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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 - 03:35pm May 5, 2002 EST (#2035 of 2043)

I think the world could be much better, if we used things we now almost know about the internet, to assist negotiations where details matter a great deal, and where there are many different levels of focus that need to be accomodated.

MD1999 rshow55 5/4/02 10:35am

MD2000 rshow55 5/4/02 10:39am

MD2001 rshow55 5/4/02 11:36am

Used examples concerning the negotiations in the Middle East - that I think make specific sense, but link to general, wider uses, in MD2008 rshow55 5/4/02 6:54pm

When a new technology is implemented, it is usually the case that there are unforseen problems, so that it is less useful than hoped. Friedman's Lexus and the Olive Tree has been subject to that criticism. But very often, when these problems are identified, they can be solved.

Russia, if it wished to be, would be in a strategic position to help solve some of the most important of these problems. Many of the concerns almarst has expressed on this thread could be better adressed if she did so - and if other nation-states did so.

Many resources are coming together that could provide "building blocks" for this http://dpls.dacc.wisc.edu/apdu/forgn_index.html . . . they have to be fit to the specific needs of the specific and real human beings who need to use them.

They can be -- there's an enormous amount of expertise around.

We can make the world a more effective, humane, comfortable global village - with plenty of room for diversity - but with agreement when it is worth getting.

rshow55 - 03:54pm May 5, 2002 EST (#2036 of 2043)

A Rising Tide of Defense Dollars http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/05/opinion/05SUN1.html

If the past is any guide, billions of dollars will be wasted and misspent as Washington spends close to a trillion dollars on new weapons systems over the next decade.

I'd say much more than half of that money will be wasted -- and the world impoverished in other ways. Against that backdrop, does the "missile defense" boondoggle even matter so much? -- It isn't as if the technology is going to be effective -- if waste on MD were eliminated, would the money just fund other waste?

MD is a huge problem. But there's a larger, more general problem.

" When large news organizations such as The New York Times cannot solve problems by covering the facts about them -- why don't the solutions happen, when they often seem very clear?

MD1704 rshow55 4/23/02 10:34am

The pattern of an internet based "engineer's court" much discussed on this thread would go a long way toward perfecting techniques to answer and adress that larger, more general problem.

lchic - 04:09pm May 5, 2002 EST (#2037 of 2043)

.... unexpected production problems have defeated delivery deadlines ...

Some of these delays have gone on for fifty years

One wonders if there'll be a follow-up article regarding BUSHtheFATHER and CONFLICTofINTEREST

rshow55 - 04:20pm May 5, 2002 EST (#2038 of 2043)

When I was just a kid, I spent some time at Johns Hopkins APL, and looked at a "scramjet" (hypersonic ramjet) program that had totally hopeless mixing problems -- that was in the early 1970's and the scramjet was still "under development" last year (though I haven't checked if any of that development was at JHU-APL.)

"Missile Defense" has been an ongoing mess since Eisenhower's time.

Because these programs are heavily classified - the rationality is MUCH less than it could be - and the potential for corruption is huge - - including legal but highly questionable stock-picking and "merchant banking" which now funds Bush Sr at Carlyle.

lchic - 04:23pm May 5, 2002 EST (#2039 of 2043)

"" "I loved the simplicity of physics, the feeling that I could understand almost everything about a problem." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/30/science/physical/30CONV.html

lchic - 04:27pm May 5, 2002 EST (#2040 of 2043)

The local Uni here (UQ) had a scramjet project - a launch was unsucessful .... the project was scaled back to 0+ ... and people went otherways.

You were right Showalter - i remember asking you about it :)

NASA also had a project to be launched around that time - their launch for some reason didn't go ahead ..... bet it's not been abandoned ... bet the dollars are still rolling through!

lchic - 04:30pm May 5, 2002 EST (#2041 of 2043)

Is Physics that 'simple' or is it only 'simple' when the unknown becomes the known.

Discovery is still in progress ?

Especially as 'truth' seems subject to change.

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