FTD%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA ("David D. Story") (11/15/85)
>>Date: Saturday, 9 November 1985 11:57-EST >>From: ihnp4!seismo!RUTGERS.ARPA!Carter (Bob Carter) >>To: Today's at MIT-MC >>Re: We think *gun* control is bad. > Date: Friday, 1 November 1985 16:34-EST > From: Dale.Amon at FAS.RI.CMU.EDU > To: SPACE at MIT-MC, BBoard.Maintainer at A.CS.CMU.EDU > Re: Senator Glenn comments > This last week I presented testimony at the NCS hearings in > Cleveland. Among the other presentors was a Glenn staff member > reading Sen. Glenn's position paper. Much was reasonable, but he > made one statement which utterly horrified me, and I'm sure will > equally horrify most of you. > He suggested that rocket technology, because of it's potential use > as ICBM's, be internationally regulated the way nuclear technology > is. > One twist of the pen, and you and I will never own a private > spaceship. Admittedly, we probably wouldn't anyway, but at least > we can dream. I would like to ask any of you who are as violently > opposed to such a scheme as I am to write Senator Glenn and tell > him that this is not a very good idea. Sen. John Glenn SH 503 Hart Senate Office Bldg Washington, DC 20510 > Just imagine where aviation would be today if in the first part of > this century it had been regulated like the nuclear industry. > I have hopes that in the early teens of the next century, we will > see spaceships owned by anyone of any race, creed, nation, > minority, majority > or political leaning who could buy a jet plane today. Does this mean that NASA is requesting their own security clearances such as the DOE Q which semi-equivocates to DOD TOP SECRET ? And possible further breakdown such as NSC/DOD/DOE NWCS clearances (which is really need-to-know information). IF SO I AM FOR IT even though NATO need-to- know is not specifically included (I would imagine that this would be considered by government application on a case by case basis). I think that since so many of the NEWFIES coming into technology have little regard for export licensing and the like and think that the best way to make a buck is by shipping out critical technology by means of black market (I have been approached by some of these, especially the ones from the finer academic institutions - most notably at AAAI '83). These think that export licensing of potential military technology is a joke (I think that the lack of restriction even with licensing is a joke). Foreign Countries might have the bomb but that is of little use without delivery (sometimes I wonder why they would even want to join the insanity seeing that it means small revamps of targeting by US and THEM and THOSE with the technology base capable of mounting even a peaceful space program). I also take exception that you would include this in the firearms list. I think this lies in the area of the fallacy of composition. Regardless of that, I appreciate your information and would like to ask why you think we should export of information and products to countries that would rather blow each other off the map and have neither the money, programs or technology base for doing little else than delivering a nuclear warhead. There are already consortiums set up for those countries to participate in that are reasonably ethical. I qualify that statement by asking if you think that it is reasonable for the French to sell Exocets to gun toting dictators that get their votes in rather a Hitlereze fashion and their rocks off by pulling triggers, regardless of the consequences, to placate their political factions. If not that one, how about a free trip over Korea by way of a beaten short cut. Or live in Prague in '68. We should use the U.S., E.C.C. & U.K. technology base to extract some reasonableness if they really want the goodies. To wholesale it out is a depletion of the technological edge as well as economically and finacially unsound practice. The total investiture in rocketry and our technology base are not even closely reflected in even our elementary textbooks. Don't you think that for all the give away we should extract something in return from the AYATOLLAHs SANDINISTAs, SOMOZAs, SHAHs, CUBANs, and the rest ! Comments Welcomed