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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

possumdag - 07:13pm Jun 5, 2001 EST (#4522 of 4529)
Possumdag@excite.com

Going back to a point i made above:

A sensless death brings with it pain, grief, suffering, a void that might have been filled by the continuance of a beautiful life.

A number of such deaths are that one death replicated.

Alex that sensless death is your concern marks you out as being very human. The aim of this thread, additional to mulling over past mistakes, has to be related to trying to pre-fix upcoming arising problems to avoid and limit sensless death to enable people to fulfil their life destiny.

The past can be annalysed and checked, the present should be lived ethically, the future should be lived within new frameworks of understanding laid down by people who DO care.

rshowalter - 09:01pm Jun 5, 2001 EST (#4523 of 4529)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

This thread may be at an end - though part of me hopes not. -- It is important, not only that the truth be told, but that the truth be strong enough -- that it persuade -- that it not be, in Brecht's haunting phrase, somehow, too weak.

I'll be back about that. At the very least, I'll recapitulate and summarize some of the things that this thread, in my view, has taken much closer to closure than before.

I feel this strongly. There are persuasion jobs that need to be done, so that the world can turn out to be more to almarst's liking, and more to mine.

The past may be understood, and that understanding is necessary to make decisions about the future.

But the future can be changed.

rshowalter - 09:08pm Jun 5, 2001 EST (#4524 of 4529)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I don't feel like going on about technical possibilities just now, in light of what Almarst has said. Anyway, some facts, once you see them, have consequence that trace though pretty easily.

The energy content of world oil consumption (70 billion barrrels/day) could be matched, if 2.1 x 10^11 square meters of photocell area - at 5% efficiency, could be equatiorially placed -- there's plenty of room for that in equatorial oceans (that area, in one floating square 460 km on a side would look very small on a map).

I think odds of practical, thin, inexpensive floatation, under equatorial ocean conditions, look good. The plastic film supporting structure for that would have a volume around 4.5 x 10^6 cubic meter - which would take something like 5 days of oil supply to make.

Energy could be transported as hydrogen. The hydrogen would be useful as feedstocks, and, combined with high carbon sources now in oversupply, would work well for making natural gas.

Practical? - yes - I think so.

It would also be practical to put enough photosynthetic area on equatorial oceans to fix all the carbon needed to control global warming. (The carbon would have to be disposed of -- at the bottom of the sea -- taken out of the photosynthetic cycle.) (about the same area would be needed for this as would be needed for solar cells.)

Practical? Yes, I think it could be made to be.

Both approaches, it seems to me, could be a lot cheaper, and more direct, than conservation in a world where most people are now impoverished, and NEED much more energy than is now available if that is to change.

We could have unlimited energy -- and the engineering resources to make that supply real are available - in some ways "going wrong for want of something to do" -- trying to make weapons that nobody really needs, and that nobody can figure out how to make work.

htfiii - 09:25pm Jun 5, 2001 EST (#4525 of 4529)

Rumsfeld's Militarization/Arms Race in Space

This is by far the most serious issue of all that are on the table.

It is very good that the political change in the Senate seems to have the ability to hold this at bay, but the full importance of this issue does not seem to find it's way into the news.

I think it is important to present the big picture on what has been proposed by Bush's administration.

Eisenhower instituted a policy against the military use of space because he had seen the effects of militarization and way these matters swing out of all control under uncontrollable political circumstances and unleash destruction on a global scale. WWII for one example.

If this policy of militarization of space is implemented, and make no mistake Rumsfeld is talking about missiles hanging over everyone's head, then:

Do you think the US will be King of the World ? No one else will put their missiles in orbit ? Our satellites will operate with impunity in this newly militarized zone of space ?

If the US militarizes space, then:

Other nations will feel the need to protect themselves by doing the same.

In this new environment, conflict becomes much more likely and the timeline for life and death decisions goes on a hair trigger. It is a tactical nightmare for everyone in the world.

Our satellites in orbit become fair game for military maneuvers against our interests.

Without these satellites, the military advantage of the US is astoundingly diminished.

The business interests of our nation and the whole world are thrown into turmoil and the amazing years of technological advantage they have given us can disappear in seconds.

I suggest that the US can and should develop greater defensive capabilities.

But to predicate those capabilities on rescinding the long standing US policy of the non-militarization of space (in place since the dawn of the space-age), and replacing it with orbiting missiles and veiled threats of a mysterious defense capability, is not only foolish, it is absolutely and utterly insane.

This genie cannot be put back in the bottle if implemented.

If the Bush people screw this one up-

The subject being discussed here is really the Modern State of Life on Earth.

If you think the clock of our modern way of life cannot be turned back to a far more primitive age, think again.

rshowalter - 09:39pm Jun 5, 2001 EST (#4526 of 4529)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I don't have to think very long to agree with you totally.

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