gateman9's Journal: Bullet with a Bullet

The one glaring flaw in the missile defense program? It treats science as a crutch. Honestly, for an intercept to work correctly, a computer would have to do a whole mess of calculus on a huge input set (under non-nice conditions, which is generally all the time outside of a lab vacuum chamber) in less than ten minutes (scramble any later, and well, sorry Charlie).

I think it was either PopSci or Discover that did a huge piece on this in their October 2001 issue (written after the spectacular test failure, but before September 11th due to publishing deadlines). They talked to a lot of physicists who said yes, it's possible, but highly improbable, much in the same way that time travel is possible, but highly improbable.

For this system to really, really work, the ground will have to wire the work to the missile, and we're talking computers on the scale of the Columbia installation or the Earth simulator. Only systems of this size could actually do the calculus on the input set in the time required. They chose the automata method, but this task is more complicated than the automata method can cope with, hence the continual failures, whether in pre-launch (come on, NASA has launched enough rockets successfully to lend a hand in what should be the simple part) or post-launch.

Besides, they're testing the system like the Tacoma Narrows bridge was tested: right down the middle of the bridge on a calm day.

Christ, first this administration decries science as evil (stem cell (whether or not it actually produces worthy results), contraception, etc.) and then uses it to defend a technically unfeasible. It's not the science, its the practitioners.