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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 - 04:01pm Feb 18, 2001 EST (#710 of 711)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

In my view, things are going breathtakingly well on this test case. And, it seems to me, taking shape as quickly as anyone could reasonably hope for.

I wrote this about the situation, a little while ago, to a well connected Republican:

My own view, now, is that we may be in the middle of the cleanest, neatest, fairest, most beautiful, most bloodless resolution of a paradigm conflict in the history of science. That would be something we could all be proud of, and, in my opinion, might set a precedent that would be of long service to the United States of America.

Something of the situation is described in a letter of explanation and apology I wrote rshowalter How the Brain Works 1/21/01 5:10pm

Since that time, things have continued to go very well - and with the passage of time, problems that might have had to be resolved as fights are being handled, as people adjust their viewpoints, so that transitions can occur gracefully, and with an almost total lack of embarrassment or avoidable loss.

That letter, rshowalter How the Brain Works 1/21/01 5:10pm , describes an attempt at a redemptive and detonative solution, now in progress, that is redemptive in the technical sense of Secular Redemption ..... and the technical sense of "detonative" set out in Chain Breakers

rshowalter - 04:02pm Feb 18, 2001 EST (#711 of 711)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Many of the problems that are having to be handled, in a scientific culture, are of the same form as the most essential problems involved in a military paradigm change, where military forces have to adapt to new challenges, and learn to work more flexibly, and more "in clear" than they now do.

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