Conference noted::sf

To refresh your memory... The competition that year, as I recall, 
included "Reds" and "Chariots of Fire". CoF won Best Picture.

Speculation had it that "E.T." and "Reds" spilt the top picture vote, 
and the "dark horse" CoF won the award by accident. However, I've 
seen CoF three times; I doubt that I could sit through E.T. three 
times. The five films that year were of very high quality, a rarity in 
Academy Award annals.

"Best Picture" is somewhat of a misnomer; usually, the most popular 
picture is chosen. My personal opinion is: would you want to see this 
picture again in, say, five years? A good film, like any worthwhile 
work of art, will withstand the test of time.

To illustrate this, take the year 1939. The films nominated that year 
included "Gone with the Wind", but did not include "The Wizard of Oz".
"Wizard" is a good film. So is GwtW. If it's good, it will last; if 
not, it will fade into oblivion.

These ramblings were brought to you by:
					Andrew

Another flame on a similar topic..... Raiders of The Lost Ark achieved
great vogue amongst the SF community (at least as measured by volume of
responses to the ARPA-SF-Lovers)

Why was ROTLA SF??? Answer:  Because it was by Lucas AND Spielberg (sp??).

Would ET have been so popular had it been by DeLaurentiis? Probably not.

Even Spielberg viewed ET as a minor movie --- he THOUGHT that the major
movie of his in that time was Poltergeist.  Oh well..


Nigel
(The Archie Bunker of the Enet)

I thought ET was excellent and I have seen it three times. I have sensed a kind
of backlash occurring amongst SF fans. It seems that any SF film that is very
popular (and ET was certainly that...) is viewed as being less than a quality
effort. Do 'hard-core' SF fans think that popularity drags a film down? A sort
of 'If they (you know...the great unwashed masses) like it, it can't be good'
attitude begins to surface.

Spielberg has begun to receive this type of criticism. He's making money so
he must have 'sold out' and 'compromised himself'. Bull!

ET did something that not many films do...it appealed to our humanity and our
feelings and emotions. Nowadays, that is a bad thing. More's the pity.

It was also a very high-quality film!

-- Bill

Wasn't "Ghandi" running that year?

I don't think people were claiming ET should have gotten Best Picture.
It was that Spielberg should have gotten Best Director.

I agree that ET was a popular film --- that doesn't make it bad.
I agree that ET was a well-made film --- Spielberg does quality work

But I don't think it was great SF.... 

Personally, I like SF films that appeal to the masses (unwashed horde,
mundanes, whatever the current fannish derogatory term is)......
I like SF films, and the more popular they are, the more will be made.
This increases one's selection, which can't be bad.

Nigel

   I don't think that I'm suffering from the "Backlash" that you mentioned.
I liked all the Star wars stuff.  (I didn't think it was "great film making"
in the sense that Hemingway and Thoreau were great literary works.)  My point
is that I keep hearing people trying to make these films (ET and the Star 
Wars Saga) into "great films".  I enjoyed them. Really.  I'm not lying.  
But they (especially SW) were pure escapist stuff.  Before you flame,  I'm
not saying that's bad.  One of my favorite movies of all time is "Gone 
With the Wind".  I love it!! I can't tell you how many times I've read it or
seen it but it's lots!  BUT... It is *not* considered a work of accepted 
literary merit.  (This we found out for damn sure when a girl from my 
high school used GWTW to illustrate an answer when she had been told to 
use a "work of accepted literary merit"  Her entire answer was disqualified
by the College Board Scorers.  This was 50% of her score and because of this
she did not exempt college english!)  On the other hand,  I *despise*
Hemingway and he is considered great.  I can accept and even support those
judgements in both cases.  I just don't think the people who claim ET is
"great" are being objective.  
    BTW the remark that I saw that prompted this diatribe was that ET didn't
win because it was SF.  As far as Spielberg winning Best director,  I have
trouble seeing how you can turn out something that deserves Best Picture
without getting Best Director and accordingly, if your picture was 
obviously not the Best Picture or even "great" how can it be said that you
deserve Best Director.  A director must be judged on his results.

Enough for now.

tlh

Yes, Ghandi was the chief competition, and the eventual winner.  I think
that "Reds" and "Chariots of Fire" were from a previous year.

I think that E.T. was superbly crafted, and should serve as a shining
example for a long time.  No, the story line wasn't deep (read complex), but
it didn't need to be - it grabbed at your heart and made you feel, made
you empathize with Elliot and E.T.

There's also a bias against comedy in the awards, as there have been several
very good and very funny films to escape Oscars, notably those by Woody
Allen.  I think that Annie Hall got all the top awards EXCEPT best picture
in its year.
					Steve

I saw ET twice. As I left after the first time I felt that it was a 
wonderful movie, but after the second I was diasppointed, it was just good. 
I think that that is because of the nature of the film, it is an excellent 
instant emotional jerker, but with no depth or subtly. Now, thats not a 
criticism, I believe that Speilberg made just what he intended to make, and 
did it very well - but not "Best Picture"

Tim.

I think ET suffered as a movie because the story WAS embedded in an SF
format.  What I prefer to see from SF is something besides humanity (at least
where non-humans are concerned).  I look for the old goal John Campbell
stated: "Give me a being who thinks as well as a human but differently
from a human."  My biggest complaint about Star Trek was always its human
chauvanism; Spock's logic should have worked (but was ignored) while
Kirk seduced (literally) and hunched his way to success time and time again.
Why take the trouble to invent ET and make him just another kid?
I felt better about the trials of human separation as they were portrayed
in the "French Lieutenant's Woman."
(now a GOOD SF movie that's gotten too little review is "Blade Runner."
That's a movie where the humanity of non-humans was covered well.)

- tom

 I simply can't resist adding to this discussion, even if it is months 
old.  [No comments, Nigel!]

 SF persons DO come across as snobbish about films.  I think this 
stems from the usual run of films foisted on "the great unwashed".  
Remember those horrendous monstrosities (sometimes literally) of the 
'50s?  The snobbish attitude is actually a reaction to garbage, in 
much the same way that music lovers react to Pachelbel's Canon, or 
artists to the Happy Face mentality.  In the case of SF, the general 
public came to believe that all SF (movies, writing, or whatever) was 
insipid fluff and rather unimaginative, on the whole.  Some occasional 
good items (such as "The Time Machine" and "1984") didn't do much to 
counter this notion.

 With the release of some fairly decent SF films, the perception may 
have changed slightly.  Also, we are now living in an era that the 
"typical" 50s SF writer was talking about, so perhaps the general 
public is more accepting or more sophisticated about such things now.  
Nevertheless, the SF crowd is still smarting from the outrageous 
atrocities of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and tend to be disdainful of the 
public that now says "gee, what {prophetic, philosophical, interesting, 
important} writing..."

I agree that long-time SF readers/writers are disdainful of many present
SF films because of a "backlash" reaction to having been labelled "strange"
for so many years.  Now that "the public" is saying "Gee, this stuff isn't
so bad after all.", you get SF people saying "You like *that*??  What
garbage!".  Then injury (to SF's reputation) is added to insult by usually
pointing to 2001 as a "real SF movie".  This leaves non-SF readers with
the impression that "real SF" is incomprehensible.

If Star Wars is taken to be the start of a new "boom" (or is that "zap" :-)
in SF films, then I think that the film industry is proceeding toward
more sophisticated productions/storylines a lot faster than printed SF
ever did.  Just as Heinlein has always been praised for his matter-of-fact
use of futuristic technology, movies like Bladerunner are striving for
the same thing.

Let the film industry have its "space opera" period.  Let them mangle
book adaptations (please Ghu, not Dune too).  I think the time is not
too far off when original stories will be written for movies which
build on the strengths of the film medium and will match the best
non-SF films.  The film industry is building a reservoir of experience
that (I think) is bound to start clicking together in the ways we'd all
like to see.

					John

P.S. Speaking of turkey movies, how's this for a quote of the week:
"Why, our race is so advanced we gave up neckties fifty years ago."

I agree with Tom about ET- As a film about dealing with an alien, it falls
far short. Someone said previously it is a boy-and-his-dog (sorry, Harlan!)
story, and it is. I find all Spielberg's "aliens" objectionable in that
way (as in CE3K). They are not bright, particularly clever, and they do not
seem to really be in control of what they're doing. Would we send an
exobiologist to an alien planet if he/she couldn't cope with a simple
food-storage device, like a refrigerator? Spielberg seems to take a very
patronizing attitude towards aliens, and towards humans, also. Who believes
Roy Neary (in CE3K)?

Well, flame off. I also believe "Blade Runner" did a far better job of showing
an "alien" mentality and dilemma(?). Further, BR used that alien mentality
to change the way the protagonist thinks about the "aliens", and how he
thinks about himself. Except for some unnecessary violence, an outstanding
film. (Anyone know if it won the Hugo? I forget...)

John O.

Yeah, but should we send a biologist to another planet if he/she doesn't
know about the ALIEN's refrigerators?  Which are probably quite different
from ours, if they have any such things at all.  Seems like a very unfair
criticism, to me.  And it's not like E.T. wasn't bright -- he did manage
to create the signalling device (could YOU make one -- and you're probably
much more technical than an average botonist).  The fact that Elliot
related to him more or less as a `pet' for much of the film is irrelevant;
how would you expect a small boy to relate to a tiny, odd looking alien
who was quiet and gentle and couldn't speak to him?

Blade Runner had a few good points, but wasn't nearly equal to the book,
and the violence was excessive enough to put it nearly in the category
of `Sword and Sorcerer' and its ilk (though not quite): the violence
detracted seriously enough from the story as to completely ruin it.

	/dave

I have to jump to the defense of Blade Runner.
I didn't (and still don't) consider the violence "excessive."  The head-
crushing scene was shocking, gruesome, and it has stuck with me, but it was
so REAL (and I don't mean my virtue of its special effects).
As for the shooting and the hand-to-hand combat, that was an integral part
of the story.  It was not handled off-handedly; it disturbed him (Ford)
to have to do this.  The reviews of the movie characterized it as an
extremely well "textured" film in terms of settings and envirnoments.
I think that that applies to the feelings of the film too.
The more I look back on it, the more I think that THIS is what SF people
want the rest of the world to think is good SF.
(That brings me to "Courtship Rite," reviewed elsewhere in this file.
To treat canabilism, people farming, and other disturbing topics in
such a non-defensive manner makes the reader think of the context and how
such happenings are not rationalized (that would be defensive), but
how they just come to be.  I use the word "gritty" to describe such
stories; they're dirty and they grate, but they can be worth the discomfort.)

- tom powers

    	How do I know that "Blade Runner" was a good SF movie?
    Because when I saw it in a mall theater, people walked out of it
    saying how terrible they thought it was!  
    	When the general public doesn't like an SF product, that means
    it s either very terrible or very good, and BR definetely falls
    into the second category.
    	COMMENTS?
    	Larry
    

I hated Bladerunner too the first time I saw it.  It was violent and 
incomprehensible, and I had read the book.  It looked as though the 
director had gotten completely carried away by images, at the expense 
of plot and character.  I liked it a lot more the second time, but I 
still have no idea what the title means.  It's curious that the movie 
reversed the theme of the book, that the replicants were not in 
fact human because they lacked empathy.  In the movie, the Harrison 
Ford character is the dull, robotic one while the replicants actually care 
about one another.

