5 years ahead of us, and this in a field in which we thought we were supreme.
Why is this hopeful? Isn't it rather frightening?
It's frightening if you think the Soviet Union may fall or be under the control of convinced ideologists willing to trade part of their country for all of the world. There is nothing in Marxist ideology to forbid that—indeed, any communist who has the opportunity to eliminate the West and thus bring about the world revolution, and who fails to do it because of the price in human lives, is guilty of bourgeois sentimentality. So yes, it's frightening that the Soviets may have taken several long strides toward laser defense against ICBM's.
It's hopeful, though, in that it may stimulate us to get moving in large laser R&D. In my judgment, defense technology is the ideal way to conduct an arms race, if you must have an arms race. (And it takes only one party to start a race, unfortunately.) Defense systems don't threaten the opponent's civilian population. They merely complicate offensive operations, hopefully to the point where no sane person would launch an attack; and they give some hope that part of your own civilian population may survive if worst comes to worst.
If we can't justify space operations in terms of benefits to mankind, then perhaps we can sell them as defense systems? Big lasers can be used as space launching systems. If built they can put a good bit of material into orbit, thus making the manned space factory economically feasible and nearly inevitable; and once in Earth orbit, as I said in the first of these columns exactly two years ago, you're halfway to anywhere.
Specifically, we'd be halfway to an era of plenty without pollution; halfway to assuring that our descendants won't curse our memory for throwing away mankind's hope for the stars.
___________
*Readers with more interest in O'Neill colonies should send $20 to the L5 Society, 1620 N. Park, Tucson AZ 85719, which publishes a newsletter and lobbies for NASA support for space colonies. I thoroughly recommend their organization.
How Long to Doomsday?
"WHILE YOU ARE READING THESE WORDS FOUR PEOPLE WILL HAVE DIED FROM STARVATION. MOST OF THEM CHILDREN."
Thus opens Paul Ehrlich's THE POPULATION BOMB.
"It seems to me, then, that by 2000 AD or possibly earlier, man's social structure will have utterly collapsed, and that in the chaos that will result as many as three billion people will die. Nor is there likely to be a chance of recovery thereafter. . . ."
Thus closes a popular article by Dr. Isaac Asimov, perhaps the best-known science writer in America.
It would not be hard to multiply examples of doom-crying among science fiction writers, or, for that matter, the American intelligentsia. There are dozens of stories and articles describing life in these United States after the year 2000 as poor, nasty, brutish, and short—although hardly solitary as Hobbes would have it.
Much of this doomsaying springs from three original sources which are endlessly requoted: Ehrlich's work previously mentioned, and two outputs from MIT: WORLD DYNAMICS and THE LIMITS TO GROWTH. All are essentially mathematical trend projections, with the MIT studies employing complex and highly detailed computer models.
Strangely, intellectuals including science fiction writers have a lot of confidence in these economic models, although they have very little in the ability of social or physical scientists to save us. It's almost impossible to overestimate the influence of these three books. Writers make predictions based upon them; teachers quote them endlessly, or worse, quote secondary and tertiary sources which draw their ideas from them.
The result is that these works and the view they represent have become "conventional wisdom" for the young. DOOM is "in the air" so to speak; a great part of our younger generation is convinced that no matter what we do, no matter how much we discover or learn, we are finally and inevitably doomed. If
Why is this hopeful? Isn't it rather frightening?
It's frightening if you think the Soviet Union may fall or be under the control of convinced ideologists willing to trade part of their country for all of the world. There is nothing in Marxist ideology to forbid that—indeed, any communist who has the opportunity to eliminate the West and thus bring about the world revolution, and who fails to do it because of the price in human lives, is guilty of bourgeois sentimentality. So yes, it's frightening that the Soviets may have taken several long strides toward laser defense against ICBM's.
It's hopeful, though, in that it may stimulate us to get moving in large laser R&D. In my judgment, defense technology is the ideal way to conduct an arms race, if you must have an arms race. (And it takes only one party to start a race, unfortunately.) Defense systems don't threaten the opponent's civilian population. They merely complicate offensive operations, hopefully to the point where no sane person would launch an attack; and they give some hope that part of your own civilian population may survive if worst comes to worst.
If we can't justify space operations in terms of benefits to mankind, then perhaps we can sell them as defense systems? Big lasers can be used as space launching systems. If built they can put a good bit of material into orbit, thus making the manned space factory economically feasible and nearly inevitable; and once in Earth orbit, as I said in the first of these columns exactly two years ago, you're halfway to anywhere.
Specifically, we'd be halfway to an era of plenty without pollution; halfway to assuring that our descendants won't curse our memory for throwing away mankind's hope for the stars.
___________
*Readers with more interest in O'Neill colonies should send $20 to the L5 Society, 1620 N. Park, Tucson AZ 85719, which publishes a newsletter and lobbies for NASA support for space colonies. I thoroughly recommend their organization.
How Long to Doomsday?
"WHILE YOU ARE READING THESE WORDS FOUR PEOPLE WILL HAVE DIED FROM STARVATION. MOST OF THEM CHILDREN."
Thus opens Paul Ehrlich's THE POPULATION BOMB.
"It seems to me, then, that by 2000 AD or possibly earlier, man's social structure will have utterly collapsed, and that in the chaos that will result as many as three billion people will die. Nor is there likely to be a chance of recovery thereafter. . . ."
Thus closes a popular article by Dr. Isaac Asimov, perhaps the best-known science writer in America.
It would not be hard to multiply examples of doom-crying among science fiction writers, or, for that matter, the American intelligentsia. There are dozens of stories and articles describing life in these United States after the year 2000 as poor, nasty, brutish, and short—although hardly solitary as Hobbes would have it.
Much of this doomsaying springs from three original sources which are endlessly requoted: Ehrlich's work previously mentioned, and two outputs from MIT: WORLD DYNAMICS and THE LIMITS TO GROWTH. All are essentially mathematical trend projections, with the MIT studies employing complex and highly detailed computer models.
Strangely, intellectuals including science fiction writers have a lot of confidence in these economic models, although they have very little in the ability of social or physical scientists to save us. It's almost impossible to overestimate the influence of these three books. Writers make predictions based upon them; teachers quote them endlessly, or worse, quote secondary and tertiary sources which draw their ideas from them.
The result is that these works and the view they represent have become "conventional wisdom" for the young. DOOM is "in the air" so to speak; a great part of our younger generation is convinced that no matter what we do, no matter how much we discover or learn, we are finally and inevitably doomed. If
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