Tell me, frame, have you EVER contributed ANYTHING to ANY BLOG besides mindlessly defending Oliver and rabidly attacking his detractors? And is the pay any good? It’d have to be, ‘cuz there’s not enough money in the world that’d get me to do the whoring you do.

I’ve wasted way, way too much time on you, you pathetic little guttersnipe. I have obligations of my own, and they don’t involve taking your bullshit and weeding through the gratuitous insults (and they weren’t even ORIGINAL, just the same litany of two or three over and over again, so they even lacked entertainment value) to find a grain or two of factual material worth rebutting.

Enough’s enough? More like “too much.”

Oliver, enjoy the little echo chamber you’ve developed. I hope you enjoy your choir of rabid asswipes, because they’re pretty much the sort you deserve.

At least at Wizbang, we have a few dissenting voices who have mastered the art of civil discourse — unlike frame, who strikes me as someone in dire need of housebreaking.

Just make sure you have your shots up to date, Oliver — because these are the types that tend to turn on you.

J.

Congratulations, frame. You apparently really wanted the crown of King Shit of this particular Turd Mountain. Well, you just took it.

J.

And might I add, here I was thinking you referring to Alex’s IDEAS which I happen to share. Since I share his IDEAS and live in Los Angeles your comment could also apply to me hence: Go Fuck Yourself.

I’m glad, however, that you are now admitting that your were attacking Alex personally under the assumption that someone’s geographical location in relation to North Korea holds total, determinant sway over their opinions on American military policy. Under this thinking, everyone in California, Washington and Oregon must be simply quivering in fear over the threat of a North Korean nuclear sneak attack and in full support of Bush’s missile defense program. Idiot.

Oh and look, Bush takes the same fundamental approach:

“President Bush has declared that he wants “layered” missile defenses. Basically, this means using multiple methods for shooting down missiles in various stages of flight in order to improve the odds of actually hitting them. Over the years the Defense Department has studied a variety of systems that would try to engage incoming missiles at all stages of flight.”
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so02forden

So research across multiple approaches and technologies is okay for missile defense but researching a “layered” approach to alternative fuels is sheer fantasy land? You should read the whole article because it raises a number of other difficulties to missile defense that you overlook while fundamentally suggesting that it’s possible if not extremely challenging.

Of couse did I ever say it wasn’t possible? No. I’m simply pointing out your utter hypocrisy in support for one Manhattan-Style project that began as a vague “vision of hope” based on experimental technologies while dismissing another as fantasy. You say this even though you have overlooked one of the most serious challenges to any credible missile defense program: That the current planned system for ground-based midcourse interceptors is useless in the face of an enemy with half a brain and access to mylar balloons. As the blog post I linked to above suggests:

“Any rogue nation smart enough to develop weapons of mass destruction is also going to be smart enough to include decoys in their missiles …”

Here’s the link again because you, champion of serious debate, clearly ignored it the first time around: http://joshfriess.blogspot.com/2005/06/essential-problem-with-ballistic.html

This guy is apparenlty studying to be a rocket scientist and he raises a number of interesting questions about the feasibility of missile defense. In your list of “technical challenges” as you understood them you completely overlooked the challenge of distinguishing simple, relatively rudimentary decoy devices from actual warheads. Such willingness to live in ignorance is much like when the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency rigged tests in 1997 to make it look like the system worked against decoys. If not for the conscience of three whistle-blowers the Pentagon might have got away with it. Here’s an article by an MIT professor detailing the scam and discussing the larger challenges facing missile defense research:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/missile/etc/postol.html

“President Bush’s latest proposal does not include this high-resolution radar, making tracking and identification of enemy missiles harder and delaying the interception time. But even with the more advanced original system, big problems surround the scenario. For starters, an adversary could alter the reflections from decoys and warheads by covering surfaces and seams with wires, metal foil or radar-absorbing materials. These simple strategies would render the radar unable to reliably sort out warheads from their armadas of decoys.

Compounding this problem is a simple fact: in the near vacuum of space, a feather and a rock move at the same speed, since there is no air drag to cause the lighter object to slow up relative to its heavier companion. This basic vulnerability makes it even easier for an adversary to devise decoys that will look like warheads to radar or an infrared telescope observing them from long range.”

