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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 - 09:31am May 9, 2003 EST (# 11527 of 11531)
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.

A tremendous amount can be (and should be) learned from the medieval past.

There are important reasons for preserving such studies - and asking them to be clear, and connected to wider interests. For people to understand basic things about their humanity - they need a sense of what human beings have been, how they have lived, what they have done. Both to provide inspiration, and for warnings.

I was fascinated by medieval history - but more professionally interested in socio-technical history - something that fascinated me, and Casey, was the history of the railroads.

There are basic lessons from the history and technology of the railroads that ought to be understood now. Many of the most serious problems the world faces now involve difficulties and challenges that were solved in the development of the railroads - and with current knowledge and institutions, could be better solved now, given some honesty.

When a technical solution to a problem is essentially simple and stable - but where the technology fundamentally has to be applied and used on a huge scale - there are organizational, technical, political, and moral problems.

We have some that need to be faced.

Work I did, with Casey's advice approval and support, expecting the work to be used, could come to fruition if these problems were faced - but it could not be done with out the help of at least one government. I'd prefer that government to be the United States government.

"Here are things that I believe can be achieved -- http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/294

http://www.mrshowalter.net/CaseyRel.html

Very large area solar cells on the equatorial oceans. It should be possible to generate enough hydrogen to serve all word energy needs, forever. Hydrogen would interface well with existing energy sources and capital installations, from early prototype stage to the largest possible scale. This would be a practical and permanent advance in the human condition, and would reduce some major and chronic causes of war and conflict between nations.

Very large area aquaculture on the equatorial oceans. With shallow layers of ocean surface water isolated so that they can be fertilized and harvested, aquaculture could could be used for carbon sequestration for full control of global warming. Aquaculture could also supply essentially unlimited nutrition for animals and people. This would be a practical and permanent advance in the human condition, and would reduce causes of conflict and war.

Seawater distillation could be achieved at an energy cost not much more than twice the thermodynamic limit cost. I believe that cost per liter might be 1/10 to 1/50th the cost today. Scaling to serve cities and countries would be feasible. Much of the United States is short of water, and could benefit. This would be a practical and permanent advance in the human condition, and would reduce a major cause of conflict and war.

(at a lower level of certainty) :A much more efficient way of getting large masses into space (if not in orbit around the earth, then in moon, sun or plantary orbits) appears to be possible -- and would be a good cooperative job for Americans and Russians - - the Russians would be better on the basic design, the Americans better on some of the execution. If this were possible, a major constraint on space exploration, which has almost stopped progress for many years, could be blasted through.

"In my judgement, many other useful things could be done. -- and many of them would take the resources that the military industrial complex is now squandering on projects that barely work or cannot work.

To get jobs like this done, some of the lessons from the development of the railroads would need to be remembered, and acted on.

That could save hundreds of wasted lives/hour - m

rshow55 - 09:36am May 9, 2003 EST (# 11528 of 11531)
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.

That could save hundreds of wasted lives/hour - many thousands of human years of life/hour - on a money-making basis.

If Casey were alive and functional, it might be possible to get that moving - with essential certainty of success, with a few phone calls.

There is no way to build a railroad without involving large scale political decision - and power.

Or do any of the jobs suggested above, or any others of similar scale.

Some of the most essential human needs can only be well met on a worldwide basis by solving problems on such large scales. With the problems solved in ways that are essentially simple, in the same sense that the basic core technology of the railroads is simple. For ground transport of heavy loads - you can't beat steel wheels on a steel rails - for basic reasons. Other technical solutions are "simple" for analogous physical reasons.

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