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Missile Defense

Nazi engineer and Disney space advisor Wernher Von Braun helped give us rocket science. Today, the legacy of military aeronautics has many manifestations from SDI to advanced ballistic missiles. Now there is a controversial push for a new missile defense system. What will be the role of missile defense in the new geopolitical climate and in the new scientific era?

rshowalter - 09:03am Jan 27, 2001 EST (#612 of 636)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

A fine step, in my view.

A step away from danger. And a step that brings public attention to a central matter of life and death that has been ignored for too long.

I'm hoping for more steps. I believe, after careful study, people ought to find that complete nuclear disarmament, and the EFFECTIVE prohibition of nuclear weapons, will be a central, useful part of efforts to increase the safely of Americans, and others throughout the world.

EFFECTIVE prohibition of nuclear weapons will be hard - but I believe it is possible - and possible with a level of confidence that alternatives, in the real world, will not be able to match. And at less cost.

bigred152 - 12:53am Jan 28, 2001 EST (#613 of 636)

LOGIC has raised it's ugly little head in the MD debate, the third world have called for the money to be redirected towards their improved educational standards (rather than frittered on MD) so that they can start to raise standards and improve the everyday quality of life for masses of people .. that is the percentage who live in third world conditions ... would that be 50% or more?

bigred152 - 01:00am Jan 28, 2001 EST (#614 of 636)

Interesting to think about the cost of upkeeping all the 'unusable' weapon stocks .. how much would it cost ... and most often items of stock (missile silos) are considered redundant on the 10 year mark .. so perhaps much stock is outdated, redundant, dangerous ... and needs taking down ... in that this X-Army surplus can't be sold out through X-services retail outlets. So, each missile has been and is a Giant White Elephant ... that has been used to lull the public to indifference until they now realise the consequences of these crackers exploding in their silos and setting themselves off and the world on fire! Can anyone find a quote from Nostrodamus ... who tore up our future, threw it in the air, let it land willynilly in abstraction .. that says feeding the mind is a higher quality ideal than threatening to kill off the human race.

dirac_10 - 03:19am Jan 28, 2001 EST (#615 of 636)

Well, we've got Mr. avoid engineering and science at all costs now saying that we would be safer without any nuclear weapons.

Neglecting the fact that dozens of countries can easily and quickly build them right now. That dozens more will be able to do so in a few years. And we couldn't find a few scuds in the open desert with massive airpower flying overhead, we have absolutely no clue who has what where except when we are lucky.

As for the trivial cost. I look at it this way, if we knew for a fact that a nuclear missle was going to be headed our way in 5 years and would destroy a major city, the cost of the Manhattan Project would be a bargain.

And as for the old saw of helping all the poor people of the world, MD isn't what is causing the shortage of help. In fact, if the US catches a missle, there won't be any aid forthcoming at all for a long time. Just ICBM's for anyone that ever looked funny at us that doesn't improve their attitude immediately.

bigred152 - 06:54am Jan 28, 2001 EST (#616 of 636)

Raising the level of Education would more closely meet the expectations of both the USA and counterparts as they developed close cultural values.

The USA is about to catch an economic-downturn-missle according to www.economist.com

mhunter20 - 10:31am Jan 28, 2001 EST (#617 of 636)

The Law of Conservation of Energy:

Tesla

I mean this: If you pass a current into a circuit with large self-induction, and no radiation takes place, and you have a low resistance, there is no possibility of this energy getting out into space; therefore, the impressed impulses accumulate.

I'd like to explain what Tesla meant by low resistance.

Can light pass through a rock wall? What about radio waves? How are radio waves different from visible light?

Can rock conduct electricity? What is the wavelength for an electrical current of 12 Hz? What is the diameter of the Earth?

The Second Law of Thermodynamics and Tesla's Fueless Generator

Tesla believed in peace through mutual prosperity and he believed that prosperity required a larger source of energy. The source of energy for the Earth capacitor of .25 Farads, and thus the magnifying transmitter, is the sun. It is the sun's radiation that causes the difference in electrical potential between the ground and the ionosphere to be about 400000 Volts.

rshowalter - 12:11pm Jan 28, 2001 EST (#618 of 636)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Telsa could have used some analysis, that came later, involving the thermodynamic notion of "availability." Getting energy out of "the earth as a capacitor" is out of the question.

rshowalter - 12:11pm Jan 28, 2001 EST (#619 of 636)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Dirac , for samples of me "avoiding" science and engineering, you might hotkey below. The thread is on the Guardian Talk boards. Search my name ( I use my own name ) and see what I have to say there, and how that dialog is progressing. Excessive dietary calcium causes osteoporosis

mhunter20 - 02:26pm Jan 28, 2001 EST (#620 of 636)

rshowalter 1/28/01 12:11pm

I disagree. Do you suggest that Earth is not a capacitor?

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