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WAR GAMES
To The Best of Our Knowledge
from Wisconsin Public Radio
Every year billions of classified dollars are funneled
into what defense analysts call "the black world." It's
a realm that uses code names like "Black Light," "Classic
Wizard," and "Link Plumeria" - a place where even
an idea can be top secret. Stealth bombers came from the black world,
and so did the atomic bomb. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge,
modern war. Why anti-gravity technology may be the next big thing
on the way up from the military underground. Also, graffiti tagging
for peace, in cyberspace.
SEGMENT 1:
Nick Cook is aviation editor of Jane's Defense
Weekly, and the author of "The Hunt for Zero Point."
He tells Steve Paulson that there seems to be something called
zero point energy. Once we build the technology to master it,
we'll solve all our energy problems. And the first application
may be anti-gravity devices, which several governments, research
teams and corporations are racing to develop. Also, Anne-Marie
Schleiner is a cyber-anthropologist and one of the creators
of Velvet-Strike, an on-line modification for the game Counter-Strike.
Schleiner's goal is to introduce messages of peace into a violent
game. She tells Anne Strainchamps what her version does to the
basic game and admits she gets hate mail from the overwhelmingly
male gaming community.
SEGMENT 2:
Jon Ronson was assigned by The Guardian newspaper
to find out how easy it would be to build a dirty bomb. So he
did, and wrote about it in an article called "How (not) To
Build A Dirty Bomb." He tells Jim Fleming it was really easy
to get uranium from e-bay, and that the best way to pick expert
brains is to identify yourself as an NPR reporter. Also, science
journalist K.C. Cole is working on a book about her friend
Frank Oppenheimer. Robert's brother, Frank was barred from practicing
physics during the McCarthy era, and was deeply troubled by the
devastation of the bomb.
SEGMENT 3:
George Dyson, son of Freeman Dyson, is the
author of "Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship."
He tells Anne Strainchamps that his father was on the team that
imagined using tiny atomic bombs to propel a huge spaceship around
the solar system. It might still be an option under extreme circumstances,
but is politically impossible because of the radioactive fallout
generated.
Cassette copies are available
at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 02-10-06-A.
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Books:
- Nick Cook, The Hunt for Zero Point
(Atlantic)
- George Dyson, Project Orion: The True
Story of the Atomic Spaceship (Henry Holt)
Music:
- -Major Tom (Coming Home)/ Peter
Schilling/ Living in Oblivion: The 80s Greatest Hits V. 5/ EMI
- -Games Without Frontiers/ Peter Gabriel/ So/ Geffen
- -Saturday Night on Saturn/ Frank Comstock/ Brain
in a Box: The Science Fiction Collection Disc 4/ Rhino
- - track unknown/ Naked City/ Elektra
- -Lunar Rhapsody/ Les Baxter/ Brain in a Box: The
Science Fiction Collection Disc 4/ Rhino
- -Space Oddity/ David Bowie/ Bowie: The Singles
1969 to 1993/ Rykodisc
- -Fly Me to the Moon/ Frank Sinatra
Distribution dates:
Also this week: Hour Two: Mental
Illness
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Questions and comments can
be addressed to: flemingj@wpr.org
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