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by leviathant 5696 days ago
If you had trouble consistently hitting targets, you would probably fit right in with Patriot missiles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot#Success_rate_vs...

1 comments

Hitting still targets is easy. Consistently hitting the same spot on a still target is difficult. What I'm saying is I'm impressed we can hit anything!

Think about the margins of error involved - how precisely do you have to know the Patriot rocket's position, vector and speed to intercept something falling from space? How do you take into account the fragmentation issues of a device like a MIRV? How do you account for any differences in the target projectile's path?

It's just an astounding problem to me. I very much dig the thought that I'm the same species as those that figured it out.