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U.S. Air Force Plans for War In Space
arhca writes "Wired has an article about the U.S. Air Force's plans to put military weapons in outer space. Plans include firing hypervelocity rods from space to targets on the ground, space-based lasers and large mirrors to reflect the beams at targets on the ground, and a space-based radio frequency energy weapon to destroy or disable foreign satellites. The Air Force's PDF can be found here."
Isn't there some treaty banning that? But then, the Bush administration doesn't seem to mind breaking arms-control treaties. (ABM treaty, anyone?)
But wasn't that the plan of SDI back under Reagan?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Of course all this high powered weaponry will NOT MAKE A SOUND IN SPACE (not even cool 'zap' sounds). Perhaps they should put that into the article scifi movie writers will take note.
:-P
Note: This is a joke. Everytime I attempt humor on slashdot, the mods get it, but I get about 50 replies explaining why what I wrote is wrong. If you have no sense of humor, get off the net and go find some
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
hypervelocity n : excessive velocity; "the meteorites struck the earth with hypervelocity impacts"
Are these rods the size of VWs or something? That's pretty ambitious, if you ask me.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
The Alan Parsons Project!
long live star wars.
"There's no defense like a good offense."
Now what about the popcorn...
Ah the sheer scope of our commitement to killing each other is staggering.
Technology? Progress? Dude, nothing has changed since my ancestral parent kicked your acestral parent's ass with a bone club.
Web pages, blogs, palm pilots....big fucking deal.
So these weapons will float up there without an enemy (at the moment) but once a foreign nation is considered "evildoers" the U.S. can rain down destruction as their war-machine infrastructure is already in place.
Naturally the American taxpayers will be told that this will make the world a safer place.
Trolling is a art,
Well, this will certainly put an end to the arms race.
I invented this business plan:
1. Place giant LASER on moon/giant dridgible.
2. Hold citizens of earth hostage for 1 BILLION dollars.
3. ????
4. PROFIT!
- Dr. Evil
Free your ecomony and enact the FairTax
banning weapons in space, but it'll just be broken. (otherwise the terrorists win)
Although, suppose they are really preparing for already detected aliens....
Call Art Bell!
" More space junk. It's getting pretty crowded up there already."
Yeah really man! Me an a couple friends were up in space last weekend and I was all like, "dude, space has become soooooo crowded" and he was like "dude totally".
-m
#
# Modus Ponens
#
Its a bird
Its a plane
No Wait
OH SH#T
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.
God, I read too much Sci-Fi.
Final proof, if proof were needed, that George W really does believe Star Trek is real. He's no doubt drafted the orders for this from behind his sofa, trembling in his ST pyjamas at the thought of Klingons coming for him and stealing his oil.
"If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." Earl Wilson
Here's a drawing of one of the new weapon designs.
watching this....
I am NaN
Let's just hope that our own satellites don't get hacked and the weapon is used against us. I'm curious to know if this is just an extension of Ronald Reagan's plans of the space missile defense systems (which at the time people scoffed at).
The ability to take out enemy satellites is also interesting. As an American, I cant' help but notice that the rules of engagement have been as follows: "Foreign countries are allowed to have weapons, as LONG as they're not as powerful as our own." which is obviously okay with me, as an American, however, so much for a fair playing field.
I had a room mate who was in the military, as he worked for the New York City counter terrorist unit, and he used to bring home videos from work that showed how we were able to target individual people from miles above the air. I'll never figure out why we'll use a bomb which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to snipe someone... when a 10 cent bullet would do the trick just fine. Now we can do it from space?
Flame me if you like, my karma sucks anyway.
The war in Iraq proved to have the least number of non-combatant casualties of ANY war, EVER before. That seems to indicate IMPROVED accuracy. No, not perfect yet (that won't ever happen), but much, MUCH better. Accidents did occur, weapons did misfire, and hit non-target areas, yes. But overall, the Iraq war was far, FAR safer for non-combatants than any war ever before.
