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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 - 08:29pm Jul 9, 2003 EST (# 12922 of 12927)
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.

References to Godel's proof, and a related combat question:

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/md1761_1766.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md9000s/md9601.htm

I've been guessing, for the last couple of years, that lchic and I might, in an actuarial sense, be saving something like 1000 lives/hour we work. Many days, that still seems reasonable to me.

The reason is that there are some basic problems - that are difficult, but only so difficult - that we are solving - that ought to permit permanent advances in the human condition.

One key point is that the idea of disciplined beauty http://www.mrshowalter.net/DBeauty.html applies directly and clearly to physical problems - including technical problems.

You can find solutions that are truly optimal - as the solution of a steel wheel on a steel rail is optimal - for all time - in terms of stable assumptions. And I believe that the solutions can be funded, too. AEA was about that. Now, I'd like to form a partnership - maybe named the Disciplined Beauty Partnership.

If it were set up along the lines of AEA - with lchic involved - and funded as AEA was funded - solving problems would be more than just talk.

Would it be possible to do such a thing in a way that "the average reader of The New York Times " would approve of?

Just now, I don't see why not.

rshow55 - 08:36pm Jul 9, 2003 EST (# 12923 of 12927)
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.

Photo-voltaic collectors floating on the smoothest part of the equatorial seas are looking more and more like they will make economic sense.

There's been an objection to the basic approach of floating "oil fields" rather than finding them. Storms.

To avoid storms - tow the collectors so that they are always at the convective center of the earth - always "the doldrums".

Towing from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn and back annually requires a steady speed of .5 km/hr - .31 knots. The collectors could be towed so that they were continuously at the convective center of the earth - for a few horse power per 1 km x 10 km collector unit.

Optimal solutions have to be solutions - valid objections have to be met. Quite often, once the problem is defined - they can be - in terms of any reasonable set of criteria. Quite often - there is only one basic way to do things. With good analysis - and the kind of discipline Edison expected

"1 % inspiration and 99% perspiration"

- you can find them. With current levels of scientific and engineering knowledge - the perspriration is less - and bigger, more complicated jobs can be handled successfully.

fredmoore - 08:30am Jul 10, 2003 EST (# 12924 of 12927)

With regard to problem's with the democratisation of Iraq, What lessons are there to be learned from the rebuild of Germany post WWII.

Surely there was as much anti US sentiment and 'criminals on-the-loose' in post WWII Germany as there are now in Iraq?

What actually transpired in the immediate 2 or 3 years post WWII? What happened in Japan too? But I understand the Japanese were particularly industrious and cooperative, which is not the case in Iraq, at least no yet?

Any Ideas amidst the perspiration Showboater? Bbbuck? Kiki?

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