EricTheRed 0 #51 December 16, 2004 I stand corrected. "Values" it was. Still has little to do with: Missle shields Social Security Iraq ... or any of the other issuesillegible usually Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 2,434 #52 December 16, 2004 >I think it would be a more accurate analogy to say that if out of >10,000 cypres units sold, there were 1000 that fired and that 999 of >those fired the cutter saving 999 lives, do we scap the cypres because 1 failed? If we ever get to the point where we have done 1000 tests of the missile defense system, against 1000 state of the art ICBM's (with dummy warheads of course) then your analogy would be apt. Right now, it's like installing Joe's AAD - an AAD that has never fired correctly in actual use, and fired only 5 out of 8 times in a test chamber - and then relying on it to save your life. You would be better off without it. And if you take the money you saved on the AAD and use it for a better reserve, you are _far_ better off without it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 1,648 #53 December 16, 2004 QuoteQuoteQuoteIt doesn't mean it was rigged to hit, it means the real tracking system was not designed and they were testing other components and designed systems. Perhaps you're right. But then again, on a system of this sort, wouldn't the tracking system be the number one priority? I would certainly hope so. That would be my design process... The system can't work. It isn't pessimism, it's science. That's not science, it's opinion. Scientifically it can clearly work. The engineering is extremely challenging. Yes but it takes infrastructure. I said design, but in fact the design was done, it wasn't built. It has since been built and is being built and tested but it's worth testing a kill vehicle to see if you can hit a bullet with a bullet. When you know where the bullet is. Science does not forbid all the oxygen in your bedroom migrating to the corner of the room so the remaining nitrogen will suffocate you in the night. Science just says it's highly unlikely. Science (physics in this case) does not forbid a missile shield, but it does make it highly unlikely that one based on the current concept will ever be made to work. And as has already been mentioned, the other side has already developed ways to defeat it such as thermal and radar decoys, course deviators, etc. Historically, defense always lags behind offense, and costs a lot more. MAD was a good idea. The missile shield is a stupid idea.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dorbie 0 #54 December 16, 2004 QuoteI stand corrected. "Values" it was. Still has little to do with: Missle shields Social Security Iraq ... or any of the other issues The poll was overplayed. "values" covers a lot of nebulous and even conflicting issues (the pledge, character, abortion, prayer in school, tits on TV, secularism, etc.), but something like "security" wasn't listed but was broken down into several issues that appeared lower. It was also only top on the list for 20% who also listed other issues if memory serves, not exactly decisive. It's a typical media poll, i.e. close to worthless but good for headlines. Hey you all saw the debates and had the opportunity to give a damn about NK, and the missile shield, it was covered and was actually one of the biggest differences between the candidates. Most other debate issues boiled down to timid posturing about doing a better job. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dorbie 0 #55 December 16, 2004 Quote MAD was a good idea. The missile shield is a stupid idea. MAD works unless the other guy is mad. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Casurf1978 0 #56 December 16, 2004 QuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteAll to face a threat that had been defeated. So, who has all the missiles that this shield is supposed to defend us from? North Korea, et.al. please pay attention. Get real. You're telling me we're going to implement a missile shield costing hundreds of bilions of dollars to address the minor and unlikely threat of N. Korea launching one of the handful of missiles with conventional warheads at us? I agree with you. An article on Bloomberg a few days ago stated that over 80% of major cities in the US are underfunded for dealing with with a Bio or Chem weapons attack. Major cities like LA, NYC, Chicago, etc and we're spending 10 billion on this. Just in case Little Kim really loses his marbles and launches a missle at us. Chances are that if a country like NK really wants to attack us they aren't going to use misslies. It's a lot easier to infect a willing person with small pox, send them down a subway in NYC and send the city and rest of the country into a state of panic. Especially if the city is not prepared to deal with that. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
penniless 0 #57 December 16, 2004 QuoteQuote>If a missile volley comes at us (it's not designed for 1000 missiles) then >if it's even partially successful it has been justified. If you need your cypres, and the control unit fires but the cutter doesn't work, was your investment justified? After all, it partially worked, it just didn't open your reserve. First a high with the Maginot line and now this low. If 100 jumpers jump with cypresses and don't pull and only 90 of them work was the investment justified? Would you also say we shouldn't armor HMMWVs in Iraq because no armor is 100% effective. I cannot believe that anyone is arguing that a shield that is not 100% effective is useless. I'm risking an aneurism trying to comprehend the though process that would lead to that kind of claim and you actually try to defend it with a flawed analogy. You're actually arguing that if a missile shield can't stop all the missiles then you'd rather have no shield and let them all through. Well good luck with that thinking mate. I have no response adequate for the situation. I'm dumfounded. If we were running a huge budget surplus, had ample reserves of non-polluting energy and natural resources, had solved the problem of nuclear waste disposal, had the number of citizens below the poverty line decreasing instead of increasing, no-one without good health care, and we had secure borders, etc., I would agree that throwing money in this direction could be justified. As it is, it's a prodigious WASTE because the probability of success is tiny and we have other pressing problems that need the $100 billion. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 2,434 #58 December 16, 2004 >Chances are that if a country like NK really wants to attack us they aren't going to use misslies. Agreed. They're gonna smuggle a dirty bomb in over the border or into a port. And $10 billion can buy a lot of border fences and port security. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PhillyKev 0 #59 December 16, 2004 Especally since it would be more difficult to track where it came from. There are a handful of countries that have the capability to withstand a full scale total war from the US, and they are our friends. If anyone launched a missile at us, there'd be millions at the recruiters that same day. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dorbie 0 #60 December 17, 2004 Quote If anyone launched a missile at us, there'd be millions at the recruiters that same day. I hope there'd be no need for them except for domestic cleanup. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #61 December 17, 2004 QuoteQuote MAD was a good idea. The missile shield is a stupid idea. MAD works unless the other guy is mad. MAD hasn't failed yet. Even Saddam showed adhearance when he sent scuds at Israeli, but without the threatened chemical payloads. North Korea is building nukes so it won't be invaded. Iran would like them for the same reason. But neither are going to commit suicide by actually using them. If they did, our system that stops not 100%, not 90%, not 30% of a handful of missiles won't stop them either. Giving those two countries 100B each to disarm would even have been a better use of the money. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ypelchat 0 #62 December 17, 2004 Quote10 billion a year on this??? http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7098539 By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first test in nearly two years of a multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile shield failed on Wednesday when the interceptor missile shut down as it prepared to launch in the central Pacific, the Pentagon said. About 16 minutes earlier, a target missile carrying a mock warhead had been successfully fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska, according to a statement from the Missile Defense Agency. The aborted $85 million test appeared likely to set back plans for activation of a rudimentary bulwark against long-range ballistic missiles that could be fired by countries like North Korea. In 2002, President Bush pledged to have initial elements of the program up and running by the end of this year while testing and development continued. An "anomaly" of unknown origin caused the interceptor to shut down automatically in its silo at the Kwajalein Test Range in the Marshall Islands, said Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's missile agency. The test followed a week of delays caused by weather and technical glitches, including malfunction of an internal battery aboard the target missile on Tuesday, he said. "This is a serious setback for a program that had not attempted a flight intercept test for two years," Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under late President Ronald Reagan, said in an e-mail exchange. The system is a scaled-down version of a ballistic missile shield first outlined in March 1983 by Reagan and derided by critics as "Star Wars." 