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That is an unreasonable conclusion to reach given the evidence. You cannot reasonably allow a missile, potentially carrying a dirty bomb to enter your airspace,

That is an unreasonable conclusion to reach given the evidence. You cannot reasonably allow a missile, potentially carrying a dirty bomb to enter your airspace, and relatively centrally so, and not act. Occam's razor suggests there is no shield.

notyourday 9y ago
Or it is known that the current state of the shield matches the first generation of Patriot interceptors, which means that it in a case where hail mary is not needed the US would not engage it.
castis 9y ago
Invoking philosophical razors does not change the reality that the missile did not hit anything of importance. If you throw a punch and miss me (whether intentional or not), and I do not immediately react, it does not imply that I am incapable of defending myself.
- ageofwant 9y ago
  It demonstrated clearly that Kim can hit any town in Japan and surrounding territories if he so chooses. The Japanese government went to some trouble to disseminate that information via SMS. If they could shoot down that missile and not terrify their own population they would have done so.
  - castis 9y ago
    > they would have done so What actually happened proves that this would have been unnecessary.
dtparr 9y ago
It's not exactly your "airspace" at 550km (the reported apogee) as, among other things, there's no air. That's 150km higher than the ISS orbits. It won't be a perfect ballistic curve due to the boost phase not being instantaneous and drag during the endoatmospheric periods, but based on how far it flew and how far it overshot Japan by, the halfway point between launch and landing is just at or just west of the Japanese coast. So a conservative estimate would be that when it crossed over a Japanese land mass, it was at least 500km up. So saying "you can't reasonably allow it" is a little odd when I don't think they could physically have stopped it at that altitude. By the time it dropped down into the reported range of THAAD, it'd have been well past Japan.

notyourday 9y ago

Or it is known that the current state of the shield matches the first generation of Patriot interceptors, which means that it in a case where hail mary is not needed the US would not engage it.

castis 9y ago

Invoking philosophical razors does not change the reality that the missile did not hit anything of importance. If you throw a punch and miss me (whether intentional or not), and I do not immediately react, it does not imply that I am incapable of defending myself.

ageofwant 9y ago
It demonstrated clearly that Kim can hit any town in Japan and surrounding territories if he so chooses. The Japanese government went to some trouble to disseminate that information via SMS. If they could shoot down that missile and not terrify their own population they would have done so.
- castis 9y ago
  > they would have done so What actually happened proves that this would have been unnecessary.

dtparr 9y ago

It's not exactly your "airspace" at 550km (the reported apogee) as, among other things, there's no air. That's 150km higher than the ISS orbits. It won't be a perfect ballistic curve due to the boost phase not being instantaneous and drag during the endoatmospheric periods, but based on how far it flew and how far it overshot Japan by, the halfway point between launch and landing is just at or just west of the Japanese coast. So a conservative estimate would be that when it crossed over a Japanese land mass, it was at least 500km up. So saying "you can't reasonably allow it" is a little odd when I don't think they could physically have stopped it at that altitude. By the time it dropped down into the reported range of THAAD, it'd have been well past Japan.