Now I’m no rocket scientist either. But that’s why I read what rocket scientists write to understand the issues involved here. According to this guy we’re left with boost phase or terminal phase options which present not only huge technical challenges with still highly limited results but also geo-political challenges as well. Accoridng to this guys bost phase systems would require either ships in constant patrol off the coast of countries like North Korea or would require land-based silos in countries like Turkey to thwart middle-east -based threats. We couldn’t get Turkey to grant us flyover permission for our invasion of Iraq. You think they’re going to let us put missile silos in their soil?

But despite all these challenges you support throwing billions of dollars into the slim chance of producing a workable but highly limited missile defense system while dismissing outright as a fantasy any such similar funding for alternative energy research which could free us from dependence on oil and improve the lives of billions of people. That makes you an idiot and a hack.

But I’ll actually take a gesture towards civility here, and answer you:

1) The “move to the target” remark was clearly directed towards Alex.

2) The basic principle of missile defense has precedents that trace back — successfully — for over 50 years. We first started shooting down flying objects with guided missiles in the 1950′s. Missiles, I might add, launched from either the ground or aircraft. We have progressed from shooting down aircraft to missiles since then, as technology has improved. The Standard and Patriot missiles have an anti-missile capability, just to name two.

3) There are two fundamental differences between ballistic missiles and non-ballistic missiles. The first makes intercepting them easier: they do not maneuver or evade, their course is purely ballistic. Dr. Isaac Newton is in charge of their guidance. It is very easy to quickly extrapolate their course.

The second difference is the challenging one: their speed. They move a whole order of magnitude faster than any aircraft or non-ballistic missile. That problem is the real challenge: to develop an interceptor that can fly to the missile’s flight path and detonate at the right time.

The technical challenges for such an interceptor are, as I understand them:

1) Have a heavy enough warhead to deflect, incapacitate, or destroy the incoming warhead;
2) Be light enough to fly up and intercept the missile at the speed required;
3) Have enough fuel to intercept the missile before it gets too close to its target;
4) Carry sufficient on-board sensors to detect the warhead at a good distance;
5) Carry sufficient computing power to detonate itself in the fraction-of-a-second window when the warhead is in range.

The problem is that all the things it needs — fuel, explosives, guidance, fuses, sensors — all add weight. Increased weight means decreased range and speed. The problem is to find just the right balance. Improvements in technology could make the electronics smaller and lighter. Improvements in fuel and motor efficiency can reduce the weight of propulsion. Improvements in the sensors can reduce the necessary size of the warhead. Improvements in explosive material can reduce the amount of explosive needed to produce the same blast.

All these changes are evolutionary, not revolutionary. The designers of the Nike Ajax missile would have no problem understanding the principles of a Patriot or a Hawk, because it is essentially the same thing — just with 50+ years of continuous improvement.

Have we hit the wall in missile development? Have we reached the point where they simply cannot be improved to where they can intercept ballistic missiles? I don’t know. I’m no rocket scientist. But I don’t think we have.

Now, I spent one paragraph addressing your odious tendencies, then gave you a metric ton of substance. If you’re interested in discussing this matter civilly, please do so. If you want to continue to fling feces, I will cheerfully leave you as the undisputed King Shit of Turd Mountain. Enjoy your throne.

J.

Oh and Jay, I live in Los Angeles so you can shove your bullshit up your ass.

Then again, as usual, someone answers you directly with the facts and you scamper off like the gutless turd that you are. See you real soon.

Riiiight, that’ll work. Like putting signs on the windows of your house; “This house protected by XYZ Security” even though it isn’t.
I had an idea similar to this about illegals sneaking across the border; put up signs saying “Minefield ahead”. No point in actually laying mines, but the sign is the deterrent, right?
Pedro, you keep saying that the technology hasn’t evolved enough yet, as in this statement, One is a relatively simple mechanics issue of two moving objects.

They’ve been working on this since Fonzie jumped the shark and it still doesn’t work. So maybe it ain’t so simple after all. Technology has advanced exponentially since they started, and it still doesn’t work.

What is more realistic;
1. A 1% chance of downing that missle?
2. A 0% chance?

