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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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gisterme - 03:12am Sep 23, 2003 EST (# 13869 of 13875)

"...It's really not the same thing now is it?..."

Not in terms of specific instance. It's only the same thing in principle.

"...Australia doesn't export dog meat to the US..."

Does anybody? The US doesn't export dog meat or "roo" meat either as far as I know. So what was your point in saying that?

"...Also, I believe the US could and should afford to do both [KAEP and MD] in order to cover all the possibilities in an uncertain future..."

Then you're not quite as confident as you've previously seemed that KAEP will be an effective missile defense. Your candor is admirable.

"...Yesterday's failures are the stepping stones to Tomorrow's success"..."

That's a wise saying.

"...We have an OBLIGATION to past and future generations to call this concept KAEP..."

That's up to you. I only made an explained suggestion that I thought might grease the skids a bit for you.

"...True enough, but ABUNDANCE makes that issue moot..."

Are you saying that wastefulness is justified just because there is plenty? I hope not. "Waste not want not" is also a wise saying.

"...The foothills of the Rockies would be just the ticket for Ca..."

Could be, but the transmission lines would be very long. However, high temperature superconductor technology or other energy transmission technologies might eventually make the problem go away anyway. We can hope for that.

"...The money saved in relation to 'eradicated fossil fuel pollutants' would cover the cost of power transmission and indeed the initial R&D, by itself..."

That's an interesting statement. How much money is now spent on "uneradicated fossil fuel pollutants"? I guess I just don't understand your statement.

True enough that the cost of fossil fuel power plants is significantly increased because of the pollution mitigation technology that has had to be incorporated into them by law, at least here in the US. However you've not shown that the capital expenditure for a fossil fuel plant so equipped (as virtually all in the US are) would be any more than the capital expenditure for a dry rock geothermal plant with a comparable output.

Hmm. I have an idea, Fred. We might be onto something here that would be more a more palatable means of financeing KAEP than the one you suggest, at least for folks who think more like I do.

A better argument to justify the geothermal power plants would be that the eliminated cost of purchasing fossil fuel would soon amortize the cost of the plant, the transmission system and the R&D.

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Assuming that the two types of plant would have similar mantenance and staffing costs, then the gain in fiscal efficiency that would come from "free" heat could be used to finance KAEP. That is, consumers would initially continue to pay the same costs for energy that they're paying now with but the extra "profit" gained by not buying fuel being used to pay for the initial construction of the KAEP infrastructure. Once the worldwide infrastructre was complete then consumers would be pleased to see their energy costs go down.

The way to do that would be for the industrialized nations to build their own plants first (because they could afford to capitalize them) and once that intial capitalization was covered, the extra profit could be dedicated to building plants in other places that can't otherwise afford them. That would be a sort of backdoor way of redistributing wealth over time without making any impact to the cost of living that folks are already used to. Why not just let KAEP pay for itself as it goes? The more geo plants that came on line, the more money that would become available for other plants and parts of the KAEP infrastructure. It would also provide a built-in "as you go" assurance that the system was actually working and profitable. If it weren't then why continu

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