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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 Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17225 of 17228)
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.

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There are some "iron walls" that have to become more permeable to exchange of information - and to dealmaking that logically requires exceptional but clear "breaching" of those walls.

rshow55 - 06:15pm May 30, 2003 EST (# 12220 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.GfcHbeXyX3y.2661712@.f28e622/13858

Quick estimate. If I were permitted to function as Eisenhower intended - we could more than double economic growth rates - with much lower pollution - in ways people could clearly understand - in ways consistent with human values.

Reason is that, most of the time - the big showstoppers are few - and at times where there are no showstoppers - people can make a lot of progress.

For a long while past, energy has been the biggest showstopper - the biggest constraint on economic growth. The biggest military problem.

If you are asking for full and stable solutions to the world energy problem - as a whole - the number of kinds of possible solutions is a fairly short list.

Solar and nuclear power are two broad classifications on that list.

A comforting fact is that there are likely to be unique optimal solutions - far better than competitive solutions - if you can find them.

My main economic message is "you can."

rshow55 - 06:19pm May 30, 2003 EST (# 12222 of 15266)

Eisenhower was naive - a real boy scout - in one respect. He felt that - if the answers were available - the President of the United States, and the organization under the President - would have the wit to use those answers.

rshow55 - 06:30pm May 30, 2003 EST (# 12223 of 15266)

Solar energy's worth a look 12194 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.GfcHbeXyX3y.2661712@.f28e622/13832

http://www.oilcrisis.com/debate/oilcalcs.htm

"1,750 Gb, the estimate of all the conventional oil that there ever was or ever will be, is less than the amount of sunlight that hits the earth in one 24 hour day."

The best photocells have about 20% efficiency - lower efficiencies are easier.

Did some quick and dirty calculations.

If photocells could be mass produced and deployed in large scale mass production at these low prices - the world would have an essentially unlimited supply of energy (transported as hydrogen) at 10$/barrel oil energy equivalent before transportation costs.

For 5% net efficiency - $2.36/square meter

For 10% net efficiency - $4.72/square meter

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At a basic level - some of the world's most basic problems with poverty - and military conflict - are "as simple as meeting those prices."

Given an objective like that - getting to an optimal solution is mostly in the realm of Edison's "invention" - - where

"Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

But if the objectives are clearly defined - the perspiration is worth it because optimal solutions in terms of clear assumptions can be found. And reasonable assumptions can be arrived at.

So that problems can get permanently solved.

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But I believe that all such solutions require patterns of planning that the United States used to identify with - but has rejected. That's a big reason I want permission (and yes, in practice, I need permission) to talk seriously to operations like Deutsche Bank Securities - that are in contact with more open-minded nation states than the US under GWB.

Here are summaries and links to much exposition on solving the world's energy problems using the "Eisenhower scale" optimal solutions

13039 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.GfcHbeXyX3y.2661712@.f28e622/14716

13040 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.GfcHbeXyX3y.2661712@.f28e622/14717

13041 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.GfcHbeXyX3y.2661712@.f28e622/14718

13042 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.GfcHbeXyX3y.2661712@.f28e622/14719

If this thread is deleted without being archived - those links will take work to rec

rshow55 - 06:02am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17226 of 17228)
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.

If this thread is deleted without being archived - the links above, and many others, will take work to reconstitute on http://www.mrshowalter.net/ or elsewhere. I'm having to anticipate that that will happen - because I'm having ( to quote a line from the movie Cool Hand Luke - "a problem of communication."

The whole culture now has a web of "problems of communication" that cut off a great deal of hope - but there may be orderly, symettric, and (more-or-less) harmonious ways to improve that situation.

The best of them would make the king of the New York Times happier - and the NYT a better, more prosperous organization - with enhanced status.

In the near term, I expect a train wreck instead. But right now, I just happen to be smiling. I know that won't last.

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If you study how the railroads were built in the US - all the techniques that actually worked were outlawed. For pretty good reasons - overwhelmingly reasons of fairness.

We have to consider fairness. But also find ways that work. I'm wondering whether, and if so how, I might be able to coerce or cajole the New York Times into actually letting the work on this thread be effective.

Sometimes, as Casey told me

"it is easier to get permission than it is to get permission."

Though, quite often, permission helps. Sometimes it happens by inches.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense