Think about it:
A massively networked system of tens or even hundreds of thousands of heterogeneous systems, communicating around the planet from between positions on ground, at sea, in the air and in mutliple orbits, in real time.
About half of them are uniquely designed embedded real-time systems; the other half based on off-the-shelf hardware running a variety of platforms, including WinNT/2000 and Win95/98.
The communications systems are wildly varied in technology and reliablility, and include copper ground line, fiber ground line, broadcast radio (FM, AM, and PCM), tightbeam microwave and laser.With all messages requiring guaranteed reception, in real time.
Each system representing a massive amount of code, in some case literally in the tens of GLoCs (billions of lines of code). All running parallel to each other, synchronized, in real time.
Controlling systems that have to be accurate within tolerances of milliseconds and decimeters, over distances of thousands of kilometers, against moving targets whose position and momentum have to tracked in real time.
And all of them have to work right the first time, integrating flawlessly.
Everywhere.
In real time.
Ludicrous.
You'd be better off trying to wish the missiles away.
More importantly, missiles are obsolete, and have been since the 1960s - in principle, at least. If you have launch capacity, and can softland an unmanned vehicle onto an planetoid (rather easier than landing one on Luna or Mars), you can redirect the planetoid fairly easily. In principle, you could do it with a parabolic mirror and a gimballed conic muzzle. You use the mirror to heat a section of the planetoid material to a plasma, which is directed out the muzzle as reaction mass. This is vastly oversimplified, but the idea in general is sound.
Throwing rocks at someone has got to be cheaper than building and maintaining a lot of expensive nukes, yet even a modest planetoid impact at a suitable velocity would be comparable to the largest hydrogen bombs. And it would be far more difficult to stop than a rather flimsy missile. |
