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<\/p>\n<\/u>35 a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s que Ronald Reagan pronunciara su discurso sobre \u201cStar Wars\u201d, ha vuelto a resurgir la necesidad de desarrollar la \u201cSPACE BASED MISSILE DEFENSE (SBMD)\u201d (Defensa misil\u00edstica basada en el espacio). Es que el avance acelerado en el desarrollo de misiles hipers\u00f3nicos, por parte de Rusia y China, presenta a la SBMD, como la alternativa m\u00e1s viable para hacer frente a estas nuevas amenazas.<\/p>\n
SPACE & MISSILE DEFENSE SYMPOSIUM.: Some 35 years after Ronald Reagan\u2019s famous Star Wars speech, the\u00a0Pentagon\u2019s R&D chief\u00a0said that space-based missile defenses are technically feasible and reasonably affordable. Since Reagan\u2019s day, technology has advanced enough that putting both\u00a0sensors\u00a0and shooters in space is not only possible but \u201crelatively easy,\u201d Undersecretary for Research & Engineering\u00a0Mike Griffin\u00a0said. What\u2019s more, past estimates of the cost of space-based interceptors have been \u201cunrealistically,\u201d even \u201cnaively\u201d high.<\/p>\n
Specifically, Griffin told reporters here,<\/p>\n
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Note these are two different functions with two different types of targets. Space-based interceptors would\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0work against\u00a0hypersonic cruise missiles, Griffin said. They fly too low, deep in the atmosphere, so any munition you shoot at them from space would have to be hardened against the heat of atmospheric reentry, which he called prohibitively difficult. \u201cIt may not be a bridge too far, but it\u2019s a pretty far away bridge.\u201d Ballistic missiles, by contrast, ascend rapidly out of the atmosphere into space, so space-based interceptors would only have to travel through vacuum, which is much easier.<\/p>\n Note that Griffin\u2019s speaking only about interceptors, missiles that shoot down other missiles. He didn\u2019t comment on\u00a0lasers<\/em>\u00a0except to note them as a promising possibility. (In the past, he\u2019s told Congress he wants a megawatt-plus laser in space by the\u00a0late 2020s).<\/p>\n Air-Launched or Space-Based?<\/strong><\/p>\n It is also possible, Griffin noted, for an aircraft to shoot down a ballistic missile in boost phase. The launch platform could be either a manned fighter \u2014\u00a0the stealthy F-35\u00a0has gotten a lot of attention, but the older F-15 could do the job as well, he said \u2014 or an unmanned drone \u2014 which he said might be \u201cmore cost-effective\u201d than a manned fighter. (Griffin didn\u2019t go into details, but unmanned aircraft can dispense with bulky, costly life support systems and can stay aloft longer than a human can endure). Such an airborne boost phase intercept would require modifying current air-to-air missiles such as the AMRAAM to take on new types of targets, Griffin said. But that\u2019s entirely doable against \u201climited threats,\u201d he said, and in a shorter timeframe than developing a space-based interceptor.<\/p>\n (For those who need a reminder, an F-15 fired an anti-satellite weapon and successfully destroyed an American bird in September 1985. Shooting down a satellite isn\u2019t quite the same as hitting a ballistic missile in flight, but there are similarities.)<\/p>\n That said, space-based interceptors are an \u201ceasy problem\u201d to solve, Griffin said. (Remember, this is only against\u00a0ballistic<\/em>missiles in space, not cruise missiles in the air). \u201cIt\u2019s not technically that hard to do,\u201d he said. \u201cIt does represent a substantial policy shift (i.e. allowing space-based weapons) and it\u2019s a new cost.\u201d<\/p>\n How big a cost? Less than you\u2019d think, Griffin said. \u201cThe idea of space-based interceptors has been in some ways a victim of unrealistically high, uninformed cost estimates,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve made my own preliminary cost estimates\u2026 and I can\u2019t figure out a way to make them cost as much as some of the numbers I\u2019ve seen tossed around the media (like) many tens of billions of dollars.\u201d ($67 to $109 billion\u00a0is commonly cited).<\/p>\n So, in the long run, which is better: air-launched or space-based boost phase interceptors? \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Griffin said frankly. \u201cIt\u2019s too soon to pick a winner.\u201d After all, he\u2019s the man in charge of\u00a0research<\/em>: If we already knew exactly how to do this, it would be\u00a0Undersecretary for Acquisition Ellen Lord\u2018s job to build it, not his.<\/p>\n What Griffin does know is that the US needs to develop a way to shoot down ballistic missiles as they boost into space.