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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 - 07:20am Jul 12, 2003 EST (# 12966 of 12968)
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.

lchic's ability to select important articles is a wonder. http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Dza0bfYkpYT.823632@.f28e622/14636

From Oil shocked by Randeep Ramesh http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,996305,00.html which starts

A desire to loosen Opec's stranglehold on petroleum prices lies behind Bush's interest in Africa and his plans for Iraq . .

America's new world order appears founded on a declaration of independence. George Bush, an oil man from an oil state, wants America to wean itself off a dangerous addiction to faraway hydrocarbons.

As the president's national energy plan puts it, this is "a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers that do not always have American interests at heart".

. . .

Since 1973, when Arab nations imposed an embargo on oil exports to the US, US presidents have been promising to end America's reliance on energy from potentially unfriendly sources.

The answer is to come up with much more energy - from stable sources.

12928 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Dza0bfYkpYT.823632@.f28e622/14604 cited yesterday's ExxonMobil Advertorial:

. A look back at a look ahead http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/files/corporate/100703.pdf

World total proved oil reserves are about 1.2 trillion barrels - about 700 billion of that from the Middle East.

At current production rates (about 75 million barrells/day) that's 16,000 days of production. A lot of oil - almost 44 years of production at current rates. At the rates the developing world would like - perhaps a 20 year supply.

But if you ask "what happens to the children?" - not so much - even with completely stable production.

And if you ask - "what about global warming" - the short term sufficiency (given stable production) isn't sufficient comfort either.

The technical job of getting the world an ample and permanent source of energy is only moderately difficult. The organizational job is somewhat harder - because in the short and medium term - complex cooperation can be blocked by interested parties - who, as ordinary people, can only be expected to have a limited concern for the public interest.

Somebody owns those reserves, and the valuation of the reserves in the ground is based on expectations.

A change in expectations that changed the value of those reserves by $1/barrell would reduce the valuation that specific people own by 1.2 trillion dollars - 400 times the annual gross sales of The New York Times Co.

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Dza0bfYkpYT.823632@.f28e622/14445 includes this:

"For the cost of a good movie - you might get a good movie about large scale solar energy "taking a piece" of the oil industry and do all the basic engineering that the job would take. Might be good salesmanship, too." There would be some dramatic possibilities in the stakes involved. George Bush, an oil man from an oil state, would have to resolve some conflicts himself - to American energy independence possible. How difficult would it be for Bush to make decisions that would reduce the price of oil? How difficult would it be for the leaders of EU countries - especially France and Germany. What if there were some other military issues involved - some going back for years? Might make for an interesting screen play.

I've been working on a "briefing" about permanently solving the world's energy problems, and solving the global warming problem, as well since Jun 27 12717-12718 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Dza0bfYkpYT.823632@.f28e622/14385

We know enough now to solve these problems - the energy problem on a profitable basis - t

rshow55 - 07:29am Jul 12, 2003 EST (# 12967 of 12968)
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.

We know enough now to solve these problems - the energy problem on a profitable basis - the carbon sequestration problem at a cost that ought to be satisfactory.

12852-6 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Dza0bfYkpYT.823632@.f28e622/14524

Technical solutions need to be crafted and fit into workable social (including political) arrangements.

That will have to involve nation states besides the United States -and more likely than not - will require those other nation states to take a leading part. Though I wish it were otherwise.

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