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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!karn
From: karn@petrus.UUCP (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: A High Tech Maginot Line
Message-ID: <745@petrus.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Dec-85 20:13:03 EST
Article-I.D.: petrus.745
Posted: Mon Dec  9 20:13:03 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Dec-85 21:07:46 EST
References: <8512020718.AA15110@s1-b.arpa> <8512031532.AA11191@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> <709@petrus.UUCP> <34395@lanl.ARPA>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 28

> ...The
> DEA, Coast Guard, and other agencies don't have the luxury of saying
> "this is war, any vehicle moving through the Caribbean shall be
> destroyed." If they did, smuggling would soon cease.  So would all other
> commerce and recreation.
> . . .
> The SDI on the other hand has exactly this luxury.  It will probably be
> implemented in such a way that any space-going vehicle that is not part
> of SDI would be a target for destruction if a war starts.  This would be
> kind of rough on any civilian spacecraft (if SDI works).

Yeah, like Ariane launchers carrying communication satellites insured
for $350 million by Western insurance carriers, or manned Soviet missions,
or any other form of space commerce and recreation. And if you modify
your system to spare what appears to be a manned Soviet launch, the
Soviets will simply make all their ICBMs indistinguishable from manned
launchers. Then when we shoot down one of their cosmonauts by mistake they'll
have the perfect pretext for blowing up all the space mines parked next to
our SDI components...

> The feasibility of SDI is still seriously in question, but the failure
> to stop drug smuggling in not a counter-example.  These are two different
> tasks with two completely different objectives.

The comparison is perfectly appropriate. Someone else already answered
this point, so I won't bother to repeat their comments.

Phil