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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?

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lchic - 08:29pm May 29, 2003 EST (# 12193 of 12209)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

The blogger above has a GU note :

Perhaps all this confusion is attributable to the smoke and mirrors of war. The Guardian asks readers to help track down who coined the phase

The first casualty of War is Truth

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Was that his observation or policy ?

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Getting to truth should be easier today - lies being harder to hide ... but ... those lies have to be dug over and through ... a job for the NYTimes perhaps ... ?

jorian319 - 08:37pm May 29, 2003 EST (# 12194 of 12209)

Jorian are you a 'blogger'?

No time for it... :-(

I do know lots of them. Some are blogger than others.

Re giving 3W the 21C solutions - good idea but won't happen. 21C (or 22C) solutions will be expen$ive at first, and decentralized availability will come at a premium. Eventually, if successful, it will exert downward force on the cost of "old" tech (probably what we call "new" now).

rshow55 - 09:54pm May 29, 2003 EST (# 12195 of 12209)
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.

http://www.oilcrisis.com/debate/oilcalcs.htm

"1,750 Gb, the estimate of all the conventional oil that there ever was or ever will be, is less than the amount of sunlight that hits the earth in one 24 hour day."

The best photocells have about 20% efficiency - lower efficiencies are easier.

Did some quick and dirty calculations.

If photocells could be mass produced and deployed in large scale mass production at these low prices - the world would have an essentially unlimited supply of energy (transported as hydrogen) at 10$/barrel oil energy equivalent before transportation costs.

For 5% net efficiency - $2.36/square meter

For 10% net efficiency - $4.72/square meter

And a LOT of square meters.

That's amortizing units in 18 months or less.

Doesn't look especially hard - technically - or even that hard socio-technically.

Back tomorrow.

almarst2002 - 11:38pm May 29, 2003 EST (# 12196 of 12209)

"Who does he think he is? God?" asks Eric Robrecht, who plays the piano in the bar. "I worry for my children, your children, the children of the world." http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-05-29-france-usat_x.htm

HE JUST MIGHT... IF HE CAN THINK AT ALL.

almarst2002 - 11:47pm May 29, 2003 EST (# 12197 of 12209)

'We Must Arrest the Leaders of the Anti-War Movement," declares the Web site of syndicated radio personality and newly minted MSNBC host Michael Savage. To protect our troops, Savage argues, we should resurrect the Sedition Act of 1918 and make criticism of the government illegal during wartime.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=3688

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