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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 - 02:43pm Mar 26, 2003 EST (# 10540 of 10544)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

dccougar:

A subject extensively discussed on this thread, and referred to on the Guardian, seems significant to me.

Psychwarfare, Casablanca . . . and terror Oct 3, 2002: 330 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/352 includes this:

"I've now set out the key message that I felt must be most classified - in a way that professionals ought to be able to read -- and it is this - it is now technically easy to shoot down every winged aircraft the US has, or can expect to build - to detect every submarine - and to sink every surface ship within 500 miles of land - the technology for doing this is basic - and I see neither technical nor tactical countermeasures. I've set that message out in public, because, finally - that is what the reasonable security of the United States requires. The costs and risks of keeping this secret are justified no longer.

"In judging that message, it makes a difference whether I'm carrying on a literary exercise - if I'm Ishmael - of if I'm telling the truth. I've been working very hard, trying to get my country to check on that.

The same point, that

" it is now technically easy to shoot down every winged aircraft the US has, or can expect to build - to detect every submarine - and to sink every surface ship within 500 miles of land - the technology for doing this is basic - and I see neither technical nor tactical countermeasures. "

is also referred to, with supporting detail and links to this thread, on October 4, 2002 334 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/357 and Oct 12, 2002 339 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/364 .

I've been saying things - and saying them carefully - for a long time, because I have considered them important.

The United States is a great country - but it is making trillion dollar errors on military procurement - and I've been doing my best - with lchic's help, to make nontrivial contributions. For more links that I believe many think are important, click rshow55 .

mazza9 - 02:56pm Mar 26, 2003 EST (# 10541 of 10544)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

dc courgar

"So much of what you say is simply tautological. Do you have any nontrivial positions?"

Don't matter. Matter of fact, facts are dots and dots are a gummy candy. Rshows's confection is, matter of fact, inconsequential.

Energy equals matter times the speed of light squared and Rshow the mathematician don't matter!

dccougar - 04:59pm Mar 26, 2003 EST (# 10542 of 10544)
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.

rshow55 - 02:43pm Mar 26, 2003 EST - "...it is now technically easy to shoot down every winged aircraft the US has, or can expect to build - to detect every submarine - and to sink every surface ship within 500 miles of land - the technology for doing this is basic - and I see neither technical nor tactical countermeasures."

Well, I suppose that's not particularly trivial, but again, it's a matter of context. Apparently this technical capability is not "relevant" (or accurate) in the context of Iraq....

I suppose one could also say that it is now "technically easy" to kill every human being on the planet, along with most other forms of life. But who has such a capability? Not me, not you, not Castro, and not Hussein. And George W., who might be closest to having such a capability, wouldn't consider it feasible because then his businessmen buddies wouldn't meet their projected year-end profits.

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