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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (4474)	2/16/2003 12:25:30 PM
From: cosmicforce	Respond to of 7720

Yeah, you're probably right. I just read this article out of the Rand Corp. Remember them? They were very visible in the 70's. The report was about the strategic planning with respect to an incoming asteroid impact. From a civil stability POV, you take your losses and deal with the consequences the best you can afterward. No reason to waste energy and resources with ineffective preparations.

To: Lane3 who wrote (4474)	2/16/2003 1:20:55 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 7720

The point of the duck and cover, as I understand it, was for protection from flying glass and from falling-in buildings -- the same reasons you do it in earthquakes. I think they looked at the destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at the patterns of damage and decided that under a desk or table was the safest place to ride out the shock wave. Of course if you were at ground zero, forget it. But if you were far enough out that the shock wave would damage buildings but not immediately incinerate them, d&c was actually not a dumb strategy. of course, the real long-term danger was the radiation, and nothing would stop that. But in the 1950s we hadn't yet seen the true effects of radiation.

To: Lane3 who wrote (4474)	2/16/2003 1:29:05 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 7720

I've been wondering lately whether they knew all the time that hiding under a desk was pointless. It might not have been pointless for everyone. If you where on the fringe area of the blast being deadly it might have helped just a little bit. Of course then you would have to quickly either find a fallout shelter or get the hell out of there. Plus the immediate radiation from the blast would be a problem, but some small number of people might have been saved by hiding under the desks. Of course if the whole country is nuked they might die from the economic and infrastructure disruption even if they where not killed by any of the direct effects of the blast. Tim