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A Golden Dome: can the US afford it and is it even needed?

crazed_hoosier2 said:
I'm saying that the article attributed the current state of technology to what went into SDI. I'll see if I can find it.
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Again, two things: (1) you can't know the counterfactual--what would have been developed if SDI had never been; (2) you can't quantify the tech advance.

SDI was a specific initiative that contemplated shooting down ICBMs from space with lasers, among other things. Short and medium term ballistic missile defense was always part of the US's defense plan, separate and apart from SDI. Indeed, the most successful form of that is the Patriot system, which was developed before Reagan even proposed his Star Wars initiative.
 
BradStevens said:
timesofindia.indiatimes.com

'Golden Dome' for US: Trump's mega defence plan explained - The Times of India

US News: President Trump has proposed a 'golden dome' missile defense shield, inspired by Israel's Iron Dome, to protect the US from advanced aerial threats. H
timesofindia.indiatimes.com timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Seems like a boondoggle of SDI-like proportions. The USA wasted hundreds of billions (when those numbers meant something) on this type of craziness in the 1980s. Are we really going to waste trillions on another attempt now?
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Does this mean we have to be Notre Dame fans?
 
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GooglyMooglyWooglyBoogly said:
If we were to face a biological attack such as Covid. What would become of us?

Do we have enough ivermectin and vitamin A to withstand?
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Fixed, to align with current HHS "leadership"

And the "plan" to avert future pandemics is to shut down the pandemic preparedness drug discovery efforts. No lie... defunded, beginning May 1.

We don't want your anti-ebola drugs, anti-Zika, anti-Dengue, anti-Lassa fever, anti-bird flu. Including those to fight weaponizable pathogens such as anthrax. We don't want ANY of that woke science stuff.
 
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GooglyMooglyWooglyBoogly said:
If we were to face a biological attack such as Covid. What would become of us?

Do we have enough advil and warm tea to withstand?
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As to Covid, Advil and warm tea might have worked for those requiring a light treatment while others faced hospitalization and even death.

The not reaching a consensus part to which I referred was about vacinations, hand washing, masks, quarantines, etc..

Also Covid is just one example of biological warfare with potentially worse examples always a possibility.
 
hoot1 said:
As to Covid, Advil and warm tea might have worked for those requiring a light treatment while others faced hospitalization and even death.

The not reaching a consensus part to which I referred was about vacinations, hand washing, masks, quarantines, etc..

Also Covid is just one example of biological warfare with potentially worse examples always a possibility.
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Do you believe Covid was a deliberately released bioweapon?
 
hoot1 said:
Here we are talking about defense against missiles and we haven't come to a consensus on how to deal with another biological attack such as Covid.

From strictly a cost factor, if I were a military enemy of the U.S. I would invest in biological weapons.
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Not that some actors would care, but the use of chemical or biological weapons is a violation of international law. In other words, if they lose the war the leadership and anyone that actually deployed those weapons would very likely be tried and convicted as war criminals. Hopefully executed by firing squad (nod to another thread).
 
Aloha Hoosier said:
Not that some actors would care, but the use of chemical or biological weapons is a violation of international law. In other words, if they lose the war the leadership and anyone that actually deployed those weapons would very likely be tried and convicted as war criminals. Hopefully executed by firing squad (nod to another thread).
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Better to be locked in a room with the chemical or biological weapon they used.

One of the benefits of a bioweapon, though, is that it is much more difficult to trace its origins than an ICBM.
 
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Baller23Boogie said:
We are 36 trillion dollars in debt, he wants to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada and now build a ****ing IRON DOME!!!!

It's no wonder he ****ing was dumb enough to bankrupt a ****ing casino.
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how much more would it cost for the dome to cover greenland, canada and panama canal? Are they on their own? I guess with Alaska needing covered, you might as well cover Canada too lol

Does hawaii get its own dome?
 
Aloha Hoosier said:
Dumbest way to deploy a bioweapon would be to do it in their own country. There are estimates that somewhere between 1 and 2 million Chinese died from COVID. I guess if they wanted to kill their own people they could deploy it there . . .
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Not to mention it was relatively benign and mainly affected the old and infirm.
 
Let's say you wanted to create a bioweapon

Why, in 2019, pick an unknown coronavirus, instead of a dozen other agents then known to be much more deadly? (anthrax, ricin, H1N1, etc)
Why engineer it to affect elderly?
Why unleash it on your own population, first?
Why take the unprecedented step of, within one month, sequencing its genome to allow immediate mRNA vaccine development?
 
BradStevens said:
This article says we've spent $250 billion, and says it is separate from things like the Patriot system. And what is the success rate for that $250 billion? "They have worked 12 times out of 21 tests, a paltry success rate achieved only after $250 billion spent since their 1985 beginning. This illustrates the intrinsic, expensive difficulty of intercepting even dummy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). It’s just hard to hit them."

It was a boondoggle.

Current U.S. Missile Defense Programs at a Glance | Arms Control Association

www.armscontrol.org www.armscontrol.org

www.scientificamerican.com

Trump’s ‘Iron Dome’ Space Weapons Plan Ignores Physics and Fiscal Reality

Proposed U.S. space defenses against hypersonic nuclear missiles are unnecessary, impractical and would trigger a dangerous new arms race
www.scientificamerican.com www.scientificamerican.com
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The other value of the SDI program was that it helped hasten the total collapse of the Soviet Union... Their attempts to keep us with us in the arms race broke them financially... That outcome is/was priceless... (on the 20 year short term)... Unfortunately, nature abhors a vacuum and Putin's Russia found a way to fill it..

There's a memorial stone near the Air Force Museum that says something to the effect of: The Cold War didn't just end, it was Won...
SDI research helped Win it...
 
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76-1 said:
The other value of the SDI program was that it helped hasten the total collapse of the Soviet Union... Their attempts to keep us with us in the arms race broke them financially... That outcome is/was priceless... (on the 20 year short term)... Unfortunately, nature abhors a vacuum and Putin's Russia found a way to fill it..

There's a memorial stone near the Air Force Museum that says something to the effect of: The Cold War didn't just end, it was Won...
SDI research helped Win it...
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Doubtful. The seeds for the fall of the Soviet Union were already planted far before 1983's announcement of SDI.
 
Aloha Hoosier said:
Dumbest way to deploy a bioweapon would be to do it in their own country. There are estimates that somewhere between 1 and 2 million Chinese died from COVID. I guess if they wanted to kill their own people they could deploy it there . . .
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Hate to go down this rabbit hole again but feel I must...

The way I view it is like this (based on everything I've read on the topic over the past 5 years)...:

The lab COVID19 originated in what was known (to our CIA) as a dual use facility; as in one side was pure medical research and the other side was Chinese Military bioweapon research... Through our naivety we were actually funding a large part of it...

Some poor joker lab underlying made a protocol error in the lab, caught it himself and managed to spread it to the market area... Once it moved to other nearby cities the Chinese government moved to keep a lid on knowledge of it (to the extent of tossing one of their young doctors out a window of a several story building to keep him quiet...)... They then allowed their populace to mingle during seasonal festivities and Then allowed many of them (which the CCP knew to be infected) to move around the entire globe on aircraft...

Italy was the first hardest hit and it spread out from there across Europe and then to here...

Now the CCP certainly didn't intentionally release it but once it was in their general populace they did some Really odd things in regard to containing it and/or reporting it early on... Their Willful Negligence seems Obvious.

They (the Chinese Government) clearly made a cold blooded calculation as to a cost/benefit analysis and evidently figured they'd let the thing run its course and hope they'd come out on top...

Seems pretty obvious to me..., but just based on what I've seen on this board I know that's not the case for everyone else...

By the way, I don't think the world saw the Bioweapon version (fortunately). What got loose was the Research version, lucky for us...
 
BradStevens said:
Bad logic. You're assuming we couldn't have developed better defense systems, radar, sensor capabilities, etc. without SDI.
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It’s not bad logic at all. Trying to get moonshots has historically yielded dividends while also unlikely yielding the moonshot. Creating something breakthrough creates incremental awesomeness along the way that have revolutionary impact.