Mainstream critics don't know and don't care about the sf elements of 
a movie or book.  If you do care about them, then you are including a 
factor in your evaluation of the work that they are not.  Naturally, 
that will decrease the correlation between your judgement and theirs.
On non-sf work, you may be in complete agreement, but the correlation 
falls apart on sf because you're judging different things.  For 
instance, I generally go along with Pauline Kael's movie reviews, but 
she's of no help at all on SF because she doesn't understand it.  Her
reviews of "2001" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" were totally off-base.
We may in fact both like an sf movie, but it's coincidence.

/jlr

    Blade Runner makes a better title than Do Androids Dream...
    
    And I thought there was feeling between the reps and empathy was
    Ford not falling off the building.  And, yes, I liked the movie from
    the first scene.  There's a lot more to the movie than immediately
    meets the eye.
    
    							Don

I just did a quick "dir/title=" looking for Blade Runner or Androids,
and there doesn't seem to be a note about Blade Runner. Am I wrong??
I would rather not start raving about BR here, if there's some other
place to rave.

Succinctly, I think BR is the best science fiction film in the last
ten years, marred only by somewhat excessive violence (which was made
worse in the videotape).

Raving on both sides welcome- should this be a new topic?

John O.

    E.T. was clearly one of the most overrated films in history.
    
    I still don't understand its appeal. It was poor science and worse
    fiction. I have a great deal of trouble with the concept of a highly
    advanced race, capable of faster than light space flight, and all
    that implies, being such a group of pacifistic shmooes. Let's face
    it; you don't get to rise to intelligence -- let alone high tech
    -- unless as part of your evolutionary process, you become the meanest
    mother on the planet. Smiling shmooes would have been all gobbled-up
    by a meaner competitor long before technology developed.
    
    SF movies that ignore such simple lesons of nature are of no interest
    to me. For my money, the best SF yet made is The Day the Earth Stood
    Still. It's now 36 years lod and still stands tall.
    
    KBS
    

    	Perhaps E.T.'s race WAS violent at one time in its distant past,
    but it has obvioulsy reached a point where it doesn't have to worry
    about many dangers, due to its advanced technology.  
    
    	I also feel that your concept of having to be brutal to advance
    is rather anthropomorphic - who is to say that you have to be violent
    to survive?  Cetateans (whales, dolphins) can certainly defend
    themselves, but they don't go around having to "conquer" the oceans
    to not only survive in it, but become intelligent as well - and
    being intelligent does NOT require that you also need to build tools
    or weapons to be smart.
    
   	Larry
    

    RE: .19
    
          Why must a race of intelligent beings be "mean"? Perhaps
    this trait is a pre-requisite for life based on our planet,
    but in the worlds elsewhere, how can you say. We have no idea
    what life may be like "up there", and assigning our own concepts
    to the unknown is an unfounded assumption. Perhaps you are right;
    I can't say, but my favorite science-fiction stories are ones
    in which the authors abandon "normal rational thought", and
    try not to force our perception of reality on thier charactors.
    
                                         rick

    	I want to add another point to my commentary in 26.20 - not
    only is your attitude in regards to the development of intelligent
    life elsewhere anthropomorphic, but it is also based on outdated
    anthropological theories.
    
    	Our distant (Australopithecus, Homo erectus) ancestors were
    NOT savage brutes; in fact, it is now believed that they were
    essentially peaceful vegetarians (early stone tools were designed
    more for digging roots than killing animals).  Humans did not start
    showing excessive violent behavior until we reached the Homo SAPIENS
    stage!  
    
    	Larry
    

    We seem to have  a few misconceptions about evolutionary biology
    floating around here, starting with the "nature red in tooth and
    claw" survival theme.  Without being overly pedantic, let me point
    out a few basics:
    
    1)	Evolutionary success must be defined in terms of successful
    	reproduction.  A species doesn't achieve a niche by killing
    	off everything in sight, but by the ability to breed and maintain
    	its numbers.
    
    2)  Traits which confer increased reproductive success will be
	reinforced in future generations.
    
    3)	Successful species can exhibit traits other than "meanness"
    	- extreme fertility, for instance (rodents and insects).
    
    The question we need to discuss is exactly what advantages intelligence
    actually confers and whether these advantages are inextricably bound
    up with violence and agression.
    
    One other point...  INTER-specific violence is quite a different
    matter  from INTRA-specific violence.  The large carnivores may be
    relatively gentle with each other, but their neighbors certainly
    don't find them so.

    END_LECTURE ;^)

    There are (at least) two kinds of development going on here:
    biological and technological.  War is an important stimulus of
    technological advancement, no?  There's more pressure to produce
    and generally more money pumped into programs.

    I thought "war" was primarily a result of population pressues?
    (true there are exceptions....but)
    
    
    			-Jeff

    re: .24;
    
    I'll grant the relationship between war and technology.  However,
    I thought we were discussing the possibility of evolving an inherently
    non-violent intelligent species.  
    
    The only** sentient species we know is an opportunistic omnivore with
    a strong predatory tendency.  In the absence of such a behavioral
    pattern, would intelligence evolve?  
    
    As Speaker-to-Animals once commented, how much intelligence does
    it take to sneak up on a leaf?

    ** Note: if you insist dolphins, etc., are intelligent, you've got the
    same problem or worse.  They're fish-eating carnivores and Orcas are
    probably the most efficient killing machines on the planet
    

Well, *I* won't grant the relationship between war and technology.  
The only basic advance that I can think of that came about 
directly through war was nuclear power.  War has accelerated the 
development of things like rocketry and radar, but they weren't 
initially created for them.  

In any case, the really fundamental advances like irrigation or the
domestication of animals have nothing to do with war.  The real
technological revolution, the one that set us on our present path,
took place between five and ten thousand years ago. That's when all
the basics were discovered: long-term information storage (writing),
large-scale energy production (agriculture), materials transformation
(pottery and metal-working), and most of all, large-scale social
organization (cities and kingdoms).  From there, it's only a couple of
millenia to world dominance, a blink in evolutionary time.  That was 
the start of our present exponential rise.  

Did war put us on this path?  Probably not, although it may have
contributed.  Flint speartips can beat pointed sticks.  A tribe with
good organization can beat one without.  But war bands don't give up
hunting to plant seeds, or to make cuneiform marks in tablets. The
real pressures seem to have come from the need for food and space.
Those would presumably apply to any species.  We happen to have wound
up warlike, but other systems are possible.   Indeed, it's SF's job 
to explore just how else it might have turned out.

/jlr

    It may not take much intelligence to sneak up on a blade of grass,
    but intelligence has other uses besides getting food.  For example,
    you can use it to avoid becoming food.
    
    There are some pretty clever herbivores around, after all.  Elephants
    come to mind.  And the great apes are almost wholly herbivorous,
    with only occasional tastes of meat.  In fact, I believe almost
    all the higher primates are herbivorous; among the lower ones you
    find some insectivores.
    
    Not that herbivores are docile.  Think about the legendary tempers
    of mules and bulls.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    	How does "insisting" that cetateans are intelligent make things
    "worse" because they eat fish??!!  
    
    	Larry
    

    re .28  Isn't there some argument about needing a minimum amount
    of energy to support cerebration at sentient levels ?  I don't know
    or remember where that came from, but is there validity.  And also,
    assuming there exists an energy budget, what is the time trade-off
    in foraging for vegetable matter to support said budget, versus
    an omnivorous diet ?
    
    'Course, I have no objections to a non violent, herbivorous sapient
    species; just seems so limiting.  After all, if it can be caught
    (killed, picked), it may be eatable :})
    
    Dwight    

Re .30

I never heard of an argument for a certain minimum energy needed for rational 
thought.  It sounds unlikely to me.

We are already close to having a peaceable herbivorous intelligence on this 
planet.  Gorillas are capable of violence, but they are generally described as 
quiet and easy-going by those who have studied them.  They live on leaves and 
fruit, mostly leaves.  And they are very smart.  Ever hear of Koko?  She is a 
gorilla who has been taught American Sign Language.  She was given an IQ test 
for preliterate deaf children and scored around mental age four or five.  (I 
don't know what her chronological age at the time was.  She wasn't adult but 
may have been adolescent.)  They were tough on the test, too, and scored her 
wrong for listing flowers as edible, even though SHE eats them, as it happens.

