Re: STAR WARS WONT WORK. THE END.

[6155GUASTELL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>From John Gelles:

>	[Reply to subject message which sees Republican
>	funding for star wars as pork for the arms industry
>	and as possible cause for fruitless engagement in
>	an arms race.]
>
>	Dear Stephan,
>
>	The point of continuing with defense expenditures to
>	protect us against missiles, after Russia and the US have
>	ceased targeting each other's cities, is to be as prepared
>	as possible for enemies with far less capability to conduct
>	an arms race than Russia.

Alternate interpretation: The Russians were playing chess as were we:
Strategic placement of armaments, banging shoes on the table for effect,
driving each other into backruptcy without firing a shot.

Speaking of pork: Untold billions of dollars were spent building and
trying to operate the Rocky Flats Nuclear factory, and as of 1986, they
hadn't manufactured enough nuclear product to make even one bomb. A
few years later, just before the dissolution of the USSR, and in keeping
with the last SALT treaty, they were redirected as a facility to
dismantle nuclear warheads. Now we want to build them again? How is this
different from digging holes and filling them up again? I know: the
other holes don't glow in the dark.


>	The actual engineering questions cannot be well argued
>	without classified data. It is appropriate for all of

Nicht wahr. It is posssible to calculate that the acceptable levels of
precision are impossible to calculate and execute under the conditions
defined for the SDI arsenel. Imprecisions can be overcome
by training a greater number of warheads on a single targets, leaving
fewer targets covered. If the needed quantities of warheads can be
placed into service, we can then forecast the pace of arms build-ups
of the to-be-warring parties in terms of ACMs, ICBMs, and ASATs. The
build-up is rapid, accelerating into chaotic levels of production of
one armament and switching to other armaments, thereby producing a
huge quantity of armaments and a military environment that is more
unstable than any that we would encounter otherwise.

>	us to trust the government in matters that appear to
>	a reasonable person to be wholly legitimate. The fact

Unforunately, most reasonable people don't have access to the information
they need to make an informed decision. Hence the necessity of the
Saperstein-Mayer-Kress work. Hence my perception of the necessity of
relaying same to PKT.

>	that some dishonesty in the past escaped our censure in

I don't think this was not dishonesty in the usual sense. More like
the blind leading the naked.

>	time, is not reason for anarchy now.

Disagreement with the government, esp the Newtreich on points of fact
is not anarchy. It may contribute to a broader defiance of authoritarianism,
should the present situation get out of hand.

>	You may not agree with Robert Jastrow, former civilian
>	director of the Goddard Space Laboratory (possibly
>	still in office.)  He believed in spending the money
>	as a defense measure and not as pork. He was privy

I'm sure he gave it his best shot.

>	to the data. I knew him as a friend and trust his
>	integrity. Of course, that is anecdotal and of no

Likewise my relationship with Sapterstein and Mayer-Kress.
BTW, they're physicists.

>	real weight. The real weight comes of knowing that
>	you must trust people in high office whose whole
>	pattern of life fits a model of responsibility you
>	keep in your head.

Gee, I hope this is not a message about blind obedience to authority
even when the authorities are wrong.

>	There are pacifists who have a certain logic that
>	may satisfy you. To me they are wrong on the facts
>	and wrong on the theory. Although we usually settle
>	these things at the ballot box -- this is one that

Mathmatical analysis has already settled it. Political pacifism has
nothing to do with it. But my initial point was not political. It
was a response to an economic issue: How to allocate limited
financial resources for the common good. SDI is not an example of
a good allocation.

--Stephen Guastello
  Marquette University