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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 - 09:03pm Jun 14, 2003 EST (# 12534 of 12537)
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.

Re: "What would James Bond have done?" Bond embodied the social graces Fleming absorbed in society - and the Bond movies are interesting in part for such reasons.

11848 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.rL3rbgbgfnm.603670@.f28e622/13463 contains a little about the following.

On a Saturday in early September 2000 I went into the National Museum of Art in DC, just after the museum opened - looking for Natale Angier. Natalie Angier's picked a very unrecognizable likeness for her book image and image here, http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/ask_reporters/angier.html where her background and comments are very interesting. I'd heard from Dawn Riley that Ms. Angier had agreed to be there - and at Dawn's suggestion I'd gotten a videotape The Art of Telling Science March 27, 1999 - that gave me a good look at Ms. Angier - a very impressive, sensitive, warm, dominant human being - who combined femininity with enormous weight of judgement - and well earned status, gracefully carried. By this time I'd read her books and many of her articles - and had written to her and told her how good I thought her writing was. I told her the exact truth about how good I thought that writing was - and was conscious of my motives. I wanted to work with her, if a mutual interest could be established. On essentially any terms where she'd have me. And I needed to find a way to communicate enough about my security problems to permit me to function. I felt that if I she knew what I needed, and thought I deserved the help - she could make the contacts I'd need, in the sort of way Casey and I had discussed.

The New York Times not only knows how to tell the news - it also knows how to keep secrets that ought to be kept - and it has connections that permit it to communicate anything it wishes to to anyone of reasonable status anywhere in the world. I expected that Ms. Angier had communicated enough with Dawn Riley and George Johnson, and read enough of my postings - to know that I had security problems. I hoped she'd also listened to one or both of the conference phone calls Dawn had organized for me, that seemed to involve NYT people. ( On one of those calls, I'd been confused, and had thought I was dealing with Angier - when the person calling me identified herself as Dawn Riley rather than Natalie Angier on that call - I was so disoriented, of a short time, that I dropped the phone - and Dawn gracefully comforted me and carried me past my embarrassment to a good conversation.)

I'd driven in from Madison Wisconsin for that meeting - a meeting that my wife knew about - driving the last leg from about 4:30 am on.

I had arrived in Washington a couple of hours early - enough time to look at a Washington Post and a New York Times - and review my thoughts. There are certain things you can only communicate face to face, after building up rapport - and I was glad that Natalie Angier, who I admired enormously, was willing to meet with me on that Saturday morning. I had my head full of things I wanted to say - ways I hoped the meeting would go. The only way to look spontaneous in a high stakes situation that I've ever managed is to be rehearsed - and I felt that I'd thought of a lot of possibilities - enough so I wouldn't fall flat on my face.

I'm a little under 6'1", and weighed about 205 at the time, had a 45" chest, a 35" waist, and was in fair trim. I could, I think, have done fair justice to a military uniform by active duty standards. (Two years of worrying later, my weight was 165, and I'd lost a lot of bearing. I now have my muscle back.) My hair's gray - almost white, my face is lined - and at that time I was 52 years old, and looked it. I'm not handsome but not terrible looking - though I do have a physical defect that some people (I'm sure short people especially) notice. I got my nose broken a few

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense