Lasers and ICBMs

[Alan Olsen]

On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Eugene Leitl wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Tim May wrote:
> 
> > A lot of the calculations being sketched out here, of watts/cm^2,
> > dwell times, gold coatings, etc. are slightly off-base. We've known
> > for 20+ years that the kill method is to use a short pulse to "push"
> > (not from the photons' momentum) in the thin wall of an ICBM's fuel
> 
> Explosive ablation sounds like giant pulses, and chemicals lasers (the
> only ones known to provide lasing output in the ballpark) don't do these
> very well. So either you have to fire synchonously from many platforms, or
> have a veritable Death Star out there in LEO. Several of them, in fact, to
> maintain an umbrella at all times.

Why is this reminding me of some of the activities of local Law
enforcement?

All of this talk of multiple shots fired, but no mention of what happens
to those that miss or continue on past the target after hitting it.

I expect that if they ever do test this thing in low earth orbit or any
other space bound platform, we may see a few "accidents" that were not
counted on.  

"Oops! Accidently hit that communications satilite. Sorry!"

"Oops! Accidently hit that densely populated urban area!"

Oops! "Accidently" hit Tim May's house!"

alan at ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply
Alan Olsen            | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys.
 "All power is derived from the barrel of a gnu." - Mao Tse Stallman