Now, since a ICBM strike would give an enemy FAR too much time to see it coming, that wouldn't work. BUT, a SPACE-based first strike capability... would cut that time by over half. There'd be no plume to alert the enemy of your launch. There'd be less than half the cruise time, less ballistic time, no boost phase, less time to intercept... and with the proper materials, no need for nuclear payloads. Drop a boxcar-sized rock on, Tehran, for example, and you'd be left with a mile-wide crater and a far-reaching circle of devastation.

However, our need for defense is now much greater against smuggled 'pocket nukes' than it is against ballistic missiles. And the only really efective way to defend against that is to eliminate all the sorts of groups that might pose such a threat.

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"My knowledge and experience far exceeds your own, by, oh, about a BILLION times!" -- Q

I like your idea, Rob. The only problem would come if the nuclear salvo was the opening shot in a war, and you thus had no warning at all. But still, I like the idea. 'Course, you'd have to know where all the launchers were, and you'd also have to take out all missile-carrying subs (of which China has, what, one?) by other means, but still, it's worth the money to have that kind of advantage.

A warhead could be placed in, for example, a Mylar balloon. Hundreds of decoy balloons could then be launched to cover the one with an actual warhead. The system is thus far unable to figure out the difference between a live target and a decoy.

Another problem is that rogue states may be more likely to fire short-range missiles, which are easier for them to develop and deploy, and which the proposed national missile defense can't stop.

Oh, yeah, and 50 Nobel Prize winners (21-in physics) say it won't work, but it will be destablilizing, and Russia and China will embark on an arms race to overwhelm our missile defense.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
****
"The candidate who slimed John McCain in the primaries and smeared Al Gore in the general election is now the president who pledges to elevate the nation's tone and bring civility to our discorse. Kind of like Michael Corleone brought peace to the mob by killing the heads of the other four families."
--Paul Begala, Is Our Children Learning?

And which can't reach us.

Russia and China will embark on an arms race to overwhelm our missile defense.

Good. Let them destroy themselves.

*must...stop...chuckling...*

What if the wind changes?
Yeah, I can see it now. Iran launches a nuke on a mylar balloon, meant for the U.S. Three days later, a shift in weather patterns and a storm bring the nuke down on Leningrad. Russia begins a diligent search, finds out the Iranians were to blame, because SOMEBODY is gonna let it slip that they goofed, ... and vaporizes Tehran.

How much helium do you need to lift a pocket nuke?

This sounds like the old saw about how you could make a missile invulnerable by polishing it or spinning it, neither of which would work against a high-end laser OR a kinetic weapon.

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"My knowledge and experience far exceeds your own, by, oh, about a BILLION times!" -- Q

You're willing to bet a nuclear holocaust on the WIND, First?

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
****
"The candidate who slimed John McCain in the primaries and smeared Al Gore in the general election is now the president who pledges to elevate the nation's tone and bring civility to our discorse. Kind of like Michael Corleone brought peace to the mob by killing the heads of the other four families."
--Paul Begala, Is Our Children Learning?

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"My knowledge and experience far exceeds your own, by, oh, about a BILLION times!" -- Q

The only reason no one has attacked the US is because of MAD in cases of other superpowers, and because for smaller nations -- like Cuba -- it's called "suicide."

Star Wars is a waste of money.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
****
"The candidate who slimed John McCain in the primaries and smeared Al Gore in the general election is now the president who pledges to elevate the nation's tone and bring civility to our discorse. Kind of like Michael Corleone brought peace to the mob by killing the heads of the other four families."
--Paul Begala, Is Our Children Learning?

Liberals are supposed to be in favor of less nukes, and AGAINST M.A.D., right?

After all, Self-annihilation and failure is even less appealing than mutual destruction, even to the fanatics, right?

If WE have a missile defense, and they (generic 'they') don't, then our chances of surviving with our retaliatory capacity intact after their first strike are far greater than their own. Then we'd need to declare a "no first use" policy (which I don't think we've done yet, but we should, to gain a moral high ground,).

This would, in effect, lower our risk while increasing the other guy's, so that ALL nuclear attacks against the US would be seen in the same category as that of Cuba's: Suicide.

(Plus, if we control the space areas thoroughly enough, we could, theoretically, *ahem* 'prevent' anybody else from building a similar construct, thus assuring permanent preeminence. If we really HAD to.)

First, you're making the assumption that Star Wars would work. We tried shooting down one missile with another. The test failed -- the rocket carrying the interceptor missile failed to deploy properly, and POOF! we're out 100 million.

Hey, if it could actually work, fine, that would be fine.

But,

Couple that with Bush's willingness for a unilateral reduction in our nuclear arsenal, and what we've got is ...

a) a missile defense that doesn't work

b) no threat (from us) of MAD.

That's bad.

Plus, when 50 Nobel Peace Prize winners (21 of those in Physics, if I hadn't mentioned that before) say Star Wars is a bad idea that can't work, I'd tend to listen to them.

Star Wars = Very Bad

MAD = Very Bad (but, on the other hand, has prevented a nuclear war for 50 years)

We've got a choice between two evils, ladies and germs. Star Wars is supremely expensive -- I don't even know why Bill Clinton started talking about it a year or so ago -- and has not yet worked. It has not yet been able to differentiate between decoy and live targets. It does not work. Bad idea. No good. Give it up.

We're stuck with MAD.

------------------
Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
****
"The candidate who slimed John McCain in the primaries and smeared Al Gore in the general election is now the president who pledges to elevate the nation's tone and bring civility to our discorse. Kind of like Michael Corleone brought peace to the mob by killing the heads of the other four families."
--Paul Begala, Is Our Children Learning?

[This message has been edited by JeffKardde (edited February 20, 2001).]

Nobody suggesting putting the CURRENT system in place AS IS, that would be NUTS. But developing it until it DOEs work, that's pragmatic.

As for Nobel Scientists, that's all well and good.
However, I might remind you of one of Isaac Asimov's less-famous Universal Truths:

"If a distinguished but elderly scientist says that something is possible, he is very probably right. If, however, he says that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

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The government that seems the most unwise, oft goodness to the people best supplies. That which is meddling, touching everything, will work but ill, and disappointment bring. - The Tao Te Ching

quote:

---

3. The only nuclear attack you're likely to suffer is a terrorist one. You gonna particle-beam Arab immigrants from orbit?

---

Now, apart from the racist Arab stereotype, this is the real point.

No superpower, or even a country that found a bomb in their shed is stupid enough to start anything Nuclear with the US. (I say US not because you're the penultimate 'Good Guy', which you're not, but because you're the only 'good' country emphatic about your nukes.)

The term Mutually Assured Destruction is presumably translated into Russian, Farsi, Chinese and perhaps Mandarin. If not, "majorly bad fucking idea" is. Despit how "INSANE" & "CRAZY, BECAUSE HE'S NOT LIKE US!" & "BAD! NOT CONSTITUTION-BASED!" Some countries and leaders are, very few, if any are morons. You don't become the most powerful man in your country by being stupid.

So what does that leave? Terrorists, really. And not just "Arab Immigrants" either. Timothy McVeigh used a ryder truck. What's the next organized (God thank the fact that none have yet been able to be anything than a group fo 4 angry trailer park truck drivers angry at taxes) going to use? Any terrorist group with enough organization & financial support can get their hands on any type of MWD they fancy. Apparently 'Security' & 'Nuclear' never figure into the same sentence.

There are more than enough stories of Missing Russian, Chinese and American nuclear weapons, that one has to figure that if a terrorist operation really wanted one, they could probably get their hands on one.

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"...screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" - Omega.

Irony ensues.

All you need is enough mass of radiactive materials, like uranium to reach critical mass, which is a little bit bigger then a average softball.

Then you wrapped high explosive in the right geometry around the ball-shaped uranium. The high explosive create enough force for the uranium atom to come close enough for "Strong Nuclear Force" to takeover.

Mind you it's not that easy to obtain radioactive materials. And the design of the explosve have to be exactly right. But for high tech country like US, Russia or China who already possess the knowledge for nuclear weapon, it's not really a big problem.

Then you got yourself an bomb that can wipe out 5-10 block radius.

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What is the difference between a terriorist and your girlfriend?
- With terrorist, there is a chance of negotiation.

And then, of course, there's the awful possibility that we could just let it be known that we'll frag any foreign state that aids and abets any terrorist group that ends up using a nuke against us.

The faults, and 'uuh...wtf?'s of this suitcase nuke "plan" you've outlined are, well, a lot. It'd be easier to try and lift a really fat dude who ate like, a lot of pizza, and smelled like feet with your teeth over a flaming sea of mercury while standing on a 1" square of styrofoam, naked. With a mouse trap attatched to your genitals.

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"...screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" - Omega.

Irony ensues.