New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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.

fredmoore - 10:31am Sep 11, 2003 EST (# 13604 of 13606)

I like this poem. It reveals some truths in ways that matter for action despite the headway being made:

He's a Cooper, makes barrels, with hoops and coops

and lengths of timber shaped in loops

and when he sees prolixity

he demands the facts, documential history

but here's the point

when with Johnson he's anoint'

he barrels his foe

with familial floe.

But will it trap

our undaunted chap?

It might but I don't think so.

So let's have a drink to the star of the show

Mr Robert Showalter who will post and post

till the barrel's full of Rpork and the stars no longer Rglow.

FM2468

rshow55 - 11:46am Sep 11, 2003 EST (# 13605 of 13606)
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.

I feel like posting great pieces on altruism

http://www.mrshowalter.net/OfAltruismHeroismNEvolution'sGifts.htm

and especially

http://www.mrshowalter.net/UrgeToPunishCheatsNotJustHumanButSelfless.htm

Also a wonderful piece, In the Crowd's Frenzy - by Natalie Angier - with a beautiful image. http://www.mrshowalter.net/IntheCrowd'sFrenzy.htm

People go "round and round" - but sometimes - though not so often - sensible things converge.

How does that happen? I was assigned to try to find out. It seemed an "impossible" task - but an important enough task that Eisenhower and some people around him thought it made sense to assign it to somebody - set him up so he had as much of a chance to crack the problem as possible - and make the exceptions that that took. I got fingered.

11721 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.tWS5b3UAEmI.8459891@.f28e622/13331

Sometimes procedures are set up where exceptions are accomodated within a system. To circumvent a chain of command is to break a body or rules -and in the military these are compelling rules. Even so, I was told that anyone anywhere under MacArthur's command with access to a telephone or phone link was two phone calls away from Douglas MacArthur during the last three years of MacArthur's campaign against the Japanese in WWII. MacArthur was a stickler for protocol - and for chains of command - and yet he had a well organized system of exception handling.

11722 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.tWS5b3UAEmI.8459891@.f28e622/13332

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.

. . .

" 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.

- - - - -

Some exceptions have been made - and I think they've been justified by accomplishments. I think Steve Kline would have thought so - and both Eisenhowers - and I think Douglas MacArthur would have approved, too. MacArthur would have been appalled by Bush's inept and badly executed strategies. And his excessive lying.

I don't feel like giving up. Hopeful things happen all the time. Little kids need to learn to tie their shoes. Kids and caretakers agree on this, by and large.

Should you teach kids to tie their shoes "early" - or later?

Should you

(1 following message)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense