orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (03/17/86)
>> According to this reasoning, you should support SDI, since SDI would >> cut down the Soviets' effective number of missiles--(say) 95% of their >> missiles won't get through, meaning they have, in effect, 95% fewer >> missiles. Even according to Start Wars advocates like Lt. Gen Abrahamson, stopping 95% of *current* Soviet warheads is the *best* Start Wars can be expected to achieve. What does this mean? This means that out of the Soviet Union's 7500 *current* strategic warheads 350 strategic warheads would still strike targets in the US. These 350 strategic warheads would pack the destructive power of thousands of Hiroshimas - enough to thoroughly obliterate the US and our population. Indeed the Soviets have approx 900,000 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima - 5% of that arsenal is roughly 45,000 times the destructive power of Hiroshima. Of course not all of this destructive power is concentrated in *strategic* nuclear warheads or nuclear warheads capable of striking the US. But there is certainly plenty enough to kill millions of Americans. This is *IF* the Soviets deploy no new weapons to counter our Start Wars program. It should be quite obvious than any dreams that Start Wars can somehow "defend our population" is simply that : a dream on the order of saying we could put a man in the Alpha Centauri system by the Year 2000! tim sevener whuxn!orb
berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) (03/21/86)
> >> According to this reasoning, you should support SDI, since SDI would > >> cut down the Soviets' effective number of missiles--(say) 95% of their > >> missiles won't get through, meaning they have, in effect, 95% fewer > >> missiles. > for research proposals for SDI and my general impression was that research proposals for SDI, and my impression was that the idea of SDI is based on physical principles, like possibility of creating a powerful X-ray beam ar to propel small pellets to speeds 20-30 times larger than the speed acievable by gun bullets. However, almost none of those ideas is supported by any of existing technologies. This reminds me the idea of fussion power. According to predictions made 20 years ago, by now we should have prototype fussion power stations. Now nobody ventures to make any predictions: after spending billions of dollars and twenty years, scientists find more problems than solutions. Example: to contains very hot plasma, powerful electromagnets are used, however the existing electromagnets are still to weak and already too unstable to dream about any industrial use involving large energies. We know how difficult it is to build a flawless nuclear power station or a space shuttle. We also know how under political pressure an experimental and potentially dangerous vehicle may be converted, for propaganda purposes, into an "dependable space truck", used to carry senators, foreign princes and school teachers. Now we can read that no expert could reasonable assert that the shuttle was any more dependable than a prototype of a military aircraft. Even in the case of space shuttle, based on well-checked physical principles (unlike the principles supporting SDI) and and which is a devise by many orders of magnitude simpler, we witnessed huge cost overruns (which gobbled many parts of the space programs) and delays. Now the space program is a shadow if its former self. Similarly, incorporating SDI as a cornerstone of our defence can gobble tremendous resources which could be used for more conventional defence, military research and, last but not least, civilian research. A last remark on SDI. US has also another program: to build a stealth bomber, which inside atmosphere will be udetectable by radar. How SDI can defend against such a strategic bomber? Will be it possible to build undetectable submarines with undetectable cruise missiles on board? It seems that it is easier to develop countermeasures for SDI than SDI itself. Piotr Berman
sykora@csd2.UUCP (Michael Sykora) (03/24/86)
>/* rb@ccivax.UUCP (rex ballard) / 4:29 pm Mar 21, 1986 */ > . . . and being able to >assure the survival of enough military and political leadership to >perpetuate both the species and the conflict. If military and political leaders are to be the seed for continuing the species, is it really worth preserving? :-)