Read Online A Summer Bright and Terrible by David E. Fisher - Free Book Online
Authors: David E. Fisher
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because of their rank. It never occurred to him to give
up, or indeed to compromise in the face of an official decision that he felt
was wrong.
Despite this, his integrity and competence
shone through, and year by year he advanced through the ranks. Though Trenchard
continued to regard him with suspicion for a while, he finally began to
recognize the hard work and clear thinking that Stuffy showed, and once he came
around he came completely. “I don’t often make mistakes,” he told Dowding, “but
I made one with you.” By 1930, with Trenchard’s blessing, he had been knighted,
promoted to Air Marshal, and given a place on the Air Council as the Member for
Supply and Research.
It could not have been a more suitable
appointment. Throughout the 1920s, the prevailing view among both members of
the government and senior commanders of the RAF was that all available funds
should be used to build more and more bombers since no defence against them was
possible. Alone in the corridors of power, Dowding began to wonder if that were
true. Alone among his peers, he decided that it wasn’t necessarily so.
It was a ridiculous position to take, and if
you or I had been there at the time, we would have regarded him—as so many
did—as a fruitcake. At least I would have, for that was the reaction I had to a
remarkably similar situation: the silliness of President Reagan some fifty
years later in the matter of Star Wars.
The first I heard of Star Wars was in 1983,
when the great physicist Edward Teller visited the physics department at the
University of Miami. In the course of his seminar, he mentioned that we no
longer had to worry about Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Afterward, at lunch, I asked him what he meant. He said that he and several
other scientists had worked out a defence against the missiles, but that it was
a secret that President Reagan would soon announce. Teller was a physicist of
renown and I tended to trust him, so you can imagine my shock when Reagan made
his public announcement a couple of months later.
Consider the Star Wars situation during those
Cold War days. The (Soviet) enemy has intercontinental ballistic missiles
capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads to any spot on earth. These
missiles are released from remote Siberian outposts or from submarines anywhere
in the worlds oceans; rocket-propelled, the missiles climb vertically into the
stratosphere and then arc over, travelling well above the altitude and beyond
the speed of any defending fighter planes. Arriving over enemy (American)
territory, they release their multiple warheads, which then plunge down at
speeds of many thousands of miles per hour, far beyond the capabilities of our
defenders to catch up to them and destroy them.
Enter Star Wars. We position satellites
overhead in continuous position to monitor the sky. They are equipped with
laser guns; the laser energy, travelling at the speed of light, is fast enough
to easily catch the missiles and destroy them.
What’s the catch? First, we do not have the
technology to put satellites up there and keep them serviced for years, perhaps
decades, to be ready to react within seconds when a missile launch is detected.
Second, we cannot put up enough satellites to react to the thousands of
warheads the Soviets are capable of sending at us in hundreds of missiles.
Third, a laser must lock on to its target for a finite time to deliver enough
energy to destroy it, and this our lasers cannot do. Nor do we have any other
weapon capable of knocking out the missiles. Finally, even if we could someday
solve all these problems, the Star Wars system by its very conception is
designed to destroy weapons zooming through the stratosphere. The Soviets could
then simply use low-flying cruise missiles to zip under our defences, while any
terrorist nation could use even simpler, cheaper means of delivering nukes:
suitcases lugged by people on foot, perhaps, or automobiles crossing
up, or indeed to compromise in the face of an official decision that he felt
was wrong.
Despite this, his integrity and competence
shone through, and year by year he advanced through the ranks. Though Trenchard
continued to regard him with suspicion for a while, he finally began to
recognize the hard work and clear thinking that Stuffy showed, and once he came
around he came completely. “I don’t often make mistakes,” he told Dowding, “but
I made one with you.” By 1930, with Trenchard’s blessing, he had been knighted,
promoted to Air Marshal, and given a place on the Air Council as the Member for
Supply and Research.
It could not have been a more suitable
appointment. Throughout the 1920s, the prevailing view among both members of
the government and senior commanders of the RAF was that all available funds
should be used to build more and more bombers since no defence against them was
possible. Alone in the corridors of power, Dowding began to wonder if that were
true. Alone among his peers, he decided that it wasn’t necessarily so.
It was a ridiculous position to take, and if
you or I had been there at the time, we would have regarded him—as so many
did—as a fruitcake. At least I would have, for that was the reaction I had to a
remarkably similar situation: the silliness of President Reagan some fifty
years later in the matter of Star Wars.
The first I heard of Star Wars was in 1983,
when the great physicist Edward Teller visited the physics department at the
University of Miami. In the course of his seminar, he mentioned that we no
longer had to worry about Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Afterward, at lunch, I asked him what he meant. He said that he and several
other scientists had worked out a defence against the missiles, but that it was
a secret that President Reagan would soon announce. Teller was a physicist of
renown and I tended to trust him, so you can imagine my shock when Reagan made
his public announcement a couple of months later.
Consider the Star Wars situation during those
Cold War days. The (Soviet) enemy has intercontinental ballistic missiles
capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads to any spot on earth. These
missiles are released from remote Siberian outposts or from submarines anywhere
in the worlds oceans; rocket-propelled, the missiles climb vertically into the
stratosphere and then arc over, travelling well above the altitude and beyond
the speed of any defending fighter planes. Arriving over enemy (American)
territory, they release their multiple warheads, which then plunge down at
speeds of many thousands of miles per hour, far beyond the capabilities of our
defenders to catch up to them and destroy them.
Enter Star Wars. We position satellites
overhead in continuous position to monitor the sky. They are equipped with
laser guns; the laser energy, travelling at the speed of light, is fast enough
to easily catch the missiles and destroy them.
What’s the catch? First, we do not have the
technology to put satellites up there and keep them serviced for years, perhaps
decades, to be ready to react within seconds when a missile launch is detected.
Second, we cannot put up enough satellites to react to the thousands of
warheads the Soviets are capable of sending at us in hundreds of missiles.
Third, a laser must lock on to its target for a finite time to deliver enough
energy to destroy it, and this our lasers cannot do. Nor do we have any other
weapon capable of knocking out the missiles. Finally, even if we could someday
solve all these problems, the Star Wars system by its very conception is
designed to destroy weapons zooming through the stratosphere. The Soviets could
then simply use low-flying cruise missiles to zip under our defences, while any
terrorist nation could use even simpler, cheaper means of delivering nukes:
suitcases lugged by people on foot, perhaps, or automobiles crossing
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