Dla said:
“The cold war was real and potentially deadly. But like all wars it was winding down before Reagan took office. And during Reagan’s tenure, the US and the rest of the G7 ran past the Soviets economically. Unlike the 12th Imman Shiites in Iran, the Soviet leadership had no desire to destroy the world.”
In the late 1970s, early 1980s, the Soviets were running out of money and options. I traveled extensively through Eastern Europe during that period and saw it with my own eyes, i.e. the whole infrastructure was literally falling apart.
Unfortunately, the Soviets hadn’t been idle. They had spent hundreds of millions of dollars infecting us with surrender robots, i.e. the moonbats. I vividly remember the moonbats shrieking that nuclear Armageddon was unavoidable and our only hope for survival was by surrendering to the communists. The 1972 McGovern campaign could be interpreted as a failed attempt at surrender. The modern day moonbats are a bizarre form of ronan samurai trying to find new overlords to accept their surrender. I can imagine the islamic fascists scratching their heads in puzzlement and asking themselves: “Why are these people trying to surrender to us?”.
RWE said:
“In May 1986 a Delta booster broke up after launch from Cape Canaveral. The cause was a chafed wire and the entire space launch industry underwent something of an epiphany in regards to that type of problem. So it was fixed, right? In August 1998 a Titan IV booster broke up after launch from the Cape. The problem was once again a chafed wire.”
Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) almost failed due to chafed wiring (technicians had been walking on the wiring in the cargo bay). After that near failure, the orbit vehicle was completely rewired and had a modern glass cockpit installed. Unfortunately Columbia later burned up during reentry because a leading edge thermal protection tile was broken during launch.
Columbia’s chafed wiring was not the only close call. There was another case before Columbia’s failure where a leading edge tile had been broken and plasma was blowing inside the thermal protection system. The orbit vehicle survived through the blind luck. Also, the carbon phenolic throats in the solid rocket boosters had a nasty tendency to spall. In one case, a throat was within millimeters of reaching burn-through. Again, survival was due to blind luck. Launch vehicles are incredibly complicated. It’s amazing that any of them actually work.
Roy Lofquist said:
“Twenty thousand seers say their sooths. The dozen who came closest serenade us with all forty seven verses of “I Told You So, You Silly Twit”.”
Obviously it’s a bell curve. If you have a thousand guys making predicitions then a dozen might get it right by accident. My predictions were all wrong so I was near the peak of the bell curve. Dave was one of the lucky few who got it right. If you ask Dave to make some more predicitions, he’ll probably be as wrong as I was in 1986.
Dkite correctly said:
“The surge was going to be as successful as the politicians in Washington would let it… There is a refusal to see the basic fact of today’s military situation. The US military can do whatever it wants to do. The raw power, the command structures, the invention and adaptation which is remarkable in such a large organisation, the depth of possible offensive and defensive strategies.”
If you’ll pardon the cliche:
“Fortune favors the bold”
(Virgil: “Audentes Fortunas Juvat”)
Seize the iniative and do NOT trust in luck. Keep at it, learn from your mistakes and don’t rest until victory has been achieved.
