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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.

gisterme - 02:57am May 13, 2002 EST (#2181 of 2190)

rshow55 5/11/02 6:38pm

"...If you could make this breakthrough in photocell cost -- reducing photocell cost several orders of magnitude from what it is now..."

Aren't you the same Robert Showalter that argued previously that "orders of magnitude" breakthroughs just aren't likely (when applied to other topics)? I believe so, so I'm heartened that you seem to be conceding the point by your present suggestion that such progress is now not so impossible after all. Good for you! All things are possible. This is progress!

"...Having looked some at Perlin's material, I'm not going to consider land-based photocells further - after a century of development, they remain much too expensive...

Umm, Robert, when these "orders of magnitude" breakthroughs of cost improvement in polymeric solar cell material are be made, why would the same material cost more to deploy on a nice stable desert floor than on a hoped-for calm sea?

All your reasoning about becalmed sailors sounds pretty good coming from sombody who has obviously never spent much time at sea! But in high sea states waves can exceed 90 feet and rip steel off of ships like we can rip the crust off a loaf of bread. The sea might be calm for months at a time in certain equatorial regions, but there is nowhere on earth that the sea is calm all the time. Did Perlin mention that? Two things I can say for sure are that human failure to respect the power of the sea has cost untold thousands of lives in the past and that the sea will continue to take it's toll on those who venure out upon it ignorant or unprepared.

timmidgley - 03:48am May 13, 2002 EST (#2182 of 2190)

The missile defence programme has indeed woken a sleeping nuke giant... So here starts the next nuke race...

Extract from New York Times U.S. Says Russia Is Preparing Nuclear Tests By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, May 11 — Administration officials have briefed Congress on what they described as disturbing intelligence indicating that Russia is preparing to resume nuclear tests, even as President Bush is scheduled to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to discuss arms control later this month, government officials said.

Selected members of the House and Senate met in small, closed sessions and were told of a new analysis by the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, a panel that collects the views of many federal agencies on nuclear issues.

etc etc etc...

rshow55 - 06:35am May 13, 2002 EST (#2183 of 2190)

gisterme 5/13/02 2:57am

why would the same material cost more to deploy on a nice stable desert floor than on a hoped-for calm sea?

When I looked at wind loads, turbulence, and cleaning issues -- I couldn't make the desert case work. Maybe somebody could.

The equatorial seas looked good, so far as I got. You have examples of 90 foot seas, near the latitude of convective center (which varies with the season) - or even rough seas? The sea can be cruel indeed (and being becalmed is one of the cruelties wind sailors fear most). But the physics of weather of open sea at latitudes very near the convective center of the earth is relatively simple - and stable. (The convective center latitude is 0, the equator, in the middle of the spring and fall seasons, north and south of that at other times.

. . . . . .

Aren't you the same Robert Showalter that argued previously that "orders of magnitude" breakthroughs just aren't likely (when applied to other topics)?

It depends on the details of the topics. For particular cases, I certainly did argue that, and for reasons of detail. How likely are the breakthroughs? In specific cases, you can check. MD1076 rshow55 4/4/02 1:20pm

I offered and referenced some examples in MD 84 rshow55 3/2/02 11:52am ... MD14-15 rshow55 3/1/02 7:07pm .. summarizes a lot of work - much of it involving you, gisterme.

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