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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.

lchic - 12:20am May 14, 2002 EST (#2196 of 2215)

mAzzA if the rest of the world took a huge pair of scissors and clipped around the dotted line boundary of the USA .. then with a mighty heave, launched that part of the world into space - who'd notice?!? Canada and Cuba would then be neighbours and continue their mutual exchanges.

lchic - 12:51am May 14, 2002 EST (#2197 of 2215)

... of Brisbane inventor Mr Mike O’Dwyer’s "Metal Storm" gun system .... volchin "Science in the News" 5/13/02 3:29pm
Mike lives within walking distance of me ...
^{http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&newwindow=1&q=Metal+Storm+inventor&btnG=Google+Search ..} as I said mAzzA .. the USA relies on 'the rest of the world' inventing and initially developing .. then using USA 'capital' it buys in and reaps rewards - next thing we're bound to hear is that the USA was the inventor!

lchic - 01:26am May 14, 2002 EST (#2198 of 2215)

RU-US(i)A Agreement MD ^{http://www.abc.net.au/am/s554963.htm}

lchic - 05:18am May 14, 2002 EST (#2199 of 2215)

ditto : ^{http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,715195,00.html}

lchic - 05:29am May 14, 2002 EST (#2200 of 2215)

Health and Safety wise Putin has done right to protect his-RU-people from mishaps that might occur via these dangerous RUST BUCKETS (Nukes) hanging around from mid-last Century.

Pity Bush doen't have the Health and Safety aspect considered for the US population.

Remember the 'O' ring:

Top Layer of Government
Political strategy -
put civilians in space

Base level management
The engineers said -
don't
- the equipment needs checking

but were over-ruled by their own management who looked to statistics and said
Launch
Statistically it won't go wrong

They should have listened to the Engineers

So what are the Engineers saying about the Rust-Bucket Nukes?

lchic - 05:59am May 14, 2002 EST (#2201 of 2215)

Buying votes? Where is 'global trade' and the 'free market'? ^{http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/14/politics/14BUSH.html}

mazza9 - 12:11pm May 14, 2002 EST (#2202 of 2215)
Louis Mazza

lchic:

Only an extremist pinko fool would suggest that "gettin' rid of the United States" would solve the Earth's problems.

We all know that your preferred treatment is the Gulag or the Gas Chamber. Maybe you can procure some of those suitcase nucs and really let your feelings show. Just like that demented college student that tried to draw a smiley face on the US landscape by planting bombs in mail boxes.

What is it about you folk? Why do you always resort to murder to make your point? Maybe you can check into a mental health clinic. There are helping hands available.

LouMazza

gringobastard - 04:07pm May 14, 2002 EST (#2203 of 2215)
"I will never apologize for the United States of America ... I don't care what the facts are." -- Poppa Bush, 1988

IS ANYONE LISTENING???????

"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."

- President Eisenhower - January 1961

lchic - 04:17pm May 14, 2002 EST (#2204 of 2215)

So mAzzA you're admitting that were the USA launched it wouldn't have a guidance system in place to re-park between the Pacific and Atlantic!

lchic - 04:29pm May 14, 2002 EST (#2205 of 2215)

If the USA were all mAzzA makes it out to be, then surely, it would help devise an incremental QUALITY IMPROVEMENT standard:
Determining the factors to be measured.
Measuring them.
Looking to macro cost-effective implementations that would improve food supplies, health, education access, economic development, together with appropriate governance.

Using such a standard - as opposed to misguided political/Nationalistic retoric - people could judge progress and look to improvements via development.

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