How about a nuclear shield covering the United states?

[weatheriscool]

How about an nuclear shield covering the united states that is like the iron dome but for nuclear. what we could do is have missile or laser platforms in space that would shoot down icbm's from russia or china, north korea or iran. I believe the iron dome in the way israel has it is kind of pointless for America but a nuclear shield would be nice.

we could have 3-4 such platforms capable of shooting down in space or 100+ miles above the surface, which would stop the nuclear threat. We need to think of a defense against the nuclear threat and this would greatly save lives in the case of a nuclear war. Way just be sitting ducks and be scared?

[firestar464]

Reagan tried that, but it was going to take a while and the US Government had other plans. They tried to reduce the cost with the Brilliant Pebbles program but that too went up in cost and so Congress was like "meh."

IDK, maybe if we get more money.

[weatheriscool]

Reagan tried that, but it was going to take a while and the US Government had other plans. They tried to reduce the cost with the Brilliant Pebbles program but that too went up in cost and so Congress was like "meh."

IDK, maybe if we get more money.

I am pro government and believe in spending money on useful things. I am not republican I think a mission to mars, nuclear shield and research into cancer, anti-aging and wombs for biological males is needed! China is spending tons of money on their society, why not america? I am so sick of this right wing cut, slash and burn mindset.

[Cyber_Rebel]

You mean the "Star Wars" initiative? Ironically enough Joe Biden then as a sitting Senator derided the program as reckless spending which threatened to destabilize the national affairs. Aside from the spending cost, I believe another issue was the technology to even do so effectively was not ready yet.

Personally, the best nuclear deterrent is to better engage in sound diplomacy, so I kind of agree with Biden's point on this. Agreements for nuclear disarming, such as the INF Treaty come to mind. If we had to develop something akin to this nowadays, I'd rather it be used for stray asteroids rather than defensive positions in event of a nuclear war.

The biggest threat here is believe a nuclear war is "winnable," and I believe the Soviet's thought the same if America felt more confident to launch a preemptive strike without fearing retaliation. There is one scenario which I would support a program of this nature: If the space defensive initiative belonged to no single country and was instead a joint owned and funded international agenda such as the United Nations. That way, the program could instead respond to any and all nuclear attacks no matter where they might originate to better safeguard the planet or citizens from nuclear fallout.

[weatheriscool]

The more I study the politics of our time the more I come to the realization on why we don't have flying cars, cities on the moon or have even sent humans to mars; eventhrough we have the tech and ability to do all these things! Everything is too much money and this is so much so in this day that we don't do anything great anymore including investment into our own infrastructure.We'd rather watch our cities turn to fucking shit, bridges drop into rivers and our lead in science go to the chinese! Hell, an entire political party win elections based on literally getting rid of all investment in our society and telling people to eat shit! We're heading towards another dark age as people have turned against greatness and for insanity such as religion once again.But this is also why China and india will be leading the world going forwards! Spending money = creating jobs and so expanding ones economy! High paying jobs that expand the middle class. This is also a core problem with the republican party war on investment is they don't understand basic economics and why our middle class is dying.

[weatheriscool]

The more I study the politics of our time the more I come to the realization on why we don't have flying cars, cities on the moon or have even sent humans to mars; eventhrough we have the tech and ability to do all these things! Everything is too much money and this is so much so in this day that we don't do anything great anymore including investment into our own infrastructure.We'd rather watch our cities turn to fucking shit, bridges drop into rivers and our lead in science go to the chinese! Hell, an entire political party win elections based on literally getting rid of all investment in our society and telling people to eat shit! We're heading towards another dark age as people have turned against greatness and for insanity such as religion once again.But this is also why China and india will be leading the world going forwards! Spending money = creating jobs and so expanding ones economy! High paying jobs that expand the middle class. This is also a core problem with the republican party war on investment is they don't understand basic economics and why our middle class is dying.

Also realize that china will probably be the only nation on earth in 7 years to have a space station in orbit. Unless Musk launches a private one into space. I don't have any faith in fucking nasa anymore to do the moon outpost thing. Republican and small government has done this.Once we don't have a space station about 80% of human launches are without merit and so nasa will be slashed even more.

But yeah,, keep siding with the republican party war on science.

[firestar464]

so vote blue + agi

[funkervogt]

A nuclear shield protecting the U.S. would actually be destabilizing since Russia, China and North Korea would compensate by building more nuclear missiles in order to penetrate it.