'NOT CONSTRAINED BY TIMING' Pentagon officials had hoped the test would set the stage for any decision by Bush to put the system on alert in coming weeks. Initially, the system is designed to counter North Korean missiles that could be fired at the United States and tipped with nuclear, chemical or germ weapons. "I'm not constrained by timing, exactly," Michael Wynne, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, said on Dec. 8 in reply to a question about switching the system on. "But we'll see how (the test) goes and then we'll see from there." Because the mission was supposed to have exercised new hardware, software and engagement scenarios, it was officially described as a "flyby" rather than an attempted intercept. This meant gathering data was the primary goal, not downing the target, according to the Missile Defense Agency. When a shootdown has been the chief test objective, the system so far has succeeded five of eight times in highly scripted conditions. The last test, in December 2002, misfired when the warhead -- a 120-pound "kill vehicle" of sensors, chips and thrusters designed to pulverize its target on collision -- failed to separate from its booster rocket. Boeing Co., as prime contractor, put together the ground-based shield, which is to be folded into a system involving airborne, sea- and space-based elements. All told, the Pentagon is spending $10 billion a year on the project. Key subcontractors are Northrop Grumman Corp., for battle management; Raytheon Co., for the kill vehicle; and Lockheed Martin Corp. and Orbital Sciences Corp., which build the booster rockets. Democracy, dialogue, fairness and justice, would be the best anti-missile shield that could be deployed IMHO. It would be much cheaper too, but that would not please the defense industry, that's in control of the U.S government.... Yves. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 1,648 #63 December 17, 2004 They should call it the "Groundhog Missile". It sits in its silo like it's afraid of its shadow if it comes out.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dorbie 0 #64 December 17, 2004 QuoteQuoteQuote MAD was a good idea. The missile shield is a stupid idea. MAD works unless the other guy is mad. MAD hasn't failed yet. Even Saddam showed adhearance when he sent scuds at Israeli, but without the threatened chemical payloads. North Korea is building nukes so it won't be invaded. Iran would like them for the same reason. But neither are going to commit suicide by actually using them. If they did, our system that stops not 100%, not 90%, not 30% of a handful of missiles won't stop them either. Giving those two countries 100B each to disarm would even have been a better use of the money. Funding a country with an ideological haterd of us to the tune of 100B does not seem like a good idea. It centers on the assumption that they would actually disarm that's naive and you don't seem to be aware of Clinton's earlier agreements with NK. Not to mention encouraging others to follow suit. Reminds me of the movie "The Mouse that Roared". The US did give aid to NK to stop making nukes. They took it for a few years. There were a few watchdogs who said "wait they're still building nukes. look", but overall the political process ground on unstoppably. In the end the NK government flat out said they had been making fissionable material for nukes all along in breach of the agreement and had the materials to make at least two, at which point Bush woke up and put a stop to the largesse. We'd been extorted then cheated, and now NK was trying some crazy ploy to get more $ even as they were exporting ballistic missliles to the middle east. Unfortunately for NK their ploy involved admitting that our earlier $ bought us nothing. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jcd11235 0 #65 December 17, 2004 QuoteThe US did give aid to NK to stop making nukes. They took it for a few years. There were a few watchdogs who said "wait they're still building nukes. look", but overall the political process ground on unstoppably. In the end the NK government flat out said they had been making fissionable material for nukes all along in breach of the agreement and had the materials to make at least two, at which point Bush woke up and put a stop to the largesse. Is that what he did? The way I remember it, after NK announced their weapons program, Shrub invaded Iraq. He wasn't planning on doing squat about NK at the time, until he was called on his hypocrisy by public opinion. If current patterns continue, once they disarm, we will go in and blow the shit out of their landscape, but not before.Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ron 7 #66 December 17, 2004 QuoteThey should call it the "Groundhog Missile". It sits in its silo like it's afraid of its shadow if it comes out. Sounds like a design problem"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites kelpdiver 2 #67 December 17, 2004 Quote Funding a country with an ideological haterd of us to the tune of 100B does not seem like a good idea. It's not, but it's just as cost effective and sensible as Star Wars II. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites kallend 1,648 #68 December 17, 2004 QuoteQuoteThey should call it the "Groundhog Missile". It sits in its silo like it's afraid of its shadow if it comes out. Sounds like a design problem Its a fundamentally flawed concept. Just because management tells engineers to build something doesn't necessarily make it possible.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites dorbie 0 #69 December 18, 2004 QuoteQuoteThe US did give aid to NK to stop making nukes. They took it for a few years. There were a few watchdogs who said "wait they're still building nukes. look", but overall the political process ground on unstoppably. In the end the NK government flat out said they had been making fissionable material for nukes all along in breach of the agreement and had the materials to make at least two, at which point Bush woke up and put a stop to the largesse. Is that what he did? The way I remember it, after NK announced their weapons program, Shrub invaded Iraq. He wasn't planning on doing squat about NK at the time, until he was called on his hypocrisy by public opinion. If current patterns continue, once they disarm, we will go in and blow the shit out of their landscape, but not before. You need to look at the earlier history. The NK issue has been running for a while, not saying it was good or bad but what happened pre Bush happened and you should understand the result of earlier agreements with NK before proposing new ones. Fact is we tried the $$$ approach and NK took the money, lied and built nukes anyway, deal with it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Prev 1 2 3 Next Page 3 of 3 Join the conversation You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Reply to this topic... × Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead Only 75 emoji are allowed. × Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead × Your previous content has been restored. Clear editor × You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL. Insert image from URL × Desktop Tablet Phone Submit Reply 0 Go To Topic Listing
kelpdiver 2 #67 December 17, 2004 Quote Funding a country with an ideological haterd of us to the tune of 100B does not seem like a good idea. It's not, but it's just as cost effective and sensible as Star Wars II. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 1,648 #68 December 17, 2004 QuoteQuoteThey should call it the "Groundhog Missile". It sits in its silo like it's afraid of its shadow if it comes out. Sounds like a design problem Its a fundamentally flawed concept. Just because management tells engineers to build something doesn't necessarily make it possible.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites dorbie 0 #69 December 18, 2004 QuoteQuoteThe US did give aid to NK to stop making nukes. They took it for a few years. There were a few watchdogs who said "wait they're still building nukes. look", but overall the political process ground on unstoppably. In the end the NK government flat out said they had been making fissionable material for nukes all along in breach of the agreement and had the materials to make at least two, at which point Bush woke up and put a stop to the largesse. Is that what he did? The way I remember it, after NK announced their weapons program, Shrub invaded Iraq. He wasn't planning on doing squat about NK at the time, until he was called on his hypocrisy by public opinion. If current patterns continue, once they disarm, we will go in and blow the shit out of their landscape, but not before. You need to look at the earlier history. The NK issue has been running for a while, not saying it was good or bad but what happened pre Bush happened and you should understand the result of earlier agreements with NK before proposing new ones. Fact is we tried the $$$ approach and NK took the money, lied and built nukes anyway, deal with it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Prev 1 2 3 Next Page 3 of 3 Join the conversation You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Reply to this topic... × Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead Only 75 emoji are allowed. × Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead × Your previous content has been restored. Clear editor × You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL. Insert image from URL × Desktop Tablet Phone Submit Reply 0
dorbie 0 #69 December 18, 2004 QuoteQuoteThe US did give aid to NK to stop making nukes. They took it for a few years. There were a few watchdogs who said "wait they're still building nukes. look", but overall the political process ground on unstoppably. In the end the NK government flat out said they had been making fissionable material for nukes all along in breach of the agreement and had the materials to make at least two, at which point Bush woke up and put a stop to the largesse. Is that what he did? The way I remember it, after NK announced their weapons program, Shrub invaded Iraq. He wasn't planning on doing squat about NK at the time, until he was called on his hypocrisy by public opinion. If current patterns continue, once they disarm, we will go in and blow the shit out of their landscape, but not before. You need to look at the earlier history. The NK issue has been running for a while, not saying it was good or bad but what happened pre Bush happened and you should understand the result of earlier agreements with NK before proposing new ones. Fact is we tried the $$$ approach and NK took the money, lied and built nukes anyway, deal with it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