"Simply put, we would posture ourselves as a target in a volatile context that we create, and weaken ourselves at the same time," DeBlois told a George Washington University audience last year.
"Simply put, we would posture ourselves as a target in a volatile context that we create, and weaken ourselves at the same time," Bruce DeBlois, the editor of Beyond the Paths of Heaven: The Emergence of Space Power Thought, told a George Washington University audience last year.
Now that's what I call good editing.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Any significant conflict involving orbital space will leave so much debris that satellites and spacecraft will run much higher risks of collisions. The consequences of a war in space may be devastating to our communication and weather networks.
Get me out of this looney bin. I didn't sign up to be American, it was just bad luck.
Un-news
[obscure]
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
If you are wondering what country this might come in handy against in the future...
China
Casual Games/Downloads
Heating a giant Jiffy-Pop bag of course. (Joke lost on anyone who hasn't seen the movie)
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Great, something else to breakup and rain down on us in 30 years
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
Wrong film. Tomorrow Never Dies was the one about the media maniac, the sunken Royal Navy ship and the stolen GPS controller.
-- Soruk
The United States signs treaties banning such things. ( ABM Treaty (1972) and Space Treaty (1967) ) Then they back out of it when THEY feel like developing/advancing the technology. Next, some country like France is gonna try the same thing and Bush will go in for the attack.
Come on, we've all seen what happens when lasers are put in space...
I'm just waiting for our political enemies' houses to start filling with popcorn as in Real Genius!
Plans include firing hypervelocity rods from space to targets on the ground.
I'm not up to date on my space program figures. But it is expensive as hell to put a kilogram of material into orbit. I'd much rather pay for a plain old bomb, or even a reusable space laser. Carrying a rod into space to shoot it back down to earth is not cost effective.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Whoa! That was you dude?! Kewl
At least this way we can start picking off the alien invaders before they get too close.
Trust Your Technolust
Defense Tech has more on the Air Force's space war plans.
Great. This raises the specter of EMP. Hydrogen bombs exploded in near space that fry all of our semiconductor electronic devices. =/
-- SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER.
(David Spade voice) I think I saw that when Reagan called it "Star Wars" in the 80's
G-Force music visualization
There is no Palestine. You can't free something that doesn't exist.
gg nextmap
A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.
Her face and arms began to swell and Whitey's on the moon.
I can't pay no doctor bills but Whitey's on the moon.
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still while Whitey's on the moon.
The man just upped my rent last night cuz Whitey's on the moon.
No hot water, no toilets, no lights but Whitey's on the moon.
I wonder why he's uppin me. Cuz Whitey's on the moon?
I was already givin' him fifty a week but now Whitey's on the moon.
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
The junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
And as if all that shit wasn't enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.
Her face and arms began to swell but Whitey's on the moon.
Was all that money I made last year for Whitey on the moon?
How come there ain't no money here? Hmm! Whitey's on the moon.
Ya know, I just about had my fill of Whitey on the moon.
I think I'll send these doctor bills
airmail special....
to Whitey on the moon.
Copyright Gil-Scott Heron, 1972
Does this meen we all are going to walk with hats that has a mirror on top?
"Maybe I'm paranoid, but..."
I don't think anyone (in the military or government) would be talking about it if we didn't already have one or two generations of that technology under our hat, but above our heads in orbit.
waiting for my tin-foil hat auction on ebay to end...
I had a sucky sig.
While I want to make cynical remarks about the Air Force getting funding for space-based weapons and NASA's research stuff (particularly the Hubble and the Space Shuttle) getting the shaft, I also hope that any advances that one makes gets spread around to the other...
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
Im much more worried if the US have those kinds of weapons than if some broke desert shithole gets their hands on some mustard gas. What exactly is the US doing this arms race against? Aliens?
The US no doubt has the power to keep space off limits for anyone for military arms race. Why in gods name then do they push the envelope so that other countries has to follow?
Warmongers, thats what i see.
Lets hope the administration gets changed to something less warhappy and perhaps a it more interested in all US citizens than of enriching a few select people.
