10/08/2004 Entry: ""
Posted by Maynard @ 02:58 PM MST
The Other MDA
The Missile Defense Agency.
My boss has an interesting, but ultimately limited, view of missile defense. He worked on it in the 1980s (during the Star Wars initial start-up) and saw more boondoggle project proposals cross his desk for a feasibility estimate than he could stand. It permanently prejudiced his opinion to be against missile defense. He's often been quoted as being completely against it because, to paraphrase, "it could never work".
If we, as a nation, had that attitude during the 1960s we would have never gotten to the moon.
True, the missile defense program has had many and various setbacks since it was restarted. That doesn't mean it can't work. Past failures do not indicate future success, unless you let them stop you. There is no physical law that stands in the way of missile defense - only physical difficulties. Simple ballistics dictates what it takes to stop an incoming missile, nothing fundamentally more complex than that. The difference between success and failure in this endeavor is the same difference between a Murphy's law attitude and a Seabees motto attitude.
Murphy's Law - anything that can go wrong will, and at the worst possible time.
Seabees Motto - The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.
If there is one nation on the planet that is capable of figuring out how to stop a nuclear tipped missile in flight, it's the United States. If there's one nation on the planet, more than any other, that has a vested interest in doing so, it's the United States. What opponents of the program forget in their pessimism is that we Americans have done repeatedly what was once thought impossible. The steam locomotive and the supersonic airplane, to give just two such examples, were both thought once upon a time to be farcical imaginings. It is not only in our best interest to create missile defense, but it is also in our tradition.
Missile defense can work, if we work hard at it. But to work hard at it we must start by believing it is possible. Your belief determines your attitude, which in turn determines your behavior. If we believe it can be done, since there's nothing in science stopping us, we can approach the problem as a Seabee would approach it. A Murphy's Law attitude would cause us to overlook possible solutions to implementation obstacles with just three words - "it can't work". With a good attitude we can then act in a way to bring about something that can only be considered good.
I'm sure there are others out there that would rather we not have this particular good thing. Kim Jong Il, for instance.
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