arms-d@ucbvax.ARPA (04/02/85)
From: Moderator <ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 3 : Issue 19
Today's Topics:
On SDI (8 messages)
All azimuth testing of SLBM's
Rebutting Hans Bethe, et al
Proof vs. Persuasion
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Date: 28 Mar 85 22:41 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: SDI Foolishness
To: crummer@AEROSPACE.ARPA
cc: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA
you make a couple of interesting points, which I would like to see
more discussion of here in Arms-d. Namely:
On whom should the burden of proof regarding feasibility lie? the
proponents or the opponents?
By what criteria should one judge proofs of feasibility?
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Date: 28 Mar 85 22:44 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: Increased Lethality
To: jlg@LANL.ARPA
cc: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA
From: jlg at LANL.ARPA (Jim Giles)
The term 'lethality' here refers to the attrition
rate of incomming missiles... If
SDI works, then increased lethality would indeed be a benefit, but there
are no sinister connotations associated with the word (unless you are
rooting for the incomming missiles). Your friend should have asked about
the term I he was concerned. It probably meant that the SDI system would
work better with parallel processing as a part of the system.
You're right, though you should also note that SDI has significant
offensive potential as well.
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Date: 28 Mar 85 22:52 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: all azimuth testing of SLBM's.
To: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@UCB-VAX.ARPA
cc: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA
I repeat an earlier query to Herb Lin: all-azimuth testing of SLBMs is
news to me, and I'd like to know what test range it is done on. It's
not enough to launch the things, you have to watch where they land, and
as far as I know the US has no North-South test range at all. (The
Vandenberg facility can launch due south, but as far as I know there
are no tracking facilities very far downrange.)
Here is what I know and have inferred about SLBM testing (i.e., not a
whole lot, but some):
The entire flight of the SLBM need not be instrumented; where it lands
is much more important than what it does near launch. Therefore, it
is only near the landing zone that really precise measurements are
needed. My *guess* would be that SLBM's are launched into Kwajaelin
(spelling!!), but not just from the east. In addition, we do have
range instrumentation ships that could accompany an SLBM to observe
and monitor it during most of its flight for range safety and the
like. My source for the all-azimuth SLBM testing claim was a
conversation with Dick Garwin about a year ago when I asked him about
gravitational anomalies and ICBM trajectories. It may be that my
memory is faulty, but I don't think so.
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 85 08:47 EST
From: sde@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA
To: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V3 #18
In Commentary (prev issue) there was an article by Robert Jastrow entitled,
"The War Against 'Star Wars'."
The current issue has replies by Hans Bethe, et alii, but Jastrow and someone
from Lawr. Liv. Nat'l Lab. (Wood, I think) assert that the Bethe confreres:
1) were explicitly rebutted in classified meetings; and
2) offered no countervailing argument in such meetings; and
3) thereafter presented their case to the public w/o stating (1).
In view of such assertions, is it not appropriate that either:
1) Bethe, et al., should immediately initiate a libel suit; or
2) the rest of us should consider that Bethe, et al., be viewed as
commiting a grave disservice.
David Eisenberg sde@mitre-bedford
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 85 09:04:05 PST
From: Richard Foy <foy@AEROSPACE.ARPA>
To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Explanation of things
MJacksons cartoon of Oliver Wendall Holmes builing the bomb and the Little Girl
looking up to him does explain things. Physiological studies of male
biochemistry support the cartoon. These studies show that when males have high
levels of testosterone they tend to act in one of three different ways. They
act agressively, they become depressed or they engage in sexual activity.
Being depressed is no fun. Sexual activity is generally not socially
acceptable.
The only remaining way of responding to high testosterone levels is to be
agressive; ie lets build big bombs.
The cartoon is a neat way of summing up the scientific study.
richard
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 85 11:46:59 mst
From: jlg@LANL.ARPA (Jim Giles)
To: LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Re: Increased Lethality
Cc: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA
I'm not aware of any SDI weapons that are being designed for offensive
use. To be used as offensive weapons would require rather major design
modifications to the proposed systems.
