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Your September "Up Front" is exactly on target, although you may catch a ton of flak on this one since $60 billion pays a lot of engineering salaries. But those are people who could be using their talents in beneficial ways. Please remember that there are readers who agree with you. --Darryl Phillips, via email Princeton pundit Thanks for your essay on Star Wars in the September issue of Designfax. I have been fighting that same battle, but with a different argument. I wrote an OpEd piece which was sent to President Clinton, Secretary Cohen and many congress people. I hope I contributed to the President's decision to delay. I attach my essay which you might enjoy. Keep up the battle, we have much at stake. --Enoch J. Durbin, Professor Emeritus, Princeton University, Dept. of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering [Note to readers: This is an abbreviated version of Professor Durbin's letter. The full text version appears online at www.designfax.net.]
"Star Wars -- Ballistic Missiles Defense Systems: How to understand the issues" While serving on the Army Scientific Advisory Panel, I developed a method for developing a rational position on [defense] issues, which is useful for both the sophisticated and unsophisticated citizen. As a first step we assume that the proponent of a new defense system can do everything he says he can do, at the cost he estimates. We do this even though we know that this is hardly ever true. Star Wars has consumed almost $100 billion so far, with no workable system in sight. As a next step, ask two questions: "Does the military system being proposed require that the selected enemy cooperate by doing what the system designer has decided his enemy will do? As a second step, we ask "What will our enemy do, if the proponent of a particular system is able to achieve his goal?" Can he switch to another method for delivery of his bomb? In the case of the current Star Wars program can he deliver his missile from a small offshore fishing boat by lobbing it at his target in a low altitude trajectory rather than sending it high in space as the current Star Wars strategy requires? Can he fill his missile with multiple cheap decoys to make it virtually impossible to find the real bomb in the midst of the decoys? Can his simple, low-tech scenario force the sophisticated defense system advocate to go back to the drawing board for another $100 billion or so to deal with this new threat? If after many years and loads of money, a successful defense against those decoy-filled, fishing boat-launched bombs is achieved then your enemy announces that he has developed a new strategy for attacking you. He does not plan to use small fishing boats, but, rather, a suitcase packed with a bomb which can be detonated using a model airplane remote control system, available at Radio Shack. He requires no new technology nor does he require a significant investment in money or brain power. This simple sequence of thinking suggests that current Star Wars proponents are on the wrong side in seeking a solution to the perceived threat. We would rather that our enemy followed our strategy and wasted his money and brain power while we followed his strategy. He will never do so! He doesn't have the resources to burn. Ballistic Missile Defense advocates argue that the primary purpose of this activity is to deter rogue states from pursuing their offensive activity. Surely they can't be serious. Even the real threat of massive retaliation has been shown to be a weak deterrent for international rogues. For the missile defense Star Wars proponent, I would suggest a more efficient deterrent could be the hiring of a number of clever spies, for $100 million or so, to ferret out potential attackers before they attack, and then have these spies gum-up the enemy's launchers long before they are used. We then might use the remaining $99.9 billion or so we can save for other worthy national projects. Please note, I am not a Luddite; rather, I am an engineering professor. Further, I have a very high level of respect for the men and women who lead our military services, a respect developed during my years of service on the U.S. Army Scientific Advisory Panel. The problem must lie in the military industry and its congressional allies who promote programs that the military leaders don't want, nor claim to need. --Professor Durbin Blame the bureaucrats I read your editorial in the September issue of Designfax with some interest. I am a mechanical engineer with a small manufacturing firm, responsible for designing relatively low tech production equipment. It is my understanding that a ballistic missile is launched into space where multiple warheads are released from the missile and are guided to their target with onboard systems under the force of gravity. It seems that the logical time to neutralize this threat is when the threat is one unit with a distinct infrared signature on a predictable course (soon after launch). Using fast missiles positioned close to the target (in space) would accomplish this. These missiles could use the off of the shelf items described in your column. These ideas are not mine. These are concepts well known to the scientists leading this effort. The reason that this logical approach is not being followed is that bureaucrats have hog tied the scientists by insisting that space based weapons are not allowed and the target cannot be engaged until it has reentered the atmosphere. It is a major irritant to me to see the media ridicule the developers of this program for not being able to differentiate an inanimate balloon from an inanimate bomb when the whole reason for having to do this is an illogical restriction put on by a politician. In conclusion, I do not believe we need to be protected from our own defense system, we need to be protected from our bureaucracy. --Thomas Martin, Mar-Mac Wire Inc., McBee, SC Which came first? The code or the code writer? I've been reading Designfax for years and always enjoy the "Up Front" page. Your June editorial titled "All in a Day's Work" really struck a cord with me. Whenever we challenge issues such as "genetic engineering" we are raising moral issues that will offend some people. In the name of medicine, I find nothing wrong with studying how we are put together but I do have a problem with scientists who think that they can assume the role of God. I am all for learning and with that knowledge gained, applying it to the betterment of mankind. I once worked as a designer for a company that develops ordinance fuzes, devices that tell warheads when to go off. They can range from simple mechanical triggers to complex electronic packages. I know that in order to preserve our military might such things have to exist, but after I left the ordinance industry 15 years ago, I found it increasingly difficult to want to return, so I never did. My whole attitude about the value of human life changed when my son was born. I remember marveling at those tiny fingers when he was just an infant, and couldn't imagine how anyone could harm a child. Yet children are maimed and killed by land mines all the time in war-torn countries. I once helped refugees in Ustikolina, Bosnia, where unaccounted for land mines are an everyday threat to everyone -- especially children. People who poke fun at war victims [as mentioned in your column] should spend 2 weeks as I did living with them. It is the result of man's own avarice that this world is in the condition that it s in. We cannot blame God for this, but ourselves. Many of the greates scientists from centuries past were very religious people. These are men whom we continue to honor even today for their contributions to science, yet if they were alive today they would be ridiculed by the scientific community for their religious beliefs. A final thought? While geneticists attempt to unravel the great mysteries of DNA and are baffled by the complexity, even admitting that DNA is a code, these same people will deny the existence of a creator God. Well, if you have an intelligent code, mustn't you first have an intelligent code writer? --Mark Lyons, Glassboro, NJ Readers: Email comments to [dfx/incl/99dfx.htm] |
That's alotta money