You’re all for full government funding of missile defense but against a similar effort for researching alternative fuels. Why? Who the fuck knows. Because both require high investments in money and time, both have high technical and scientific hurdles to overcome and both are meant to solve/alleviate problems.

In the case of star wars, throwing money at the problem didn’t work.

Therefore, we should throw money at the problem of alternative energy sources?

Is that the twisted logic you are now using?

I my mind the whole Star Wars saga was summed up by Einstein

“Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them”

Much as with our liberating Iraq, missile defense is meant to prevent the problem in the first place.

Um, Jay, the clearly defined goal is to develop an energy alternative to oil. There are different ways of doing that, just as there are different ways of shooting a missile out of the sky. As you’ll note above, Reagan didn’t lock himself into any definite solution to the MD problem: space-based lasers, land-based or sea-based missiles, boost phase/mid phase/terminal phase systems etc. He just stated the goal and threw a shit load of money and resources into finding the best solution. Remember, at the time he only wanted to offer a “vision of hope.” You can’t get vaguer than that but we went ahead and started spending billions of dollars anyway. Of course since you didn’t bother reading any of the articles I quoted you don’t this so you’re free to simply make shit up. I, on the other hand, try to stick to the facts:

“When it comes to Ballistic Missile Defense (or National Missile Defense, or “Star Wars”, or whatever it’s being called today), most people think the main difficulty is one of technology — that the problem of “hitting a bullet with a bullet”, as the process of striking an extremely fast-moving inbound missile with a 1.5 meter “kill vehicle” is often analogized, is just a really difficult physics problem that will be solved with enough trial and error. While this is true — to date, only about half of the tests have successfully hit their targets in heavily controlled experiments — there is actually a deeper, more fundamental problem with the system that might be impossible to solve no matter how good the technology gets.”

http://joshfriess.blogspot.com/2005/06/essential-problem-with-ballistic.html

And frame, despite your hysterical polemics, long-winded screeds, personal assaults, and utterly irrelevant quotes, I repeat: both the Manhattan Project and missile defense had clearly defined goals. The Manhattan Project succeeded; missile defense has not yet. But as drpedro points out, missile defense is simple ballistics; we know it’s theoretically possible. The key is to find a way to bring the theory to reality consistently enough to be feasible? What are the clearly-defined goals of Oliver’s grand proposals?

But I’m sure you’ll ignore that question and simply resort to more crap-flinging. You play to your strengths.

J.

The idiots respond. (Oh and Jay, please try to refrain from injecting your personal hygiene needs and fantasies into the discussion.)

As expected the science they support is reasonable and practical and can be accomplished by hard work while the science they don’t is the stuff of fantasy and miraculous epiphany. Yup, no one ever did a calculation or tested a theory on the way to the nuclear bomb or nuclear power, they just sat around hoping for epiphanies.

When “Star Wars” was first proposed (by a former B-movie actor turned President) it was met with the same skepticism that research into alternative fuels has today. Reagan responded then with the same attitude that alternative fuel supporters have today:

NEW VISION FOR REAGAN
The New York Times, March 24, 1983, Thursday, Late City Final Edition, Section A; Page 21, Column 1; Foreign Desk

“The President, and the remarks made earlier by his aides in elaborating his speech, did not assert that a workable defense against nuclear missile attack was possible in the near future. Only about $1 billion is now spent annually by the Department of Defense on research and development of ”ballistic missile defense” and associated technology – a figure that would be considerably higher if the technology was further advanced.

But a theme of the President’s speech was that a number of technologies had reached a level of sophistication that made it ”reasonable” to begin a more concerted effort to develop defenses that may take years and even decades to become operational.”

Do you want to know what this newly sophisticate technologies were? Talk about vague, shot in the dark (no pun intended) beginnings:

REAGAN PROPOSES U.S. SEEK NEW WAY TO BLOCK MISSILES
The New York Times, March 24, 1983, Thursday, Late City Final Edition, Section A; Page 1, Column 6; National Desk

“White House officials said the new program might involve lasers, microwave devices, particle beams and projectile beams. These devices, most of which are in a very early stage of development, in theory could be directed from satellites, airplanes or land-based installations to shoot down missiles in the air.