HTTP/1.1 400
Obscure my eye. I'm just wondering if Mark McGuire will distract us with some "dingers" as the lackys clean up the debris.
"If a quarter is two bits, then a dollar's a byte." -R Deric Miller
Also, am I the only one who is a mite worried about their ability to aim correctly at the target, as they didn't do a particularly good job of that in Iraq with a much shorter range to worry about.
You're either misinformed, or terminally stupid. I'm inclined to think the latter.
The US airstrikes consistently landed within feet, and oft times inches, or their intended targets. This was after traveling hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away. I know, I was there, I pushed some of the buttons that launched those airstrikes. I also worked with one of the guys who designed the GPS guided smart bombs; they're as accurate, or more so, as Fox News reported.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
In the United States we will spend trillions of dollars to deploy radio frequency energy weapons to disable enemy satellites.
The Soviet Union deploy pebbles. Pebbles travelling at 17,000 MPH will do a better job.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I've been lusting for these since I read Niven & Pournelle's "Footfall."
Where, I say, where do I send my glowing resume?
It's a great time to be a misanthrope. :-)
--- Ban humanity.
They'll put a bunch of quirky geniuses to work on the project, but they won't really understand what they're woring on. They'll build a super-laser and pass their class!
And then... they'll figure out that they've been duped into building a weapon and redirect the laser test to pop and shitload of popcorn in the prof's house. The house will overflow with popcorn and children will play in it without getting cut by glass and nails and stuff from the torn apart house.
And then Laslo will win lots of cool prizes.
Am I missing something? If a satellite were to propel a large rod at the earth, at "hypervelocity" none the less, wouldn't the satellite be propelled backwards with the same amount of force? Taking a cue from some of the previous space blunders (not clearing RAM, not converting from standard to metric) could this just be another expensive demonstration of our ineptitude?
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying. -- Anonymous
Chance favors the prepared mind....our military has contingency plans for EVERYTHING. There are departments in every branch whose only job is to constantly think up the most outlandish scenarios, idea, plans, etc. With every possible variant of enemies, allies, strength of forces, technology. I once saw a detailed plan of battle in the event that Canada and Mexico ally and attack the US. This same philosophy applies to funding projects. If congress suddenly gets a bug under it's ass about space defense, the Air Force can whip out this portfolio and say "Well, with only $60 million, we can put these forces in place." What's funny is to watch the public react when some of these plans leak. All sorts of people freak out, like a few years ago when a contingency plan for invading China leaked out at the same time that there was tension regarding Taiwan. Now maybe this proposal for space has advanced beyond that wild ass idea phase, and if that's the case then it's because the Air Force thinks Congress might go for it.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Brief overview of a proposal in front of the UN to ban all space-based weaponry which the US is actively part of.
This, the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament treaties, the anti-ballistic missile treaty, and the landmine treaty. Doesn't the US have ANY respect left for other countries let alone their own integrity? This is just getting disgusting.
This is not a sig.
Space-based weapons will be better in terms of how hard it will be for enemies to take them out.
Most countries have weapons to counter tanks or air planes but how many countries are going to have technology to counter something miles about their heads in orbit. Considering most "wars" are waged on poor countries with usually no space program, they'll never be able to touch them.
To top it off, don't we already have a laser in space? I distinctly remember reading a Popular Science magazine a couple years back that said they finally invented the piece they needed to constuct or finish the Star Wars SDI Laser. Was the funding cut to this project as well?
Where else would they be able to mine the ore to make these rods and replenish the satellites' ammo?
-- Fratz, human
"$66.4 million is being spent on a research project to "deny, disrupt and degrade adversary space-based surveillance and reconnaissance systems." He said another $79 million is funding efforts to build a "constellation of optical sensing satellites to track and identify space forces."
In other news, $0 million is currently being spent to save the Hubble Space Telescope, an optical sensing satellite to track and identify the wonders of space.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
Wake me up when Jordan shows up. She's HOT!
