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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?

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rshow55 - 01:46pm Jan 20, 2002 EST (#10902 of 10921)

At lot! I've been thinking about the person I think of, more than any other, when I think of the word "creative."

Thomas Edison.

I think Edison was as creative and disciplined a mind as the species has produced, and he was preoccupied with a couple of general kinds of problems -- again and again. Kinds of problems that could be represented by questions. They were:

1. What would one want to do, practically , that is direct, simple, and effective, right here , in the situation as it actually is?

2. What cannot be done ?

Edison felt that, if he asked those questions again and again, and worked and was clear-eyed about it --- the "obvious" thing would occur to him. He felt that the "invention" would somehow condense, in his mind from this process.

Often it did.

When Edison found that a train of thought, or an experimental sequence, or a project, wasn't going to work, he "shot it right between the eyes" with no ceremony at all, and went on to something that might work.

He found solutions that were there to be found, and didn't squander resources and time when he could avoid it.

Why can't we do the same about missile defense?

rshow55 - 02:13pm Jan 20, 2002 EST (#10903 of 10921)

It wouldn't be all that hard for the US, or for the Bush administration, to just admit they'd made some mistakes. People would understand, if they just went ahead and did the right thing.

When systems are not corrupt -- people look for mistakes --- because they are interested in production - which means they are interested in right answers.

In corrupt systems, they turn away from things that "might rock the boat."

What is it, exactly, that works about missile defense, after all these years, and all these billions of dollars?

It is a patriotic question. It should be easier to answer the question correctly, and in ways that are proportionate to America's real needs, rather than avoid it.

mazza9 - 06:44pm Jan 20, 2002 EST (#10904 of 10921)
Louis Mazza

RShow55:

What makes you think that Edison would pull the plug on BMD? He wasn't as "all knowing" as you suggest. He invented many of the technologies of the 20th Century, film, phonographs and the light bulb but he didn't recognize Tesla's work on alternating current and the motor generator,( Tesla worked for Edison and Westinghouse) He built the first electrical utility in NY City and it was DC based. If he had the "power" to do away with AC where would we be today?

dejaxxvu - 07:41pm Jan 20, 2002 EST (#10905 of 10921)

Edison might be compared to Gates - both had the sense to let others do the work while they took credit and had the entrepreneurial verve to create and satisfy Demand(s).

dejaxxvu - 07:46pm Jan 20, 2002 EST (#10906 of 10921)

Missile Defense has no Entrepreneurial Leadership, no one to pat it on the back or scratch it's belly!
It's a runnaway Amorphous[M]ass that need leading to the knackers yard - calmly.

rshow55 - 07:53pm Jan 20, 2002 EST (#10907 of 10921)

Mazza had a good question, well posed, well phrased.

Edison wouldn't "pull the plug" on BMD in general - - wouldn't reject the idea that BMD was something extremely desireable to do. I wouldn't either, with the problem phrased in that general way. (There are questions about the context of MD, and we may disagree there -- but set that aside for now.)

But for a particular approach to BMD to be desireable, it has to work. And if a particular approach can't work, for a particular reason - - then it makes sense to pull the plug on THAT approach , to free up resources. Perhaps for another approach to the problem, if there is another valid one. Or to use the resources for some other desireable purpose.

Edison was a famously open-minded, creative person in many ways, but also one of the great "quitters" of all time. - - when he was sure a specific approach wasn't going to work, for clear and specific reasons - - he quit it. And went looking for another approach.

Edison didn't like AC, because it was a competitive system, because it was "not invented here" -- and for some conceptual reasons, too. He also had safety objections to AC . . some of them sensible at the time. But he didn't identify "show stoppers" to the system, for clear technical reasons others could understand - - and Edison's DC system was supplanted fairly quickly, for good technical reasons.

rshow55 - 07:54pm Jan 20, 2002 EST (#10908 of 10921)

In response to guy_catelli 1/17/02 3:26pm , I said this, in MD10846-47 rshow55 1/17/02 3:31pm :

"I'd support any missile defense system that can actually be built . . . and that makes something remotely resembling reasonable sense, in terms of alternatives.

"And I'd be proud to help in the design. (Warning - to build a good MD system involves some technical accomplishments that might tend to obsolete some current hardware in our arsenel.)

"In good design, one of the first things you do (and Kelly Johnson was clear about this) is get clear about what CANNOT be done.

"Once that's clear, the choices remaining are fewer, and more manageable."

I meant that. But that doesn't mean I support systems approaches that can't work

(13 following messages)

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