Scientists have felt the beam defenses could revolutionize the concept of nuclear strategy because, up to now, the idea of shooting missiles down after they were launched has been deemed impractical.”

Laser beams. They were initially talking about laser beams. And what have got now? Missiles.

And talk about vague, Reagan officials were not only met with skepticism, they wouldn’t even call the idea, announced in a prime time speech, “a plan or a proposal”:

AIDES URGED REAGAN TO POSTPONE ANTIMISSILE IDEAS FOR MORE STUDY
The New York Times, March 25, 1983, Friday, Late City Final Edition, Section A; Page 1, Column 4; National Desk

Some American scientists said the President’s proposal might never be technically feasible but would be strategically ”dangerous” if it was ever made workable. Other scientists defended the concept. (Page A8.)

… The senior officials were careful not to portray the President’s call for a ”comprehensive and intensive effort to define a longterm research and development program” as even a plan or a proposal.

They said Mr. Reagan signed a formal directive today, calling for a first phase of intensive study of the idea, followed by a second phase of recommendations and possible implementation of new programs. But they emphasized that it was still only an idea, not a program. One referred to it as a way of getting ”attention, engendering a debate, posing of an alternative” to exclusive reliance on offensive missiles.

The officials also made clear they were aware that the President’s idea would lead to debate about nuclear deterrence and arms control. They did not pretend to have answers to fundamental questions raised by Mr. Reagan’s challenge to the scientific community to find a way of protecting the United States from a nuclear attack. Among such questions are these:

- Will the proposed strategy violate existing arms limitation treaties, in particular the 1972 agreement limiting Soviet and United States antimissile systems and their development?

- Can a defensive system be devised that cannot be overcome by the offense?

- Will deterrence be enhanced or undermined by such a system, which would allow one side to strike first and limit the effects of a retaliatory blow? This last is especially important because such a system could theoretically be developed by the Soviet Union as well as by the United States.

The senior officials responded simply that these questions would have to be explored and that there was time to do so. They stressed that they were talking about such technologies as laser beams and other forms of directed energy, which probably will not be ready for use as weapons until after the year 2000.”

Oh hey, back to the lasers. Ready by 2000. How’d that work out? Oh and was Regan met by any scientific doubt? Of course. And what was the White House? To keep their idea as vague and amorphous as possible by suggesting that while the goel was missile defense any number of different technologies would be looked into from particle lasers in space to more traditional ground based missile systems:

SCIENTISTS DUBIOUS OVER MISSILE PLAN: Some consider it Technically Unqorkable – Others View It as Strategic Danger

The New York Times, Mar 25, 1983; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 – 2003)
pg. A8

Some scientists said today that President Reagan’s proposal to develop a defense against nuclear sttack may never be technicallt feasible, but that it would be strategically ‘dangerous’ if it was ever made wrokable. Other scientists defended the concept.
….
Dr. Panofsky and a number of other figures in American science said they doubted that scientists could be marshalled into an effort resembling the Manhattan Project that produced the first nuclear weapon in World War II.

In his speech, Mr. Reagan said he was seeking a ‘vision of hope’ that nuclear weapons could made ‘impotent’ by the development of a practical defense shield. Aides said the President was not betting on any single technology but wanted intensified research both in space-based weapons that might shoot down missiles and land-based anti-missile systems. The President said it might require decades to achieve workable systems.”

The bottom line is that idiots like pedro and Jay support the science that suits their ideology and not the science that doesn’t. But they don’t argue the politics of their positions. Not at all. They instead distort history and science both in an effort to deceive and obfuscate. Idiots both.

Your analysis is a useful tool for demonstrating that the U.S. is the real bad guy here, but it does not address the nature of an actual nuclear threat in today’s world. The “many nations”–about 8 at last count?– who have acquired nuclear weapons since we used ours in a world war 60 years ago have been, for the most part, stable players in the world community. For the foreseeable future, the threat of nuclear weapons comes not from a large scale barrage in the Cold War model, but from, as I said in an earlier post, and “act of madness” from someone who has a handful of them. If someone were to launch a couple missiles out of desparation, anger, or miscalculation, I for one would rather counter with an interceptor than a counterstrike against the people of that country.