More Education Musings

There have been at least three people in my (extended) family involved in formal schooling in positions other than as students.

( Three people, schools, and actual education too. )

Missileleading defense system

or But it IS rocket science!

This may surprise some, but I disagree with the decision to start deployment on a anti-missile system. While the treaty aspects and how the world will react to it can be pointed to, that is not the whole problem, nor the major part of it.

The thing about a shield from missiles, presumably with nuclear warheads, is a very simple statement: It must work.

My problem with this is that there has yet to be a truly honest test of the proposed system. Components have been tested, but that says nothing of a system built of them working, only that any cause of failure won't be directly attributable to any given component. This thing is complex, and complex systems work in complex - and not necessarily expected - ways.

There are three problems that must be solved: Eliminating false positives, eliminating false negatives, and the actual intercept and disable.

A false positive would trigger when there was no need. This would result in things like wasting an intercept missile on a peaceful research rocket. A false negative would allow an unfriendly missile through, without even trying to deal with the threat. The actual intercept - the part that gets the most press because it's easy to point to and hard to hide - needs work, to put it mildly.

The idea, I suppose, is to force things ahead and get a system built. But building something without having it proven, or as proven as it can safely be, is foolish. "Make it so!" is line used by a fictional character. Perhaps some folks would do well to remember that. Simply giving an order for something to happen does not make it happen. It makes people go through motions that might or might not cause something to happen.

I don't have a problem, or much of one anyway, on continuing research and getting to a workable system. I do have a problem with saying "We have missile defense" when it just ain't so.