OT: Maintaining technology (was Re: OT; Corning technology)

[Jay Ashworth]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard Kreiss" <rkreiss at gccconsulting.net>

> A long time ago, and I don’t remember where, it had been said that the
> ancient glass makers could make glass as strong as steel.
> 
> If I recall correctly one of the big guns barrel on the Battleship Missouri
> blew up or was damaged during the Vietnam War. We did not have the ability
> to make a new one. Both the machinery and the skills necessary had
> disappeared (died off).
> 
> That is the problem sometimes. When older technology is "no longer needed"
> the skills involved disappear until some individual decides that they
> want to know how it works and tries to recreate the technology.

This is an issue for the Pentagon on many fronts; procurement contracts are
let based on it, in some cases, at least -- notably, there are not all 
that many people with the vocational skills necessary to weld submarine
pressure vessels correctly ... which is a pretty important thing, as you
might imagine.

I'm told, therefore, that procurement on submarines is scheduled and staged
so as to keep those crews busy, so we don't lose them from the shipyards
that do that work -- since the skills aren't exactly portable.

(I got this from a Clancy book, but I think it was one of his non-fictions.)

Cheers,
-- jra