--fatboy
And so, Sienar Fleet Systems is born to handle future production.
Just wait until Russia counters with Incom Corporation!
I wonder if "Sarge" Will operate the space-based hypervelocity rod gun.
At least Im sure that how the USAF see's it. You have several countries that are trying to get themselves into space. A few of which are a precieved threat to US interests. China of course comes to mind. We are at a crossroads of sorts. We are at a point where we are still the only contry that is able to put up large scale space based weapons. In five to ten years time, this will not be the case. My guess is we will put them up there and use the as leverage against other contries to insure that they do not attempt to place their own weapons in orbit. Im not saying its a good idea, im just assuming this is the pentagons thinking. I did serve in the USAF so I do have some idea of the ways in which they think.
It's important though that we take care of things in space. God knows that we are currently defenseless from space terrorists. Could you imagine an Al Qaeda space ship? That would be sweet. It would be so junked and MacGyvered from Russian refrigerators. Here comes the Star Wars.
If I had to pick which space program to fund, I would choose planning for war in space before I would put a man on Mars. Mars is a big dead rock. It may have held life at some point, maybe not. We can put a robot up there today to help take a peek, 10 years from now, they'll probably be shipping samples back to earth. Having someone bypass our ground/shore weapons and detection systems, by shooting at us from outer space, seems to be a lot more likely than finding someone to talk to on Mars.
true, definitely true. but the weary middle-aged male in me isn't looking forward to eating catfood out of a can with my fingers in my retirement, what with all the output of our economy whizzing around in space over our heads.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Missiles, aircraft, ships, ground troops all rely on satellites to relay target information and make sure weapons are on target. Not just the military systems rely on satellites, logistic support is also dependent on them.
Take out the satellites, and it makes fight a war 21th century style a lot more difficult.
exactly. the technology is fine. the problem is the people setting the targets.
.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
A couple decades from now, either the US or China will have military supremacy over low-earth orbit. There is no "C" 'this isn't going to happen option'. Pick your poison. I'll take the US.
War in space is the galaxy's way of making sure that aggressive beings don't cause trouble. After their first war using space weapons it becomes impossible to pass through the near earth high velocity junkyard for millenia. just a few explosions intended to destroy a few satellites would do the job.
Starting in the late 1950s the Soviets began working on an nuclear orbital bombardment system that would bypass US early warning systems. There was also Salyut 3 in 1975 which carried a 23mm cannon that was used to fire at a target satellite
"Hold on... Wait a second, they have laser weapons and mass drivers sure enough, but they're pointed _toward_ the planet."
"No way! That doesn't make a lot of sense. They're vulnerable to meteor strikes, comets, ... attack from unfriendly aliens."
"Hmm. Maybe it's a prison planet, and the satellites prevent escape."
"That could be. We saw that moon base, and those could be the jailers."
"Yeah, and have you seen their entertainment? Only hardcore prisoners would like that stuff."
-- Fratz, human
To the "I'm sorry I'm American" crowd
I suppose our militarization of the seas and the air was a mistake too? I suppose when China/Russia puts orbital weapons in space you won't mind? Aside from the sexier hookers and the better cafes, just what is it about "outside this stupid country" that you find so appealing?
Being able to drop MORE weapons on other nations does not do ANYTHING to "protect" the US citizens.
We already spend more money on our military than anyone else in the world.
What possible threat will this "protect" us from?
Back in the "Cold War" era, this might have been useful. Now it is just a waste.
and the reuters building too.
I thought it was more like seven trillion.
Firefly.
No sound in space. Fairly accurate physical model. Check out the DVDs, it's a great series that was cut down before its prime.
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
>>>Dude, nothing has changed since my ancestral parent kicked your acestral parent's ass with a bone club.
...still keep that bone club around?
Dude, your ancestral parents may have had to do things they shouldn't have had to do to stay alive and keep a line of descendents going.
There is a treaty but the Bush administration doesn't give a shit.