Carnivores and herbivores live to different rhythms.  A carnivore and a 
herbivore of the same size burn about the same number of calories.  But for 
the herbivore, the calories come in a lot of easy-to-get containers with not 
many calories in each one.  For the carnivore, the calories come in a few 
hard-to-get containers (they run away), with a lot of calories in each one.

The herbivore nibbles its way through life, putting out a trickle of energy 
and getting back a trickle of energy, punctuated with high expenditures of 
energy while it runs for its life (unless it's big, like a gorilla or an 
elephant).  The carnivore goes on long fasts, putting out a trickle of energy 
and getting nothing back, until it finds some food.  Then it spends a lot of 
energy and, if it's lucky, gets a lot of eneryg back.

I don't see that either energy budget precludes intelligence.  Further, 
intelligence may be useful to either kind of animal.  However, you can get 
away with being a stupid herbivore if you make up for it in sheer armor 
plating or lavish production of young, or something like that.  It is harder 
to find a substitute for brains among carnivores, especially if your prey are 
at all bright.

Earl Wajenberg

    Re .30:
    
    'Way back in the early-golden Age of SF, when the physical
    characteristics of the Solar System were less well known, the late,
    great Stanley G. Weinbaum wrote several short stories concerning
    one Hamilton "Ham" Hammond and the woman whom he won (in the first
    story) as his wife, Patricia.  The moodiest of these stories, "The
    Lotus Eaters," is based on the idea of a vegetable that is so
    inherently intelligent that in its own way, like (to a greater extent)
    the Arisians of the Lensman stories, each member could create a
    picture of the universe by sheer logical inference and deduction.
    
    However, because they _were_ plants and had no will power, they
    became prey to some creatures, who not one thousandth as intelligent,
    found them a good food source.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    
    P.S.  The first story of the series, "Parasite Planet," as well
    as "The Lotus Eaters," was set on a version of Venus that wasn't
    impossible by the knowledge of the time.  They're both good reads,
    even today.
    

    Re: .27
    
    >Well, *I* won't grant the relationship between war and technology.  
    >The only basic advance that I can think of that came about directly
    >through war was nuclear power.
    
    If you're going to limit yourself to basic advances, then certainly
    not.  If you're going to look at overall progress, then there is
    definitely a relationship - in several fields, like medicine, food
    production and preservation (we have margarine because Napoleon
    had a contest to find something that would taste like butter but
    last better), and communications.

    re: .-1
    
    Well, almost any field of human endeavor has SOME effect on technology.
    Weaving, for instance, laid the foundations for computers in the form
    of the Jacquard loom.   For that matter, the Industrial Revolution
    started in the English textile mills.  Some inventions are 
    spurred by military necessity, but most are driven by other needs.
    Indeed, the military tends to be very conservative about 
    technology, except in extreme circumstances.  Iron-clad, steam-powered
    warships didn't really catch on until late in the 19th century, long
    after they took over commercial shipping, even though the 
    "Monitor" was used with success in the Civil War.  The Air Force 
    and NASA still used resistor-transistor logic (RTL) long after
    everyone else had gone to TTL.  They may still use it for all I know.
    They prefer technologies of proven reliability, because it's a very
    big deal when something fails.
    
    /jlr

    Re: .34
    
    >Indeed, the military tends to be very conservative about technology,
    >except in extreme circumstances.
    
    Would war qualify as extreme circumstances?

