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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 - 05:58am Sep 25, 2003 EST (# 13947 of 13958)
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.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/SP_51_n_Swim.htm was written on March 1, 2001 - a few days before Almarst appeared on this thread - on the old Science News Poetry thread.

In a certain sense I "swim pretty well" and have a certain background. And I think that there's maybe a 10% chance of the world blowing up per year , with messes as they are

Lets see --- six billion people And a tenth chance of dying from nukes per year A "statistical expected value" of a hundred Jewish holocausts, per year or one point six million "expected deaths" per day.

Maybe I've slipped a decimal point. But even so, what would YOU do in my postion? What would you expect of yourself?

I'm trying to be careful, and working hard .... and even prepared to take some personal risks -- and even be impolite.

Nothing special. ... You'd do the same in my position. Wouldn't you?

It seems to me that some facts need to be checked. With umpires, and in public, So that facts get clear. So the world can go on.

I've been a terrible pain in the ass around here It was the best place in the world I could figure To give it a try!

So I came here, yelling "help." And got helped and instructed and put through paces, by a smart and rough guy. And then actually rescued by a lady who can do things I could never know enough to dream of, beautifully.

. . . . I think nukes can come down And come down soon

It would be a relief for me, and I think a joy that, these days, folks have forgotten to even dream of.

Sure looks practical to me Why not soon?

Since that time, a great deal has been worked through on the questions of "why not?" and "why not soon?"

I've learned a great deal about how hard it is to disengage from fights - how explosive fights can be ( and I knew a lot then ).

But it has seemed to me that the work has been worth it - though muddier than it should have been. I've been guessing that, whatever else, this thread has had some attention from The New York Times - which matters - and also made the guesses set out here

I think we're both proud of the accomplishments described and put in context in b MD1999 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.wu9EbmPGIUp.1670554@.f28e622/2484 rshow55 5/4/02 10:39am

That work involved great contributions from "stand-ins" who have taken the role of senior Russian and American officials - - a role that has continued since March 1, 2000 207 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/218

Maybe this thread has been ineffectual - but my own guess is that it has made a difference, for the better, on how people look at things.

For reasons set out in MD1999 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.wu9EbmPGIUp.1670554@.f28e622/2484 rshow55 5/4/02 10:39am

I think this thread has made the world safer.

lchic - 06:00am Sep 25, 2003 EST (# 13948 of 13958)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

13945 --- "look look - my life is an open book" --- lyric

:)

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