<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On Sun, Nov 6, 2016 at 3:16 PM, spike </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:spike66@att.net" target="_blank">spike66@att.net</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div lang="EN-US"><div class="gmail-m_-8560175565227333846gmail-m_5507205435405152907WordSection1"><span class="gmail-m_-8560175565227333846gmail-"><p class="MsoNormal"> <br></p></span></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​> ​</div>In the early 90s, endgame defense from an ICBM was considered a fantasy, but so was a rocket that could descend nozzle-down and land on its feet.  Well, it can do that now. We have endgame defense against an ICBM now as well.</blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4">​But no matter how much technology improves it's always going to be cheaper to shoot a bullet at a stationary target ​than it is to hit a speeding bullet with another speeding bullet, and if it's cheaper than you can have more of them. And the offence doesn't need to be anywhere near to being perfect, but even if the defense is successful in shooting down 99% of the ICBM's it would still lead to the greatest catastrophe in human history.  </font></div></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​> ​</div>the nuclear explosion never takes place because the warhead is destroyed on impact, there is no Strontium 90, none of the horrors that made up the reports written back in the day.</blockquote> <br><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​<font size="4">A​cording</font></div><font size="4"> to<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>Robert Serber<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​</div>, the physicist who wrote the<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>first<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>lectures<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>on<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>how to <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​build​</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​</div> a atomic bomb at Los Alamos<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div>  Edward Teller pushed for the development of a<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>10,<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​</div>000 megaton hydrogen bomb<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​</div>. He reasoned <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​it ​</div>would be cheap and would require no delivery system <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​because "</div>that particular design would probably kill everyone on Earth, <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​so ​</div>there was no use carting it anywhere<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​".​</div></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"> <br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​> ​</div>Perhaps it will vindicate itself by holding worldwide casualties to a mere few hundred million.</blockquote><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">​I quote <span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">General "Buck" Turgidson from the movie Doctor Strangelove:</span></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">"<font size="4"><i>Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks." </i></font></span></div></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><font size="4"><i><br></i></font></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><font size="4">John K Clark</font></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></span></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><br>
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