You don’t get that by saying “I want to create this incremental thing” and focusing resources into that. Historically it’s come from these larger programs.
 
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BadWakeboarder said:
It’s not bad logic at all. Trying to get moonshots has historically yielded dividends while also unlikely yielding the moonshot. Creating something breakthrough creates incremental awesomeness along the way that have revolutionary impact.

You don’t get that by saying “I want to create this incremental thing” and focusing resources into that. Historically it’s come from these larger programs.
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Moonshots produce benefits not intended, true. So does other targeted research. We have no way of knowing what might have occurred if the money from the moonshot had been invested in targeted research in the specific area. I am not, in the abstract, against moonshots (especially "the" moonshot, although I don't defend it because of any unintended tech o scientific breakthrough benefits acquired).

And yes, you can get a helluva a lot from incremental tech/science progress. I'd guess 99% of it, in fact. But if you have stats to back up your claim that historically we've come up with more tech/science advancements from moonshots v. incremental research, I'd love to see it.
 
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BradStevens said:
Doubtful. The seeds for the fall of the Soviet Union were already planted far before 1983's announcement of SDI.
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The Soviet Union didn't fall until 1991... I feel your discounting 8+ years of SDI R&D as not having Any effect as a bit of a stretch...

Now get back to hammering out that contract with Scot Dolson and quit making me jog my memory via Google... It (my memory) has been shaken and stirred quite Enough over the past few years... 😎
 
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76-1 said:
Hate to go down this rabbit hole again but feel I must...

The way I view it is like this (based on everything I've read on the topic over the past 5 years)...:

The lab COVID19 originated in what was known (to our CIA) as a dual use facility; as in one side was pure medical research and the other side was Chinese Military bioweapon research... Through our naivety we were actually funding a large part of it...

Some poor joker lab underlying made a protocol error in the lab, caught it himself and managed to spread it to the market area... Once it moved to other nearby cities the Chinese government moved to keep a lid on knowledge of it (to the extent of tossing one of their young doctors out a window of a several story building to keep him quiet...)... They then allowed their populace to mingle during seasonal festivities and Then allowed many of them (which the CCP knew to be infected) to move around the entire globe on aircraft...

Italy was the first hardest hit and it spread out from there across Europe and then to here...

Now the CCP certainly didn't intentionally release it but once it was in their general populace they did some Really odd things in regard to containing it and/or reporting it early on... Their Willful Negligence seems Obvious.

They (the Chinese Government) clearly made a cold blooded calculation as to a cost/benefit analysis and evidently figured they'd let the thing run its course and hope they'd come out on top...

Seems pretty obvious to me..., but just based on what I've seen on this board I know that's not the case for everyone else...

By the way, I don't think the world saw the Bioweapon version (fortunately). What got loose was the Research version, lucky for us...
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Seems implausible to me. Sorry. 😏
 
My recollection is that the US economic engine was a V8, the Soviet Union's was a 2-stoke leaf blower motor, and that the huge disparity broke them.

Even today, Russia's per capita GNP is very 3rd worldish, which is one of a hundred reasons to (continue to) back Ukraine, with dollars and weapons, anyway.
 
9mi4o1.jpg
 
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76-1 said:
Some poor joker lab underlying made a protocol error in the lab, caught it himself and managed to spread it to the market area...
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Focus on that part.

Let's say you live an work in a lab in Indianapolis. One day at work you accidentally infect yourself. You travel to your favorite market in Crawfordsville one weekend and there you spread your infection. You don't live at the market, of course, or work at the market. You continue to live and work tens of miles away, in Indy.

Why don't you also spread your infection in Indianapolis? Why do the cases radiate out in a concentric circles from Crawfordsville over time, with no such pattern from Indy?
 
Aloha Hoosier said:
Seems implausible to me. Sorry. 😏
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Well... That's probably the nicest response I'll receive on the topic so I guess I'll be able to somehow find a way to live with it...😉😎

As I said, my opinion is based on everything I could find that was written about it over a 5 year period so I'm standing rock solid in my assessment... 🍺
 
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outside shooter said:
Focus on that part.

Let's say you live an work in a lab in Indianapolis. One day at work you accidentally infect yourself. You travel to your favorite market in Crawfordsville one weekend and there you spread your infection. You don't live at the market, of course, or work at the market. You continue to live and work tens of miles away, in Indy.

Why don't you also spread your infection in Indianapolis? Why do the cases radiate out in a concentric circles from Crawfordsville over time, with no such pattern from Indy?
Click to expand...

My assessment is based on everything I've read over the past 5 years... Seems more than plausible to me... Obviously you and many others disagree... I don't intend to re-debate the whole topic... I've reached my conclusion and presented it...
 
76-1 said:
The Soviet Union didn't fall until 1991... I feel your discounting 8+ years of SDI R&D as not having Any effect as a bit of a stretch...

Now get back to hammering out that contract with Scot Dolson and quit making me jog my memory via Google... It (my memory) has been shaken and stirred quite Enough over the past few years... 😎
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And you’re discounting 70 years of poor economic results, inbred corruption, etc. The Soviet Union still falls without the SDI boondoggle.
 
BradStevens said:
And you’re discounting 70 years of poor economic results, inbred corruption, etc. The Soviet Union still falls without the SDI boondoggle.
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I'm not saying it was "The" reason... I'm saying it was "A" reason...

I respect your opinion and hope you can soon convince your wife to lower herself to living amongst the great unwashed in Bloomington... Now quit being a Mas-hole Brad and sign that contract! 🍺🏀🍺
 
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76-1 said:
I'm not saying it was "The" reason... I'm saying it was "A" reason...

I respect your opinion and hope you can soon convince your wife to lower herself to living amongst the great unwashed in Bloomington... Now quit being a Mas-hole Brad and sign that contract! 🍺🏀🍺
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As with the notion of space lasers shooting down thousands of inbound ICBMs: it’s never going to happen!

Try that Beard fellow. I’ve heard good things about him from my friend, Rick.
 
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BradStevens said:
Doubtful. The seeds for the fall of the Soviet Union were already planted far before 1983's announcement of SDI.
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What were they?

I wasn’t very old at the time. But old enough. And I don’t recall anybody in that period who was foreseeing the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Reagan’s escalation of the arms race was extremely controversial. There was a lot of fear that his provocations would lead to nuclear war.

I not only remember “The Day After” - I remember the roundtable discussion that ABC ran afterwards. Carl Sagan was one of the commentators and he was almost fatalistic.

The backdrop of both the film and the roundtable was fear that Reagan’s aggressive policy moves were going to turn the Cold War into a nuclear one.
 
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crazed_hoosier2 said:
What were they?

I wasn’t very old at the time. But old enough. And I don’t recall anybody in that period who was foreseeing the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Reagan’s escalation of the arms race was extremely controversial. There was a lot of fear that his provocations would lead to nuclear war.

I not only remember “The Day After” - I remember the roundtable discussion that ABC ran afterwards. The backdrop of both was fear that Reagan’s aggressive policy moves were going to turn the Cold War into a nuclear one.
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People’s ability to foresee it is a different issue. People didn’t foresee the 2008 crash in 2006. Doesn’t mean the seeds for the implosion weren’t already planted.
 
For those interested, here is the program ABC aired right after “The Day After” - in November 1983.

This was reflective of the national dialogue over nuclear weapons and the escalation of the arms race.

 
76-1 said:
Well... That's probably the nicest response I'll receive on the topic so I guess I'll be able to somehow find a way to live with it...😉😎

As I said, my opinion is based on everything I could find that was written about it over a 5 year period so I'm standing rock solid in my assessment... 🍺
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It depends on what you’re reading. I’ve not read anywhere that the CIA knew the Wuhan lab also contained a bioweapons lab. I just searched and can’t find it. Where did you read that?
 
BradStevens said:
People’s ability to foresee it is a different issue. People didn’t foresee the 2008 crash in 2006. Doesn’t mean the seeds for the implosion weren’t already planted.
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Wouldn’t people have been talking about those seeds?

And I have to disagree with you about 2008. Peter Wallison predicted it…in 1999. The problem wasn’t that nobody foresaw it. The problem is that nobody who mattered was listening to people who foresaw it.

Read this story.
 
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