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Missile Defense

Nazi engineer and Disney space advisor Wernher Von Braun helped give us rocket science. Today, the legacy of military aeronautics has many manifestations from SDI to advanced ballistic missiles. Now there is a controversial push for a new missile defense system. What will be the role of missile defense in the new geopolitical climate and in the new scientific era?

clark535 - 02:11pm Feb 1, 2001 EST (#637 of 638)

While we study and build, we should have a standing offer of at least $1MM ( or whatever it takes) for the delivery to US custody of fissile material in bomb configurations. You're a Russian missileer freezing his keister off guarding one, how does that offer look to you?

rshowalter - 02:34pm Feb 1, 2001 EST (#638 of 638)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Like a bargain ! And maybe other fissile material, not just the material in bomb configurations.

Bets, combined with the internet, may also become a powerful way of determining the truth.

One might be able to say "well, I can't prove it, but when we asked someone to disprove it, and offered a million bucks, to anyone in the world who could do so, there were no takers." That sort of thing might move some way to closing a lot of "open questions" that are problematic today. They would be provisional answers, but answers framed in a context people could understand. A lot of "what if's" in the Star Wars business might be amenable to such clarification, it seems to me. With the internet and email, news of such bets would travel fast, and people would talk about them.

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