Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!lsuc!pesnta!hplabs!ucbvax!arms-d From: Arms-D-Request@MIT-XX.ARPA (Moderator) Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #26 Message-ID: <8601210229.AA02473@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> Date: Sun, 19-Jan-86 14:41:00 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8601210229.AA02473 Posted: Sun Jan 19 14:41:00 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 22-Jan-86 00:27:36 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: ARMS-D@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 354 Approved: arms-d@mit-mc.arpa Arms-Discussion Digest Sunday, January 19, 1986 2:41PM Volume 6, Issue 26 (extension) Today's Topics: This digest continues Issue #26, with the following headers duplicated from the last #26. (sorry!) Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #22 Unreleased SDIO Computing Panel Report SDI and Research funding Aircraft Carriers Offensive Star Wars lasers BM Testing Ban BM Testing Ban ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Jan 86 18:50:14 est From: decwrl!decvax!linus!alliant!gottlieb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Bob Gottlieb) Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #22 ... 'in a matter of hours, a laser defense system powerful enough to cope with the ballistic missile threat can also destroy the enemy's major cities by fire. ... the attack time for each city beung only a matter of minutes. ...' The problem with this is that is assumes two things: 1. The laser operates in a frequency range that is transparent to the atmosphere. Many infrared and optical lasers are badly attenuated by traversing the atmosphere. 2. In order to strike a target on earth, and not diverge as to merely warm things up over a general area, some form of abaptive lens would be needed to counteract the defocussing effects of the atmosphere. I don't say you can't use a laser as a "death ray" for cities; merely that the extra equipment you need to make an anti-spacecraft weapon into an atmosphere-penetrating weapon is somewhat extra and obvious. -- Bob Gottlieb UUCP: ...!linus!alliant!gottlieb Mail: Alliant Computer Systems Corp, 42 Nagog Park, Acton, MA 01720 Phone: (617) 263-9110 Foot: "You can't get there from here". --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I don't know what I'm doing, and Alliant isn't responsible either, so there!" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jan 86 12:08:56 est From: Walter Hamscher Subject: Unreleased SDIO Computing Panel Report >From the Boston Globe, page 1, Saturday, 18 Jan 1986 SPECIALISTS FAULT `STAR WARS' WORK By Fred Kaplan Globe Staff WASHINGTON - In a report commissioned by the Pentagon's Strategic Defense Initiative Office, a group of top coputer software experts concludes that the SDI office is going about the task of building a `star wars' missile-defense system the wrong way. The report does say developing a proper software program for SDI is feasible. However, it says the SDI office and its defense contractors are assuming they can develop the `star wars' weapons and sensors first and write its computer software afterward - when, in fact, an effective defense will be impossible unless this order is reversed. The authors of the report, all avowed supporters of the SDI program, met for 17 days last summer and held further discussions before writing the report. The report was submitted to the SDI office last month, and has not been released publicly. Software must be programmed to enable automatic communication between the satellites that detect Soviet missiles and the SDI weapons that will shoot the missiles down; between these weapons and other sensors that can distinguish missiles from decoys and assess whther the target was hit or missed; and between this entire network and political authorities on the ground. Hundreds of satellites, battle stations, sensors, giant space mirrors and other devices would be involved. Computations must be made, and orders must be given, in a matter of microseconds, with continuous updates and revisions. The report says all the various designs for strategic defense systems proposed thus far demand "excessively sophisticated software" that "cannot be adequately tested." A design "that cannot be tested ... is of no value," the report says. And "excessively complex software cannot be produced at any cost." John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists, a critic of SDI who did not serve on the panel that wrote the report, puts the problem this way: "It's like buying a home computer first and then discovering that the software you need won't run on it. Or it's like buying a Betamax and then discovering that your favorite movies are only on VHS. "This report," Pike continues, "says a lot of the money in the [SDI] budget now is wasted because you'll end up buying the wrong machines." The report emphasizes that computer software programming is still a young field with many unknown elements. The report states, "The panel expects no technological breakthrough that would make it possible to write the celebrated `10 million lines of error-free code,'" which SDI officials have acknowledged are necesary to make the system, as currently envisioned, work. Moreover, "there are no laws or formulae that can accurately predict the successs or failure of a large software development." Nor