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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?

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rshow55 - 09:32pm Jun 6, 2002 EST (#2476 of 2477)

A problem is that I've written things about myself on the NYT and Guardian threads, and of course, they have consequences. Ten months after I'd started posting on the NYT Missile Defense thread, after many attempts (I felt) to engage the government and communicate, I found it necessary to write passages set out in http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/289 and http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/294

"I say here that I knew Bill Casey a little.

"And of course, everything's deniable - I'm not sure anybody has any records at all. Maybe I'm a literary figure -- call me Ishmael.

"The story I like best about me, in this regard, is that I'm just a guy who got interested in logic, and military issues. A guy who got concerned about nuclear danger, and related military balances, and tried to do something about it. Based on what he knew - with no access to special information of any kind, he made an effort to keep the world from blowing up, using the best literary devices he could fashion, consistent with what he knew or could guess.

(The reason I liked this story about me so much was that it seemed to me to be so improbable. It seemed to me to be a story that made me seem much more creative and courageous than I actually was ... MD2156 rshow55 5/11/02 11:11am . .

Let me go on with another story. . . . .

Am I "Ishmael"? -- I've written on web forums - forums where artistic license is common, and maybe even expected. I'd like a chance to debrief, so you and your associates can check the things that can be checked.

I need to get my restrictions clarified, but I also believe that having a chance to debrief would serve the interest of the government. And might do so, however the government decided to deal with me in the end.

I believe that in the course of my debriefing, it is possible that the government could learn useful things about "connecting the dots" in complicated circumstances - especially where there is "too much" information.

I believe that a review of what happened at AEA, whether you accept my story about Casey or not, might lead to solutions to some problems that have been sources of concern in high government circles for decades.

"AEA was an effort to make specific breakthroughs in automotive design, which were made; to greatly extend the culture's ability to apply and fit mathematical analysis to complex engineering tasks; to demonstrate a new engineering business structure generalizing Lockheed's "skunk works"; and was a test bed that the government and I hoped would let me find the "hidden problem" in applied mathematics that seemed crucial in missile guidance and much else. MD2116 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?14@167.tbElarUDLNV^150679@.f28e622/2621... MD2450 rshow55 6/3/02 3:23pm

We made progress in all those areas, and I'd like a chance to explain what that progress was. I'd also like to explain why I believe that AEA investors (who were blameless, as I was not) ought, in a totally fair world, to be entitled to compensation. MD2122 rshow55 5/9/02 5:25pm ... Not all the wrongs of the world can be righted. But I'd appreciate a chance to state that case on an administrative basis.

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