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.

mazza9 - 08:13pm Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7539 of 7557)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

The US Navy has been landing F-18s using an autoland system which couples GPS signals to position the aircraft in three dimensions. If you can land an aircraft on a pitching/moving aircraft carrier deck then landing at an airport should be a breeze. Plus, no more midair collisions like the one of Germany last year when two aircraft received conflicting collision avoidnace instructions from ground based controllers and aircraft systems!

BTW this level of sophisticated electronics is why Missile Defense will work!

rshow55 - 08:16pm Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7540 of 7557)
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.

lunarchick 1/9/03 6:52pm - - there are many perfections - though some of the basic ones are fragile enough that we shouldn't alter them too often, or forget what they are.

But we have many opportunities for new and better perfections - that fill gaping human needs.

People are having trouble eating, sleeping, reproducing, and talking to each other. At all sorts of levels, including especially the most primal. It is wrenching. If it is "an age of miracles" it is also an age of many too many mostrosities and freaks.

We can do better. It helps, and helps a lot, to apply aesthetic standards (of which aversion to boredom is one, but only one) to the situations at hand - and keep at it.

Out till tomorrow.

rshow55 - 08:20pm Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7541 of 7557)
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.

mazza9 1/9/03 8:13pm - - even up against a small country like N. Korea - "missile defense" is an abomination - a technical freak show - a monster that can't possibly do what it is supposed to do -- and it should be aborted.

It isn't a close call. Not by a long shot. With a decent set of umpires - and people using their own names - in public - we could get to closure on that in short order. In large part - it would be enough to collect arguments on this board - and check them.

The people involved in missile defense are precious, things are dangerous - and there are other things to do.

mazza9 - 09:52pm Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7542 of 7557)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

The greater abomination would be a bright flash and a million people dead because North Korea is a country that is hell bent on destruction.

Answer this question. Why does North Korea have the 4th largest army in the world? Why are they developing intercontinental missiles? What are their plans, (besides starving their own!)? Since the end of WWII how many deaths can be laid at the feet of the dictators of the world and, for the most part, what was their political persuasion?

I don't expect an answer to these questions since you deign to pontificate on high, but what the heck!

lunarchick - 10:09pm Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7543 of 7557)

So you reckon that pilots can land on ships .... blindfolded?

North Korea

Comparative table : NK SK - Military http://www.koreascope.org/english/sub/1/index8.htm {Military the ONE option in the North - SK has an economy)

Military manpower—fit for military service: males: 3,449,880 (1998 est.)

Military manpower—reaching military age annually: males: 175,181 (1998 est.)

Military expenditures—dollar figure: $5 billion to $7 billion (1995 est.)

Military expenditures—percent of GDP: 25% (1995 est.)

http://www.worldrover.com/vital/korea_north.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/787837.stm

North Korea's "military downsizing" and its problems. ... As a result, number of the ordinary military in North Korea doubles that of South Korea ... http://www.peacekorea.org/eng/forum/002.html

(14 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense