PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM
		       Tuesday, November 13, 2001
	     4:10 p.m., Room 118 Physics-Astronomy Building
	Refreshments served at 3:50 p.m. outside Rm 224 PA Bldg.

(Student Informal Meeting will be from 3:30-3:50 p.m. in Room 224 PA Bldg.)


      "National Missile Defense: Will It Work and How Will We Know?"

			   Lisbeth Gronlund
		    Union of Concerned Scientists

One of the key technical questions about national missile defenses is
whether they can be expected to work under real-world conditions if the
attacker takes steps to defeat the defense. This talk will discuss steps
that an emerging missile state could take to confuse, overwhelm, or
otherwise defeat the mid-course US missile defense system developed by the
Clinton administration and now pursued by the Bush administration. It will
use basic physics to analyze the likely effectiveness of the missile
defense against such "countermeasures." This talk will then discuss the
role of testing in the development of a weapon system and in assessing its
expected performance. It will consider what levels of confidence and
effectiveness are possible under the planned test program, and what policy
purposes these would be consistent with.