J. Giles
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Date: 29 Mar 85 14:05 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Increased Lethality
To: jlg@LANL.ARPA
cc: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA
You're quite right; no SDI weapons are currently being designed for
offensive use. Nevertheless, if you think that they will have
capabilities that are *only* defensive, you are quite mistaken.
Examples:
SDI against communications or EW satellites in preparation for a first
strike attack on the SU.
chemical lasers that can zap airplanes (e.g., the one carrying the
Politboro) or conduct selective assasinations of Soviet leaders during
a May Day parade.
lasers with fluence enough to destroy (by burning) the agriculture of
an unfriendly nation like Nicaragua.
I do not advocate any of these uses. I just point out that they are
within the realm of possibility; moreover, the history of US weapons
systems is that they get used in many other scenarios for which they
were initially designed or justified.
herb lin
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 85 12:33:36 mst
From: jlg@LANL.ARPA (Jim Giles)
To: LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Re: Increased Lethality
Cc: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA
Of these three only the first would be possible without enhancement of
the current SDI goals. The second would require slight modifications
and would still only work on very high flying aircraft. The third
could only be done by selecting lasers operating at frequencies that
fit through the atmospheric 'window', frequencies which are not
optimal for the main mission of SDI. Furthermore, the ammount of
energy required to have significant effect in this way is enormous,
would be detected, and probably would be considered an act of war. If
we wished to declare war, there are more efficient ways to burn crops
in Nicaragua.
Note that particle beam weapons work very badly through the atmosphere and
cannot be considered for the second and third use above.
Note that all three hypothetical uses of SDI given above would probably
be detectable and considered an act of war.
J. Giles
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Date: 29 Mar 85 18:11 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: Increased Lethality
To: jlg@LANL.ARPA
cc: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA
Of these three only the first would be possible without enhancement of
the current SDI goals. The second would require slight modifications
and would still only work on very high flying aircraft. The third
could only be done by selecting lasers operating at frequencies that
fit through the atmospheric 'window', frequencies which are not
optimal for the main mission of SDI.
If we can build ground-based lasers that can transmit to space-based
mirrors to do BMD, we can build lasers in space that can transmit to
the ground. Expensive? Of course. Optimal? Of course not. I am
not claiming that we are building these systems *for* these purposes,
but that they will have these other applications.
Furthermore, the ammount of
energy required to have significant effect in this way is enormous,
would be detected, and probably would be considered an act of war. If
we wished to declare war, there are more efficient ways to burn crops
in Nicaragua.
...Note that all three hypothetical uses of SDI given above would probably
be detectable and considered an act of war.
Quite true. But you have to imagine a world in which we *do* have
these weapons. A President with these weapons at his ostensible
disposal might well decide to use them for some purpose never imagined
by Reagan.
Besides, I would have thought that the mining of harbors would be an
act of war, and it wasn't that (at least not publically). Why should
laser burning of crops be any different?
Note that particle beam weapons work very badly through the atmosphere and
cannot be considered for the second and third use above.
True.
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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 85 16:43:58 PST
From: Charlie Crummer <crummer@AEROSPACE.ARPA>
To: Herb Lin <LIN @ MIT-MC>
cc: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Proof vs. Persuasion
I have been thinking and talking with several people about the ineffectiveness
and perhaps even the irrelevance that proof has for persuasion. I do not
have a sure answer, since we are out of the realm of proof I guess I never
will!
I have begun reading about rhetoric as a tool of persuasion.
I found a rather definitive work called "The New Rhetoric" by Ch. Perelman and
L. Olbrechts-Tyteca which is extremely good. People are convinced by Reagan
just because he says things. He is the president and has been given the power
to do this. We do not have the same license to convince. I think that mere
facts and "truth" are only the foundation on which a rhetorical offensive
could be launched. Someone told me that H. V. Kaltenborn explained Hitler's
amazing success with rhetoric as "1) He makes it simple, 2) He says
it often, and 3) He makes it burn." Hitler's rhetoric only had accidental
relation to truth but it was very effective. I think that when one speaks
the "truth" plainly and directly the utterance can penetrate the "logical"
or other facade and "prick [the audience] in their hearts", however.