is it possible today, the report says, to measure whether a software program can be applied to an SDI battle-management system. The report says these problems are not impossible to solve. However, it says it will take at least two decades - and then only if the organization of the program is radically changed. Assuming these fundamental uncertainties can be resolved, the report cites other computer and software difficulties. Among them: * Flights of the space shuttle have frequently been delayed because of computer problems found at the last moment. Yet whereas the shuttle's computers are designed to reain in operation for 1,000 hours without breaking down, the computers on board the satellites used in an SDI system would have to be built to break down only once every 100,000 hours. David Parnas, a software specialist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, also says the experience of several shuttle flights has allowed NASA to work out programming "bugs" over time. "This kind of thing couldn't possibly work with SDI," he says. "You can't call the Russians in the middle of a war and say, `Wait a minute, we have to recalculate some things.'" Parnas was appointed a member of the panel that wrote the report. However, he resigned a few weeks after its formation, saying its work was pointless because SDI's software requirements were impossible to fulfill. Stephen Berlin of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Sciences [sic], notes another difference between SDI and the shuttle: "The space shuttle is not being shot at. An SDI system almost certainly would be." * The system would be highly vulnerable not only to direct attack but to nuclear weapons exploded in space as far as 1,000 kilometers away. "The high-energy neutron flux from a nuclear explosion is expected to `erase' volatile semiconductor memory," the report says. "Effective shielding is difficult." The report recommends new ways of dealing with strategic defense that organize the various components of an SDI system in a "loose hierarchy," with tasks "delegated to and localized within parts of a system." Such a system would involve less complex and more testable software, and could be adapted more easily to change. The authors of the report - all software specialists at top universities - acknowledge that it is not clear how to do all this, and that the SDI office should "use independent contractors" who could "tap the talent of leading researchers in the scientific community," to study the problem further. ------------------------------ Date: Sat 18 Jan 86 14:55:52-EST From: "Jim McGrath" Subject: SDI and Research funding Reply-to: mcgrath%mit-oz@mit-mc.arpa From: Nicholas.Spies@H.CS.CMU.EDU In ARMS-D V6 #18.3 Herb Lin says: "No matter what goal you give it, SDI isn't the way to go." ...with one exception: SDI has proven to be a wonderful way to part fools and their money. The political processes that can give life to such fantasies as SDI have a greater strategic importance in the long term than SDI itself, for after SDI what new bogosity will be foisted on us and the world, and why? True, which is why I have to disagree with Parnas's essay dealing with this topic (of whether SDI can be justified as a means of funding worthwhile research). While he obviously is the expert when it comes to how SDIO allocates funds, and while I am willing to believe they do a suboptimal job, the fact remains that if SDIO had not securred these funds from Congress they would have almost exclusively been used for non-research activities. Congress seems incapable of bold research funding unless they can peg it to a "war" on some disease, some prestige trip (NASA), or defense. SIDO would have to almost plan on destroying our research assets to do as much damage as Congress routinely does in the appropriations process. Note that peer review is being slowly strangled as he need for large amounts of physical resources (research centers) allows Congress to start playing around with the pork barrel. A new Computing Center looks very much like a dam, or a post office, or a highway to most politicians, so major resource allocations decisions are becoming increasingly political (they have always been political to some extent - why do you think the Johnson Space Center is in Texas anyway?). Jim ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jan 86 00:32:36 EST From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Aircraft Carriers Herb Lin commented a little while ago (I'm catching up on back issues...): > ...[power projection is] a mission that could be > accomplished at a small fraction of the cost by a few fighter-bomber > and tanker aircraft, if it weren't for inter-service rivalry. Not necessarily so. For one thing, it takes a lot of tanker support when there are no bases nearby -- not an easy job if more than a token raid is involved. For another thing, "power projection" doesn't just mean bombing someone, it also means *threatening* to bomb someone, as in the Idi Amin example. For that you need conspicuous forces in the vicinity, which can be *seen* to be preparing for trouble. Sending someone a telegram telling him that you've got tankers on the runway isn't quite the same thing... > Britain doesn't have what we consider to be true aircraft carriers, > just "ski-jump" carriers for the V/STOL Harriers. Not much more than > a freighter and a ramp... And US