Just like it didn't give a shit about:
1. The Kyoto protocol, to which the Clinton administration had previously committed the US;
2. The International Criminal Court, (together with the Clinton administration) by demanding a complete US exemption from prosecution;
3. Free trade, by placing tarriffs on steel, lumber and other imports, in direct violation of NAFTA and other free trade agreements;
4. Invading Iraq, which was done without a proper UN mandate, hence the UN-bashing when the US didn't get close to getting what it wanted (no, the previous decade old resolutions were not sufficient, if they were the US wouldn't have been looking for a new resolution green-lighting the war in late 2002 and it wouldn't have got so shitty with France and the other countries in the Security Council that promised to veto any such resolution);
5. The other long-range missile treaties with Russia (originally signed in the 1970s, when it was part of the USSR), which it unilaterally scrapped almost as soon as it entered office.
And that's just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head.
Face facts, when it comes to international relations, there's a lot that the Bush administration doesn't give a shit about. Pretend all you want, but the current US government has set back US-World relationships more than any other in history. It took all the goodwill and support the World had to offer after September 11 and either pissed it away or threw it back into people's faces.
Anti-US sentiment is rife, even in those countries whose governments had backed the US invasion of Iraq: In Britain 85 percent were opposed to war, In Australia it was over 80 percent and in Spain it was over 90 percent, and most of those in opposition were highly critical of Bush's motives. It turns out that they (and the rest of the World) were right to be.
It's not hard to find "Bush bashing crap". The man's done a lot of crap that's worthy of bashing.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
But just wait until Mars attacks. They'll snatch up those floating weapons and use them against us, I tells ya!
no really, weapons in space is the a big no-no. Sure it will target land first, but then you'll have space to space weapons and the destruction of them will pollute the space with so much debris that no one will be able to leave the atmosphere.
The war in Iraq is not over!
I had the distinct impression that the original space charters drawn up made weapons and war in space against international law. Then again the US often ignores these things (and who's gonna' do anything about it, eh?). Hrmmm.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
While historicaly every empire has falled we can not afford to hasten the fall of the United States of America by failing to maintain a clear technological and military advantage over the rest of the world.
If we don't develop effective space based weapons then someone else will and then we will be at a disadvantage. Nothing like dropping a big rock from orbit onto Washington DC to get your point across.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
Put aside the arms race issue, and the financial issues, ability to develop the technology, etc.
The big problem is what happens once we start blowing up satellites in orbit. The debris will all enter new orbits, and there's a good chance that some of this debris will strike other satellites, which will strike others, which will destroy low-earth orbit for 50 years. That's probably why the US would not focus on kinetic weapons, which could hve chaotic consequences. OTOH, other countries with less dependence on space (and fearful of having their satellites blown up while the US satellites continue to function), would be more apt to use kinetic weapons and risk destroying loads of stuff in low-earth orbit. Don't worry, this won't affect GPS or DirecTV.
It may result to a new progression in the development of the military arsenals...
Posted in the press:
"
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia has successfully tested a hypersonic anti-Star Wars weapon capable of penetrating any prospective missile shield, a senior general said Thursday.
The prototype weapon proved it could manoeuvre so quickly as to make "any missile defence useless," Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, told a news conference.
He said that the prototype of a new hypersonic vehicle had proved its ability to manoeuvre while in orbit, thereby making it able to dodge an enemy's missile shield.
"The flying vehicle changed both the altitude and direction of its flight," Baluyevsky said. "During the experiment conducted yesterday, we proved that it's possible to develop weapons that would make any missile defence useless."
Baluyevsky's comment followed a statement by President Vladimir Putin, who said Wednesday after attending rocket launches from the Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia that experiments conducted during the military manoeuvres had proven that Russia could build new strategic weapons that would be unrivalled in the world.
Putin said that the development of new weapons was not directed against the United States, and Baluyevsky reaffirmed the statement, saying that the experiment shouldn't be seen as Russia's response to U.S. missile defence plans.
"The experiment conducted by us must not be interpreted as a warning to the Americans not to build their missile defence because we designed this thing," Baluyevsky told The Associated Press.
In Washington, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked by reporters about the Putin statement.
"If you're in that business - intercontinental ballistic missiles and warheads - you want them to be survivable, and manoeuvrability is one way to increase their survivability against any potential defences," he said.
Putin said that Russia had no intention of immediately deploying new weapons based on the experimental vehicle.
Baluyevsky concurred.
"We have demonstrated our capability, but we have no intention of building this craft tomorrow," he said, adding that Russia had told the United States about its plans to conduct the experiment.
He said that the new vehicle had "ceased to exist" after the experiment, presumably burning up in the atmosphere.
Baluyevsky refused to comment on what kind of engine the vehicle had, how long its flight lasted and
02/20/04
"
To Quote the mighty Bill Hicks:
People are always asking me, "Bill, are you proud to be an American? Proud to be an American? Like I had a choice, proud to be an American, well my parents fucked there. I was a disembodied soul floating around going , "fuck in paris! fuck in paris!", but they fucked here. Ok I'm proud. Why don't they put that on the flag? It's hard to get some boot stomping rallying around a picture of your dad spanking your mom's 4 by 4 ass."
That was from memory, apologies if I got it wrong.
Is that why the US managed to hit a clearly located Red Cross compound in Afghanistan not once but twice? Or why it managed to hit a Chinese embassy building in the Balkans?
It's not just about your bombs landing where they are aimed. It's about making sure that they are aimed in the right place as well. Without the latter, the former is pointless.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
had already planned defenses against this.
;)
Didn't George Bush say they had attempted to buy significant amounts of mirrors from African Nations, with which they were planning to coat important buildings
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
Actually, we spend more on our military than all other industrialized countries COMBINED.
And, suggesting that putting weapons in space makes the US, or the world for that matter, a safer is nearly laughable. This will only instill even MORE fear in the eyes of all "others". Which, coincidentally, is the reason for the growing animosity felt towards the US at the moment. No, this does only one thing, bring power to even fewer people... those who put those weapons in space. Do we (the US) become supreme ruler of all simply because we are the most powerful? Do I have to explain the numerous and disastrous problems with that sentiment?
We are simply creating the reasons to PUT those weapons in space. It will make many people rich and powerful, but making the world a safer place it will certainly not do.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Anyone who has read sci fi knows that this stuff has been around for about 40 years. The principles haven't changed, and they're just being re-tread by the military.
The article seems woefully unknowledgeable about the physics of the situation. I'm only quoting the sci-fi authors who brought up these topics originally: (Larry Niven, A.C. Clarke, etc...)
"Even more outlandish is the Hypervelocity Rod Bundles research project. That effort calls for creating a system of metal poles, fired from space, that could strike anywhere on the planet. It's a long-held -- and long-ridiculed -- idea. Keeping the rods from liquefying as they enter the atmosphere is a daunting task,"
From what I know of the system (did not read the whole AF brief) the proposal is to have a satellite orbit geosynchronously relatively above the target, and just fire the projectile downwards. The heat generated by re-entry is because of the horizontal motion of the craft, but a projectile of this type would only have vertical motion with respect to the atmosphere, and therefore relatively little heat generated. Please correct me if I'm wrong, physicists!
"and could only deliver one-ninth the destructive energy per gram as a conventional bomb."
Given that the military already uses kinetic kill technology (horizontally fired from vehicles, no explosives) that are able to penetrate main battle tank armor, why would dropping a similarly size projectile from orbit (wouldn't the terminal velocity be tremendous) be less than traditional explosives? I'm confused by their assertion.
