Trivia Junction

A Compendium of trivia I find interesting
...for the curious

Have we misapplied our technology?

Why in this 21st century – a time of space travel, of greatly advanced technology – are we so ill-equipped to handle such a massively destructive event as a major fire? Have we spent our resources of billions, even trillions of dollars exclusively on technology to kill and maim, but not on technology to mitigate, even overcome, natural disasters such as fires, hurricanes or floods?

We are able to aim a military missile at a target many miles distant with pinpoint accuracy provided by a global positioning program, but we have no means to aim fire-retardant or water-bomb missiles at an encroaching fire a few hundred yards away. Our military arsenal includes land mines that kill and destroy robotically; why not produce heat-triggered land mines containing compressed fire-retardant that are placed or dropped in advance of a moving wall of fire?

If we broaden our emphasis on developing our combat technology from exclusively military purposes to addressing natural disasters as well, our think tanks, our industrial innovators, our research universities will surely be motivated and rewarded for solutions still undreamed of.

JACK SCHAPS
La Jolla

See Also: The Predator and the 2007 Fire Storm in San Diego

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