\u00a0Current missile defense systems\u00a0all have to wait until the mid-course phase, when the warhead separates from the rocket \u2014 making it a much smaller, tougher target \u2014 and coasts through space on a parabolic arc (hence the term \u201cballistic\u201d) \u2014 which means there\u2019s no rocket exhaust to home in on. \u201cAs John (Hyten)\u00a0pointed out yesterday and\u00a0Sam Greaves\u00a0pointed out today (at the SMD conference),\u201d Griffin said, \u201cwaiting until the adversary threat is in the mid-course is basically giving the adversary a free pass to launch in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n Reagan, Russia, and China<\/strong><\/p>\n Space-based defenses \u2014 radars, lasers and physical interceptors \u2014 \u2014 were central to Reagan\u2019s Strategic Defense Initiative, but the technology just couldn\u2019t catch up with the vision. Just six months ago, however, the chiefs of both the Missile Defense Agency,\u00a0Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves, and Strategic Command,\u00a0Gen. John Hyten, publicly declared they needed new sensor satellites to detect and track hypersonic weapons. Then, on July 26, Congress cleared the National Defense Authorization Act for 2019, which included language telling the Pentagon to study space-based interceptors.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to note what this is\u00a0not<\/em>. Reagan\u2019s dream of stopping massed ICBMs remains out of reach, and Mutual Assured Destruction isn\u2019t going away, Griffin said. But rapidly evolving missile threats \u2014 particularly China\u2019s massive investment in precision-guided weapons with non-nuclear warheads, he said \u2014 could tip the balance in a future\u00a0conventional<\/em>\u00a0war.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice.\u00a0President Putin got on TV and showed off his hypersonic missile. Okay, so what?\u201d Griffin said. The Russian hypersonic program is for a nuclear-tipped weapon, but they already have plenty of ICBMs. (In fact, ICBMs are\u00a0faster<\/em>than hypersonic weapons; the difference is one must fly a fixed ballistic curve through space while the other can stay in the atmosphere and maneuver). \u201cThrough what we\u2019ve called, for generations now, Mutually Assured Destruction, we are hostage to Russian ICBMs and they are hostage to ours,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe I\u2019m missing something \u2014 that\u2019s always possible\u2026 but I do not see what a hypersonic nuclear missile brings to the strategic missile posture that earlier systems don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n By contrast, \u201cthe Chinese have been much more thoughtful in their systems development,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause they are developing long-range, tactical, precision-guided systems that could be really influential in a conventional fight.\u201d That means the Chinese hypersonics could actually be used in a less-than-apocalyptic conflict, making them a much more\u00a0likely<\/em>\u00a0threat than nukes. In a new Pacific war, US airbases, aircraft carriers, and other vital units would be in danger from hypersonic threats that fly too low for conventional ballistic missile defense and too fast for conventional cruise missile defenses.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Chinese ability to hold our forward-deployed assets at risk with very high-speed, very hard to intercept precision-guided systems \u2014 that\u2019s something to which we have to respond,\u201d Griffin said. \u201cWe will respond.\u201d<\/p>\n Let 100 Hypersonic Flowers Bloom<\/strong><\/p>\n Part of that response is a spate of different programs to develop our own\u00a0offensive<\/em>hypersonic weapons. All the ones in progress now predate Griffin\u2019s appointment \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m delighted\u201d so much is already in motion.\u00a0\u201cWhich of those is going to prove to be a winner is an interesting question,\u201d Griffin told a reporter who asked if there were too many irons in the hypersonic fire. \u201cThat\u2019s why DARPA exists\u2026 It\u2019s premature for me to suppose that we have \u2018overlap,\u2019 as you put it. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to work yet.\u201d<\/p>\n On the defensive side, \u201cthe first step in that response absolutely has to be a sensor layer from space,\u201d Griffin said. As Gen. Hyten has said, that there aren\u2019t enough islands in the Pacific to put radars on to cover all the possible angles of approach, (his line is they might cost $1 billion each and would have to stretch across the Pacific) both because the Pacific is huge and because hypersonic cruise missiles can fly around your radars in a way ballistic missiles can\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless you wallpaper the earth with radars, you can\u2019t do it from the ground or ocean,\u201d Griffin said. \u201cYou just need a lot of radars. They\u2019re very expensive and they themselves become targets\u2026.It\u2019s just not workable. The only real way to see these things coming is from space.\u201d<\/p>\n To cover the earth, you need sensors in space, which is our main way of detecting ballistic missile launches today. But\u00a0hypersonic missiles\u00a0flying in the atmosphere burn much less bright than rockets launching warheads into space.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re hard to see from high orbit, because they\u2019re not as bright,\u201d Griffin said. \u201cThey\u2019re a factor of ten or more dimmer than strategic missile, and so we have to get closer (i.e. a lower orbit) if we intend to see and track them. Now we know we\u00a0can<\/em>: We\u2019ve done this from orbit with experimental spacecraft.\u201d<\/p>\n For all these\u00a0space-based options, Griffin said, \u201cthis is not a technology challenge. This is a policy decision-making challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/07\/AMRAAM-F-35-FlightTest_890x500.jpg\")
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