Israel’s “Iron Dome” vs. Atari 2600 “Missile Command”

wordpress ^ | August 27, 2014 | Dan from Squirrel Hill

[grundle]

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog

Israel’s “Iron Dome” vs. Atari 2600 “Missile Command”

Why do they refer to a missile defense system as “Star Wars” when it’s actually a lot more like “Missile Command”?

This is Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system. Turn your volume control pretty low for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e9UhLt_J0g

And this is the video game “Missile Command” on the Atari 2600:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4zF790DzyQ

Anyway, I think all those liberals who mocked Ronald Reagan for proposing something like this owe him a huge apology.

[holden]

I would nominate my ex-mother-in-law to be one of the first in line to make such an apology. She was raving how insane and wasteful missile defense was and how Reagan was just paying off his buddies.

Another flight student (for biennials) of mine was a professor at a big midwest university that had a very responsible part in the Star Wars functioning. No slouch he. He would wink and say, “It’ll work.”

HF

[PastorBooks]

Needing that pic with Montgomery Burns saying “Excellent!”

[Dr. Sivana]

Why do they refer to a missile defense system as “Star Wars” when it’s actually a lot more like “Missile Command”?

1. Because though Missile Command was a popular arcade/2600 game, it was not recognized by the large number of grown ups who were not vid gamers.

2. Because the image of a death star zapping an entire planet is a negative one, so the spinners wanted to link SDI to that, so they can attack/make fun of it.

[DJ MacWoW]

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[dalereed]

That atari thing is a stupid game!!

[nonamer]

Why do they refer to a missile defense system as “Star Wars” when it’s actually a lot more like “Missile Command”?

Because everyone knows that smart bombs just bounce off your missiles.

[buwaya]

The Iron Dome performance is indeed a superb demonstration of what can be achieved. The large number of simultaneous intercepts out of a single defense site is an awesome achievement. Thats a lot of radar tracks. This is a partial answer anyway to the decoy response.

There are scaling problems though when it comes to MRBM’s and ICBM’s. Distances are much greater, radar coverage is harder to provide, speeds are much greater, and all of these come with greater lag times in response, etc. The problems are not that the theory is wrong but that the engineering is harder. Interceptors for ICBM’s will also have to be nearly as large as ICBMs, just as capable, and probably more expensive per round.

It would be enormously expensive to provide a system that can significantly reduce the damage of a full launch from Russia. It is much less expensive to provide a system that can stop “rogue” or small scale launches from a smaller power.

[Yo-Yo]

The arcade version of Missile Command had much better graphics and that cool track ball. The Atari 2600 version was harder to play with a joystick.

[Western Phil]

“It is much less expensive to provide a system that can stop “rogue” or small scale launches from a smaller power.”

Existence of a defensive system, whether it works or not, may discourage “rouges” from attempting some types of mayhem.

[tanknetter]

For #2 it wasn’t so much the negative image as ridicule (ref: Alinsky) that SDI was science fiction pap.

George Lucas, big Liberal but also way too bought into his own work, HATED the “Star Wars” moniker.

The problem with SDI was that it was oversold given technical limitations of the time. And a lot of it still isn’t viable with today’s technology.

Then again, the main goal (IMHO) wasn’t to produce a working system but to throw enough money at it to convince the Soviets we were onto somthing, forcing them to spend themselves into bankruptcy and economic collapse trying to counter it.

Which was brilliant on Reagan’s part. As well as successful.

[Dr. Sivana]

Jastrow wrote very convincingly in favor of SDI, addressing arguments. Against the argument that the system would be no more than 80% effective, the counter was that the enemy would have no way of knowing WHICH 80%. Also, SDI folks pointed out that this could be VERY effective against a rogue state with just a handful of missiles to launch.

[grundle]

Thanks for those answers.

[grundle]

Good point about it being much harder under those circumstances.