I think there may be a way to completely protect us from the threat of nuclear missiles.
If an ICBM were to be fired at America, we have the technology with all of our radars and satellites to pinpoint the exact location, speed, and direction of the incoming missile. This could allow us to fire a defensive smart missile that would receive data from our sensors and track the incoming missile and collide headlong, destroying itself and the incoming missile 50,000 of feet in the air.
Of course, there's the risk of nuclear fallout happening over the continent, and this is where things get a bit tricky. If there was someway by the energy of the colliding missiles to neutralize the unstable isotopes within the incoming missile, then it would be harmless. The 2 missiles colliding would have to constitute a nuclear reaction, and there must be some special thing inside our defensive missile to neutralize the isotopes. Maybe it splits the unstable atoms into smaller and more stable pieces, I don't know.
Nuclear interceptor missiles don't work. A nuclear missile does not contain just one warhead. It contains a nuclear one, and hundreds of solid metal decoys. When radar sees the missile come in, it literally sees hundreds.
Plus, in a war situation, each target can be allotted dozens of missiles, just to be sure. That's thousands of decoys.
And that's not counting submarine launched missiles, which can reach a coastal target before you even get the interceptors warmed up.
The only way to win is not to play.
Kayden Martinez
As far as I remember an ICBM can carry 3 or more nuclear warheads and several decoys, its only mission its to get it close enough for the warheads to reach their target.
Anthony Nguyen
Uh, uh! What about nukes under the range of 10kt that are considered tactical? Do we get into a postapocaliptic world if we use one or two?
Aiden Gonzalez
Not to mention that all of these, decoys and warheads, come screaming down from orbit at twenty (20) times the speed of sound
Mason Jackson
>The only way to win is not to play. Unfortunately, most males are players, users. Little boys desperately trying to prove they're men.
John Barnes
Well I appreciate what you want to do: Thanks for trying to save me, in your fantasy land, from an excruciatingly painful death by radiation poisoning. I strive for this also. But in all likelihood, all the "what if we did this" posts on this board have been thought of by millions of professional sci's before us. Not that I wouldn't welcome an actual practical answer from someone, I would. It only feels impossible when I see how hopeless most people are.
The only hope we have is if the most mature and intelligent among us help all the people so desperately in need of education and thoughtfulness.
Mason Campbell
Please for the love of kek almighty let this be a first small step towards military forces returning to hand weapons and armour.
Ryan Martinez
Wouldn't that explosion in atmosphere produce EMP?
No shit, what do you think SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) was about? SDI also considered making nuclear pulse weapons (a weaponized orion drive) as a means to generate powerful enough laser beams to fry a missle's electronic components.
Liam Russell
Well if you've just thought of it, chances are that the powers that be thought of it 40 years ago.
Blake Cooper
You really think all those North Korean missile launches at Japan were all "tests"?
They were real launches that were disabled mid-air. Calling them "tests" is just a way for North Korea to keep their pride and keep the rest the entire world from completely losing their minds to panic.
Daniel Stewart
the problem is penetration aids. ICBMs can ejaculate a bunch of decoys that look just like the warhead into space, meaning you know have to launch a bunch of missiles to hit all the decoys
Even without decoys, hitting an ICBM is difficult. It's traveling insanely fast through an atmosphere that varies greatly even in just a few hundred feet. While you don't actually have to impact the ICBM to disable it, you do need to get extremely close. Even a tiny path prediction error can put your interceptor and the ICBM miles apart. Even if he ICBM isn't trying to make interception difficult, atmospheric conditions alone will make its path unpredictable enough to make a rather large percentage of interceptors miss. This isn't like trying to hit Scuds from Iraq.