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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (165559)	7/28/2001 5:49:51 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

In a report to be published on Monday, Defense Week said the electronic beacon was used to help the weapon compensate for deficiencies in the current U.S. ground radar-tracking setup and get into the general area of the dummy warhead. Lehner said money was being sought from Congress for a powerful and sophisticated ``X-Band'' radar near Hawaii, or perhaps on a floating platform in the Pacific, to provide better real-time tracking of the target in midflight. Defense officials said U.S. military radars currently located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Kwajalein were too close to launches of the target warhead and kill vehicle to give a clear picture of the target's midcourse flight. SO: Currently the US radar is insufficient to allow adequate midflight guidance to the interceptor. To compensate for this, a beacon is placed on the target to guide the interceptor through midflight. When the interceptor enters near-range, the beacon is turned off and the interceptor must perform the bullet-to-bullet destruction - the hard part - on its own. In the final fielded system radars are included for midflight guidance. The midflight guidance problem either is already solved or will be the subject of separate tests. What's wrong with that?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (165559)	7/28/2001 6:11:57 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Respond to of 769670

Those with no understanding technology or system's engineering have no way to evaluate the different levels of difficulty of implementing technology solutions. So I made a mistake. You were not perceptive. You have very little understanding and appreciation of weapons and guidance technology. The adapter kit to make ordinance smart cost very little of the full cost of the weapon system to get the bomb to where it can be terminally guided to a precise point. But the onboard computation required to close within inches for bullets is orders of magnitude more complex than the few hundred or thousand extra dollars to make a very slow dumb bomb smart. The laser designator by the way works functional for terminal guidance in laser guided bombs as the tracking emitter used to close to terminal guidance collision in the Missile Defense test. By the way, the incredibly inaccurate current "smart" laser bombs ? What do you mean by incredibly inaccurate. Combined with the grossly misleading statements ...... I have no clue as to what you are talking about. tom watson tosiwmee

To: Skywatcher who wrote (165559)	7/29/2001 1:54:48 AM
From: D. Long	Respond to of 769670

Of course they have to guide the missile to the missile. That's a rather obvious observation. I assume your indignation is aimed at the fact they used a beacon to guide the missile, instead of the radar tracking system which will be part and parcel of the system, but which is not built yet. The beacon did the job of what a future radar tracking system will accomplish - getting the missile to the vacinity of the target, and then the onboard guidance will take over for the kill. Really, its a non-issue. Derek