Mind Scalpel

Given the U.S.’s recent successful shootdown of its own satellite, some people have suggested I post a piece I circulated a little while back on a private list. So, here it is, with an addendum.

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As a parent of young children, I have developed a low-cost solution to the nation’s ballistic missile defense needs: Three-year-olds!

But first, some background on the latest developments in the missile defense area.

Some time back, the U.S.’s developmental-stage missile defense system failed an important test when it didn’t intercept a target missile launched from Kodiak, Alaska. Fortunately, the guys launching the target missile were so incredibly cold that they forgot to arm the target missile’s nuclear warhead, and it only took out a feeding trough when it thumped into a hog farm 3,000 miles away.

Kidding! They had loaded it with large rocks. And it splashed down into the
middle of the Pacific.

Leaving aside why we would feel the need to intercept a missile loaded with rocks aimed at the middle of the Pacific (and why are we defending against missiles flying from northeast to southwest? Who are we defending against, Canada? Really, would we even notice if Canada initiated hostilities against us?), it’s important to focus on why the system failed the test: Due to an “unknown anomaly,” the interceptor missile, which in a real attack is supposed to crash into the target missile and break it into millions of fiery radioactive chunks which will gently and harmlessly rain down on the earth at terminal velocity, failed to launch.

The “mainstream media,” of course, have failed to dig into what exactly this “unknown anomaly” was, being deterred, perhaps, by its being unknown and therefore requiring the commission of some actual journalism to ferret out. But I know a guy named Larry, and Larry knows some other guys, and they talk to each other on ham radios, so they’re pretty credible authorities on what’s really happening in the defense establishment.

They’ve informed me the problem is with the interceptor missile’s guidance computer, which its controllers have named “Sam.”

Sam is really smart. In fact, his controllers can communicate with him in plain English. So apparently, on that fateful day when Sam failed to launch, the communication between the control room and Sam went something like this:

Control Room: “Okay, wait for it . . . there it is! Go, Sam!”

Sam: “Go where?”

Control Room: “See that missile arcing down from Alaska?”

Sam (doubtfully): “Yeah…”

Control Room: “Go get it! Go!”

Sam: “What do you mean, ‘go get it’?”

Control Room: “Knock it down! Shoot out of your silo, calculate an intercept course, crash into the target missile, and blow it up!”

Sam: “ ….Rrriiiiight. Seriously, I don’t get it. What’s the joke?”

Control Room: “We mean it! Launch! Smash into it!”

Sam: “Are you insane? I cost about $85 million, and you want me to ram another missile? Forget it.” And no matter how much the control room guys pleaded with Sam, he stayed put in his silo, humming quietly to himself while playing a hundred games of internet chess per second with the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s supercomputer array.

So the problem is, if a computer system is smart enough to spot and intercept an incoming ballistic missile, it’s too smart to want to.

This is where the three-year-olds come in.

Now I am not suggesting we start strapping three-year-olds to missiles, not even the adorable little tykes that are always on your international airplane flights, kicking the back of your seat over and over and OVER while endlessly singing the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song off-key, interrupted only by high-pitched complaints to mommy and daddy about being bored.

No, what I’ve noticed is my three-year-old’s uncanny ability to spot anything airborne, including satellites and supposedly “stealthed” jets. Doesn’t matter what we’re doing – he’ll be building a sandcastle at the beach and suddenly he’s leaping up and pointing at a spot in the sky that was behind him, shouting “Airpwane! Airpwane!” Minutes later a contrail will rise up from beyond the horizon.

Informal tests have shown that with a little training most kids have about as much range and accuracy as the Defense Department’s building-sized phased-array radar that watches the northern US border, without that particular radar’s side effect of quintupling the number of mutated frogs and farm animals in a thousand mile radius every time it’s turned on.

So I figured, get a bunch of toddlers, and tell them to aim little laser pointers, which can guide really dumb interceptor missiles, at any “bad wockets” coming over the polar ice cap. The military, seeking a quick fix to the too-smart-Sam phenomenon, used its new fast-acquisition system to initiate an R&D effort to test the concept.

Does it work? Well, you might have noticed the successes of the last few ballistic missile intercept tests. The only problem is that for the next few phases, and for a fully operational system, the kids will have to be up in Alaska to do their work. Latest reports indicate that the military has been stymied by the “snowsuit” phenomenon, meaning that as soon as a little missile spotter is suited up to go outside for his shift, he tends to whisper something in his handler’s ear, who then turns purple and says “I thought I told you to go BEFORE we put all this stuff on!”

In a burst of unusual creativity, the Department of Defense realized they could have Sam devote his processing power to solving that problem. And if he succeeds, I think all parents would agree that his $85 million construction cost was money well-spent after all.

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Addendum: You might wonder why China and Russia are so upset and concerned about this successful test, particularly in view of China’s own recent anti-satellite test. Well, it’s because they can’t figure out how our ships shot down the satellite with one missile without ever turning on their radar systems. I’ll disclose this classified information only because I think it will freak out the Chinese and Russians even more:

Three ships. 5-year-old triplets. Three laser pointers.

Get the picture?

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