MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD: Is it needed?

[MattTheSkywalker]

Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said this morning on Meet The Press, that the technology does exist for a missile defense system. ........Is he B.Sing?

If you consider the subpar performance of the Patriot, and the failure of the THAAD system, yes it looks as if he is full of shit.

However I do not have a Top Secret clearance, and the government had the Internet in 1969, so they may have some things I am not aware of.

 

[Fonz]

Put a laser in Space?

Thats definately NOT how a laser-based system
works.

First-off:

You need a mirror in order to focus 6 or more
different laser beams into one COHERENT
BEAM.

This is called a phased-array laser.

Secondly:

You'd need to be able to channel enough power into the laser
for it to be a weapon, without obviously damaging the mirror.

40MegaJoules will INCINERATE a MIRV in re-entry.

The mirror is the KEY.

You then have to use "adaptive optics" to compensate for the
scattering effect the atmosphere would have on the coherent
laser pulse(made out of 6 beeams as I have said).

If this is not done, "thermal blooming" occurrs and
the energy from the laser is dissipated into the atmposphere.
Result: :Less energy delivered to the incoming misile.

The one HUGE advantage this system would offer is that
the recycle-time of the laser is VERY, VERY FAST.

I'm talking one pulse per .05 seconds.
You could shoot a missile 20 times in 1 second.

Thats 40MJ per pulse btw. result: BYE BYE missile.

Another expansion of this proposed laser defense sytem
is for OFFENSIVE use.

i.e. You could deploy small mirrors on multiple satellites.

You could then fire from the ground-based laser
and BOUNCE it off the mirror on the satellite.
The beam would then be directed downwards again.
This would give you the ability to strike any ground-based
target anywhere in the world.
Even airborne targets using this method could be targeted.
(But it would be a lot harder)

Without space-based mirrors, the laser system would only
be able to hit targets on the visible horizon.

Godspeed

 

[Latimer]

It's really going to be a defense system against U.F.O.'s. We already have one in place.