On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
Bull. Missiles are vulnerable to various assaults during their entire flight. The aerodynamic forces during boost and terminal flight
My comment was limited to radiant energy weapons. As to those, the critical vulnerability exists during launch and boost phase. The target is slow, bright, large, has fuel on board and a nonarmored hull, which (as other posters observed) can be weakened with enough flux. The warhead in transit is fast, small, silent, and very, very hard to hit critically (well, it is designed to withstand reentry and nuclear antimissile near-hits), especially if it has a high-albedo coating, and if it is accompanied by a cloud of decoys. Either radiant energy weapon or kinetic kill, you're on the losing side here.
operations, vacuum effects (rupture a fuel tank and watch that baby gyrate).
True, but irrelevant.
You need serious energy flux and tracking precision to terminate a warhead.
Which has been demonstrated to be extant since the mid-80's when they shot the first satellite down with a high altitude fighter.
A missile in boost phase is not a satellite. A cloud of decoys is not a satellite. An armored warhead is not a satellite. The problem assymetry makes star wars a very expensive proposition. Using airborne hardware instead of LEO is a good move, but it falls orders of magnitude short of the target. The demos are just that: demos. Given that a limited strike is best conducted with remotely operated civilian aircraft, or plain old UPS, star wars seems like effect of industrial lobby.