I would very much like to continue this discussion because I can see no other
way to proceed except by persuasion.
--Charlie
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Date: 29 Mar 85 23:34:22 EST
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: liberal reaction to the SDI proposal
To: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA
I'm at a loss to understand the liberal reaction to the SDI proposal.
It seems to consist of two major parts:
a) It can't possibly work; the money will be wasted.
b) It will cause an arms race and get us all killed.
It would seem that if it really doesn't work, why worry about
whether the Russians will do it too? If you're worrying about
spending money, consider this: If SDI really doesn't work,
then the program consists essentially of a non-means-tested
income redistribution program, like 95% of the DHHS budget
already is, and which liberals seem to love.
If it does work, then it would seem to be a good idea, and if
the Russians build one too, that would also seem to be a good idea.
And if it can't work and is such a stupid idea, why would the Russians
be so gung-ho to build one themselves? Could it be that the Russians
are almost as nasty and warlike as Republicans?
--JoSH
[ps: nothing in this letter shall be construed to mean that I would
be caught dead in a ditch with a Republican.]
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From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@UCB-VAX.ARPA
Date: 30 Mar 85 01:03:32 CST (Sat)
To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Re: SDI Foolishness
> There has been some discussion about the time-translation invariance of the
> laws of physics. If the laws of physics do change then maybe SDI can be
> made to work.
The laws of physics do not change, but new ways of applying them are
found constantly. Many critiques of SDI use approximately the following
line of reasoning:
SDI is ridiculous, because if we assume that it is done in
such-and-such a way, then it is easy to show that it is
[pick one or more]:
1. Impossible
2. Ineffective
3. Enormously expensive
Of course, those three key words "if we assume" are never spelled out
explicitly, and in fact they are usually carefully hidden. I have yet
to see an "SDI cannot work" proof that does not rely on major assumptions
about the nature of the implementation.
SDI might -- repeat, might -- be impossible in the sense that a nuclear
airplane is impossible, i.e. it's very difficult and too expensive for
the benefits it gives. But I see nothing in the laws of physics which
firmly states that defence against ballistic missiles is a contradiction
in terms, or that it is intrinsically very expensive. The closest thing
yet is the (fairly obvious) demonstration that a missile-destroying
device either must have a very long range or must be deployed in quite
large numbers. Neither of these notions is fundamentally impossible
or inherently vastly expensive.
As an example...
> Hans Bethe, in a lecture ... last week, very conservatively estimated
> the cost of deploying the space-based laser alone, even after the outrageous
> assumption that they would operate at all, would cost between 2 and 6
> TRILLION dollars. (1 trillion dollars = $1,000,000,000,000) ...
This is obviously sensitive to at least three major assumptions, any or
all of which may be false:
1. Space-based lasers will require vast amounts of fuel [which
is normally the big mass in these estimates]. There is a
proposal, made in the context of space propulsion rather than
SDI, for using the Earth's ionosphere as a laser cavity with
orbiting mirrors. Laser action has been detected in the upper
atmospheres of several other planets, and is probably present
in the Earth's atmosphere too. If this would work, and could
reach useful power levels -- nobody knows -- this eliminates
the fuel issue entirely, reducing the orbiting mass by a couple
of orders of magnitude.
2. Space transport costs will remain at shuttle levels. I know
of several private-space-launch groups who think this assumption
is ridiculous. They may be wrong, but they might be right.
3. A trillion dollars is too much. That's $4000 per person, if
we assume that the US is the only population that's paying. How
much is *your* life worth to you? Mine is worth at least $4000
to me. Of course, this argument is valid only if there is a high
probability that a trillion-dollar system would save my life. I
see no convincing demonstration of this... yet.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
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[End of ARMS-D Digest]