carriers are just huge barges with a flat top and a few catapults. Now can we stop name-calling and get back to serious issues? The US Navy used to operate small carriers, too. (In fact the Hermes was a "full size" carrier in its day, before it was converted for Harrier-only operation.) The major limitation of small carriers is that they can't operate aircraft that need very long deck runs. And you can't fly a B-1 off the Enterprise either. > And recall the heavy losses among the support > vessels required by even this ship (e.g., HMS Sheffield). "Heavy" losses among support vessels? The Sheffield is the *only* loss I can think of that was directly attributable to carrier support -- she was on radar-picket duty, since the British carriers did not have AEW aircraft (a defect since remedied, to some degree). Most of the other ships lost were hundreds of miles from the carriers, defending the landing area -- not the carriers -- against attack. > Recall ... the long-range air raid by refuelled land-based British bombers. What do you mean, "bombers"? "Bomber", singular. And it took most of the RAF's tanker force to get it there, plus some terribly risky operational practices. This is a good example of the limitations of the "few fighter- bomber and tanker aircraft" approach, when there aren't any handy bases. If there had been substantial air defences at the receiving end, or if Argentina had waited a few months until the Vulcan force was retired, those missions could never have been flown. > Besides, the Harrier (the only fixed-wing plane > on British carriers) was not there for "air cover," but for close support > of ground troops, who found themselves plenty harried by Argentine aircraft > anyway. Uh, make up your mind, Herb -- were the Harriers there to support ground troops, or for air cover? (If they were there for close support, then they weren't there to shoo Argentine aircraft away!) In fact they were there for both -- the RAF Harriers for both close support and attack missions, and the Sea Harriers for air defence and some attack work. The Sea Harrier is quite definitely aimed at air defence, with a secondary attack mission, and that's how they were used. Quite successfully, too, considering the lack of radar support: twenty-odd Argentine aircraft shot down. Most of the Argentine aircraft losses were to Harriers. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jan 86 14:01:42 EST From: wolit%mhuxd.UUCP at harvard.HARVARD.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Offensive Star Wars lasers > From: Michael_Joseph_Edelman%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA > > From: "Dave Caulkins; Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; 415-322-3778" > Subject: Offensive Star Wars lasers > > ... 'in a matter of hours, a laser defense > system powerful enough to cope with the ballistic missile threat > can also destroy the enemy's major cities by fire. ... the > attack time for each city beung only a matter of minutes. ...' > > ... 'Such mass fires might be > expected to generate smoke in amounts comparable to the amounts > generated in some major nuclear exchange scenarios.' ... That > could cause 'a climatic disaster similar to nuclear winter,' ... > > This seems a little doubtful to me; there's a great deal of difference > between destroying a warhead- which requires a lot of energy- and > setting cities afire. As others have pointed out, New York isn't > quite as flammable as Tokyo was in 1943. > And that still leaves the somewhat thorny problem for the > attacker of retaliation from ICBMs in their rather laser-resistant > concrete and earth silos. Seems like another attempted end-run by > the anti-SDI group. Tell the residents of the area around where Osage Avenue (formerly the home of MOVE) used to be in Philadelphia that American cities aren't very flammable! And while igniting midtown Manhattan might not be so easy, I'm sure the residential areas of the city would burn quite nicely. As for the question of retaliation, space-based lasers might best be used as decapitation weapons, disrupting the coordination of retaliation. That also could answer the question of why the Pentagon is interested in spending so much money on a weapon that's so vulnerable that it could never survive the first few minutes of a battle. Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ; 201 582-2998; mhuxd!wolit (Affiliation given for identification purposes only) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jan 86 14:26:54 EST From: Herb Lin Subject: BM Testing Ban From: Herb Lin (v 6, i 19) Another method to achieve the same goal would be a comprehensive ban on the flight testing of all ballistic missiles. From: Jim McGrath The problems are twofold. First, technological breakout is very easy. What do you do if the other sides tests, and "overnight" increases dramatically its confidence levels? Always a problem with any ban on anything that is possible. The answer is that you maintain your own ability to test quickly, so that you can respond in appropriate time. Second, I don't see how you could properly distinguish between military and civilian testing... Logically, one would have to shut down all space actiities. A ballistic missile is a different beast from a lift vehicle; we can distinguish between the two. ------------------------------ End of Arms-Discussion Digest *****************************