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Post by frankcor on Feb 18, 2008 19:41:48 GMT -5
The Soviet's manned spy station was equipped with a 1" cannon for use in defending it against US attack satellites. They actually test fired it once but with no men aboard. They were afraid the vibration might endanger the crew.
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Post by dgriffin on Feb 18, 2008 20:23:33 GMT -5
Nuclear missiles are the cheapest form of defensive or offensive strike capability, especially if you're stealing the technology. As Concerned noted, men and tanks are not cheap, nor fast enough to get ahead of the news cycle as evidenced by the Gulf Wars on CNN. Plus, your sons go off to a ground war and the country gets upset. In a nuclear exchange, you either read the next morning that their side lost or the next morning never comes for your side.
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Post by Swimmy on Feb 18, 2008 20:30:07 GMT -5
Well, in a nuclear exchange, there are really no winners, except those who died immediately in the blast. The radioactive fallout and chaos that would consume the planet would make the survivors wished they either were dead or that that those who died were happy their had their "victory." I can't remember the name of the movie, but it was an English film depicting what life would be like for survivors of a nuclear holocaust. It was a fairly realistic one, i.e. no mutated cockroaches roaming the earth and eating humans.
So it may be economically cheaper to wage nuclear war, it's too expensive in other aspects to even consider. That's part of why we never pushed the proverbial "red button." That and MAD.
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Post by dgriffin on Feb 18, 2008 20:45:27 GMT -5
I do remember "On the Beach," starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, I think. Fred Astaire played in it also. The only survivors after the world nuclear Armageddon were either in or forced to Austrailia. When a sporadic morse code signal was heard from nuclear-hot America's west coast, a submarine was dispatched to find the source of the signal. I remember, but does anyone else remember what they found as the source of the signal? The explanation in the movie was wrapped in one of the movie's most compelling scenes that had the ship's crew walking through a dead San Francisco.
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Post by Swimmy on Feb 18, 2008 21:16:52 GMT -5
I have not heard of the movie. I'll have to find it on netflix.
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Post by dgriffin on Feb 18, 2008 21:58:02 GMT -5
Great movie. So we won't tell you the source of the signal.
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Post by Swimmy on Feb 18, 2008 22:18:43 GMT -5
Thanks.
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Post by frankcor on Feb 18, 2008 22:54:32 GMT -5
Weren't Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello in On the Beach, too?
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Post by concerned on Feb 19, 2008 10:36:30 GMT -5
Weren't Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello in On the Beach, too? And if I remember correctly that was a very ' nuclear ' moment in the entertainment battlefield. Look what developed since then.
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Post by frankcor on Feb 19, 2008 12:41:25 GMT -5
Annette was pretty much done with her development by then.
Dave, it's killing me now. What was the source of the signal?
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Post by dgriffin on Feb 19, 2008 21:13:47 GMT -5
ON THE BEACH (1959) "Who would ever have believed that human beings would be stupid enough to blow themselves off the face of the earth...?" Director: Stanley Kramer Starring: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins, Fred Astaire, Donna Anderson, John Tate, Lola Brooks, John Meillon, Peter Williams (No Annette, no mouse ears, no dance numbers.) Screenplay: John Paxton, based upon the novel by Nevil Shute (I'd forgotten all about Nevil!) from: twtd.bluemountains.net.au/Rick/liz_otb.htmSorry, I couldn't find a trailer. When the submarine arrived on the west coast, they suited up a guy who wanted desperately to be back on American soil, no matter what the consequences. They told him they would not be able to take him back on board once he left the sub. He insisted he would be OK, because, after all, someone was alive in the city... the person sending the Morse code, whoever it was. Gregory Peck told him no one knew for sure it was a person sending the code. Next scene is the guy walking through streets, people horribly dead and deformed from radiation sickness. He follows his radio detector to a navy yard and finds the source of the transmissions. The power had remained on (for months, now) and a window had blown out and wrapped the window shade's pull cord around the top of a coke bottle which in the wind bounced against an unmanned morse code key.
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Post by rrogers40 on Feb 19, 2008 21:50:58 GMT -5
Doh
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Post by frankcor on Feb 19, 2008 23:01:29 GMT -5
They sure don't write 'em like that anymore. Thanks, Dave!
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Post by dgriffin on Feb 20, 2008 17:05:59 GMT -5
There were a couple of interesting sub-plots that I remember, turning on the expectation that eventually the radiation cloud would reach Australia and they would all soon be dead. Peck and Gardner were in love, of course. Tony Perkins and his wife were young parents, worried about their baby more than themselves and wondered if they should do a family hari kari (I think they did.) Fred Astaire bought the big one, too, by gassing himself in his beloved English sports car in his garage. Why do I remember this movie so well? I don't know. It was very uplifting. And Fred's car was a Morgan
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