Letters

Sunday, Dec. 12, 2004
    • The Most Amazing Inventions of 2004

    "Burt Rutan has opened the door to relatively cheap travel to outer space. His creativity exemplifies the blaze of the American spirit."
    TOM WILSON
    Libertyville, Ill.


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    I was excited to read about the coolest inventions of the year [Nov. 29]. With his innovative SpaceShipOne, Burt Rutan hit the ball not just out of the park but right out of the atmosphere. I was disappointed, however, that many of the creations you chose were impractical, half-baked ideas. Consider the Snow Boat, which, by means of an aluminum boat welded around a snowmobile, is supposed to solve the problem of the vehicle's falling through the ice. That's like making a safer motorcycle by carrying it in a U-Haul. Coolness is hard to define, but ridiculousness isn't part of the concept.
    DEXTER FORD
    Manhattan Beach, Calif.

    Congratulations to Rutan and his team for privately developing SpaceShipOne. That's American ingenuity at its best. But your article portrayed Rutan as harboring a smug arrogance directed at NASA, an agency whose daring innovations in space flight and exploration long ago provided the coattails that Rutan latched onto. It is true that NASA's ventures have cost lives, but those were lives of pioneers who died while daring to explore. For Rutan to imply that NASA is "an airline that kills 4% of its passengers" not only misses the point but is also graceless. I hope NASA will return to manned flights and capture our imagination by pushing the envelope in space exploration.
    BRAD BANGLE
    Houston

    It is wonderful to see that global ingenuity is thriving, but within a few years we will be throwing away 2004's innovative gizmos and gadgets for the next round of amazing inventions. There was not a word in your report about reuse, recycling, sustainability or even compatibility with existing or future products. Each of the inventions seems to be a stand-alone technology, and some are even designed to be disposable. As wonderful as it may be to have plastic tattoos on my iPod and rubbery tubes to keep my shoes tied, how will I explain to my grandchildren that it was this kind of thinking that filled the world's landfills and depleted our limited resources?
    BRIAN A. PILLE
    Ann Arbor, Mich.

    The Federation of Iraq

    Unless the U.S. is smart enough to make the right decision soon, it is going to have one Fallujah after another for years to come [Nov. 22]. Sunnis and Baathists were able to control Iraq for decades under Saddam Hussein. They will fight forever, since the Shi'ite majority would defeat them in a general election. Why not create an Iraq federation of three states — Shi'ite in the south, Sunni in the middle and Kurd in the north? Each state would govern itself, and the Iraqi federal government would be in charge of the oil industry, defense, foreign diplomacy and smoothing over religious differences. What other scheme will get the U.S. out of Iraq anytime soon?
    MARTIN MICHAELIS
    Amherst, N.H.

    After Arafat

    No matter how much Yasser Arafat's death has affected the conflict in the Middle East [Nov. 22], isn't it somewhat disrespectful for the media to focus primarily on the benefit that his passing brings to the peace process? His death is a major event and heralds change, of course, but shouldn't we concentrate more on what Arafat gave to the world during his life? It is the respect that everyone deserves.
    MICHAEL FOSTER
    Fareham, England

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