    Re .34, .35:
    
    Among my books, I have one called _Allied Secret Weapons During
    World War II_, whose authou escapes me at the moment.  This, and
    sections of other books, speak not only of the successes, but also
    the spectacular failures of developing new weapons systems.  One,
    The Grand Panjandrum, was a huge tank (as in vat-like device as
    opposed to "land ironclad" or "mobile foxhole) upon which rockets
    were attached to the rims.  The idea was supposed to be that the
    thing would be rolled into position, then sent through enemy minefields
    to clear a way for the troops to follow.  The only problem was that
    it couldn't be steered or otherwise controlled.  Every test was
    a disaster.  There are other examples about why "the military" [what
    an odd phrase, but it's used a lot] tends to be conservative about
    weapons.  Sometimes justifiably: when the Carthaginians fought the
    Romans using elephants, they kept ignoring that the elephants were
    as likely to turn and trample their own men as the enemy....
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    Arthur C Clarke's short story called "Superiority" puts an interesting
    perspective on war and advancing technology. 
    
    It's about the interstellar war between 2 races. One side keeps churning
    out good ol' reliable battle cruisers etc, while the other side are
    really inventive and keep coming up with more and more advanced weapons
    (I seem to recall the "death sphere" was a goodie). In the end ... but
    that would be telling.                            
                                                      
    
    Re: .36
    
    On the subject of WWII secret weapons, there was a British (Allied?)
    think tank to come up with really wild ideas. My favourite was to
    build a mock up (full size I think!) of South-Eastern England and
    float it in the North Sea (that's between England and the continent).
    Its objective was to foil the bomber crews - the German ones!      
                                                                   
    Ken

    There was also a plan during WW II to use an iceberg as an aircraft
    carrier.  In fact, I think it was Freeman Dyson, the well-known
    physicist, who was behind this one.  You tow it out to the mid-Atlantic,
    spread sawdust over it to control the melting, plane off the top
    to make a landing strip, and voila!  You have a torpedo-proof base
    for sub-hunting planes.  It provides a stable platform in the
    roughest winter storms, can accomodate the largest planes, and has enough
    space for all the men and equipment you could want.  Plus the officer's
    mess never runs out of ice.  Another great idea that never got used.
    It can't be used now either, because it would be too tempting a
    target for a nuke.  Oh well.
    /jlr

    Re .38:
    
    Actually, the iceberg was an original idea that got modified.  The
    proposers realized that pure ice might be to fragile (i.e., might
    fracture along a crystal plane) a modification was made to freeze
    a thin slurry of wood chips.  This gave the hardness of ice without
    any crystal structural weaknesses.  The developer of this slurrylike
    stuff was a [Howard (?)] Pyke, and the material was then called
    "Pykrete."  A prototype was poured into a huge mold and frozen.
    It was discovered that as the Pykrete started to melt, the wood
    chips formed a coating on the surface that acted as an insulator,
    further reduscing melting (from solar action, anyway).
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    
    P.S.  A .45 caliber bullet fired straight at the Pykrete failed
    to fracture it (though the richocheting slug tore off the epaulette
    of the military aide who fired the shot, according to reports). 

    	Wouldn't the crew have been very cold, though?
    
    	Larry
    

    Re .40:
    
    Probably, though one thinks no colder than someone stationed, at,
    say, Thule.  The idea is, in a war, use whatever technology's necessary
    to win [subject, at times to the limitations of the Geneva Convention].
    Under such circumstances, comfort becomes a secondary issue.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    There are two types (at least) of scientific research.  There's
    basic research - let's just poke around and see what we can learn.
    And there's goal-specific research - let's prove that this works
    like this.  During wars, there is considerably more funding provided
    for basic research.

    	Yes, but I wasn't referring to just uncomfortable chilly - I'm
    talking unhealthy freezing!
    
    	Larry
    

    Re .43:
    
    Well, okay, a couple of observations....
    
    The Pykrete carrier was never built, so it was determined to have
    more drawbacks than benefits.  When you're in a war, _any_ situation
    in which benefits outweigh drawbacks is generally taken advantage
    of, including ice aircraft carriers.  [Having taken off from and
    landed on ice myself, the idea of a relatively frictionless runway
    is one I wouldn't be too keen on, even with arresting cables, but
    that's a side issue.]
    
