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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

steinkoenig - 09:34am Jul 8, 2000 EST (#150 of 11858)

Ahh... Star Wars.

I remember all this from when I was a kid in the 1980s. Back then, it was excimer lasers, orbiting particle beams, sub-launched "pop up" x-ray lasers, rail guns, and an intricate array of space-born mirrors. It really had us youngsters captivated with images of giant ray gun satellites and space station command centers. We figured that space travel and unlimited fusion power were in our immediate future... our national destiny. We would all become particle physicists or number theorists or quantum chemists and live in a grand, utopian abstraction.

Instead, we found out that SDI was a scam intended to scare the Russians with a soulless, technocratic, tall tale. We discovered that Reagan wasn't a fearless leader ushering in a new era of peace and freedom interspersed with paradoxical battles in space with the Evil Empire. He was just an old actor suffering from senile dementia- his script writers were the ones calling the shots.

These same people are still in charge, friends. American politics have become as fake as professional wrestling, and anyone who believes that we can now or ever implement a workable NMD scheme needs to start taking their meds again. This is just the same old crap the powers-that-be coughed up and regurgitated all over our television to get us to start paying attention to them again.

Its just like all of those idiotic space launches they kept televising or those meaningless, brushfire wars they would pester us with. How about the false hope of life on Mars, remember that? None of them resulted in anything significant. That's the idea, too... they build up all of this anticipation and angst for the future only to let it slowly burn out and leave nothing but cold, bitter ashes behind.

Don't fall for it this time. These people control reality by controlling our perception of reality. They introduce us to their wild, crazy ideas simply to subvert our own wild, crazy ideas. Then they sprout like weeds and infest our minds, pushing everything aside. When that is finished, they kill their own notions and leave nothing behind save a wet, sore, throbbing space inside of our minds which then yearns to be filled with more garbage. That's how they indoctrinate us, first with interesting things which turn out to be lies; wearing down our inherent, self-protective tendency towards disbelief and skepticism.

Just ignore them and hope that they go away.

palousereader - 09:41am Jul 8, 2000 EST (#151 of 11858)

evenbetta, I see in my neverending search for brevity on these forums I was not too clear in my above posting. After we destroy Country A, China decides..if it can't get us, it gets our friends (without shields); Canada, South America, the EU. Not to leave without a parting shot, the EU launches against China and Russia (why not..they never liked Russia anyway). Russia, not to be outdone, launches everything they have at everyone. Let's guess how long we'll survive behind our shields during the ensuing nuclear winter.

ruthmd2 - 10:03am Jul 8, 2000 EST (#152 of 11858)

If all the interdiction efforts of the 'war on drugs' cannot prevent the arrival in our cities of tons of illegal drugs, why should 'rogue' states, who are presumably the sponsers of terrorism, hesitate to attempt taking out chunks of our cities with 'suitcase' deliveries of nuclear devices? What are the chances that such attacks might be planned by 'non-rogue' states who are just darned nervous about the new 'USA uberallus' mentality prevalent in our nation? Where is that coming from? Why is our foreign policy so short on making friends of other nations? When did we start losing the respect and trust of the world? Isn't diplomacy supposed to accomplish the goals our State Department claims, without taking sides and alienating hundreds of millions of people around the world?Americans cannot expect to coast on the reputation we gained in two world wars, as a generous, peace loving, sensible society if our generals and diplomats and politicians are busy establishing the most threatening stance they can devise.

michalis12 - 10:09am Jul 8, 2000 EST (#153 of 11858)

I'm from Greece where - as you say - we have problem with terrorism... Have you the same problem? I think the answer is YES. So, first of all try to take the guns from the students' hands. when you will have finished with this you can work on the international PEACE

tail_gunner - 01:33pm Jul 8, 2000 EST (#154 of 11858)
A ghost of the past

That missile test failure, yesterday, was due to a faulty booster separation. That did not prove the science wrong, or the project as bad. (The failing separation of that booster, old technology, is equivalent to a flat tire on an automobile, which does not negate the engineering or design of the car itself.) In addition, even if the system never worked at all, the advances in major science would more than offset the cost of the project; because, in the past, every major scientific endeavor has more than paid for itself in spin-offs. Opposition to this needed system will be political, not science.

jerry2223 - 02:41pm Jul 8, 2000 EST (#155 of 11858)

Dwighyt D. Eisenhower warned the nation about the ever increasing power of the military-industrial complex. They're at it again, boys, ready to spend yet more billions of dollars on their stupid "Star Wars" scheme. The money can be much better used for domestic priorities, like health care, transportation, education, water, etc.

We should not be making the fat cat military and industrial typhoons even richer than they are, no matter how much they contribute to Slick Willie's war chest.

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