welsch@houxu.UUCP (Larry Welsch) (11/27/83)
This month's Science and the Citizen section of the Scientific American has a column devoted to the nuclear war strategy that the U.S. is preparing for. There are two scary aspects of the story. 1. The U.S. is training combat troops for a limited nuclear engagement with the enemy. 2. The U.S. is building a nuclear arsenal to support limited nuclear war. Given past statements by Reagan administration officials on the winnability (new word) of a limited nuclear war and the reputation of the Scientific American, I have no doubt in the truth of above two assertions. Russia has no choice, but to follow the U.S. in developing this capability. This in turn will heighten tensions throughout the world as well as make it more likely for terrorists to obtain nuclear weapons. A safer strategy for defense is to expand our horizons into both outer space and the ocean depths. Safer, because the best defense is space. Russia is a difficult country to conquer because Russia is a huge country. Both Napolean and Hitler learned just how huge without getting halfway across. The U.S.A.is similarly a huge country. If we want to make it safer, well lets just make it larger. Since most of the land space on the earth is taken, lets colonize the moon and the oceans. Until there is sufficient economic return on investment for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to get interested in settling these frontiers I suggest that it is the U.S.'s job as part of our defense strategy to make investments and see to it that colonies are started. Just think 3/4 of the earth's surface is underwater. Would anyone think seriously of attacking a country that had the technology to successfully colonize the depths and could launch a counter-attack from anywhere under the surface. Outer space is even larger. More importantly such a space race would remove the tensions from nuclear arms race and create useful outlets for the world's population and new resources to support the world. Larry Welsch houxu!welsch
decot@cwruecmp.UUCP (Dave Decot) (11/30/83)
I hope Larry Welsch doesn't intend to base nuclear weapons on the moon, and
then Mars, and then... Let's try to keep our mistakes contained to a more
local area, OK? Didn't somebody (I believe it was a Republican!) establish
that our (we Earthlings) use of space be dedicated to use space for only
peaceful purposes ("or for the common good of all humanity" or something)?
I hope I don't hear that destroying people is in the best interest of
all humanity.
Dave Decot
decvax!cwruecmp!decot (Decot.Case@rand-relay)