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.

rshow55 - 02:39pm Feb 2, 2003 EST (# 8497 of 8497)
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.

Weightings and pieces of evidence can be checked - - and when it matters enough - it is important that they be checked.

Identification of patterns has to proceed verification of patterns. That means that you have to speculate to make certain kinds of progress - and have to recognize that speculations have to be verified - verified many ways - because the same facts can be consistent with very many different stories. The more facts checked - especially facts that differ between stories - the greater the chance of getting right answers - when right answers matter because consequences matter.

This isn't proved - but it seems very likely:

Damage to tiles on Columbia serious enough to see happened on launch - and a lot of experts were asked to evaluate risks under conditions where it was clear what people wanted to hear.

What people wanted to hear happened to be technically wrong - and facts on which life and death depended were not checked. Was there really no way to get a close look at those tiles? Was the idea that tile loss wasn't critical really accepted - one wonders how the people who designed the shuttle in the beginning would have reacted to that. The idea of repression - in many senses - is an important one - one we need to think about - if we're to keep our big world from the kind of disaster that happened to the small world of Challenger.

Early Focus on Heat Tiles By WILLIAM J. BROAD and JAMES GLANZ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/national/02WRON.html

People and groups can be wrong. That's not unusual - or crazy - it is the human condition.

To get better consequences - to risk less - we have to be willing to get key facts checked - sometimes especially when people in power want to keep it from happening. If people with influence in nation states asked to have some key facts about this board checked - I believe it would be useful.

No one, reading this board, could think me infallible - or gisterme infallible.

I think most people, reading gisterme's postings - might respect a good deal - and yet have reason to doubt a great deal that gisterme says - and even doubt some things about gisterme's balanced judgement and good faith.

Is gisterme "just another guy?"

Or the President of the United States? Or someone close to him?

My guess, which could be wrong, is that a number of people associated with the UN Security Council have thought about this question.

If I'm right - with war looming - it would be sensible for them to take some steps to check it. It might save a lot of lives, and other costs.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense