Letter: Research for peace, maybe?

The Dec 1 Star began with an article about readying for battles in space. The new UA Director of Research advocates for such research, and other military-serving studies, all perhaps helping to bankroll UA. As the playwright Anton Chekhov knew, if you introduce a gun into a play, it will go off. If you build a new weapon, it will be used. Is this what we want to research, what we want our eminent pubic university to be known for? What about research for peace, through funding arts, humanities, and human sciences research? Please, Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, orient UA research projects to work that may bring more compassion, kindness, and love (and less war) into the world. Please, AZ Star, publicize such research. We've had enough wars on our one and only planet, let's not stretch our battles into space. Last year's Women's Peace Conference in Denver should have taught us -- respond not with militarism first, but with negotiation, moving toward understanding (yes, compassion & kindness).