kakki wrote: > Randy wrote: > > > But wouldn't exploding a nuke release radioactivity into the > > atmosphere for all to breathe and get cancer? > > I don't think the idea is to explode it in space
Not a nuclear explosion, but destroying it would still spread radioactive waste into the air. Better than nuking a city I guess, but how much would it disperse and poison the planet? > but it is not right to say it > either doesn't exist or doesn't work. Thousands of people in SoCal and a > few other cities have been working on it for too many years to say that. That only shows that it is well funded, not whether it works. > > Also, I am pretty sure the failed tests far outweigh the successful ones. > I recall the last one being faked. > > I think you and Lama and I might be on different pages as to what we think > this system is. The system I am thinking of has been in development for a > long time and the early tests were top secret so how would you know or why > would you think they are faked? I read the links you posted, and they describe a laser technology (which appears to be designed to be mounted on aircraft). In the larger system of a star wars type defense shield, there are lots of other components involved. http://whyfiles.org/089missile/ excerpt: A more localized version, the Theater High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), has already failed six straight tests. The latest test, on http://www.nukewatch.com/spring02/sp0214.html excerpt describing astronomical costs, staged tests, space 'defense' weapons that are really designed as offensive weapons (no pun intended), other systems in the works or being designed, and how all this is fueling more nuclear proliferation, aka 'here we go again' with mutually assured destruction. In his July 9, 2001, column in The Nation, Christopher Hitchens quotes Dr. Martin Luther King: "The preparation for nuclear war is the willingness to commit genocide and suicide at the same time." Hitchens then observes: "... the delusion of Missile Defense is that the suicide bit can be removed from the equation." Faked Tests, Fired Whistle-blowers Dr. Nira Schwartz, an employee of weapons giant TRW, was fired in 2000 after revealing that TRW had faked test results in order to claim that its "kill vehicle" could distinguish between decoy missiles and missiles carrying live warheads. When Dr. Theodore Postol, a professor at MIT, took Dr. Schwartzs findings to the White House and the General Accounting Office, the Pentagon classified his report. TRW and the Pentagon knew the system could not work, but attempted to deploy it anyway. Schwartz and Postol maintain that no existing technology can distinguish between decoys and live warheads; thus, it is not possible to field an effective missile defense. Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish of the Air Force, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), was quoted in the New York Times (Aug. 16, 2001) as doubting the "basic functionality" of the antimissile system. The third and fourth tests of ballistic missile interceptors, unlike the first and second, which flopped, were "successful." Unfortunately, the tests (July 14 and Dec. 3, 2001) were rigged. In both cases, although the target missile and interceptor were fired 5000 miles away from each other, the interceptor was guided to within 400 meters of the target by a beacon implanted in the targets nose. General Kadish does not seem worried about this problem. "Our test philosophy is to add step-by-step complexities over time. It is a walk-before-you-run, learn-as-you-go development." "The focus is on testing, and lots of it," said Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the BMDO. Each test costs taxpayers $100 million. The next test is scheduled for May. http://www.counterpunch.org/starwars.html "How the Pentagon Fixed the Star Wars Test" excerpt (btw identifies Clinton's support and funding for star wars which revitalized Reagan's foundering dream)excerpt: Since the 1980s, the U.S. has tried and failed to develop four different warning and tracking networks. The Sibbers program is the fifth, and seasoned observers have no doubt it will follow the fate of its forbears, to be joined by the other components of ballistic missile defense on a costly junkheap. In the meantime however the ABM treaty will probably have been torn up as other prospects for global disarmament, already dim, turned to a distant memory.
