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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 - 10:31pm Aug 27, 2003 EST (# 13436 of 13445)
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.

Great coverage on the Shuttle investigation in the TIMES today!

Report on Loss of Shuttle Focuses on NASA Blunders By JOHN SCHWARTZ and MATTHEW L. WALD http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/27/national/nationalspecial/27SHUT.html

NASA will suffer more disasters if it does not transform its "broken safety culture," the final report of an independent board said.

I've admired Schwartz's and Wald's work on LOSS OF THE SHUTTLE: http://www.nytimes.com/national/nationalspecial/index.html and I've long appreciated John Schwartz piece on Cassandra - and warnings given but not heeded.

Playing Know And Tell By JOHN SCHWARTZ http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/weekinreview/09BOXA.html http://www.mrshowalter.net/Know_And_Tell.htm

" If people know anything of Cassandra at all, they tend to think of her as some kind of madwoman.

"But Cassandra's curse was one of the most ingenious of Greek myth.

"There she is, desperate to be understood, treated as if she is mad or insensible, but actually cursed. The god Apollo, in a twist, gave her the power to see the future but not the ability to communicate it to others: nobody believed her warnings.

Also

Cassandra Speaks By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18KRIS.html http://www.mrshowalter.net/Cassandra_Speaks.htm

". . the Trojans dismissed the warnings as "windy nonsense" and sealed their fate. We Americans are the Greeks of our day, and as we now go to war, we should appreciate not only the beauty of the tale, but also the warnings within it.

I've been feeling like Cassandra - and maybe I've been ill tempered, in the way Schwartz describes, as well. Anybody very sure that our nuclear controls are so very much better than the controls at NASA, or in the electrical power grid?

I'm not so very sure. I worry about it.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report http://www.caib.us/news/report/default.html is sobering - but superb - and better than Cassandra's warning were - because it is official - and people are officially paying attention.

Although official attention has had its limits before.

Inertia and Indecision at NASA By DAVID E. SANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/27/national/nationalspecial/27ASSE.html

"The bitter bottom line of the Columbia disaster comes down to this: NASA never absorbed the lessons of the Challenger explosion in 1986, and four successive American presidents never decided where America's space program should head after the cold war — and what it would cost in dollars and risk to human life to get there.

"Those were the brutal conclusions of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, issued yesterday six and a half months after a sunny Saturday morning when Americans awoke to the horror of another space shuttle disintegrating in the sky. What is striking in the 248-page report, however, is how little had changed in the 17 years between the disasters.

"The same keep-it-flying culture found to have disregarded ample evidence of a fatal flaw in the O-rings in the Challenger case failed again . . .

But Franklin said things that go beyond good jokes like "a benny shaved is a benny urned"

" Experience keeps a dear school. A fool will learn in no other." 9386 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Lam0bFZ5CPJ.6063050@.f28e622/10922

And sometimes people do learn.

I hope enough has been learned from the fine effort set out in The Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report http://www.caib.us/news/report/default.html

And I hope that the six nations meeting about the Korean mess have learned enough, as we

rshow55 - 10:32pm Aug 27, 2003 EST (# 13437 of 13445)
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.

And I hope that the six nations meeting about the Korean mess have learned enough, as well. So far, so good.

U.S. and North Korea Hold Side Meeting at 6-Nation Talks By JOSEPH KAHN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/27/international/asia/27CND-KORE.html

BEIJING, Aug. 27 — The United States and North Korea had their first face-to-face meeting in four months today as part of broader six-nation negotiations on ending North Korea's nuclear program . . . .

Maybe there's hope. It wouldn't take so very much learning for a lot of things to work much better, in both practical and emotional terms.

volconvo - 12:13am Aug 28, 2003 EST (# 13438 of 13445)

If you're interested in politics, and philosophy you might want to check out http://www.volconvo.com/

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