Comment Rockets not a "random pick" (Score 2) 229
This is the crux of it, I think:
To employ a commonly used metaphor, our current proficiency in rocket-building is the result of a hill-climbing approach; we started at one place on the technological landscape—which must be considered a random pick, given that it was chosen for dubious reasons by a maniac
I don't agree that Hitler choice of rocketry for the V2 was random. I think he went to his not-yet-rocket scientists and said, "How do I deliver X kilograms of payload to England with such and such circular error probability, and oh yeah, it can't be intercepted?" And rockets were the answer. And for good reasons. I'm not sure what other technologies of the 1930s and 1940s could have performed the task: submarines with huge artillery built-in (susceptible to torpedo planes unless you could do some kind of shoot and scoot); they did try the bomber thing but that wasn't a winner; balloons don't seem like a possibility. We *still* don't have something better than rockets and missiles for mass producing corpses (whether you agree its a good idea or not): perhaps the Navy's upcoming railguns are different enough to be considered a "change".