New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 07:42pm Apr 21, 2002 EST (#1614 of 1634)

Mazza, you're right in mazza9 4/21/02 4:20pm when you say that my proposal of September 25, 2000, set out in MD1600 MD1601 is "in some respects naive."

Almarst , who has served as this thread's "Putin stand-in character" spent several months last year explaining that to me -- explaining especially that nuclear disarmament was only possible for Russia if Russia felt that it could be reasonably defended by a United States he regards as unreliable and predatory.

The part that is not naive is that real people, to make peace, have to accomodate distrust , and not insist, as gisterme so often does, that the alternative to "trust" (often, in his-her usage, blind submission) is fighting. We can do better than that, and have to. To do so, there have to be ways of establishing key facts. In complicated circumstances, solutions are rare (though often present) and the truth is far safer than lies. Current usages insist on protecting patterns of deception. That has to be changed.

We don't agree that the world should be "left behind" for space travel -- and considering the great disparity of the hopes of the 1960's, when Kubrick produced 2001 , and today -- getting very extensive masses systems into space plainly isn't feasible. As a military officer explained, "it takes (the value of) a bar of gold to put up (orbit) a coke can." . . The Next Battlefield May Be in Outer Space by JACK HITT http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/05/magazine/05SPACEWARS.html

That simple fact about costs of accelleration to orbital velocities isn't going to change too much anytime soon, and the high expense makes many MD programs unrealistic. It also makes dreams of moving large populations and industries into space invalid as well.

I've said before that, for the money now being squandered on MD programs that cannot possibly work, the same organizations and engineers could probably solve the global warming problem, and go a long way towards getting the world a stable source of solar energy-- enough for all the needs of the world, for all time. But to do that, the people now committed, in hundreds and thousands of ways, to a MD boondoggle that has involved almost everybody in patterns of deception and self deception, are going to have to be forced to face some key truths.

rshow55 - 07:44pm Apr 21, 2002 EST (#1615 of 1634)

Mazza , you asked ""What benefits would accrue if the Missile Defense Programs were eliminated?" . . . and given ways of establishing facts on key issues, there are good answers. Many of them already discussed.

As of now, people in the MD business are not prepared, as individuals and groups, to hear those answers. Before they are, they have to at least see that they can be defeated, probably will be defeated, in ways that can cost them, unless they respond as responsible technical people and American citizens, in a technical world full of unmet needs, and a shortage of technical people and resources.

The best thing I can do to approach your answer is to set out repostings that explain, clearly I believe, ways that the military-industrial-political complex is inadequately defended on key issues - - are actually vulnerable to the truth. I'm ready to post them now. Then, able again to refer to these postings, I'll be able to more clearly explain why the technical people and organizations committed to the current "missile defense" boondoggle ought to be committed to right answers -- because of what they and their organizations have to hope, because of what they and their organizations have to fear. What does it cost organizations and individuals to be caught in frauds, rather than in problems they pro-actively fix? Employees of Arthur Anderson are providing examples.

In complicated circumstances, decisions based on truth provide the best practical hope -- often, the only hope. Sometimes, to find the truth, usages needed in courts of law are worth remembering - because they often work, and are based on much experience.

I stand by what I said in MD1596 rshow55 4/21/02 3:01pm . . . but to show what is possible, it is necessary to show how difficult truths can be found.

(19 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense