[Salgak]

Go ahead, blame the NASA bureaucrats. . . I certainly do.

Failure of management to place elementary programmatic safeguards is a management problem, not a technological problem. Given the laws of physics and nominal SPS designs, the "burn cities with SPS" scenario is PHYSCIALLY impossible.

Like I said, you want a quick, simple method of doing a city? Drop a big rock on it, say 50-100 feet in diameter on it from orbit. . .

[theFIRMbss]

>Given the laws of physics and nominal SPS designs, the "burn cities with SPS" scenario is PHYSCIALLY impossible.

Of course! And it was
physically impossible
for insulation

to fall and damage
the shuttle. Still, it happened.
Look, my broad point here

is NASA et al
have proven time and again
big mistakes happen.

A big mistake on
a robot probe just loses
a billion dollars

and some robo-junk.
A big mistake managing
insulation risk

throws away billions
and half a dozen people.
But a big mistake

with energy beams
(or rockets with nuclear
materials or

some other grand schemes)
and you have consequences
vastly greater than

the foul-ups NASA
caused so far. Outside grass roots
demand, I don't see

that politicians
should put in motion programs
with consequences

that can be so bad.
Especially when even
if successful they

would still devastate
the country's economy. *
I see no good here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Forty years ago,
the high tech industry was
a domestic biz.

Big ticket science
was corporate welfare, but
the cash trickled down

to to US workers.
Big science was a driver
program for culture.

Now high tech business
is all based in Asia. Now
corporate welfare

will not trickle down
to Americans, it will
get sucked to Asia.

Big ticket science
will be a huge, whirlpool drain
of US dollars.

Asia will get rich.
(Richer.) And Americans
will get TV pics

that look like low-res
special effects shots from a
really dull movie.