From: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com (skunk-works-digest) To: skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Subject: skunk-works-digest V9 #97 Reply-To: skunk-works@netwrx1.com Sender: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Errors-To: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Precedence: bulk skunk-works-digest Saturday, January 20 2001 Volume 09 : Number 097 Index of this digest by subject: *************************************************** www.bea-fr.org RE: TSR-2 and F-111 13 Days RE: TSR-2 and F-111 advice sought (possibly off-topic) 60 Minutes V-22 Report Re: Thirteen Days question FWD (Multiple) Re: Star Wars *************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 18:03:59 -0500 From: Chris Davies <100703.3474@compuserve.com> Subject: www.bea-fr.org From: Chris Davies, 100703.3474 To: Mike Roach, Internet:gmichaelroach@yahoo.com Date: 15, Jan 2001, , 21:31 RE: www.bea-fr.org Mike, Please find the above website for the BEA, where you will find the full report of the Air France Concorde (F-BTSC) crash on 25/7/00 at Goneese. Much of the Concorde's original airworthiness was based on the experience= gained with the Convair B-58 Hustler, (which also had a delta wing, but n= ot a wine-glass). In particular, simultaneous engine failure on the same win= g of the B-58 formed the basis for the ultimate airworthiness test, since i= t was an unrecoverable configuration for the Hustler. Thankfully, provided the pilot adopted a 'hands-off', it was found that Concorde always recovered from this situation. Chris - ---------------------------------------------- Here is an extract from th BA staff newspaper: [my comments in square brackets] France's Bureau Enquetes-Accidents (BEA) - the French equivalent of Britain's AAIB, [the CAA's Air Accident Investigation Branch], this week published its interim report on Air France's Concorde accident outside Paris last July. The 27-page report - also available in English on BEA's website, [see thi= s email subject], details the tragedy, what happened and why. It cites the massive fuel leak as the main cause of the disaster. This resulted from an explosive tyre bursting as it ran over a piece of metal,= which had fallen from another aircraft. Chunks from the tyre hit the underside of the wing. This is thought to ha= ve led to a shock wave through the fuel, causing the skin of the wing fuel tanks to burst outwards alongside the area of impact. The gushing fuel th= en ignited. The report supports the work being carried out by the manufacturers with British Airways and Air France to get the supersonic aircraft flying safe= ly again as soon as is feasible. British Airways' 'Alpha Foxtrot' is currently in the airline's TBA hangar= [main maintenance hanger at Heathrow] in preparation to begin making the modifications which the industry group believes should enable the aircraft's certificate of airworthiness to be returned. This includes fitting liners to the wing fuel tanks. Made of kevlar-rubbe= r compound, they are designed to contain fuel should the wing skin be punctured, adopting an approach used in military helicopters and Formula = 1 racing cars. Wiring in the undercarriage bay will also be replaced with an armoured variety, to guard against possible ignition sources. The modifications will be carried out by a team of around 40 engineers. When 'Alpha Foxtrot' is completed, two aircraft at a time will be modifie= d. The modifications will be subject to full ground testing on an Air France= Concorde, with 'Alpha Foxtrot' available for in-flight proving once it is= out of the hangar. Provided the modifications are signed off by the airworthiness authoritie= s and no unforeseen issues arise from the investigation into the Air France= tragedy, the certificate of airworthiness should be returned. BA will only resume operations when it is completely satisfied it is safe= to do so. Mike Street, Director of Customer Service & Operations, who leads the airline's Director-level Concorde group, said: "It is difficult to be mor= e precise about dates at this time. There is still a great deal to be sorte= d out, but we are hopeful it will be sooner rather than later." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 18:03:54 -0500 From: Chris Davies <100703.3474@compuserve.com> Subject: RE: TSR-2 and F-111 From: Chris Davies, 100703.3474 To: Terry W. Colvin, Internet:fortean1@frontiernet.net Cc: George Kasica, Internet:georgek@netwrx1.com Date: 14, Jan 2001, , 17:59 RE: RE: TSR-2 and F-111 Aardvarks I enjoyed reading your article in Digest V9 #93. The cancellation of the TSR-2 was related to 1) the cancellation of the Douglas GAM-87A Skybolt missile and 2) the need to ensure ongoing funding= for Concorde development. In December 1962, Skybolt was cancelled and further the RAF concluded tha= t the V-bomber force, which would carry the weapon would no longer be able = to penetrate Soviet air defences. Consequently, the nuclear deterrent role passed from the RAF to the Royal Navy and Polaris was adopted in the plac= e of Skybolt. The SSBN's today still carry the nickname of the 'Bombers' fo= r this reason. The Vulcan B.2 in particular continued in a tactical role an= d eventually saw action in the Falklands using conventional bombs in the famous Black Buck missions. The Victor became the main tanker aircraft fo= r the RAF. As the Concorde programme slipped, it became necessary to find savings fr= om other programmes, these being the ICBM - Blue Streak and the TSR-2. You are quite correct, the TSR-2 was supposed to be replaced by a variant= of the F-111 - the F-111K infact, which was supposed to be cheaper than TSR-2. = To ensure that the decision would not be reversed. the Prime Minister of the day - Harold Wilson, personally witnessed the breaking up of the TSR-= 2 jigs. So where are things today? The only export customer for the F-111 was the Royal Australian Air Force= , (RAAF). Well, in the UK there is enormous inertia to get aircraft flying again. The Walton family bought the last remaining Vulcan B.2 from the MoD, (the= y also own the former SAC base at Bruntingthorpe in Leicestershire). Marshalls have just completed a airworthiness survey of the aircraft and the Walton's been granted CAA approval to fly it again after repairs. Fundraising is now in progress and I am sure it will be back in the air again soon. There are 3 other Vulcans waiting to do the same. Regards the TSR-2. = A couple of years ago, some enthusiast purchased the entire spares inventory from the MoD and there is an ongoing rumour that one of the surviving aircraft will be made airworthy. This is not a small challenge,= since the aircraft is very big and very complex. However, if the restoration of aircraft like the Lightning interceptor an= d Hunter is anything to go by, then this rumour is quite viable. [All of this information is now in the public domain] Regards ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 22:11:15 -0500 From: Jim Rotramel Subject: 13 Days This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - --------------8253C06246C2453B5116DCEE Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Geez Guys, It's a movie; you know, like in momentary escape from reality? The F-4s were early Navy Bs; nothing was camouflaged (I'm doing this from home and don't have the text in front of me, so forgive if I don't answer all your questions.) The only thing I noticed that was really out of place timeline-wise were the F-5Es. What they were trying to show was attack jets being armed up for possible combat. I guess they couldn't find any suitable file footage to use (while we're at it, the 2.75" rocket warheads weren't really red--why does everyone always do that?). It only lasts for 20 seconds or so, and I got over it. Look, they even found file footage of Air Force One with F-100s in the background; I thought that was pretty nifty. Like I said before, for Hollywood, they did a pretty good job. No, it wasn't perfect, but it was a FAR better effort at accuracy than we've come to expect from those left coast, Clinton-Gore lovers. I think somebody asked something about the military being the "bad guys". A lot of the dialogue used in the meetings (where the Generals and Admirals are seen) is directly from Kennedy's secret taping system. If they're damned, its by their own words. They clearly come across as hard-core. But that's what they're paid for (the good ones). The military should be kept in a glass case and not used until absolutely needed--that's why we have civilians deciding when to cry "Havoc!" When they do, I want those dogs of war to run wild and destroy everything that moves. Let's be glad that somebody cared enough to make the movie. Most of the people I work with weren't even born when this happened. To my youngest daughter, the Cold War is HISTORY. It's probably safe to say that few, if anyone save squadron commanders in the USAF today ever sat nuke alert. Think about that for a moment. I've got no stake in this movie, one way or the other, but I'd much prefer to see 13 Days than another episode of Shaggy Spies or Pet Detectives. If you're curious, go and see it, if not, don't. My only point was that they clearly tried and, in the great scheme of things, didn't do too badly. Cheers, Jim - --------------8253C06246C2453B5116DCEE Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="mrvark.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Jim Rotramel Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="mrvark.vcf" begin:vcard n:Rotramel;Jim tel;fax:(301) 342-4922 tel;home:(301) 862-2321 tel;work:(301) 342-4358 x-mozilla-html:TRUE url:http://sites.netscape.net/mrvark/homepage adr:;;47249 Silver Slate Drive;Lexington Park;MD;20653-2434;USA version:2.1 email;internet:mrvark@erols.com x-mozilla-cpt:;3 fn:Jim Rotramel end:vcard - --------------8253C06246C2453B5116DCEE-- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jan 101 07:51:05 GMT From: betnal@ns.net Subject: RE: TSR-2 and F-111 On 1/17/01 3:03PM, in message <200101171804_MC2-C227-124D@compuserve.com>, Chris Davies <100703.3474@compuserve.com> wrote: > From: Chris Davies, 100703.3474 > To: Terry W. Colvin, Internet:fortean1@frontiernet.net > Cc: George Kasica, Internet:georgek@netwrx1.com > Date: 14, Jan 2001, , 17:59 > > RE: RE: TSR-2 and F-111 Aardvarks > I hate to say this, but much of this post is wrong. [What "spares inventory"? Only one ever flew and that ended 35 years ago?] The cancellation of TSR.2 had nothing to do with the Concorde (in fact, the Concorde uses a variant of the TSR.2's engines). It was canceled strictly for political reasons and has a face saving gesture by Dennis Healy, who also mandated the destruction of the jigs. It's interesting that he was a contemporary, and an admirer of, Robert McNamara who was equally incompetent and who did much the same thing to the SR-71. Because the TSR.2 was optimized around the strike role, it would have been a better performer than the F-111 in that role, even if the F-111 had met its specifications. The F-111 was better than anything else that entered service, but because of all the McNamara-mandated compromises was not what it could have been. The F-111 had better airfield performance, due to its variable sweep wing, but in most other strike-related aerodynamic parameters would have been inferior to the TSR.2. It's hard to say about the electronics since the TSR.2's never finished development. On the other hawouldn'te TSR.2 wopuld have been harder to maintain. Partly this was do to the fact that at that point in time, ease of maintenance wasn't much of a priority in British military aircraft design. A number of British aviation experts used to marvel at the fact that there were only seven different screw sizes in the A-7A's tail. Another factor complicating maintenance was that the TSR.2 was very tightly packed with wire looms running all over the place. The engines were also a very tight fit. Still, it was a remarkable aircraft. If you could afford to maintain it, it would have been a world-beater. Performance-wise, there isn't a strike aircraft in service today that could match it in everything. Well, unless you count the B-1 as a strike aircraft. As for flying it, the only two surviving airframes are XR220 at Cosford and XR222 at Duxford. XR220 is fairly complete after "boxes full of TSR.2 bits were found and sent to Cosford a few years back". XR222 was outside for many years, missing panels and the like. It's been brought inside, and cleaned up, but it's not in as good a shape as XR220, to my understanding. I believe there is one zero-time TSR.2 engine remaining, at the Gatwick Museum. and various subassemblies are around. As for getting TSR.2 in the air again, this is virtually inconceivable [sigh]. Even if the current owners would allow an attempt to be made, even if it were possible to restore this complex unique aircraft (and remember, neither of the two extant ever flew), the CAA would never permit it. You have only to look at what happened to the Lightning and the Bucc to see the sad truth of that. Here is an excellent link about this superb aircraft: http://www.csd.uwo.ca:80/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_other/tsr2.html Bill Gunston also did a good article in Wings of Fame, volume 4 Art ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 14:34:05 EST From: LenLundh@aol.com Subject: advice sought (possibly off-topic) The oldest grandson will be entering high school in the fall. He wants to become an aeronautical engineer. Can anybody on the list recommend courses, languages, whatever that he should be focusing on? Any suggestions on colleges and universities to start looking at? Recommending a sanity test is not necessary -- this is a fourteen-year old we're talking about! Thanks, Len Lennart Lundh Historical Research 16236 South Haven Avenue Orland Hills IL 60477-5949 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 18:53:19 -0500 From: Jim Rotramel Subject: 60 Minutes V-22 Report This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - --------------024622FA4CEE914E39CFD240 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This Sunday's (21 Jan) 60 Minutes at 7PM EST, there will be an "expanded" report on the charge that the V-22's R&M records have been falsified to "preserve" the program that was felt to be "in jeopardy". - --------------024622FA4CEE914E39CFD240 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="mrvark.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Jim Rotramel Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="mrvark.vcf" begin:vcard n:Rotramel;Jim tel;fax:(301) 342-4922 tel;home:(301) 862-2321 tel;work:(301) 342-4358 x-mozilla-html:TRUE url:http://sites.netscape.net/mrvark/homepage adr:;;47249 Silver Slate Drive;Lexington Park;MD;20653-2434;USA version:2.1 email;internet:mrvark@erols.com x-mozilla-cpt:;3 fn:Jim Rotramel end:vcard - --------------024622FA4CEE914E39CFD240-- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 17:11:47 EST From: JNiessen@aol.com Subject: Re: Thirteen Days question George, Sorry about the delay in responding. To answer your question directly, I authored, in 1983, the first "definitive" history of the U-2 ever written for public consumption ("Aerograph 3, Lockheed U-2" via my publishing company, Aerofax, Inc.). Later, I worked with my close friend, Chris Pocock, on his anecdotal U-2 history, "Dragon Lady". After that, Chris and I co-authored a "definitive" history of the second-generation U-2s, the U-2R/S series. Still later, Lockheed contracted with me to write the official history of the Skunk Works. I've also worked, for years, with the Discovery Channel (via the Wings series) on various aviation segments. Hope that answers your questions! Cheers, Jay ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 22:15:22 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: FWD (Multiple) Re: Star Wars John M. Price wrote: > > but I think the basic analysis is sound. But anyone so > > disposed feel free to pick it apart. > > Any serious threat would have decoys matched for weight, hence flight > path. You need to seek out a radiation signature. > > Still, any re-entry vehicle will cause some damage. Whether blocks or the > city is the question, it seems. The decoys do not even have to be matched for weight since the interceptors in the NMD plans are suppose to target and kill above the atmosphere where buoyancy effects would be negligible. It is also easy to mask the radiation signature with either liquid nitrogen cooled shrouds or even outer paints with different emissivities. Computer simulations of bomblet reentry also show that biological agents could survive if a warhead broke up into 100+ smaller submunitions, which would easily overwhelm any missile defense system. See Gronlund, Lewis, & Wright in the December 2000 issue of _Physics Today_, which is available at < http://www.physicstoday.org/pt/vol-53/iss-12/p36.html > > John M. Price, PhD - --kachun +** Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, CB 389 **+ +** University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 **+ - ------------------- Speaking of getting around Star Wars. Another issue raised by one or more of the panelists was the feasibility of bringing a bomb into NYC harbor in a freighter. If you can bring in 100 illegal immigrants you can certainly bring in a very large bomb. Actually, a 20 K ton device would do enough damage to press home the belligerent's point. And it would be easy to construct. jb Bilbo Baggins wrote: > I have my doubts as to wither ANYONE is really considering > this as a useable defence against a strong opponent. For > such opponents, the MAD doctrine still applies, as it did > with the USSR. I think the concern here, is what some > rather less then stable regime, with a martyr mentality, > might do with a handful of useable ICBM's. > What comes to mind is someone like Saddam or Qaddafi, > on the brink of having their power overthrown, > , deciding they will > go out in a blaze of glory. Destroying NYC or > Washington DC might well seem, to them, as a lovely > feather to have in their caps when they meet Allah. > If they were an hour away from being ousted and likely > hung, does anyone feel that the threat of destruction, > to even Every Last One of their people? Would dissuade them? > > This would not be quite so hard to defend against. > > I have serious doubts as to such a systems effectiveness, > myself. And with more, immediate, methods of delivery, it would > likely prove useless, anyway. > > Strictly a *IMHO*, by the way. > > Come check out "http://home.netcom.com/~bbaggins/skeptic.htm" > > : Opinions Expressed are those of : Sacred Cows Make the Best > : Hobbits Worldwide.. If you don't : Burgers! :-) > : believe me, just ask them... :-) : Baggins@Netcom.com - ------------------- - --- John Blanton wrote: > We haven't discussed Star Wars, the anti-ballistic missile > system, recently. When this arrived in my inbox this morning, I was in the midst of an instant messenger conversation with my girlfriend, the ex-journalist, who I have mentioned at least once before on list. As a result of her earlier career, she has a bit of familiarity with and interest in military affairs, so I took the liberty of forwarding John's post to her. That got us off on a digression, which I post below in the hopes that any qualified listmember can poke holes in my argument, or, in the alternative, reassure me that I'm not as full of shit as I sometimes fear I am. In the transcript below (which I post unedited because I'm still digging myself out from under the deluge of non-SKEPTIC email that accumulated during my recent weekend away) "LRC" is, of course, me, while "KB" is my lovely and multi-talented SO.... LRC: Anyway, Star Wars has always been a software problem to me, even though all the other objections to it are very, very cogent as well. KB: H'mm. You'll have to elaborate. LRC: The fact of the matter is... you've got hundreds (if not thousands) of incoming warheads... probably decoy warheads as well, so the number of potential targets is in the mid to high five figures, OK? LRC: You need to target each of those potential targets, or figure out some way of analyzing flight data in order to sort the decoys out from the real McCoy, and target the actual live warheads.... LRC: This is going to require bodacious software, probably requiring billions of lines of code.. this is going to make your favorite flavor of Windows look like a freshman intro computer science homework assignment... KB: Good point. LRC: And as any Windows user knows, you cannot write billions of lines of code without having a few bugs in the system...And how do we chase the bugs out of the system? By having people use the program, and find them in actual work conditions first. KB: Oops. Small prob, there. LRC: How many nuclear wars are we going to plan on having before the Star Wars control software goes out of beta? I rest my case. LRC: BTW, feel free to save that cogent analysis, and post it to any friends or discussion groups whereever someone speaks approvingly of Star Wars? KB: I may do just that. LRC: Considering that IT is the hot profession of the 00s....I'm surprised more concerned computer scientists aren't going on the rooftops and shouting that to whoever will listen. KB: I can think of a number of people who'd benefit from stopping and thinking along those lines. If that, or anything else, made them stop and think. In rereading this, I think I may have exaggerated the number of targets that would be presented to an ABM defense system, but I think the basic analysis is sound. But anyone so disposed feel free to pick it apart. FWIW, in sending John's original post to my SO, I sent it under the subject line, "Hitting a thrown rock with another thrown rock". It's not an original analogy, by any means (I forget where I read it first) but it summarizes, in a nutshell, the major problem with any form of ABM missile system. Best regards, Len "frustrated military analyst" Cleavelin ===== Men and nations will resort to rational thought only after they have exhausted all other alternatives. - ------------------- This statement . . . > I think that the Star Wars efforts did a lot of good-it > bankrupted the Russians and we don't have a cold war at present . . makes and assertion for which there is no evidence. True, the Soviets crumbled after the Star Wars effort began but that does not prove that the Star Wars effort was the cause. Jim Stevenson - ---------------- Greg, Yes, there are many books making that claim. But there are other books claiming that the Soviet Union was in terminal mode before Star Wars was ever announced. There was also a significant internal Navy study. Such claims were usually discredited because if they were accepted, then the justification for raiding the public trough to support the billions of unnecessary technology would have been more difficult. Jim Stevenson > Jim, > I would agree that there is no "hard evidence" that Star Wars brought down > the Soviet Union.... however, numerous old-timers from the various "inside" > governmental offices have written books or been interviewed for books, and > many of those insiders have stated that keeping up that keeping with up the > Western military, not just ours, but all of NATO combined, was killing the > Soviet economy, and many have said that Star Wars was the final straw that > broke the bank, so to speak.... > > I don't think anyone would say that Star Wars alone did it, but that seems > to be the last program that the Soviets could counter....or attempt to > counter... The "Brilliant Pebbles" program could probably be added to that > category too.... > > Greg W - ------------------ > Star Wars had a number of methods of locating and destroying the .. Followed by a number of legitimate successes by the SDI. My concerns while listening to Congressman Armey are: 1. Paying for 100% protection (as he seems to sell the program) and getting 90% or less (probably more like less than 50%). 