This is a moot point since it's technologically infeasible to make a shield that is 100% effective against a large nuclear strike, or even 50% effective.

[firestar464]

At least not until the early 22nd century. By then the current situation of China, Russia, and North Korea being adversaries may very well be irrelevant.

[Vakanai]

The problem with a nuclear shield is even if the nukes don't reach us (and some inevitably will just because our foes will expand their nuke programs to overwhelm such a shield and ensure a few get through) is simple radiation. There are so many nukes that would be deployed that even if not a single explosion occurred on US soil our atmosphere and the very air we breath would be saturated with radiation. MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, is impossible to get around. The fact remains the best shield we can have is ensuring nuclear war never occurs at all and all these missiles stay in their damned silos.

[funkervogt]

The problem with a nuclear shield is even if the nukes don't reach us (and some inevitably will just because our foes will expand their nuke programs to overwhelm such a shield and ensure a few get through) is simple radiation. There are so many nukes that would be deployed that even if not a single explosion occurred on US soil our atmosphere and the very air we breath would be saturated with radiation. MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, is impossible to get around. The fact remains the best shield we can have is ensuring nuclear war never occurs at all and all these missiles stay in their damned silos.

Nuclear air bursts don't release enough radiation to poison the air over large areas.

[Vakanai]

The problem with a nuclear shield is even if the nukes don't reach us (and some inevitably will just because our foes will expand their nuke programs to overwhelm such a shield and ensure a few get through) is simple radiation. There are so many nukes that would be deployed that even if not a single explosion occurred on US soil our atmosphere and the very air we breath would be saturated with radiation. MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, is impossible to get around. The fact remains the best shield we can have is ensuring nuclear war never occurs at all and all these missiles stay in their damned silos.

Nuclear air bursts don't release enough radiation to poison the air over large areas.

How about several thousand nuclear air bursts as close as they can get to large areas?

[funkervogt]

Research it yourself. Maybe ask GPT.

[Cyber_Rebel]

The more I study the politics of our time the more I come to the realization on why we don't have flying cars, cities on the moon or have even sent humans to mars; eventhrough we have the tech and ability to do all these things! Everything is too much money and this is so much so in this day that we don't do anything great anymore including investment into our own infrastructure.

Worth noting the Chinese don't have flying cars either, for good reason. Flying a car, even if technically feasible, still needs to be done autonomously in order to be considered "public safe," less we have everyone pass a pilot's license test. We won't see actual commercialized flying vehicles until autonomous road vehicles are solved first. This is a very simple issue which our classic science fiction never seems to want to address. A drunken flying car driver crashing into a building or having a bad case of angry bird rage is not something policymakers want to be dealing with.

The more time goes on, the more I realize that powerful AI systems are basically a prerequisite to the future we see in our media, rather than the other way around.

As for moon bases... we'll eventually get there:

What will the first Moon bases really be like?

Source: Aerospace Testing International



Indeed, this one does require the necessary funding and public interest to achieve such. We should likely be aiming for the Moon first anyways, as a test run for interstellar habitation on planets likes Mars. Oh, and once we have them set up, let's be sure to take video and have them sent directly to the Flat Earth Society.

[Karl Rock]

A nuclear shield protecting the U.S. would actually be destabilizing since Russia, China and North Korea would compensate by building more nuclear missiles in order to penetrate it.

This is a moot point since it's technologically infeasible to make a shield that is 100% effective against a large nuclear strike, or even 50% effective.

Well, the Israelis claimed to have shot most of the iranian MRBMs launched in the April attack, of course MRBMs are slower than ICBMs but i don't see why you can't keep getting the interceptor faster and better. What about MIRVs ? You deal with that using Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) in the defensive rocket.

Also, there is no countermeasure against powerful, short-wavelenght lasers. The reason this haven't been done are not technological, but political.

[Karl Rock]

Worth noting the Chinese don't have flying cars either, for good reason. Flying a car, even if technically feasible, still needs to be done autonomously in order to be considered "public safe," less we have everyone pass a pilot's license test. We won't see actual commercialized flying vehicles until autonomous road vehicles are solved first. This is a very simple issue which our classic science fiction never seems to want to address. A drunken flying car driver crashing into a building or having a bad case of angry bird rage is not something policymakers want to be dealing with.

We have "flying car", or urban air mobility, since the 1950s, it's called helicopter.