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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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rshow55 - 06:15pm May 30, 2003 EST (# 12220 of 15266)
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.

Quick estimate. If I were permitted to function as Eisenhower intended - we could more than double economic growth rates - with much lower pollution - in ways people could clearly understand - in ways consistent with human values.

Reason is that, most of the time - the big showstoppers are few - and at times where there are no showstoppers - people can make a lot of progress.

For a long while past, energy has been the biggest showstopper - the biggest constraint on economic growth. The biggest military problem.

If you are asking for full and stable solutions to the world energy problem - as a whole - the number of kinds of possible solutions is a fairly short list.

Solar and nuclear power are two broad classifications on that list.

A comforting fact is that there are likely to be unique optimal solutions - far better than competitive solutions - if you can find them.

My main economic message is "you can."

rshow55 - 06:18pm May 30, 2003 EST (# 12221 of 15266)
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.

Jorian319 - "enquiring minds" may only guess - but the NYT could easily find out - if it does not know now. Might be plural - posters .

rshow55 - 06:19pm May 30, 2003 EST (# 12222 of 15266)
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.

Eisenhower was naive - a real boy scout - in one respect. He felt that - if the answers were available - the President of the United States, and the organization under the President - would have the wit to use those answers.

rshow55 - 06:30pm May 30, 2003 EST (# 12223 of 15266)
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.

Solar energy's worth a look 12194 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.fcbVbb1wQOl.3615770@.f28e622/13832

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

- - - -

At a basic level - some of the world's most basic problems with poverty - and military conflict - are "as simple as meeting those prices."

Given an objective like that - getting to an optimal solution is mostly in the realm of Edison's "invention" - - where

"Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

But if the objectives are clearly defined - the perspiration is worth it because optimal solutions in terms of clear assumptions can be found. And reasonable assumptions can be arrived at.

So that problems can get permanently solved.

- - -

But I believe that all such solutions require patterns of planning that the United States used to identify with - but has rejected. That's a big reason I want permission (and yes, in practice, I need permission) to talk seriously to operations like Deutsche Bank Securities - that are in contact with more open-minded nation states than the US under GWB.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense