Notional Missile Defence

On 20 January George "Dubya" Bush became President of the USA, and the "National Missile Defense" - Son of Star Wars - was firmly on the political agenda.

But does Dubya understands quite how difficult it is to build an anti-missile missile that works? Works in the sense of destroying incoming, that is. It's easy to build one that works in the sense of making its owner look hawkish and his sponsors rich, but that's obviously not a concern for a serious-minded President.

Let's put the technical problem in terms that Dubya may understand.

Space is very large, George. In fact, it's huge.

Surely you saw pool tables in your misspent youth? Replace the balls with the tiniest, edge-of-visibility, specks of whatever white dust you fancy. Scatter a few dozen of them somewhere near the baize. To win, you have to pot all of them - and the white-ball is another speck. You have five minutes. And you have to use computers and they have to run hundred-million-line programs.

The Notional Missile Defence initiative is here to help you, George.

We call on engineers, inventors, poets and scientists - mad or not - to contribute notions on how to construct a Missile Defence. The best will, we hope, be published.

We are inspired by a previous effort which contributed modestly to the success of Star Wars Senior, in the early 1980s. We can't find any trace of it now - that was pre-Web, after all.

Zoologists produced the entry which sticks in our minds. They proposed keeping herds of hippos in constant readiness, fed exclusively on baked beans and each tethered to a stout stake. Judicious application of axes to the tethers and Zippos to the hippos in the event of missile attack should produce a rapidly ascending and almost impenetrable barrier.

You can do better than this, with the help of two decades of technological and literary progress. So send your entry!

Regards,

the Notional Missile Defence team

in association with the

Association of Autonomous Astronauts (Shoreditch)
"Moving in several directions at once"

Recent submissions updated 06 Mar 2001

AAA mothership

HotAIR from the Annals of Improbable Research

Media attention

What is NMD?

The "National Missile Defense" is a scheme to prevent "rogue states" hitting the United States with intercontinental missiles, by shooting them down in mid-flight from North Korea or Libya or wherever.

Russia and China say that such an anti-missile programme will be "destabilising" - as they said of Star Wars Senior. "Destabilising", say the Cassandras, means "makes nuclear Armageddon more likely". You remember nuclear Armageddon? It's soo 1980s, it's more passé than lamé. They can't be serious.

You can read much more about NMD at the Federation of American Scientists site: www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/nmd


	Notional Missile Defence On 20 January George "Dubya" Bush became President of the USA, and the "National Missile Defense" - Son of Star Wars - was firmly on the political agenda. But does Dubya understands quite how difficult it is to build an anti-missile missile that works? Works in the sense of destroying incoming, that is. It's easy to build one that works in the sense of making its owner look hawkish and his sponsors rich, but that's obviously not a concern for a serious-minded President. Let's put the technical problem in terms that Dubya may understand. Space is very large, George. In fact, it's huge. Surely you saw pool tables in your misspent youth? Replace the balls with the tiniest, edge-of-visibility, specks of whatever white dust you fancy. Scatter a few dozen of them somewhere near the baize. To win, you have to pot all of them - and the white-ball is another speck. You have five minutes. And you have to use computers and they have to run hundred-million-line programs. The Notional Missile Defence initiative is here to help you, George. We call on engineers, inventors, poets and scientists - mad or not - to contribute notions on how to construct a Missile Defence. The best will, we hope, be published. We are inspired by a previous effort which contributed modestly to the success of Star Wars Senior, in the early 1980s. We can't find any trace of it now - that was pre-Web, after all. Zoologists produced the entry which sticks in our minds. They proposed keeping herds of hippos in constant readiness, fed exclusively on baked beans and each tethered to a stout stake. Judicious application of axes to the tethers and Zippos to the hippos in the event of missile attack should produce a rapidly ascending and almost impenetrable barrier. You can do better than this, with the help of two decades of technological and literary progress. So send your entry! Regards, the Notional Missile Defence team in association with the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (Shoreditch) "Moving in several directions at once"
	Recent submissions updated 06 Mar 2001
	AAA mothership
	HotAIR from the Annals of Improbable Research
	Media attention

	What is NMD? The "National Missile Defense" is a scheme to prevent "rogue states" hitting the United States with intercontinental missiles, by shooting them down in mid-flight from North Korea or Libya or wherever. Russia and China say that such an anti-missile programme will be "destabilising" - as they said of Star Wars Senior. "Destabilising", say the Cassandras, means "makes nuclear Armageddon more likely". You remember nuclear Armageddon? It's soo 1980s, it's more passé than lamé. They can't be serious. You can read much more about NMD at the Federation of American Scientists site: www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/nmd
	Updated: 06 Mar 2001. Send design comments to: the web-creature Texts & graphics © 2001 contributors; moral rights asserted