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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 - 09:18pm Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5208 of 5219)
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.

The 1986 Pulitzer prize for explanatory journalism went to the staff of New York Times -

. " For a six-part comprehensive series on the Strategic Defense Initiative, which explored the scientific, political and foreign policy issues involved in "Star Wars."

4005 rshow55 8/29/02 7:01pm

The weakness of truth - and the presentation of it has been a key concern at the TIMES for a long time - often with the highest possible stakes Turning Away for the Holocaust by Max Frankel http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/14/specials/onefifty/20FRAN.html . . and stakes are high now.

rshow55 - 10:03pm Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5209 of 5219)
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.

N.Korea Urges Non - Aggression Pact with U.S. Filed at 9:45 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-usa.html

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday it would address U.S. concerns about its nuclear weapons program if the United States concludes a non-aggression pact and guarantees the sovereignty of the communist state.

``(North Korea) considers that it is a reasonable and realistic solution to the nuclear issue to conclude a non-aggression treaty between (North Korea) and the U.S. if the grave situation of the Korean peninsula is to be bridged over,'' said the ministry in a statement carried on the state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA).

``The settlement of all problems with (North Korea), a small country, should be based on removing any threat to its sovereignty and right to existence,'' it said.

It seems to me that this is a reasonable position, within any framework of international law that has been set out clearly in the last half century. It has to be consistent with US security. But why can't it be?

During the Korean war, the UN, totally led by the United States - knowingly killed more than 2 million N. Korean civilians (in a country committed to ancestor worship) with dam bombing and fire bombings.

Imperfections on their side, too?

Big ones.

That's not necessarily being denied.

Why not work to make peace now?

In ways that can be explained in public.

mazza9 - 11:13pm Oct 24, 2002 EST (# 5210 of 5219)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

gisterme:

In a nutshell. NASA is having difficulty completing the ISS. My plan, finish the construction and grant to a Space University Foundation which will draw on education dollars to expand and furnish it for students/teachers. The Morril Land Grant ct of 1862 established the state university system and thus was born the A&Ms. Space University would be named McAuliff A&M, (my idea) and would become the 21st Century Institute for Higher Learning, (pun intended). visit www.nssnt.org to read my essay and other ideas.

Thanks

kalter.rauch - 12:26am Oct 25, 2002 EST (# 5211 of 5219)
Earth vs <^> <^> <^>

rshow55 10/24/02 2:03pm

Mazza, you...advocate setting up a University in Space. That shows an astonishing absence of judgement - an insensitivity to the size of things - and how numbers matter - practically and morally.

Outside of drugs, sex, music and maybe comic books, space is one of the very few areas of knowledge that really interest students. We have no choice but to feed that interest if adequate numbers of scientists and engineers are to be generated. A teacher in space is worth the weight in gold in launch costs if it energizes thousands of students into pursuing technological careers.

But you would compare a Christa McCaullife or a Barbra Morgan (the next teacher in space) to a coke bottle apparently. The program is going to payoff big in the next couple decades and probably lead sooner or later to a University in Space......in spite of your cynicism.

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