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Sorry but you're wrong. There is an incredible amount of satellites in orbit. The positions of the military ones are classified which tells me that only the country that owns them know where they are. So it aint so easy now is it?

- Burns

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Sorry for taking a while to respond. Been putting fence up all morning. Just a suggestion to anyone here: if you're not putting chain link up, hire a professional.

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Originally posted by Toby
The problem is, by that same token, you have no basis to judge whether they're being blown out of proportion.

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Granted. However, I can't imagine millions upon millions of people accepting the treatment that the Chinese gov't is intimated using like so much cattle.

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I would say more because we have a death penalty rather than our implementation of it. OTOH, I'd bet dollars to donuts that many citizens of England would've gladly taken our death penalty stance (adult punishments for adult crimes in certain heinous cases) for a day in the Bulger case.

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Good point. It all relative.

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What would answer them to your satisfaction? The fact is that the missles designed to shoot down nuclear missles do not and cannot have the capabilities of the missles they are designed to shoot down.

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True. How hard would it be to make them capable of such? Burns? I'd like links, if possible.

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We already have weapons with nuclear payload capacity far greater than anything they could handle. Another country has no worries from them other than one potential scenario already advanced: the creation of a false sense of security leading to a first strike worry.

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Okay then.

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Ultimately, that's the issue, though. Believe it or not, still it moves.

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I don't, not entirely anyway.

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Actually, you still don't know the test was rigged. I'd have to see a report from a source a bit more impartial than Salon to take that as gospel.

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Salon can put quite the slant on things, but they've been right a time or two.

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Old 'joke' in the sense that many Democrats would vote for anything the Democratic party put on the ballot, even a yellow dog.

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That's a problem. I hate being called a democrat. Or a republican. My views aren't nearly so simplistic.

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Originally posted by dick-richardson
Granted. However, I can't imagine millions upon millions of people accepting the treatment that the Chinese gov't is intimated using like so much cattle.

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Registered: Mar 2001
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Originally posted by Burns
Sorry but you're wrong. There is an incredible amount of satellites in orbit. The positions of the military ones are classified which tells me that only the country that owns them know where they are. So it aint so easy now is it?

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Originally posted by Toby
Why not?

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Last edited by dick-richardson on 08-23-2001 at 07:48 AM

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Originally posted by dick-richardson
Because there is a big difference between voting along party lines and having your children slaughtered in their sleep.

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"Classified" doesn't mean as much as you appear to think it does.

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On the contrary, I know exactly what it means. I did not assign a level of classification since I believe that would not be wise. We have more than just Americans reading these posts.

The other problem with "identify the tracking satellite(s) and destroy or disable them" is that there are fail safe systems. Believe me these people know what they're doing and have thought of contingencies. The shooting nation or terrorist would have to take out an entire NETWORK of satellites and their backups and THEIR backups and so on. When that happens, the element of surprise is lost, which is usually key to these type of things.

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How hard would it be to make them capable of such? Burns? I'd like links, if possible.

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I can't give you articles because I'm not sure there are any (being a government project that has different levels of classifications) but I'll check. The problem with trying to make them capable is that they aren't even DESIGNED to do what you're proposing. Imagine that a 747 is the incoming missile. It has capacity for the amount fuel needed to get it around the world. Now imagine firing a Cessna at it. Get the picture. You couldn't retro fit a Cessna to go the distance a 747 does. And the Cessna can't carry the type of equipment (warheads) the 747 can. They are two different planes (missiles) DESIGNED for their separate purposes.

I'll give you another extremely simple example. It's like trying to play Gran Tarismo 3 on an atari system. It doesn't have the CD capabilities, graphic capabilities, or memory capabilities. It just wasn't designed to handle that kind of functionality.

Hope I've cleared things up but I could have just made it plain as mud.

- Burns

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Originally posted by Burns
Believe me these people know what they're doing and have thought of contingencies.
Any system or network can be disabled or destroyed - even backups - by any individual or group determined enough.
Surprise isn't the issue. There are enough early warning systems that any missile attack can be identified well before it strikes (until someone bothers to put radar stealth on a missile, anyway, but even those systems have been defeated). If defensive capability is damaged enough it would be ineffective.
I'm with Secretary Coyle on this. Putting all our eggs in the SDI basket is short-sighted and impractical. ICBM's - necessary for a non-American foreign power to attack the United States - are rather large targets, and it's possible for another, smaller missle to destroy one, but I'd really rather we work towards making such a defense unneccessary.


The shooting nation or terrorist would have to take out an entire NETWORK of satellites and their backups and THEIR backups and so on.
or they could take out the command system which would need to be planetside.

I can't give you articles because I'm not sure there are any (being a government project that has different levels of classifications) but I'll check. The problem with trying to make them capable is that they aren't even DESIGNED to do what you're proposing.
this train is confusing me. You're saying that SDI is a good thing, but that the missiles being used for it are inappropriate?
The missile sent to destroy an incoming attacking missile doesn't need to be as capable as that which it's destroying.

Imagine that a 747 is the incoming missile. It has capacity for the amount fuel needed to get it around the world. Now imagine firing a Cessna at it. Get the picture. You couldn't retro fit a Cessna to go the distance a 747 does. And the Cessna can't carry the type of equipment (warheads) the 747 can. They are two different planes (missiles) DESIGNED for their separate purposes.
Also, a Cessna, lacking a jet engine, can't achieve the speed of a 747.

Hope I've cleared things up but I could have just made it plain as mud.
well, mud's pretty plain ...



[aside]
how many separate conversations are going on in this thread now? four?
[/aside]

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quote:

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this train is confusing me. You're saying that SDI is a good thing, but that the missiles being used for it are inappropriate?
The missile sent to destroy an incoming attacking missile doesn't need to be as capable as that which it's destroying.

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Originally posted by Toby
But by implication, you're accusing the American people of going along with leaders that are bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war because of NMD.

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Originally posted by Burns
...Hope I've cleared things up but I could have just made it plain as mud.

- Burns

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Originally posted by dick-richardson
how destructive could we make one of our defensive missles?

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Originally posted by Burns
Now there is a question that I can't answer. I'm fairly certain they could not be Nuclear-capable. The thing is they are designed as surface-to-air missiles. This design is usually quite different than surface-to-surface or air-to-surface. So this further limits their functionality as anything other than that for which they are made.

- Burns

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Originally posted by dick-richardson
Yes, but I'm not implying that the American people are aware of what their leaders are doing.

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The current system being tested uses a kinetic kill vehicle, so it can't be made destructive at all. It's basically a big bullet moving really, really fast.

Now, other concepts have been bandied about for SDI over the years, including nuclear-tipped interceptors, or interceptors with nuke-powered "pump" x-ray lasers, but to my knowledge none of these concepts are currently on the drawing board.

To answer a point made previously about evading the system by either taking out the early-warning satellites or taking out the ground command station, neither of those is a serious threat.

1. As to the first, only a very sophisticated foe could mount a real anti-sat attack. The NMD program is not designed to stop an attack from such an aggressor, because their offensive systems will be too sophisticated for the limited defense contemplated by the Bush administration. Any country with the military and technical skills to mount a comprehensive anti-satellite effort are also able to overwhelm the defense. The Soviets (allegedly) had that capability, but I'm not sure they do now.

The Iraqis, by most accounts, were close to having a viable nuclear weapons program and ballistic missle program at the time of the gulf war. They aren't anywhere close to having the ability to shoot down a satellite in orbit.

2. As to the second, I don't know where the command center is projected to be, but you can bet it will have pretty decent security. You go try and take out NORAD or SAC headquarters tomorrow. See how far you get.