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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 - 03:54pm May 16, 2003 EST (# 11722 of 11735)
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.

AEA was an attempt to answer a number of questions. Here's one:

. "How do you get radical change, optimization, that can actually work in detail, when you have to modify a very large complex system that is already set up and running, involving many technical and interpersonal committments already in place?"

Casey worried about that question. So did the Eisenhowers, Teller, many people who dealt with Kelly Johnson, and many other senior people, including well connected consultants like Edwin Land. They worried about some problems involving the interface between math and engineering, as well. And they had some specific problems, including missile guidance. There were some other problems, as well . . including some about nuclear stability and some about crypto . . most of them both "obvious" and "deeply classified" - depending how you look at it.

Working on those problems, from 1967 on, I got involved in some patterns that were definitely exceptional - but that I thought, and others thought - served larger purposes in a fully justifiable way. It was "outrageous" for me to work on some of the problems I worked on. Or know about them. All the same, if those problems were to be worked on - given the people available - and some of the limitations and complexities - "outrageous" things seemed sensible - and downright conservative.

For instance, I worked on a math problem that nobody alive had status enough, or breadth enough, to really attack. No conventional mathematician could have touched it - for reasons of protocol. It turned out that there was an error in a mapping - in a correspondence convention - that was made 350 years ago. It wasn't easy for me to find it - and it took a long and clumsy time. But I don't think anyone subject to standard academic usages could possibly have found it. And getting the answer incorporated into academe as it is and must be involves some awkwardnesses, too.

I set out, in 1967 along a road where I assumed, and had to assume, that when I needed government help - I could get it. And find ways through channels, even when exceptions had to be made.

gisterme - 06:17pm May 16, 2003 EST (# 11723 of 11735)

lchic - 04:37am May 16, 2003 EST (# 11703 of ...) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.NjeFaApgaun.0@.f28e622/13313

"Why aren't 'the men who ran away' being discussed in Muslim culture as just that - rich cowards - of negativity who destroy people!..."

Heh, heh. That's a good question lchic. Doesn't it seem a bit ironic that a letter, supposedly from Saddam, calls his former soldiers to task because they didn't die for him...because they didn't honor the oath to Allah not to run away in battle that he, Saddam, made them take? Were was Saddam in the battle? I'll bet he didn't take any oath. He just ran away. What a hypocrite he is.

Saddam knew those men wouldn't fight for him or his regime otherwise he wouldn't have tried to bind them with that phony-baloney oath. Arabs shouldn't feel shamed because the Iraqi army didn't fight better. They should be proud that those soldiers had the courage to do the right thing by their refusal to support Saddam.

Now that Saddam is gone Iraq can be about the business of rejoining the world and becoming a place where folks can use their talents, express their opinions and pursue their dreams without fear of retribution from their government.

Incidentally, it warms the cockels of my little heart that the billion bucks Saddam and his boys tried to steal from the Iraqi central bank has mostly been recovered. What will Saddam use to build his palaces in the future? Oh me. I guess terrorists won't be getting any of that money either. Too bad. How sad. :-( Poor underfunded terrorists. Perhaps they should organize under the teamsters.

lchic - 07:54pm May 16, 2003 EST (# 11724 of 11735)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

A safer world: