6 ms·
Obama signs defence bill calling for space-based missile systems
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> Leading defence scientists said the idea that a space-based system could provide security against nuclear attack is a fantasy Does someone have more detail on this?
- wbl 10y agoIf it worked, Russia would never let us deploy it. Almost any defense proposal is itself vulnerable to nuclear attack.
- motoboi 10y agoSpace is too large, distances are too great. There is no suitable laser right now. Besides that, if you are garanteed to neutralize your enemy's arsenal, you force him to attack first while he can avoid his own total destruction.
- lisivka 10y agoSolar-pumped laser[1] is powerful enough, but it has problems with overheating. Overheating can be solved by fueling a satellite with a coolant. Rockets are cheaper now, so it is possible. Ukrainian scientists has patents on that laser, and Ukraine granted $300K to build a test system in Uzbekistan in 2004, but then project was shut down. [1] https://www.greenoptimistic.com/uzbekistan-solar-furnace-laser-20080808/ https://www.greenoptimistic.com/uzbekistan-solar-furnace-las...
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> There is no suitable laser right now This is a fine argument against this concept. But the article frames the scientists as saying it's not just unfeasible now but generally impossible. That's what I'm struggling with.
- Animats 10y ago"The bomber will always get through". Against a big attack, all you can hope for is thinning out the incoming. Against a small ICBM attack (from N. Korea, Pakistan, etc.) a missile defense could be effective. The US already has a few ground-based anti-ballistic missiles based at Vandenberg AFB, and some Navy ships have ABM capability. It's getting too easy to build a nuclear weapon. The technology is over 70 years old, after all.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- option 10y agolatest from the nobel peace prize winner...
- vinay427 10y agoBuilding new weapons isn't antiparallel to peace efforts, but at least orthogonal. One can make the case that "mutually assured destruction" helped prevent violent conflicts during the Cold War, which also helped spur STEM funding in the US and other countries.
- kiba 10y agoObama didn't ask for a nobel peace prize, AFAIK.
- cmdrfred 10y agoJean-Paul Sartre, and Le Duc Tho declined the Nobel, Obama could as well if he did not believe in the purpose of the peace prize. I have 7 words for anyone who wishes to down vote: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria
- photogrammetry 10y agoSartre was an independent, free spirited academic. Le Duc Tho was a revolutionary. Obama is a career politician who was just elected president. Why do you think he would or should have turned it down?
- vinay427 10y agoI agree that he had no obligation to turn it down, but I really don't follow your argument as to why Sartre or Le Did Tho did. Can you elaborate?
- photogrammetry 10y agoThey did so mostly because they considered themselves academically/intellectually above the Nobel Prize and prizes in general. I'm not a mind reader.
- FreedomToCreate 10y agoIn such a globalized world, where economics are so linked that many countries, including the US, couldn't survive without the others, this type of stuff just sends society backwards. Not like we don't have enough guns pointed at the world, why not spend an exorbitant amount of money to point an even bigger one. You may be able to get someone to listen to you by pointing a gun at them, but never their respect.
- godelski 10y agoWhy not use a bigger one? Because a tungsten rod that is "for defense" also has the force of a small nuclear bomb when it hits the ground. This was one of the proposed weapons for the previous Star Wars initiative.
- golergka 10y agoThe pointed guns are exactly what keeps the society global.
- jawbone3 10y agoHistorically untrue, globalisation halted during the interwar years, and that was very mutch a period of pointed guns. Of course, you typically point guns when you don't trust the ones you point at so it's no surprise there wasn't a lot of trade
- bfuller 10y agoI assume op meant specifically nukes when they said guns
- golergka 10y agoClearly pointed guns is what prevents wars. Please read more on WWI and WWII history: it was the murkiness and confusion about who has the biggest guns that lead to bloody conflict. Wars don't happen when there's an obvioua military superiority at one of the sides. US's unipolar world has lead to unique peace in the world.
- hamburglar1 10y agoWhy would a nation like Russia or the US give in to total nuclear disarmament without a missle shield like this? A nuke free future is impossible without a shield like this available to all. All countries serious about disarment should be jointly contributing to this effort.
- rando444 10y agoIf you think that the development of a space based missile system will only be developed with "defense" in mind, I have a surplus of bridges that I'd like to unload at a reasonable price.
- Dylan16807 10y agoPlease explain how this has any meaningful advantage over the current system of silos and submarines. The ability to launch a nuclear missile from a space platform would be much more expensive, limited in size, vulnerable to attack, and invite massive complaints about there being such a missile parked in space. The threat of using it as a really sucky attack platform is not why there are objections to missile defense.
- rubberstamp 10y agoIt would have higher speeds and thus hard to intercept. This is going to lead to a new space weapons race, which is bad. US has no need for it as they have plenty of other good weapons anyway.
- internaut 10y agoThere is another far more terrible weapons system nobody is talking in public about. We should assume this 'space based missile' is a distraction from something so monstrous the public would lose its mind if its existence was confirmed.
- mmcconnell1618 10y agoA space based system doesn't need to be nuclear. Enough mass brought down from orbit on a specific target can be devastating without explosives. Imagine that instead of flying a drone over your enemy with a missile, you instead launch a steel rod from space directly into their vehicle. Same destruction, no drone to alert them, you can target anywhere on earth.
- varjag 10y agoAn interesting move. One that incoming Trump administration would find politically hard to neuter, and which is likely aimed to deteriorate Russian defence first and foremost. Russia is not economically and technologically positioned to meet the challenge, but would unavoidably have to try anyway. Could be the "appropriate answer" to the hacking Obama hinted before.
- agumonkey 10y agoWith their recent plane accident it seems that they indeed have technological quality problems to address already. I don't really hate the Russian government, and I'm not fond of other ones, but large countries in a pride escalation around military always worry me.
- brian-armstrong 10y agoJust a bit of a spoiler -- It doesn't get really good until IV ;)
- ScottBurson 10y agoFranks, asked whether the country could afford it, replied: “What is national security worth? It’s priceless.” So let's see, Congressman Franks, if you really believe that security is priceless. Do you wear a Kevlar vest at all times? Ride only in an armored Maybach? Keep a dozen bodyguards at your home? Line the walls of your house with depleted uranium? Scan every object entering your house with a T-wave explosives detector and a Geiger counter? Of course not. Security is not "priceless"; it is subject to cost/benefit analysis like everything else. I can do no better at this point than to quote President Dwight Eisenhower: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. [0] In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. [1] I think it's a safe bet that the big defense contractors like Lockheed Martin have been lobbying for a resumption of Star Wars ever since the Reagan years. Looks like they finally found a moment when we were all thinking about other things. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech [1] http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm
- pmoriarty 10y ago"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." When was the last time an American Presidential candidate ran on feeding the hungry and clothing the cold? Such sentiments are more likely to be derided these days as "socialist".
- ScottBurson 10y agoWell, there was Bernie :-)
- 10y ago
- pmoriarty 10y agoWhat happened to no militarization of space?