Exploding Net --- Missile Defense System

Current designs for nuclear missile defense systems call for an interceptor missile that locks onto the incoming threat via radar and simply tries to collide headlong into it. With both missiles at supersonic speeds, the closure velocity can be thousands of miles per hour...and each missile is only a few feet in diameter up in that big ole' sky. This leaves precious little room for mistakes, and precious little time to adjust for them.

To give more margin for error, I propose that a missile defense system be designed with a robust, elastic net that is sewn with nodes of explosives. The intercepting missile could discharge the net just before reaching the threat, spreading it wide enough so the threat will try to pass through it. The high strength net (nanofiber? carbon fiber? steel mesh? polymer?) would collapse around the threat as it tries to puncture through, swinging the explosive charges into the sides of the threat, where they would explode and neutralize it. And of course, these conventional explosives would not detonate the nuclear mechanism.

CATEGORY: Defense / Transportation

IDEATION: 2002