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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 - 02:58pm Jun 1, 2003 EST (# 12277 of 12277)
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.

I served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1970-1977 as an enlisted man. There are checkable points involved. A while back, I posted this.

rshow55 - 09:56am Oct 31, 2002 EST (# 5402 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@192.3VMVaTnoVsr^791092@.f28e622/6768

manjumicha 10/30/02 7:05pm - - - thanks.

Are we over-relying on human capacities? Maybe - but we're trying to expand them, at least a little.

You're right enough that

"Unfortunately, most people do "get off" on missiles, bombs and wars. Contrary to your valient faith in the "goodness" of man, the reality is that people will do evil things and get off on violence if they think they can get away with it without too much cost to themselves . . .

But they do care about costs to themselves, if they think about them. People "get off" on sex, too - but more often than not - they show a good deal of restraint in their daily lives, and expect and get a good deal of restraint from others.

As for me, I know a certain amount about military matters, and fighting, and sometimes have been known to "get off" on them. Even work on them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/30/international/europe/30RUSS.html deals with a tragedy and a technical mishap. The NYT commented about it in

The Search for a Knockout Weapon http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/30/opinion/30WED3.html

"Russia's use of a dangerous gas to knock out terrorists has underscored the urgent need to develop safer methods to immobilize hostage takers without harming their hostages. "

and got me to thinking about the second patent I ever got.

For an atomizing nozzle that was a dual purpose device - a way of investigating mixing fluid mechanics, for internal combusion engine emission control and other purposes - - and also an idea that interested people at Ft. Dietrick concerned with preparation of anthrax and other spores. The idea was that if you could flash dry an aerosol where, odds were, there was only one spore per droplet . . you could get some very "good" agents. I wasn't exactly proud to work on that. But I did. Under false pretenses, too.

Did much of that work at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, as an investment of the University - - and penetrating some classification defenses - and giving a report of scramjet mixing. ( The effort got messed up when I got a very low draft number - and had to get into a Army Reserve unit on a day's notice, and go to basic training - leaving a couple of my friends stranded at APL while I did that time.

Note - Milton Eisenhower told me to go to an Army Reserve station, take an aptitude test - and serve my time. It was a small breaking of the rules - and I would have gone to Vietnam if asked - but it seemed a reasonable compromise. I served seven years in the Army Reserve - not working at it very hard - but doing my duty as I saw it, and getting a "feel" for military administration from an enlisted perspective.

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