An act of war

On May 2, 9:15 pm, (Henry Spencer) wrote:

The Falklands War started entirely over property --
Argentina's grievance was always over who was the landlord of the islands,
their attempt to settle the matter was carried out without violence, and
Britain very clearly classed it as a casus belli.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

As I recall, the invasion of the Falklands wasn't without violence.
A company (minus) of Royal Marines put up a spirited if brief
resistance. There was at least one fatality: Argentine Lieutenant-
Commander Giachino.

Rand Simberg wrote:
I'm not sure what violating treaties has to do with it. It's not a
violation of a treaty to deliberately sink a ship or shoot down an
aircraft, but it's clearly an act of war.


"Here lies the body of Daniel O'Day.
Who died defending the right-of-way.
He was right, dead right...or so they say.
He'd have been just as dead from the other way." -old seaman's poem.

Now, of course, I could have taken my eight-foot-long Styrofoam sailboat
straight across the bows of a Aegis-class destroyer, and by the
internationally recognized laws of the sea, she would have to modify her
course, so to prevent her collision with me; as she was a powered
vessel, and I was one under sail.
Do you think I would be stupid enough to do that in a million years?
Of course not.
Because my little sailboat would be run over by that ship, and ground
into Styrofoam packing peanuts.
And that's what your arguments remind me of... you'd just love to get us
into some huge war with everyone, because that's your world-view... that
such a war is not only inevitable, but a necessity - from a
philosophical, economic, and political viewpoint.
.....and it's the law.
By God, we're going to cross that *******'s bows under full sail, as
it's our inherent right to!
"So it may cut us in half; so we might all drown.
At least we lost our lives on the side of right...the law was with us!
Let's all go down fighting, men!"
....which is a wonderful and romantic concept...until where exactly it
leaves our posterity.
Screwed, blued, and tattooed, a hundred years down the line.
Sometimes, a pinch, or even a bucket-full, of compromise is worth more
than a bushel-basket full of righteous anger.
I will say this for George W. Bush... unintentionally, he was done more
to re-invigorate the political interest of American citizens in their
government, shown them the inherent corruption and despotism that will
grow in it if they ever take it complacently, and revealed to us all
where the road leads when you start putting more trust in your fear,
anger, and hate than you put in your own humanity, heart, and common
sense...than in your fellow man.
Nowadays, interest in the politics of this nation isn't a hobby, like
trying to figure out who's going to win the next World Series, it might
well be where you, or your children...or their children... are spending
next Christmas.
Well, if nothing else, the Biblical description of the Garden Of Eden
puts it somewhere near Basra, Iraq...so you have that at least on your
side while talking around the Christmas tree about family members who
can't be with you this year.
Dubya thinks he is a Good Reborn Christian; and by God, he may be right.
In his own unintentional way, he's making everything that is in each of
the dark sides of our own souls manifest and visible to all of us, by
looking at those things that are contained in he himself, and seeing how
wrong, hateful, corrupt, pathetic, small, vicious, and eventually futile
they are.
He's the picture of Dorian Gray that's lurking in the national attic.
Look upon it, and shudder.
Because that could be any of us, if we gave it half a chance.

Pat

I rather imagine it would be eaier to take out a satellite thru less
showey means.

Why blow it into a gazzlion pieces when you could target it with a
laser, particle beam or other weapon.???????

wrote:

I rather imagine it would be eaier to take out a satellite thru
less showey means.

Why blow it into a gazzlion pieces when you could target it
with a laser, particle beam or other weapon.???????

There's not much I know about the design of satellites, but
I think that they're already designed to be resistant to
radiation, just because outer space is a very high-radiation
environment. It might be unreasonably hard to knock them
out using a particle beam.

Jim Burns

On Fri, 04 May 2007 08:41:16 -0500, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

And that's what your arguments remind me of... you'd just love to get us
into some huge war with everyone, because that's your world-view..

Pat, it's not necessary to display your nuttiness and ignorance of me
and my "world view" at *every* opportunity. That's Chomko's job.

"James Burns" a écrit dans le message de news:
...
There's not much I know about the design of satellites, but
I think that they're already designed to be resistant to
radiation, just because outer space is a very high-radiation
environment. It might be unreasonably hard to knock them
out using a particle beam.


That depends on Energy.

There's absolutely nothing in common, speaking about energy levels per
surface unit, about the amont of energy of even the most energetic particle
staellite encounter in their 'natural' environment ( Galactic Cosmic Rays -
or GCR, for short - ) and the amont in an energy beam anyone would ever
think to use as a weapon. The former have impacts on electronics, but the
destructive part is only by causing short circuits ( SELs ) or at most, by
burning junctions (SEGR and SEB ), and, on materials, by accelerating aging
or displacing individual atoms in a crystal latice, AFAIK. The later is
supposed to create destructive effect on materials by quick heating - at
least -, if not actual material burning, fusing or evaporating.

Noone armors any satellite against that amont of energy. Of course, noone
has yet suceeded to create such a beam over a distance of 100s or 1000s of
km and through an athmosphere.

Missiles interceptor are actually the easiest ASAT weapon to create, from a
technological PoV.

On May 4, 11:30 am, "frédéric haessig" wrote:

Noone armors any satellite against that amont of energy. Of course, noone
has yet suceeded to create such a beam over a distance of 100s or 1000s of
km and through an athmosphere.

Particle beam weapons don't exist at the moment and AFAIK nobody is
working on them for ASAT, so we're really talking about lasers. Those
have been built and even demonstrated for ASAT but work by affecting
sensitive components like sensors and solar cells. Damage can be
either in-band (for sensors) or general heating (solar cells). A
satellite designer could probably do significant hardening against
that level of laser threat, but at the cost payload mass and perhaps
performance. And money.


Missiles interceptor are actually the easiest ASAT weapon to create, from a technological PoV.

I tend to agree, though there was an interesting study a few years ago
that suggested that something non-trivial might be put together using
commercially available industrial lasers and tracking mounts.

"Allen Thomson" a écrit dans le message de news:
...
On May 4, 11:30 am, "frédéric haessig" wrote:

Noone armors any satellite against that amont of energy. Of course, noone
has yet suceeded to create such a beam over a distance of 100s or 1000s
of
km and through an athmosphere.

Particle beam weapons don't exist at the moment and AFAIK nobody is
working on them for ASAT, so we're really talking about lasers. Those

Most definitely.

However, I was answering to a poster who wrote that, since satellites were
hardened against radiation, they were likly immune to beam weapons. Since
laser effects are nothing like radiations, I took that to mean particle
beam.

have been built and even demonstrated for ASAT but work by affecting
sensitive components like sensors and solar cells. Damage can be
either in-band (for sensors) or general heating (solar cells). A

Interesting, I'm aware of use of laser as ASAT to attack sensors of spysats,
but I haven't read anything about using them to attack solar arrays. DO you
have a link?

Obviously, if the attack is by general heating, it would have to be with an
energy density way above the normal solar one ( 1350 W/m2 , IIRC ). Let's
say ( WAG ) by a factor of at least 20. Projected on a distance of 100s of
km. That seems actually feasible. However, wouldn't it still take some time
to destroy solar cells by heating? Which means tracking mount to follow the
satellites apparent movement? And wouldn't the destructive effect be limited
to the diameter of the laser beam. Since the typival sat solar array is way
bigger than a 'normal' laser beam waist, this would not, if I understand
correctly, destroy the satellite, just degrade it; Am I correct?

satellite designer could probably do significant hardening against
that level of laser threat, but at the cost payload mass and perhaps
performance. And money.

Yes and no. I have seen some very interesting exemples of nanotech shutters
to protect optical sensors against optical attacks. The cost in mass and
performance was nearly negliogible. Money is something else.


Missiles interceptor are actually the easiest ASAT weapon to create, from
a technological PoV.

I tend to agree, though there was an interesting study a few years ago
that suggested that something non-trivial might be put together using
commercially available industrial lasers and tracking mounts.

Was this to blind the sensors or destroy them?

Do you have references or links for that study? I'd be interested to follow
on this....

On May 4, 4:18 pm, "frédéric haessig" wrote:

Interesting, I'm aware of use of laser as ASAT to attack sensors of spysats,
but I haven't read anything about using them to attack solar arrays. DO you
have a link?

There's a general discussion at http://www.fas.org/resource/10072004164110.pdf



I tend to agree, though there was an interesting study a few years ago
that suggested that something non-trivial might be put together using
commercially available industrial lasers and tracking mounts.

Was this to blind the sensors or destroy them?

I'm going on memory here and could be mistaken, but I think heating
was the damage mechanism.

Do you have references or links for that study? I'd be interested to follow
on this....

The study I saw was done by a contractor for DoD and AFAIK was not
released to the public. You could probably generate a similar
analysis with a bit of research on industrial lasers and back-of-the-
envelope engineering calculations.

Allen Thomson wrote:

Interesting, I'm aware of use of laser as ASAT to attack sensors of spysats,
but I haven't read anything about using them to attack solar arrays. DO you
have a link?


There's a general discussion at http://www.fas.org/resource/10072004164110.pdf




Instead of doing it via heating, might it make more sense to do via
electron beam, or microwave bombardment?
The solar array destroying capability that the Argus Effect manifests is
due to creating a cloud of electrons in Earth orbit from the nuclear
detonation.
A focused electron beam might be able to do this also.
I've got to crank up the microwave oven and stick a solar cell in there
to see what happens.
I'll bet it ain't pretty.
At least without welding goggles on.
Then, it could be as fun as a light bulb, lit candle, or wire garbage
bag tie.
Wonderful to know where that great shorting-throbbing-humming sound
comes from. :-)

Pat