Spike Jones <spike66@attglobal.net> Wrote:
>The white paint would indeed reflect energy better than black.
> For about 2 milliseconds.
I'd be most interested in how you calculated that 2 milliseconds figure,
but I certainly don't deny that a bright enough light can burn up anything
white or not. My point is that by doing a few simple and very cheap things
to my warheads I can force you at huge expense to enormously increase
the size of your laser . Not that you'd ever actually fire the thing because
it would get destroyed in the first few minutes of the war. That sets the tone
of the entire problem because the defense has a fundamentally more difficult
job than the offense and I see absolutely nothing on the technological horizon
that is going to change that.
1) The defense must be precise, accurate to a few inches, the offence can
afford to be sloppy as hell because today's bombs are so powerful that
one dropped almost anywhere in the USA would kill thousands if not
millions of registered voters.
2) The defense targets are tiny fast moving and very tough, the offence
targets are huge stationary and delicate.
3) It's easy to make good decoy defense targets it's impossible to make
good decoy offence targets.
4) The defense must be perfect, the offense only needs a rare success
because any sane president would find the loss of even one
American city unacceptable.
What this means is that for every dollar you spend on star wars I can
counter by spending a nickel, probably less.
> I do commend you for not changing the subject line.
Hey I like interceptors, I wish I had an impregnable missile shield,
I wish I had a perpetual motion machine too, but wishing does not
make it so.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:54 MDT