Posted by Pinky.
The other night I was searching the internet for information on nuclear warheads when I came across this pretty photograph:
The first thing I thought was "Wow, that's beautiful... what is it?" Turns out it's a long-exposure photograph showing the descent of multiple warheads from a nuclear missile. I'd never seen a photograph that actually shows the warheads falling to Earth before. This particular photo is of a test of a MX intercontinental ballistic missile (a.k.a. LGM-118A Peacekeeper missile - yes, that's what they really named it) over the Marshall Islands. Each one of these missiles can carry up to 10 warheads, with each warhead carrying the destructive power of 25 Hiroshima bombs.
I'm sure it's not easy to design a machine as complicated as an intercontinental ballistic missile. I mean, think about it: a large, multi-stage rocket that's somehow able to shoot far up into the sky, so high that it skims the very edge of space, then maneuvers itself into position so that it can then rain 10 warheads down on 10 different cities, thousands of miles away, each nuclear explosion killing millions. In seconds. It's amazing. And it's not only a marvel of science, it's also a marvel of logistical planning. Someone had to coordinate the work of literally thousands of scientists and technicians, just to get the decades-long, enormously complicated project to move forward!
And actually I think that's the part that keeps me up at night. It's one thing to lay awake in bed, thinking of all the people and animals and plants that will be destroyed by the awesome destructive power of these weapons. But what really haunts me is the question of how so many smart people would be willing to completely give themselves - their minds, their hard work, their enormous creative potential - over to a process of developing weapons of mass destruction.
It seems so weird to me that if any of these people were acting alone, or maybe in a small group, to make a bomb to blow up a few dozen or even a few thousand people, everybody would say "Oh my goodness these people are terrorists, they need to be caught and executed!" But since these scientists are working for Lockheed Martin or Raytheon and they are trying to figure out how to incinerate millions at a time, this is respectable work. Is it the degree from MIT or Stanford that makes it okay? Or do we need these weapons simply because there are people in this world who deserve to be mass murdered via nuclear explosion and fallout?
I wish Bunny & I had enough time to walk around and ring the doorbell of every scientist that works for the so-called 'defense industry'. I want to plead with them to please reconsider and maybe try to use their knowledge and talents for something less insane.
~pinky