Brilliant Pebbles Returns
Long-time space-based missile defense advocate Lowell Wood, officially a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been talking up the Brilliant Pebbles concept that he pushed during the better part of my elementary school years.
Wood was at the Capitol Hill Club for an event sponsored by the American Foreign Policy Council and the Marshall Institute. Sharon Weinberger at Defense Daily summarizes Wood's talk (subscription only, I am afraid).
Wood's presentation was entitled "Ballistic Missile Defense in an Ideal World".
Wood's "ideal world" is one, presumably, where the laws of physics are substantially relaxed. One of his slides caught my eye:
“Total life-cycle cost to the Nation to own†the Brilliant Pebbles defensive system was $11 B $11 B (’89 $)
– CAIG-validated, DoD-certified-to-Congress cost estimate
• Tight consensus of 3 “from the bottom up†cost-estimation projects
– All RDT&E, all production-&-deployment; 2 decades ops
– Total deployed constellation of 2000 Pebbles
• Worst-case GPALS threat: Typhoon salvo-launching off Bermuda
• Clearly met Reagan’s “..impotent and obsolete..†spec for the SDI
– Higher “cost estimates†come from critics-&-opponents
• Manifestly, professional naïfs – “Will you believe this?!?
Whatever you think of the critics, the American Physical Society and Congressional Budget Office (1996, 2002 and 2004) are not staffed by "professional naïfs."
Of all people to hurl this charge, Dr. Wood is not the person with the most credibility.
His days pimping the X-Ray laser remain a source of controversy. Worse, in my view, the technically savy Dr. Wood encrypted his .pdf file -- something that took me three seconds to defeat with Elcomsoft.
Let's hope Brilliant Pebbles fares better than Wood's encryption when dealing with adversary countermeasures.
-- posted by Jeffrey Lewis.
Space Based weapons have a few advantages.
1-Mantinence is nill. But there is always the problem with mis-firing. For instance, durig any armor traing there is that possibility of a complete failure on both;
a. The powder primer and;
b. the electrical firing mechanism.
2-But in non-essential targeting or low-prioity target, this method would be the best to advert any danger to U.S. troops with no need to enter that arena of battle.
* Eletronic Warfare (such a the PREDATOR drone) has proved more than a useful tool in combat. But we may at times to fail to recognize what we tend to call 'Dug-in' troops. Fortified positions will forever require:
SEALs
Delta Force, including al of the 1st Special Ops.
And just well trained soldiers. *
Chris Werkshage
Looking to tan soon.
Brooklyn, New York.
Posted by: Chris Werkshage at February 1, 2006 7:52 PM