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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.tv.da
Subject: Re: Re: High-Frontier, What Scientists Can Do
Message-ID: <3402@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Dec-83 22:21:58 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3402
Posted: Mon Dec  5 22:21:58 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Dec-83 22:21:58 EST
References: <2889@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 70

Yes, it's me again.  Peter Rowley objects to my rather strong language
about the "High Frontier, What Scientists Can Do" proposal, and suggests
that I read it more carefully.  I'm afraid I have to suggest that *he*
should read *my* posting more carefully.  I said *nothing* about the
merits or demerits of space-based ABM systems (although I do have some
quite strong feelings on the subject... more later in this message).

What I harshly criticized was the idiocy of people who claim that, if
project X (which they oppose) could only be scrapped, then project
Y (which they support) would have lots more funding.  I'm afraid I must
continue to insist that this is, yes, "utter and total nonsense", and
that the supporters of the H.F.,W.S.C.D. proposal have blundered badly
in relying so heavily on such arguments.  They are promising what they
cannot deliver.  Just because the resources in question are not spent
on the awful ugly evil project X does not mean that they will be spent
on the good beautiful lovable project Y.  Quite the contrary, it makes
it less likely that they will be spent at all.

The above applies to *both* money and skilled manpower.  The two tend
to be strongly correlated in this universe of discourse, because most
of the project Y's are also government-funded, and the allocation of
manpower to them necessarily requires the allocation of money first.
People who claim we have a desperate shortage of skilled manpower are
not paying attention to how miserably we misuse the resources we've got.
We do have a shortage of high-quality people willing to do boring work
for low pay in unpleasant conditions, but what else is new?

A further weakness in Peter's arguments -- now we come to the merits
or lack thereof of the HFWSCD concept -- is that it falls apart if
missile defence *isn't* a task several times the difficulty of the
Apollo project.  Many competent people think it isn't.  My own view
on the matter is that we clearly need a few more experimental facts
and a lot less computerized guesswork and theoretical pontification.

In fact, one can argue (fairly persuasively) that the tendency toward
guesswork and pontification is the main reason why military projects
do get so astronomically expensive.  The few within-schedule under-budget
and-it-works-too military projects (yes, there have been some) have
been the ones that focused firmly on getting working hardware to try out
before making big tough irrevocable decisions.

In short, neither a big crash program nor a disavowal of the whole
concept is appropriate in our present state of ignorance.  What we need
is a modest program directed at getting some experimental answers.
Note that this does *not* mean merely continuing the existing research
efforts, which are just as prone to guesswork and pontification as
most of their opponents.  We need *experimental* *facts*, not best
guesses from biased people.  This probably requires that it be a
special program imposed on the military from above; the standard
military R+D system just isn't capable of doing this sort of thing.

Scientists are supposedly in business to do exactly this kind of work:
get the facts and never mind the preconceptions.  But the HFWSCD plea
is just the other way around, arguing from preconceptions that any try
at producing facts is inappropriate.  Understand, I am not *totally*
opposed to the HFWSCD effort -- it would be a major mistake to make a
big, expensive, hard-to-change commitment when we don't know whether
we could make it work -- but a more modest commitment to getting the
facts is both important and urgent.  HFWSCD is not making any attempt
to distinguish between the two, since the calls for funding cutoffs
and refusal to participate make no mention of the distinction.

To sum up, turn it the other way around:  Are you so certain that it
*won't* work that you are willing to boycott something that just might
be the salvation of our civilization?  If you *are* that certain -- just
what basis do you have for that certainty, when even the experts are
hotly debating the point?  We need to *know*.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry