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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

almarst-2001 - 11:09pm May 11, 2001 EST (#3736 of 3742)

possumdag 5/11/01 10:59pm

Or who enjoy ending the other's lives experiences?

lonnie180 - 11:14pm May 11, 2001 EST (#3737 of 3742)

almarst-2001 - 11:06pm

You're almost there. I grew up dirt poor in a large family. I understand coalitions. "I won't squeal on you for stealing the canned fruit if you don't squeal on me for stealing the canned meat." A common conversation after we got the monthly allotment of USDA surplus foodstuffs. (That was 'welfare' in 1957)

P.S. No one ever 'stole' the rolled wheat.

possumdag - 11:17pm May 11, 2001 EST (#3738 of 3742)
Possumdag@excite.com

The missile testing will become big NEWS in the Aussie media - the Ministry of Defense MOD in the UK are making silly statements. The RADIATION factor has not been acknowledged .. nor has it been acknowledged in recent years.

"Your job as soldiers is WEAPONS TESTING(1956)" they were told .. and can't claim compensation. The compensation has been more forthcoming in the USA, and UK.

Army pensions are compensation - for the things that happen to them while serving and taking those risks.

Said Guy from:

'The Atomic x Servicemen's Association' Australia.

lonnie180 - 11:32pm May 11, 2001 EST (#3739 of 3742)

possumdag - 11:17pm

Some of us are so dense. In the U.S.A., the military is now voluntary. As in "You volunteered, you have no claim."

knab69 - 02:07am May 12, 2001 EST (#3740 of 3742)

Since when do we have our military run by other self-serving nations? People need to realize that the U.S. can pursue a rational missile defense program, one targeting "rogue" nations- who will not have long range weapons in the foreseeable future-and not preventing other major powers second-strike capabiliity. The other nations' major problem with that is DISCLOSURE- are you listening Russia? Its called "tit-for-tat" relations policy. Quit the proliferation to 3rd world countries and we might bend more of an ear. The same goes for China. BTW, SALT II is void as the USSR no longer exists, see 'rebus sic stantibus'.

rshowalter - 06:01am May 12, 2001 EST (#3741 of 3742)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

knab69 - makes a constructive comment, it seems to me.

Progress, it seems to me, is being made, and almost everybody involved has good reason to be angry and frustrated and muddled about something.

Looking back on how dialog has moved in the last three weeks, I feel good -- we may be less comfortable, but in my view, we're safer than before, because people are paying close attention to things that, not long ago, no one wanted to think about at all.

rshowalter - 06:01am May 12, 2001 EST (#3742 of 3742)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Changing facts. World views changing with difficulty, misteps, and doubts. And a good reason not to forget about how to make nuclear explosives, and how to find and intercept dangerous objects coming in from space.

Clues to a Meteor That Aided Dinosaurs by KENNETH CHANG http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/12/science/12EXTI.html

"Dinosaurs were unlucky 65 million years ago when a meteor struck off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico; they died out in the environmental cataclysm that followed. But dinosaurs were beneficiaries of an earlier mass extinction 200 million years ago that killed off a competing group of animals and enabled dinosaurs to flourish for the next 135 million years.

"New evidence from rocks in British Columbia indicates that the earlier extinction, which wiped out 80 percent of all species at the end of the Triassic geological period and the beginning of the Jurassic, happened in a geologic instant, in 50,000 years or perhaps as few as 100. The findings offer a tantalizing suggestion that another cataclysmic meteor impact might be to blame.

. . . . .

"All three extinctions also coincided with massive volcanic eruptions, so if scientists verify the meteor impacts they would have to explain the highly unlikely coincidences.

"Large meteor impacts and massive volcanic eruptions, which spew out hundreds of thousands of cubic miles of lava over hundreds of thousands of years, are both very rare events, occurring once every tens of millions of years.

" "Most geophysicists dismiss the obvious inference — that meteor impacts set off eruptions — because their calculations indicate the impacts could not possibly release enough energy to rupture in Earth's crust thousands of miles away.

* * * * *

"People are really scratching their heads," Dr. Ward said. "Before it made sense. Now it doesn't."

Later, maybe it will.

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