CSE 475 – Ethical and Professional Issues in Computer
Science & Engineering
Professor Kevin W. Bowyer
Essay Two – Design of a
Testing Plan for a Missile Defense System.
The
goal of this assignment is to gain some understanding of the difficulties involved
in design and test of a safety-critical system.
(A real-time, distributed, sensor-network safety-critical system.) Consider the following imaginary future…
It
is now 2009. The new president has just
taken office. You have been appointed as
the new president's National Science and Engineering Advisor. The issue of national missile defense has
heated up in the last few years, as North Korea, China, and Greater Iran (part of the former Iraq merged with the former Iran in 2006) are now believed to have
missiles capable or reaching parts of the United States.
The
United
States has had a ballistic missile defense program of one sort or another
for decades, but it has had very little publicity since the beginning of 2005
when it was effectively "mothballed” due to political and technical
problems.
The
president wants to know when the United States can have a missile defense system that
can be trusted to work correctly if we are attacked. You have been tasked to define a sequence of
system tests that will, if the system passes the tests, convince the population
of the United States (and the world) that the system actually
works. The president has suggested that
perhaps three levels of increasingly realistic testing would be appropriate,
timed to be completed just before each of the next three state-of-the-union
speeches. You have been tasked to write a report that will (1) summarize the
state of missile defense system testing as of the time that the system went
into mothballs in 2005, and (2) outline a sequence of up to three phases of
testing that would, if the results are good, convince people that the system
would actually protect the United States from an attack by North Korea, China,
or Greater Iran, and (3) give your own opinion of the chances of this program
succeeding.
Your
paper should be about six pages in length, not including bibliography and cover
page. A “page” with normal fonts,
margins, and double-spacing is in the range of 250 to 300 words. Write your paper early enough that you do not
find yourself turning what is basically a rough draft. You should not have typos and grammar problems
in your paper. Your paper should
demonstrate a clear understanding of the elements that make design and test of
a safety-critical system difficult. Papers
will be graded on content and style.