New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 05:57pm Jul 13, 2003 EST (# 12999 of 13003)
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.

Unheeded Concerns and the Columbia Disaster By JOHN SCHWARTZ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/07/arts/television/07SCHW.html

Rodney Rocha was worried about the foam.

On the second day of the space shuttle Columbia's final mission, Mr. Rocha, a structural engineer at NASA, saw the grainy video that showed a chunk of insulating foam hitting the left wing of the shuttle Columbia some 80 seconds after launch. He watched it again and again, and in the following days he voiced urgent concerns to colleagues about the need to find a way to examine the wing, like getting pictures from spy satellites.

(he begged for these pictures,)

But shuttle managers decided against asking for pictures, and we all know what happened next. . . . .

Mr. Rocha's anguish, the events leading up to the loss of the shuttle and its crew and the aftermath are the subject of "Columbia: Final Mission," a compelling ABC News special tonight with Charles Gibson.

. . .

Mr. Rocha's agony over the mission and what might have been done is painful to watch. He wrote messages urging NASA to "beg" for photographic assistance. But Mr. Rocha comes off less as a hero than as a high-tech Hamlet who fretted during the flight but did not speak up during the meeting where management dismissed the problem. Mr. Rocha says he was frightened for his job: "I just couldn't do it."

Wasn't Rocha being realistic?

- - -

Did CIA people "sign off" on the President's speech much as Rocha did? After making their views known, in the ways that ought to matter in bureacracies that care about right answers? What can people realistically expect?

C.I.A. Chief Takes Blame in Assertion on Iraqi Uranium By DAVID E. SANGER and JAMES RISEN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/international/worldspecial/12INTE.html

President Asserts He Still Has Faith in Tenet and C.I.A. By RICHARD W. STEVENSON http://ea.nytimes.com/cgi-bin/email?http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/international/worldspecial/13TENE.html

Is it really true that a "mistake" was made? In humanly reasonable terms?

Who stands up to the President of the United States, from below Tenant's level? Or at Tenant's level?

lchic - 05:57pm Jul 13, 2003 EST (# 13000 of 13003)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Fred rushes for his Jumbo-Lingo compendium ...

rshow55 - 06:01pm Jul 13, 2003 EST (# 13001 of 13003)
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.

As I understand it - two elephants (perhaps especially the male one) showed less than perfect decorum in the presence of the POTUS.

I recall a poster I saw, years ago at Johns Hopkins Medical School:

Doing things around here is like mating elephants.

Things are done at a very high level.

Accompanied by a lot of trashing and trumpeting.

And it takes eighteen months to accomplish anything.

(may have the gestation period wrong, but something like that) .

fredmoore - 06:17pm Jul 13, 2003 EST (# 13002 of 13003)

Dawn ...

I must say it's nice to be on a first name basis.

And I have to say thanks for the Mick Jagger article ... quite precious really.

Jumbo-Lingo ... is that like Um .... Lingua-Franca? Perhaps Lingua-Longa or maybe some other Lingua?

But seriously, I did enjoy the article.

fredmoore - 07:57am Jul 14, 2003 EST (# 13003 of 13003)

Robert ...

"Fredmoore , your last posting isn't nearly up to the standard of your 9425 "

Foil:

A character in a play who sets off the main character or other characters by comparison. In Shakespeare's "Hamlet" Hamlet and Laertes are young men who behave very differently. While Hamlet delays in carrying out his mission to avenge the death of his father, Laertes is quick and bold in his challenge of the king over the death of his father. Much can be learned about each by comparing and contrasting the actions of the two.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense