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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 - 04:19pm May 27, 2003 EST (# 12090 of 12132)
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.

"Going back in time" is the subject of a lot of books and stories - including Twain's Conneticutt Yankee and Well's The Time Machine.

I really think that if, by some miracle, Eisenhower could have been briefed on the answers to the technical problems he assigned me - early in his first term - world per capita income would be 2-3 times what it is now - and the world would be both more beautiful and safer.

Such a "briefing" now - listened to by the head of a nation state now - might still do great good.

I tried to set up something rather like that - a sort of a "dress rehersal" - a smaller briefing - by sending a postcard to Sulzberger last year. I got a reaction to that, all right - but not from Sulzberger, and I wasn't able to do it.

It seemed like a good idea at the time - and looking back, still seems like it was a reasonable thing to suggest.

rshow55 - 04:24pm May 27, 2003 EST (# 12091 of 12132)
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.

When I got onto this thread - I did the best I could to suggest answers to questions of disarmament that had bothered Eisenhower - and Lchic and I worked hard on "how do you talk to the Russians?" problems.

Maybe made some headway, too. At least at the "war gaming" or "simulation" level.

lchic - 04:26pm May 27, 2003 EST (# 12092 of 12132)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Showalter - hard to imagine 'YOU' condensing-down to a small postcard :)

rshow55 - 04:28pm May 27, 2003 EST (# 12093 of 12132)
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.

My judgement is that every single "show-stopper" stumper problem that Eisenhower and his top people knew they had - is now solved in an analytic sense - and ripe to be solved in a practical - widely diffused way.

Not that that would "solve all the world's problems" - - - but it would help with a lot of them.

lchic - 04:28pm May 27, 2003 EST (# 12094 of 12132)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Back in the USSR - Sir Paul knew|Knows how to talk to Russians ... 'say it with a song' :)

rshow55 - 04:29pm May 27, 2003 EST (# 12095 of 12132)
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.

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.SPxQbaNabbF.2406373@.f28e622/13723 let me fire up one of my other computers - and see if I can find exactly what I said.

It was a largish postcard. My wife Geri bought it.

rshow55 - 04:32pm May 27, 2003 EST (# 12096 of 12132)
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.

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.SPxQbaNabbF.2406373@.f28e622/13725

Sir Paul can "say it with a song" and he can get to anybody - because he'd Sir Paul.

Just like any NYT reporter or staffer can get to just about anybody in the world. And maybe even coerce them into talking - or meeting on an anonymous basis on a NYT talk thread.

For most folks - doors are slammed shut. And, of course, the world has to be that way.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense