I'd say you should do some research into Asian conflicts in the last 200 years. Koreans, Vietnamese and the Japanese were not to be underestimated in their resolve to completely destroy any one they saw as the enemy. Abu graib (iraqi prison) is a comfy night at the spa compared to what went down during the Korean and WWII war time period.

Jean was iPad corrected from "hear"

Very good points and a perspective you don't jean often. When I said steal I was meaning more in a sense we were trying to keep them from the Soviets. if we didn't grab them, the soviets, who we are told understood the potential, we're doing heir best to get them..

60 years later it's always easier to play devil's advocate. I can logically counter your first question by saying, "Do you not think the Japanese had quality intel?" A nuclear blast, as well as several nuclear events, is not exactly a huge secret even in pre-space surveillance days (nowadays, we know exactly when, where, how, and how big in nanoseconds due to AFTAC sensors worldwide and in space). So, to take this point to the next level, the Japanese can very likely have known about our nuclear intent and capability. Afterall, their comrades the Germans, are where we stole the scientists to get our capability faster. I'm sure at some point an Intel Chief from Germany gave a phone call to the Japanese Intel division and said something to the effect, "Hey heads up, the Americans have one of our scientists who will give them the capability within X months (weeks?)." The Japanese are said to have been apprehensive attacking us at all because of the known capabilities we bring to any fight, even back then. However, I'd say hundreds of sunken ships and fallen planes throughuot the Pacific region would be emperical evidence they thought the rewards were worth the risks. This is why we're playing very conservative with near-nuclear states today. We know the potential downsides to attacking a crazy dictator with one operational nuke with an ICBM, or MRBM capability.

Your second paragraph I've already partially addressed. Nuclear technology was very unpredictable at the time. How do you measure the released energy of an atom being split when you've barely done it? My careerfield is Space and Missiles, so if you can be specific about whatever test, then I can have a more educated response. I've read thousands of pages on nuclear testing, etc, but again, if you can cite a spcific test you find insane, unethical or whathaveyou, I can repond.

Really, no threat at all? So, help me out. Where did the trade towers in New York go? The sailors who died on the USS Cole hat was only sitting in port, where did the explosion come from? The Khobar Towers? All of those incidents were young men taught to hate from childhood and none of them attacked on native soil (or territorial waters in the Cole example).

Unocal? In afghanistan? I dont think you've ever set in foot in Afghanistan. Now, china wants to put a pipe through but if you've noticed, we have very different outlooks on foreign policy than they do and so you'd be really stretching to believe causation between those two.

ideology doesn't sustain conflict? Oh my goodness I want the KoolAid you're drinking. Oh yeah the Crusades were just a hiccup in recorded history and the Muslims haven't been warring for centuries. Wahabaiism, started around 1300 AD, isn't cited today in Mosques, some 710 years later, and quoted by Taliban\ Al Quieda, to include the 9/11 "martyrs.". I noticed you've strayed way off the kids angle. Was is just a ruse so someone would feed the troll?

Well, seems we agree you're sorry. Sorry is the state of being that you don't stand for anything and hence, fall for anything. The world is not black and white. What's moral to you is the same as asking what's your favorite flavor of ice cream. The child with the AK-47 has been taught his whole life to hate others because they don't believe in the same imaginary friend or even within the same religion. Sunnis and Shia, both Muslim, each think the other is wrong in HOW they believe. Being wrong (to them) makes you an infidel, and hence, bullet fodder. The child will 100% believe he's moral as he puts the 7.62mm projectile through your skull for being: Jewish, Pakistani, Sunni, or even just "Western Influenced." So you can be moral all you want but you'll either be dead or be safe because someone like me stops them from killing you, by following Rules of Engagement for dealing with a military threat while serving their country in the profession of arms.

Thankfully, most people realize the duty, honor, and courage service to your country entails and respect it.

Right. It was: continue losing troops and ships without an ability to stop it. We now know we were weeks from being absolutely screwed since the Jap and Germans were very nearly capable of fielding jet powered aircraft. We'd have been a long ways away from being able to counter that threat.

I'm assuming your question about why to drop multiple bombs as being sincere, so I'll answer. The strategic answer to your question was to show that we had the capability to drop multiple nuclear bombs. If you drop just one, the strategic implication is that you only have one. If you use multiple, it takes nearly any doubt out of the enemies mind that you have the capability to drop more. Deterrence only works if your enemy believes you have the capability. In this case, it would be hard to argue this was not effective from a military strategic point of view.

Again, assuming the question is sincere, the reason the military did so much testing was to observe countermeasure effectiveness. Because of the testing, the military has more effective sheilding and even created communications systems that will transmit through the resulting EMP/etc (e.g. MILSTAR). In retrospect, they did impact more people than anticipated, but that's because on a few occasions the yield was higher than expected.

Depends. If it's a child of military-capable age, and he's pointing an AK-47 directly at you...then you tell me what you think the answer is when you're standing in front of the child. If your answer is no, then you would be a dead man here in Afghanistan. Hesitate once and it might be your last. If it's a child just walking down the street, sitting at home, playing in the "backyard", no. ROE doesn't allow escalation of force because there's no threat.

And the proper grammar is, "You didn't answer the question."

No, you're not going to answer because you're an absolute idiot. Log in and post that dumb azz crap. Not to mention you had to see the dozens of other a$$ hats who posted the same stupid thing, but no you had to anonymously post exactly the same crap because....??? Fail. Go back to playing your PS2, and mom should have dinner ready in a few minutes. Try not to complain about the free food in your free house.

I did hold on to them just in case. However, I've pitched every PC. I could pop my most recent HD extrnal drive (old primary HD for the MBP laptop) and swap it in, to see if Lion will read it. I'll have to try that sometime when "little fingers" aren't nearby :)

Sounds to like me about 5-6 years ago. Realized my PC cratering crash, and unreadable backups had just digitally lost most pics of the first 3 years of my son's life. Been on Mac's ever since, with sequential and full backups performed almost too often.

Agree. I don't see how you do 2 months of constant firing and then not impact a 14 year design life. Usually there's no crossover between a apogee kick system, and smaller stationkeeping thrusters. So it's not like you can "divert the fuel." I am about 80% sure it's a different thruster system anyway (meaning, apogee motor is NOT hydrazine), but I could easily be wrong. The AF article had several obvious mistakes that any satellite flyer would catch.

On a $2B satellite there are tons of $1,000 tests. If they've always been negative or someone incorrectly assumes another test overlaps...

You have to be joking or you've forgotten what we're talking about. This is an apogee kick motor (to use GPS parlance) to take a 2 ton space vehicle to a circular 22,000 mile orbit. GPS, having half the orbit and half the weight, has an AKM which is not small. It's huge. It has to be due to the amount of firing it's intended to do. I tried Googling an image to show my point, but unfortunately, the AKM is on the "non-sexy" side of the SV and, hence, no photos. We're not talking about .5 pound stationkeeping thrusters.

That said, yes I believe the author was undermined by a bad source, or at least the Air Force Magazine article I read which is cited. He is quoted as saying it was a surprise that hydrazine had a warm-up period, and made it sound as if the 50th was flying this bird alongside operable satellites. We've known for over 40 years hydrazine is more consistent when pre-warmed. This is why GPS fires up pre-heaters before every stationkeeping maneuver. Pre-heating gives more reliable, and predictable vectors.