2. Basis for optimism is very unscientific. Armey points out that if we can point and click and load a Web page from China, then we can surely build a system to stop all those missiles.(???) John Blanton - ------------------ > >To defeat an incoming Scud you can't just wreck the Scud missile. The ... > Not really. A terminal phase interception leaves you with few > options. At most, you can knock the warhead off course, preventing it > from hitting it's intended target, or breaking it up so that it can't > perform it's mission. It's still going to fall somewhere, even if you > "explode" the warhead of the incoming missile. You get a "mission > kill"- you prevent the weapon from performing it's intended purpose. > Anyone who thinks any kind of ABM or SDI system will magically > vaporize the bad guy missiles is living in la-la land. This is about what happened with the Scuds. The Patriot intercepted them. The warhead came on in and hit something and did a lot of damage. > For the most part, a terminal phase intercept will suffice for > defending against nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. All of > those are fragile, and chemical and biological warheads are > ineffective if detonated/damaged at the altitudes of a Patriot, etc. > intercept. Both of them only work under the most ideal of > circumstances, and being shredded by a Patriot warhead is as good as > vaporizing the warhead. What really worries people today is the idea > of ballistic missile delivered CBW submunitions- even after being > shredded by a Patriot, submunitions could still drop and release a > chemical or biological agent effectively (though the technical > hurdles to do this are pretty daunting- suddenly you have to > minturize things into a submunition that aren't easily miniturized, > like refridgeration, dispersal mechanisms, etc.). The Patriot as used against the Scuds was easy to defend against. It was an AA missile. A regular bomb casing (quarter to one half inch steel) would provide an adequate defense against it. A more recent competition between Raytheon (my previous employer) and Lockheed Martin has centered on hit-to-kill technologies. Of course, these are battlefield defenses. > Intercepting a missile when it's in the boost phase will blow it up > and drop all the nasty fragments on the bad guys, but requires far > more resoruces to acomplish. You would need more than a point defence > system like the ABM system envisioned now- you're need the old Star > Wars program with Brilliant Pebbles or some other space based > interception. Panelists on "McCuistion" emphasized the need for the boost phase attack. The problem is logistics. You have to go to where the enemy is getting ready to launch. > Or kill the decoys. It depends on a lot of things. And keep in mind > that the people this is being built to defend the US against- China, > NK, Iran, etc.- do not have the resoruces to deploy decoys. They need > every once of mass on every launcher for warheads. Disagree here, but without authority. John Blanton - ---------------- Jim, I would agree that there is no "hard evidence" that Star Wars brought down the Soviet Union.... however, numerous old-timers from the various "inside" governmental offices have written books or been interviewed for books, and many of those insiders have stated that keeping up that keeping with up the Western military, not just ours, but all of NATO combined, was killing the Soviet economy, and many have said that Star Wars was the final straw that broke the bank, so to speak.... I don't think anyone would say that Star Wars alone did it, but that seems to be the last program that the Soviets could counter....or attempt to counter... The "Brilliant Pebbles" program could probably be added to that category too.... Greg W - --------------- > . . . makes and assertion for which there is no evidence. True, the Soviets > crumbled after the Star Wars effort began but that does not prove that the > Star Wars effort was the cause. This is going to be argued for all future time, but just the timing makes it unlikely that SW drove the USSR to ruin. March 1983 marked the kick-off of SW, things didn't get rolling for a couple of years, and the Warsaw Pact collapsed in late 1989, followed by the dissolution of the USSR in late 1991. Not really enough time to do in a robust superpower, especially since SW never produced anything close to an operational system. (Still hasn't, for that matter). The USSR may have been bankrupted due in some important measure to an arms race, but it was the arms race that had been going on since 1945. At most, SW might have pushed them over an edge they were already teetering on, but it's hard to see how to prove that. - ---------------- > Such claims were usually discredited because if they were accepted, then the > justification for raiding the public trough to support the billions of > unnecessary technology would have been more difficult. I had some contact with such matters ( see < http://archives.his.com/intelforum/msg01937.html > ) and can say that, whatever the motivation, the intelligence community in 1983 did not foresee the collapse of the Soviet Union, or think that Star Wars was likely to bring on such an event. The IIA linked to the above URL contains a fair amount of explicit and implicit information about what the US saw the situation as being as of mid-1983. - --------------- I don't think anyone ever INTENDED that Star Wars would bring about such a change, and I don't see it as the ONLY reason that things happened the way they did, and I doubt that anyone would have ever thought that a proposed system would bring about much of any change, but if we spent billions on the system, I would think its a safe assumption that the Soviet Union did too.... and that may have been their problem.... When we spend money on R&D, our defense contractors and other folks involved are often looking for practical money-making applications of the R&D, even if the desired outcome was gigawatt lasers, the uses they found for smaller, less costly, laser equipment have led to things like laser eye surgery... maybe not even directly from the SW programs, but some of those people would have left Raytheon or whoever and gone elsewhere carrying some of the knowledge and experiences and worked on other types of systems. This is where I see the big difference between our R&D dollars and their R&D rubles.... if we spend billions on something, and it doesn't ever get implemented, our contractors are often allowed to use some of the knowledge for making money back on the investments. How many times have you heard about revolutionary new commercial products coming out of the old Soviet Union R&D contractors? Greg W - ------------------ Part of the financial ruin was ofcourse the high ratio of GNP spent on the burocracy-police-military complex, also most of Eastern-Europe was indebted already to Western banks, with crippling interest charges, just as the 3rd world. Centralised totalitarian state without an openness and real data about the state of the economy to do any meaningful planning whatsoever, cannot even maintain the state machinary. Masses of unsatisfied people who suddenly have the one-sided vision of the western "Dallas" wealth through US marketed media and start to lose the few advantages they - -rightly - used to be proud of - doesn't help either. Eva - ----------------- > Defense against today's threat is different. There won't be as many >missiles to defend against, but now you really do need to get every one. Indeed, unless things change radically, there won't be ANY missiles. If Saddam or somebody decided to commit suicide by nuking the US, the bomb would come in hidden in a cargo container, not a possibly-fallible missile. > It's also worth noting that many of the things SDI opponents said would be >impossible have already been achieved. Yes, but only by redefining the phrase "complete and utter failure" to "100% successful," like they did with the last missile intercept test. > They made a big point of how complex >the code would have to be and how programs with that many lines of code >couldn't function. By 1991 telephone switching systems were already using >larger and more complex code than what would have been required for SDI. In >fact, Win 2K has more lines of code in it than what would have been required >for SDI BWAAAHHHAAAHHHHAAAA....This guy knows as much about writing code as some others here know about building large structures. >Sadly, with the end of SDI we lost something else that would have been >great for us What, fat kickbacks for generals and defense contractors? The sucking of much-needed funding away from programs that actually HELP society? That kinda thing? >Would it have been practical? Who knows? The people who were experts in such things, but WEREN'T making money off it. Numerous scientists, engineers, and political experts who gave long lists of why the thing couldn't possibly work. Anyway, don't go getting all misty-eyed and nostalgic for the good old days of grotesquely wasteful government programs like this. It's better than even money that Dubya is gonna re-open the rat hole. Local Vandenburg launch guru Brian Webb says: ****************************** Missile Defense Test The next MSLS (Minuteman II) launch in support of the National Missile Defense test program had been tentatively scheduled for January 27th. That date is only a few weeks away, but there has been little mention of this event. It appears that the next missile defense test has either been delayed or the military has decided not to notify the public until just before it's set to occur. ****************************** - ------------------ > Indeed, unless things change radically, there won't be ANY missiles. If > Saddam or somebody decided to commit suicide by nuking the US, the bomb > would come in hidden in a cargo container, not a possibly-fallible missile. > Wishful thinking on your part, IMAO. China does not want the US to continue working on SDI. Do the peace loving Chinese wish to save the US taxpayer the money that would be thrown away on a unuseable system? Many of the former USSR republics still have missle silos and launchers in place and still armed. North Korea probably hasen't stopped it's programs in that area either. At the moment SDI won't work, we can't cure AIDS (or any viral infection for that matter), and a host of other things deemed undoable at this point in time, I think that research should continue in all these projects. I however have very little say in how my tax dollars are spent, and with the current makeup of the NY State congresscritters and senetors, those of you who think it's a bad idea to continue on SDI have little to worry about from me. Tim Tim Tulley Rochester, NY - ------------------- One thing which bothers me about the missle defense projects is that the proponants are selling it as protection from NCB attack by "rogue nations". If I were the leader of a "rogue nation" or a terrorist group and I got my hands on a nuclear, biological, chemical weapon, I wouldn't bother delivering it via ballistic missle. I deliver it via charter airline transport, truck, or container ship (probably all three) and save a bundle of cash. Considering the tonage of illegal drugs, merchandise and illegal aliens which are smuggled into the US every year, it shouldn't be too difificult to sneak a bomb in. If you've driven by the docks in Oakland, you've seen the thousands of containers waiting to be shipped somewhere. Multiply that by all the shipyards in the US and it's easy to imagine that it would be easy to sneak nearly anything into and around the country. I've seen containers marked with capacities of 10,000 pounds, weren't the first atomic bombs about that weight and size? Paul - -- Paul Heinrich - ------------------- Paul Heinrich said, > One thing which bothers me about the missle defense projects is > that the proponants are selling it as protection from NCB attack by > "rogue nations". [snip material on other means of delivery] If we're talking about defending the US against ICBM attack, the current NMD system would be good at most against nuclear warheads. C and B would mostly be delivered in many small early-release RVs for efficiency in agent dispersal -- and NMD isn't designed against such a threat. - ----------------- Et al: For what it's worth, here's my 2 bits. I had an opportunity in the 80's, can't remember the exact year, to visit the SDI Laser Lab at Stanford university. What I saw there was incredible. And they were on the right track. The basic concept for a high powered laser, electrically, is simple. Power consumes wattage, so the more wattage you can supply equates directly to the output of the laser, depending on the lasers efficiency, of course. Some of you may have noted a concept circulating about the late 70's called "superconductivity". In a nutshell what happens is electrons travel more efficiently through super-cold conductors than they do through warmer ones. (Electro-motive force [EMF] is inversely proportional to temperature). What they were doing was immersing the power supplies and critical components in liquid nitrogen and achieving remarkable increases in power. It gets better...the whole idea was that they wouldn't need an endless supply of liquid nitrogen in space because we have an endless supply of super-cold space for the laser's to operate in anyway. Makes a lot of sense. Kinda one of those "why didn't I think of that" concepts in its simplicity. Mike Thompson - -- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@frontiernet.net > Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: Fortean Times * Northwest Mysteries * Mystic's Cyberpage * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program - ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Allies, CIA/NSA, and Vietnam veterans welcome] Southeast Asia (SEA) service: Vietnam - Theater Telecommunications Center/HHC, 1st Aviation Brigade (Jan 71 - Aug 72) Thailand/Laos - Telecommunications Center/U.S. Army Support Thailand (USARSUPTHAI), Camp Samae San (Jan 73 - Aug 73) - Special Security/Strategic Communications - Thailand (STRATCOM - Thailand), Phu Mu (Pig Mountain) Signal Site (Aug 73 - Jan 74) ------------------------------ End of skunk-works-digest V9 #97 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe in the body of a message to "majordomo@netwrx1.com". 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