New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 06:57pm Jul 8, 2001 EST (#6774 of 6776)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Now, because reflective coatings invalidate the whole lasar weapon concept for NMD, the points below are mute in a sense -- but not insignificant -- since different logical patterns matter, and since the gross nature of the lasar weapons program frauds need to be set out - - because it is important to understand what has happened, and how corrupt the program is.

MD6732 rshowalter 7/7/01 12:06pm .... MD6730 rshowalter 7/7/01 12:01pm
MD6702 rshowalter 7/6/01 4:55pm

gisterme - if you have any reason to think that the controls and optics for the "orbiting lasar weapon" proposals could do their job - either logically or based on tests -- could you share that with us ?

Have you considered "details" such as thermal distortion? And difficulties with getting better than Hubble Space Telescope optics with the tuned reflective coatings that have to be used ?

Numbers matter here. It isn't enough that things can be built that "sort of look like what's needed."

Is there any reason at all to think that the resolution on controls is there - or in prospect?

rshowalter - 07:58pm Jul 8, 2001 EST (#6775 of 6776)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There have been things I haven't had time and attention to do today -- one is to do justice to one particularly wonderful Week in Review piece:

WORD FOR WORD / The Long Gray Line For Tomorrow's Army, Cadets Full of Questions by SERGE SCHMEMANN http://nytimes.com/2001/07/08/weekinreview/08SCHM.html?pagewanted=all

I found a lead in quote moving, and very relevant to circumstances today.

" Your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable — it is to win our wars. All other public purposes will find others for their accomplishment. Yours is the profession of arms — the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that the very obsession of your public service must be duty, honor, country."

MacArthur spoke those words after he'd been relieved of command by Truman -- for wanting to widen a war where he'd already ordered the fire bombing of cities, and the destruction of dikes, that killed more than 2 million Koreans in the North -- almost all of them civilians.
MD1308 rshowalter 3/22/01 11:48am .... MD1309 almarst-2001 3/22/01 11:54am
MD2628 rshowalter 4/26/01 9:43am

Some reservations about MacArthur's position -- concern about its subordination -- a subordination that, in a sense, MacArthur assumes, were expressed in President Eisenhower's Farewell Address http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm

Cadets wonder what MacArthur's words mean, and in what ways they should and should not be followed today. We should, too.

MD6285 rshowalter 6/29/01 1:08pm ... MD6286 rshowalter 6/29/01 1:08pm

In addition to morality, there are also matters of technical detail.

MacArthur insisted on the importance of technically correct answers - clearly transmitted and WE SHOULD, TOO.

rshowalter - 07:59pm Jul 8, 2001 EST (#6776 of 6776)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

gisterme , I asked some questions, and the questions were made with some assumptions that you might correct if they are wrong. Do you have answers?

Out for tonight.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense