But not to worry

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:27:58 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote:

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:43:23 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Allen Thomson wrote:

On Feb 21, 4:26 pm, Monte Davis wrote:

And if that dependence is widely mission-critical -- i.e., if we
haven't maintained adequate (if somewhat degraded) fallback procedures
to operate without the satellites -- we're pretty stupid.

Alas, I wouldn't discount that possibility.

Sure. In the same way we haven't any capability to maintain adequate
(if somewhat degraded) combat capabilities if all of (for example) our
CVN's are sunk or stuck in drydock mid-overhaul.

For some things, there simply isn't a reasonable way to maintain a
graceful fallback.

Indeed, but that doesn't mean that there isn't one for *this* thing.

On the gripping hand - it hasn't been demonstrated that there _is_ one
for this thing. It's a hellishly complicated problem.

But there's been little effort to do so. The ORS office, as currently
constituted, seems to be a Potemkin village.

Indeed, but that doesn't mean that there isn't one for *this* thing.

On the gripping hand - it hasn't been demonstrated that there _is_ one
for this thing. It's a hellishly complicated problem.

Limiting the discussion to optical and imaging spysats for the nonce,
just what "this thing" is makes a difference, IMO.

If the things are like Crystal and Lacrosse monstersats that need to
be built one at a time and launched on mighty rockets, I fully agree
that it's hellishly complicated and that "responsive" is unlikely to
be less than many months, more likely years.

If, OTOH, the things are more like Ofeq and TekSAR smallishsats
launched on more modest rockets, preferably like Shavit, Start or
something from OSC, then there is some hope for getting "responsive"
down into the sub-week category, conceivably a day or so.

Granted, the littler sats wouldn't have quite the capabilities of the
monster ones, but for the vast majority of strategic and tactical
tasks, ~50 centimeter resolution is just fine.

Allen Thomson wrote:

Indeed, but that doesn't mean that there isn't one for *this* thing.

On the gripping hand - it hasn't been demonstrated that there _is_ one
for this thing. It's a hellishly complicated problem.

Limiting the discussion to optical and imaging spysats for the nonce,
just what "this thing" is makes a difference, IMO.

If the things are like Crystal and Lacrosse monstersats that need to
be built one at a time and launched on mighty rockets, I fully agree
that it's hellishly complicated and that "responsive" is unlikely to
be less than many months, more likely years.

And that's going to be true for practically any bird above the level
of 'fairly modest optical and imaging bird' - likely including the
commsats all birds depend on. (Decidely including GPS.)

If, OTOH, the things are more like Ofeq and TekSAR smallishsats
launched on more modest rockets, preferably like Shavit, Start or
something from OSC, then there is some hope for getting "responsive"
down into the sub-week category, conceivably a day or so.

We already _have_ responsive vehicles that can fill those niches -
UAVs.

Granted, the littler sats wouldn't have quite the capabilities of the
monster ones, but for the vast majority of strategic and tactical
tasks, ~50 centimeter resolution is just fine.

The real question is can OSC be useful without putting us on the wrong
end of the "it is cheaper to build interceptors than interceptees"
equation?

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

wrote:

:On Feb 21, 6:43 pm, (Rand Simberg)
:wrote:
: On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:31:30 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
: Allen Thomson made the phosphor on my monitor
: glow in such a way as to indicate that:
:
: On Feb 21, 4:26 pm, Monte Davis wrote:
:
: And if that dependence is widely mission-critical -- i.e., if we haven't maintained adequate (if somewhat degraded) fallback procedures to operate without the satellites -- we're pretty stupid.
:
:
:UAV's can fill in for the most part.
:

No they can't (and no, I won't tell you why).

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

On Feb 26, 1:25 am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

:On Feb 21, 6:43 pm, (Rand Simberg)
:wrote:
: On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:31:30 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
: Allen Thomson made the phosphor on my monitor
: glow in such a way as to indicate that:
:
: On Feb 21, 4:26 pm, Monte Davis wrote:
:
: And if that dependence is widely mission-critical -- i.e., if we haven't maintained adequate (if somewhat degraded) fallback procedures to operate without the satellites -- we're pretty stupid.
:
:
:UAV's can fill in for the most part.
:

No they can't (and no, I won't tell you why).


For battlefield they can

Most of our orbital assets are strategic and not tactical.

wrote:

:On Feb 26, 1:25 am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
: wrote:
:
: :On Feb 21, 6:43 pm, (Rand Simberg)
: :wrote:
: : On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:31:30 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
: : Allen Thomson made the phosphor on my monitor
: : glow in such a way as to indicate that:
: :
: : On Feb 21, 4:26 pm, Monte Davis wrote:
: :
: : And if that dependence is widely mission-critical -- i.e., if we haven't maintained adequate (if somewhat degraded) fallback procedures to operate without the satellites -- we're pretty stupid.
: :
: :
: :UAV's can fill in for the most part.
: :
:
: No they can't (and no, I won't tell you why).
:
:
:For battlefield they can
:

No they can't (and no, I won't tell you why). At some point in the
future this may be true, but it is not now true.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson