Yes you missed something. You missed this part of my post: the motive of concocting such a coincidence would be to telegraph a message to intelligence agencies that "You will notice we sent the asteroid's little brother in a controlled shallow-angle entry. Think what we could have done? Notice, also, how we've made your politicians who posit a US weapon system look like baffoons -- we still possess plausible deniability hiding behind an "act of God" propaganda." This has the Heinleinesque feature that it may be a bluff based on a very limited capacity to actually deliver such kinetic energy weapons from nonterrestrial resources -- a limit that would be very very difficult for adversaries to place reasonable error bars on.
Foreign policy implications are still at issue here but, for crying out loud, aren't there enough potential reasons for conflict between Russia and the US? On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 10:54 AM, ChemE Stewart <cheme...@gmail.com> wrote: > Are you saying the meteor itself was a kinetic energy weapon? Because it > did not hit anything. It exploded. Am I missing something? > > A *kinetic energy penetrator* (also known as a *KE weapon*) is a type of > ammunition <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammunition> which, like a > bullet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet>, > does not contain explosives <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive> and > uses kinetic energy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy> to > penetrate the target. > > Stewart > > > > On Tuesday, March 5, 2013, James Bowery wrote: > >> >> >> On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 9:57 AM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com>wrote: >> >>> James Bowery wrote: >>> >>> At this point I'm not really interested in confirmation. I have all >>>> the confirmation I need to summarily reject the "sheer coincidence" >>>> explanation with just the two events. >>>> >>> >>> It seems to me you have to have a plausible mechanism to confirm that >>> something is not a coincidence. You have to show how these two rocks >>> affected one-another, or came from the same place. Statistics alone cannot >>> prove a connection. Certainly not in this case, since there are many >>> undiscovered rocks in space. >> >> >> I agree proximately but disagree ultimately. >> >> By proximate agreement, I agree that if one does not have an explanation >> that is at least as plausible as "sheer coincidence" then one has to >> behave, in some sense, as though one was merely very unlucky to have >> witnessed such a low probability event with nearly eschatological >> ramifications. >> >> By ultimate disagreement, simple application of decision tree discipline >> demands that one invest some resources in discovering a common cause, >> whether artificial or natural, that is at least as plausible as the "sheer >> coincidence" hypothesis -- which is, on its face, not very plausible. >> >> I already made that investment and have satisfied myself there is an >> artificial explanation that is at least as plausible as the "sheer >> coincidence" hypothesis. >> >> Apparently you missed it: >> >> http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg77055.html >> >> The least plausible aspect of this explanation is that a government could >> actually keep deep cover on the expenditure of a few tens of billions of >> dollars. All the technologies required are Apollo era, preliminary studies >> are published in peer reviewed journals decades old and the motive >> presented by the Reagan Administration's SDI leading up to the START treaty >> is clear. Means motive and opportunity galore. >> >
