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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?

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

rshow55 - 08:12pm Aug 16, 2002 EST (# 3748 of 3766)

MD2314 rshow55 5/19/02 3:03pm is one of fourteen postings referencing MD 1075-1076 rshow55 4/4/02 1:20pm

We can sort some key things out, in the national interest. All it takes is the will, and a willingness to acknowledge that technical details matter - when ignoring them can waste limited resources, cause us to take unnecessary risks, and permit unnecessary tragedies.

MD1620 rshow55 4/21/02 7:55pm to MD1629 rshow55 4/21/02 8:11pm show arguments lchic and I have worked hard on. Especially 1623 rshow55 4/21/02 7:59pm

" ...different people, with different views, have to cooperate in ways that fit human and practical realities, and it often works. It happens because, in areas where accomodation occurs, there are common bodies of fact , that people may feel differently about, but about which they agree in operational terms. So that people can be "reading from the same page" -- and with the pages objectively right.

We need some islands of technical fact to be determined, beyond reasonable doubt, or in a clear context.

We need those "islands" to be clear, at a level beyond politics - - at a level where people with very different interests and feelings can refer to "the same page" - and a page including points that can be both widely understood, and widely trusted.

Unless we can get these "islands of technical fact" we're very unlikely to reach good decisions. And the human stakes, and the stakes for the whole world, are high enough that we need good decisions.

Other nations have a right to expect rational and honest conduct from us. And to ask questions about our press releases and our claims. Lies are unstable. And they SHOULD BE.

I'm trying to do exactly what Bill Casey would have wanted me to do, and trying to be true to my other obligations, as well. Some things need to be fixed.

The United States deserves better than to have to depend on lies.

bbbuck - 11:14pm Aug 16, 2002 EST (# 3749 of 3766)
'tell mom I won't be home tonight'....henry silva ..'The Mice'...outer limits...

loumazza, I lost the link to your site someone(who would that be, rshow55?) put up, but I want to ask you something. I've been visiting for awhile now, and it has been reported you have talked to rshow55 over the phone for 3 hours. So you know the guy better than I do, of course.
My question is this.
Has rshow55 lost his mind?
He will post 5 or 6 posts of some incomprehensible mish mosh, and then post 3 or 4 posts that say what a great job those posts were.
Though I find it fascinating and quite funny, I must ask you, do you have any idea what this madman is talking about? tia.
Perhaps I'm just not putting in enough effort to understand this person.
At least lchic makes sense.

mazza9 - 12:04am Aug 17, 2002 EST (# 3750 of 3766)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

bbbuck:

Robert has been known to answer Yes No questions in under 500 words and then consider the answer telegraphic! Robert has admitted to psychiatric counseling. Another poster surmised that Robert may have had an eplileptic incident. You can judge for yourself.

Robert I do equate the Palomeros accident with Chernobyl since they were accidents to which lchic inferred nuclear annhilation, which never occurred. The B-52 collided with a KC-135 tanker due to poor refueling positioning. The B-52 broke apart and 3 of the 4 Hydrogen bombs were scattered over farmland in southern Spain the other bomb deployed its parachute and drifted off the coastline and sank in over 1000ft of water where it was later recovered intact. The three bombs that struck the earth had their explosive triggers detonate which spread plutonium over hundreds of acres. As I remember it the AEC had to find the plutonium and scrape up all the farm land for at least a foot deep. All the equipment used in the recovery and the soil was packaged and carted off to Hanford in Washington state for storage. It was a mess non the less.

.I believe that the Chernobly mess was one of the final straws that broke the Soviet Union's back. The real nuclear hell was a hitherto non published event east of the Urals where waste from their nuclear bomb program was diverted into lagoons. The water acted as a moderator but soon so much waste was accumulated that the heat from the nuclear waste dried out the water and then "exploded" and destroyed thousands of acres and many men and animals and vegetation. This is why I fear when 3rd world countries with just the rudimentary skills go about building these weapons and threatening the world with horrendous accidents.

LouMazza

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