    However, from an operational standpoint, what's the difference
    between living in the high polar regions on ice and living afloat
    on an iceberg?  Very little, I'm sure.  And there were air statyions
    in such places as Thule, Greenland [a story that made the rounds
    among military pilots was once someone who'd never landed at Thule
    before radioed ahead to get field conditions.  His last question
    to the controller was, "How much ice on the runway?"  The controller
    responded, "Thirty feet.  But land anyway."].
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

	Re: .34

    >Indeed, the military tends to be very conservative about 
    >technology, except in extreme circumstances.  

	Sure lots of things get invented outside of wars - infact 
	almost everything, but I think you will find if you read up
	on your history that war is one of the few states of 
	existance where any possibly useful inventions which might
	otherwise have died a death due to lack of forsight, finance
	etc. are given life and funding.

	I can think of a few inventions, without which the human race 
	would, I feel, have suffered without, or at least been a bit
	inconvenienced, that were perfected, enhanced or given life
	because of war.

	Aeroplanes - Until World War I, they were for many years (I
	forget how many) just an eccentric and dangerous toy for the
	rich or "mad" with the (I think) far more dangerous air-ships
	as the preferred form of air travel.  The accelerated development 
	generated by their use as a weapon rather than the slow and 
	cumbersum airship (dirigible) resulted in heavier-than-air travel 
	for the masses, not to mention space travel. (Imagine an air-bag 
	floating to the moon !!!) (I know there are still those who say
	that if we were meant to fly, God would have given us wings ! - 
	but I for one *LOVE* flying and wish I did have wings).

	Penicilin - Where would we have been without it - medicine moved
	forward in leaps and bounds due to this insignificant mould -
	admittedly using wounded soldiers as human guinea-pigs, but it
	fortunately worked and saved and saves a lot of lives and was the
	for-runner of modern antibiotics.

	Industry benefits from war as better, faster and more economical
	ways are rapidly found to produce almost anything.

	Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of condoning war, but
	I am grateful for the sacrifices of those whose contribution to
	the development of inventions have made my live easier, more
	comfortable and definitely worth living, and without which I 
	wouldn't want to do without.

	This hasn't exactly been a FLAME but it sure sounds like it eh ?

	Enough said ......

	CJA

re: .-1

Yes, some things are accelerated in wartime.  Weaponry and medicine 
show dramatic progress because there's a clear and pressing need for them.
However, the same can be said for any activity.  When they needed to 
drain coal mines, they developed steam engines.  When they needed a 
lot of steel for the railroads, they developed the Bessemer process.
I don't think that WW I had that much effect on the death of 
dirigibles, because they were also used during the war, and for 
twenty years afterwards.  They were done in because airplanes were easier
to experiment with and develop.  It was like breeding mosquitos 
instead of elephants.  In any case,
it's needs that drive invention, not the military.

Sometimes the military's needs distort the natural direction of progress.
The Space Shuttle is a recent example of this.  It was redesigned at 
some cost and delay to be able to handle certain very large spy satellites,
and as a result is larger than it needs to be.  Because of the Challenger
disaster, commercial flights are to be excluded from the Shuttle's schedule.
Its natural function is to do things in orbit requiring human 
attention, but instead it will be just another launcher.

Nuclear power is another example.  Reactors in the United States use 
highly enriched uranium because it's a by-product of weapons production.
This has disadvantages with regard to waste, controlling the 
reaction, and the threat of terrorist bombs.  Reactors in Canada use
naturally occurring uranium and seem to have a lot less trouble with
their plants.

/jlr

    Where would the space program be without the German WWII rocket
    program?

    Re .47:
    
    There are two answers to that one.
    
    1) Not too far along.  Robert Goddard, who developed the world's
    first operational liquid-propellant rocket, did his wartime duty
    developing the bazooka.  
    
    2) Maybe fairly far along.  Germany wasn't the only country messing
    with long-range rockets.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.