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silly bunny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
this emits alpha particles. hard to make something explosive I figure. Do you figure at all? Probably much too much.

Here is a little background of general interest. http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=598732652
Figure we are out of the 238 and I suppose the way things are, we might never have any more. Another way to shut down the space program.? But the slug is from a year ago. So, you tell me, is the supply situation any better? If not, maybe you should look around for some patterns to get a handle on this sort of thing.

Big wheel of Cheese

No word on what type yet.

-tm

Have they sent anything into orbit?

Um, yes, much more often than NASA. For example, the United Launch Alliance has commercially launched 36 rockets in the past 36 months, SpaceX has had a number of successful launches (and seems to have worked out of their growing pains), and Orbital also launches regularly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_spaceflight#Commercial_launchers

Have they made a trip to the ISS?

If you're include non-US companies, Arianespace has used their Ariane 5 rocket to launch an ATV to the ISS. If you're only including US companies, SpaceX will be launching a prototype of their Dragon capsule this month, with two missions to the ISS this year: http://www.spacex.com/updates.php

Any other questions?

Now-a-days, operators are supposed to "deorbit" satellites. For geosynchronous satellites, that means boosting them up out of that orbit by a few 100 km, while for LEOs that generally means putting them into the atmosphere.

I thought that there was a formal requirement to do this, but this article indicates that it is just an informal agreement :

There is a "gentlemens agreement" to either de-orbit the satellite when in low earth orbit, or raise it to a "graveyard" orbit some 300kms above the geo-synchronous orbit of most large communications and television broadcast satellites.

It looks like Global Hawks are being upgraded to the MP-RTIP radar, which you can be sure is extremely better than what the U2 had (has?). http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=72692412 MP-RTIP info here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/mp-rtip.htm I am pretty sure that MP-RTIP details are classified so you probably can't find many technical details online about it.

There's nothing terribly special about this sort of launch. The PSLV is a fairly unremarkable vehicle, and there have been launches that have included more than 10 satellites in the past.

America did indeed even participate in the Russian launch listed above.

This launch also has virtually nothing to do with the Shuttle, which is primarily a manned crew vehicle. Retiring the shuttle is probably a good decision, given that it failed to fulfill its original design goals of being safe, cheap, and easily reusable. Unless nationalistic pride matters that to you, there's no reason why NASA shouldn't use Soyuz for the time being.

last year. But still, it's impressive. Although I think they're putting them in SSO and not LEO just yet.

wired: U.S. Could Deny GPS To Taliban

The international fear and uncertainty has become so large that the Pentagon even feld compelled to say they wouldn't enact a global GPS blackout during war time. This is obviously a completely unbearable situation for anyone besides the US government. Here is a link:

Reuters: Pentagon pledges 'no global GPS blackout'

I don't know what happened to the Russian space positioning system that was once discussed as alternative, but the European Union is completely right in that they think they have to create an alternative to GPS. Even more puzzling is the fierceness with which the USA have tried to stop Galileo (why would they do that if not to leverage their monopoly pressure?). Here is a satnews.com story about it:

EU Postpones Decision on Galileo System Until 2002

The argument of the US government against Galileo was that it "could be abused by future enemies". So you can see how the US government is using GPS to pressure others. It is very important to create an alternative to GPS, even if it's just to stop the US from bullying other nations.

So much about Galileo, but what about other reasons for a non-US space program? I think one of the most dramatic display of bullying ever to be seen by any government is what the US government semi-openly discussed according to a Reuters story this February: to deny other nations access to space:

U.S. Pentagon Sees Space as Military 'High Ground'

If any sovereign nation sees something like this, it is obvious that a big space program besides the US one is absolutely necessary. The USA have proven time and again that they are a very volatile friend who on a whim decides to deny their resources to their friends.

There was one well documented case in the Bosnian war that is quite telling. The US vehemently denied ground troops and any real war involvement of theirs in Bosnia, on the grounds that Clinton thought his political career would be over of pictures of dead soldiers arrived home. So the role of the USA was mostly reconnaissance and intelligence and they did help keeping the air space empty. However, it later turned out that they gave weapons to the rebels, in violation of NATO orders. Here is one link about it:

Washington finances ethnic warfare

This is a very serious issue, please don't take my word for it, look for yourself. There was a good joint European documentary about it a while ago, where they interviewed the NATO official in Bosnia, a Norwegian military official, and he said that the USA basically denied their allies the contractually guaranteed intelligence to cover up their covert operations.

In my eyes this kind of behaviour leaves Europe no other choice but to go for independence in space and military. Most nations have given in to US surveillance and intelligence superiority, some like Australia and Britain even joined the Echelon system. There are stories that even those very close allies do not have full access to the jointly generated intelligence. In effect, the USA is exploiting and abusing everyone else around them, and now Mr Bush has stepped over the line with his excessive bullying and the other nations are banding together.

I have been waiting for this for many years, and I am happy that it finally happened. While I despise Bush on all levels, he did something very valuable for the world. He gave them enough motivati