software?

It may be the case that in a decade or so this will work. That's fine. Let's go ahead and continue spending money trying to see if we can make it work. Given the test results we currently have, however, it is a waste of money to build a unit, not for testing, but for actual defense. It's also dangerous, cuz once it exists, policy makers will forget that this system hasn't succeeded at anything approximating a real test, but has only been able to hit the equivalent of the broad side of a barn from the inside of that barn with the doors and windows closed.

This is the equivalent of the United States building an airforce ten years before Orvile and Wilber Wright flew at Kitty Hawk. It's the equivalent of trying to send a man to the moon on a rocket built by Goddard. We aren't saying the technology will never work. We aren't saying it won't work now because it's a crazy idea. We are saying, based on the actual tests and results it does not work.

It has succeeded in five out of eight tests in tests. Thats about a 60% chance of success. This, however, is the equivalent of giving a student all the answers on a math test, and his getting 60% of the answers right, and then expecting him to be able to do the math on his own. It's a farce.

The tests only succeeded because:

1) The test targets were fired on an outbound trajectory. This enabled the ABM tracking system to track the missile from launch, giving it more time to calculate a trajectory. This will not be the case for an inbound missile.

2) The test missiles had homing beacons on them. This enabled the ABM to not only track the target but home in on it in flight. Three times it still missed. The enemy is not going to put a hmoing beacon on their missiles.

3) No counter measures, such as dummy warheads, smoke, etc. If they can't deal with this problem, then there's no point in even bothering with the program.

I am sure all these problems can be overcome in time. What I do not want, however, is to be forced to spend $20 billion on a pre-alpha system that can't surmount even one of these issues.

Is that being too demanding?

[Patroklos]

It may be the case that in a decade or so this will work. That's fine. Let's go ahead and continue spending money trying to see if we can make it work. Given the test results we currently have, however, it is a waste of money to build a unit, not for testing, but for actual defense. It's also dangerous, cuz once it exists, policy makers will forget that this system hasn't succeeded at anything approximating a real test, but has only been able to hit the equivalent of the broad side of a barn from the inside of that barn with the doors and windows closed.

The system is stationary, there little differance between keeping it in test phase and running it at is current pique operational tempo.

"Deploying" it is a misnomer, and you should realize you are argueing over semantics.

What I would really expect you to be whining about is how saying it is deployed is a misnomer.

[Patroklos]

1) The test targets were fired on an outbound trajectory. This enabled the ABM tracking system to track the missile from launch, giving it more time to calculate a trajectory. This will not be the case for an inbound missile.

We haven't had problems detecting and tracking ICBMs for a good 40 odd years. I bet NORAD got a good bit of training in tracking all this.

3) No counter measures, such as dummy warheads, smoke, etc. If they can't deal with this problem, then there's no point in even bothering with the program.

No ICBMs or missiles period have countermeasures. This is just armchair general ignorance. The closest you could get is the terminal spiral of the new French Exocets, but hardly a target for an ABM system.

[Q Classic]

Firing a missile over Japan was a very sane thing to do.

it happened at a time when nkorea felt that neither japan nor the us were holding up their part of the bargain.
it happened at a time when nkorea wanted to prove that it really did have a working theatre missile capability.
it happened at a time when nkorea wanted to garner more attention so they could get more sweet things thrown at them for not launching those missiles.

what happened? japan sent more food aid and construction on the KEDO light water reactors quickened.

[notyoueither]

You seem very excusing of the man, Q. Very good. Maybe you are right and I am wrong, or the other way around. However, I see no point in continuing to argue whether the reoccupation of the Rhineland was a good idea or not.

Perhaps you would make issue with the idea that he acts like a threat. Perhaps you would inhabit lala land and scream at the visitors that black is white and white is black.