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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.

rshow55 - 08:25am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10951 of 10956)
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.

Sometimes faith is indispensible. But sometimes, on practical things, faith is simply negligence . There needs to be an obligation to check - and check competently, when it matters enough. )

When soldiers are terrified, and bullets are rending flesh, it ought to matter enough.

Some of the things that need to be understood and checked may even involve mathematics - and experience.

7895 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.kktLaobu6x5.0@.f28e622/9420

7896 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.kktLaobu6x5.0@.f28e622/9421

7897 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.kktLaobu6x5.0@.f28e622/9422

"Some of the most unpleasant surprises of which nonlinear control systems are capable are

1. divergent instability

2. limit cycles

3. multiple equilibrium points.

"and it needs to be continually borne in mind that, as far as nonlinear machines are concerned, the behavior is determined by the input-system combination. An understanding of the conditions under which input-system combinations may produce these surprises is facilitated by a parametric study of the system . . . .

Chapter 10 of Analysis of Nonlinear Control Systems by Dunstan Graham and Duane McRuer continues -

. In essence the summary is that if nonlinearities are small enough - and if the system is well understood enough, instabilities can be controlled within tolerable limits for a particular set of circumstances - limit cycles can be small enough to accept, and answers can be close enough to fit well enough defined purposes.

7898 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.kktLaobu6x5.0@.f28e622/9423

7899 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.kktLaobu6x5.0@.f28e622/9424

I've worried about such things for a long time.

No doubt I come from a narrow and parochial background - but there are some things that might be useful to attend to.

We face some "unpleasant surprises" that ought to be avoided - for reasons that ought not to be surprises. And we are in a situation where the things that matter should be able to sort out very well, from most human perspectives, including my own, and I think, including Almarst's.

One thing is primordial. We have to understand the situation we're actually dealing with - as it is - not as we wish it to be.

A lot of the circumstances look pretty favorable, if we face what we need to.

lchic - 08:36am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10952 of 10956)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Will the Iraqi-shareholders of homeland Iraq be watching their property portfolio destruct - again today.

If the Hussain Bully Boys are-n't

Who's running Iraq .... into the ground ?

almarst2003 - 09:04am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10953 of 10956)

The War and the Peace - The Pentagon's dubious plans. - http://slate.msn.com/id/2080976/

almarst2003 - 09:13am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10954 of 10956)

US aircraft hit a Red Crescent maternity hospital in Baghdad, the city's trade fair, and other civilian buildings today, killing several people and wounding at least 25, hospital sources and a Reuters witness said. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,928078,00.html

THE PRESENT FROM AMERICA TO IRAQ BABIES. TO REMEMBER.

almarst2003 - 09:15am Apr 2, 2003 EST (# 10955 of 10956)

AL JAZEERAH IS UP - http://www.aljazeerah.info/

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