Star Wars Reality
We have been trying to build a Star Wars defense for at least twenty years.
In spite of spending billions of dollars (Boeing gets 2 billion a year for just
a study.) every system that we have tested has failed. Should the US eventually
succeed the cost of protecting just some of the major metropolitan areas would
exceed the GNP. Finally the major threat is not an atomic head on a missile,
but one easily brought into coastal waters by a small. boat. Note our sterling
success in keeping drugs out. Currently the only major source for atomic heads
is Russia. These are guarded by military and scientists who are seriously underpaid,
and frequently not paid at all. For less than ten percent of what we are currently
spending on Star War (Yes, I know the name has changed, "The more things change
- the more they are the same".), Russia being bankrupt and strapped for cash
would probably sell us both the atomic heads and their plutonium for us to destroy.
At the very least we should actively support those guarding the atomic material
with warm clothes and shoes for them and their families.
A current reference is by Mary
McGrory in the Washington
Post 5/15/00 entitled "Calling a Bomb a Bomb"
If you wish other references contact me via my email to ask for them.
I should like briefly to state my credentials. After receiving my degree at
UC Berkeley I worked for many years in microwave fuzes and radar. My last assignment
before retiring was as the chairman of the NATO working panel on radar defense
against airborne threats.