🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ewright.726514832@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <1993Jan07.203533.10511@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) writes:
>
>>It is not for nothing DARPA has a love with microsats and ways to get them
>>quickly into orbit. And what DARPA is doing is in the sunshine. 
>
>Microsats are incapable of replacing photorecon satellites.  The
>laws of physics prevent it.  To get adequate resolution, you need
>a large mirror (or large radar).  Black programs use the same laws
>of physics as everybody else.

Yes they do, and synthetic aperture arrays at optical frequencies
are discussed in the open literature. Electro-optics is one of the
most sensitive technologies that the US government regulates. A
technique has to be fairly old hat before researchers can talk
about it openly. One way of generating a synthetic aperture is
to rapidly move a single sensor. LEO satellites come ready made
for this technique, and the computer power to put the image 
together is getting cheaper and cheaper.

>>Prevent a degree of hostile acts. Why didn't the Iraqis use chemical weapons
>>against allied forces in Desert Storm? 
>
>Not because he was afraid someone would say something bad about
>him at a UN cocktail party.
>
>Hint: the people who planned the initial airstrikes were not
>complete idiots.

In fact they were very good, but they still couldn't silence the
SCUD launchers, and large stocks of chemical weapons were discovered
and ordered destroyed by UN teams *after* the war. I think Saddam
would have used gas if he thought he could get away with it. After
all, he used it against the Kurds. I think he didn't use gas for the
same reason no nation would voluntarily escalate to nuclear warfare
against a nuclear armed foe. If he'd used gas on Israel, Israel would 
have used some of her atomic weapons on Iraq. Using gas on US troops
would have been slightly less risky, since the US probably wouldn't
have answered with gas or nukes, but the US had enough conventional
firepower to level Iraq without resorting to those weapons, and could
have done so if sufficiently provoked. Saddam was reduced to using 
the gas as a bluff that failed when it was called.

Gary
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