"In theory, lasers -- fired from the ground, from space, or from the air -- would bounce off these blimp-borne mirrors, to track or even destroy enemy missiles. "
Why would you loft a laser platform into orbit and fire it through all that atmosphere down to a blimp, when you could just mount it on a large aircraft? The cost of getting it into orbit and having a blimp hovering around has to be less than strapping it into a 747, plus, you have less diffusion from a lower-altitude. Again, it sounds like the military is getting a little outlandish when simplicity might work better. (imagine that)
"But the Air Force report goes far beyond these defensive capabilities, calling for weapons that can cripple other countries' orbiters. "
Again, from what I've been told, it's not hard to destroy satellites. They are orbiting at ridiculously high speeds. Wouldn't just releasing a cloud of marbles (or even sand!) in their trajectory, orbiting in the opposite direction, easily shred the enemy satellite? The energy released by that impact would have a factor of twice the actual rotational velocity of the satellite -- a very large number, I would think. I don't think that there's any way to protect an orbiter from something like that. Again, if my physics is wrong, please correct me.
All of this seems to me like they're just ignoring physics (in arguments for and against the systems) just like those who said Goddard couldn't fly a craft in space because you'd have no air to push off of.
Sorry for the long post. This is just a very fascinating topic, and I suppose its good to see the media/military pick up on something that's only been fiction 'til now.
So were there ever any reports on what the Russians have sitting in orbit from the cold war days? There were always rumors floating around about each side (US & Russia) having hung some pretty deadly hardware.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
All the best AAA Megacorps have 'em.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
Satellites are already a weak "center of gravity" in American militarty planning Eh? militarty?
got sig?
to rename the Department of Defense. What should it be called now?
-Department of Military
-Department of Offense
-Deparment of Aggression
-Ministry of War
-etc.
The US military is supposed to be defensive only. Granted, in a modern global civilization that means we must have the capability to kick some ass on the other side of the planet sometimes, but this seems to be far too aggressive. Is there a legitimate defensive purpose to something like this? It seems to be designed solely for aggression.
A hypervelocity rod...
C'mon people !! I would've thought there would be about a 100 jokes about it in this thread !
Osama is building a Deathstar or what is the justification?
If you think the US has never missed a target with guided-missiles, you are mistaken.
And whether or not it was human error, the end result is still the same. See: here and here among others.
"Ion Cannon Ready", ZORCH, Unit lost!
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
40% insightful, 40% flamebait. I should have used the sarcasm tags on this one.
Please stop the planet so I can get off...
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
While that still seems farfetched, I'd be somewhat concerned about computer glitches or hacking causing something similar. Since these things have to be controlled via some sort of transmission (last time I looked, it wasn't possible to run a cable up to a satellite;) unlike missiles and the like which are all hardwired. And transmissions can be beamed from anywhere with a line of sight.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
This was big news back in the early days of Reagan being in office.
I liked watching the satelite vs satelite simulated battles they used when trying to sell the idea to the public.
There are more than just monetary costs when figuring in the art of war, there are political costs and human lives costs, though the former usually trumps the latter.
You can drop a bomb from a plane, but there is risk to the plane and pilot, and political fall out if the plain is downed (look up Gary Power).
Armed planes can take a long time to get a mission planned an executed. We tried to bomb where Saddam was, but he wasn't there. Missing him might have just been the time in getting the bombing mission together.
There are pros and cons to having the ability to follow up a targeting opportunity quickly. All in all if any nation is to have this ability, I would prefer it to be America.
You can be sure that since 911, America has considered enforcing a monopoly on space based weapon systems, even against China. I'm not saying this is a good idea, but it is being considered by those in power. It is hard to say how the future will play out, there may be an arms race in space; treaties may hold against the weaponizing of space; America (or some other nation) may assert some type of space hegemony.
Space holds special unique military advantages to those that use it, and with the proper systems in place, one nation could keep all other nations out of space. If your missile launch killers are the only ones in space, no one is going to disrupt your monopoly.
As I speculated a couple of weeks ago about our new Moon-Mars space initiatives, these may just be civilian cover for dramatically ramping up military activities in space.
Letter To Iran
Why care about a far away "big dead rock" which "may have held life at some point", when we can make our own planet a big dead rock which may have held life at some point? In two hundred years, we won't need to go to Mars because we will have a planet-sized replica just here on Earth! Won't it be convenient?
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
better yet, they should find a way to take an enemy's satellite, and de-orbit it in his general direction!
So all the bombings of hospitals, schools and other "soft" targets was no mistakes then, but done "consistently"?
Is this perhaps part of the "Shock and Awe" intended to win the hears and minds of Iraqies? I guess the US officers really know how to show helpfullness
IS that the Airforces Transformation plan or their Transformers Plan.... More than meets the eye....
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
It will be a great day
when our schools get all the money they need
and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber
Do we really need this stuff? I could see arguments for more communications hardware up there, but hypervelocity weapons and lasers? How many decades will pass before something even remotely workable is off the drawing boards? Ike must be rolling in his grave.
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
Unless you consider "might makes right" the only thing you'll ever need to know about morality.
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
I think the "Rods from space" idea actually sounds kind of cool. Outside of the practical problems, and even though (according to the article) they could only deliver one-ninth the destructive energy per gram as a conventional bomb, seems to me the fear of whether or not a "Rod from space" might be lurking just overhead would have some value against potential targets.
But is there any evidence that this was reagan's intent? I recall an interview with a soviet defector regarding the union's economic woes (i think specifically his quote that the military was using over half of the GDP). No one in the west believed him until after the cold war was over.
Did SDI help accelerate the Soviet Union's demise; most likely. Was it critical towards the disintegration of the soviet union? no. The USSR had been on that track for decades. I have yet to see any proof of Reagan's intent regarding this.
Additionally, let's not be quick to forget the massive debt and recessions during Reagan's term. I'll believe it when I see direct evidence that this was the administration's intent. Furthermore, analysing the effect of the disintegration of the USSR on US national security is complex. Look at the defecting soviet nuclear scientists and other nuclear concerns.
Photos.
'War is the continuation of politics by other means' - Clausewitz
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
just make fun of people who wear star trek pajamas, did you?
Kiss your karma goodbye.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I remember something that Lockeed had done a ways back called ERIS. It was a manned space fighter. I don't know if it's real or not but it stands a pretty good chance of it (seeing they have claimed a few launches. Found a couple of links about it here and here. Looks like it started back in 1985... It had two test launches and actually shot down a few things (for the gun crowd out there the 'muzzle velocity' was 44,000 fps). The tech went into cruise missles, ICBM's and missle defense programs.
User not found: Please check the world and try again.
uses an amatuer rocket setup and lauches say 5000 lbs of NON-METALLIC ball bearings into HEAVILY used geo-synch orbits patterns at decent relative velocity and tears holes in Trillions of $$$'s worth of satelites, making the area unuseable for orbiters or requiring a HUGE expenditure to clean....Seems like a relatively under the radar way to really HURT a huge number of companies, and government services.
Obviously the NSA, CIA etc has 'other' resources but physics determines the LIMITED location and availability of stable accessible orbit slots...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Aw crap, we've become Laputa.
You sir, are extremely misinformed. The fact that you pushed some of the buttons means nothing to me.
What about:
The restaruant and the three houses that were destroyed because we thought Saddam "might" have been there. He wasn't, we killed dozens of civilians. The stories about "smart" bombs missing their target are plentiful, but the targets themselves being wrong are even more worrisome.
Check out this link. So, I assume you had nothing to do with cluster bombing? Well, that's good. You at least left that to other US servicemen... Iraqi children are still picking up the bomblets (5-20% do not go off, leaving little toy like objects around to make kids armless. Nice.)
And as far as FoxNews, don't get me started...
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Nothing like star wars to fight Osama bin Laden
Before you go ahead with your line of thought you should check what happened a few centuries back and learn a little from that.
Remember Rome? The Greeks? The Egiptians? You can see a pattern here. Just remember: no empire lives forever. I think it'd be awfull to repeat the same errors from the past.
I have been wondering when the military was going to take care of that surveillance satellite operated by Major League Baseball.
[obscure]
Me too. These coat hangers just aren't working as well as they once did.
[obscure +1/2]
Actually, the only well-documented study available, think it was by Kleck at Univ. of Florida, showed that the only thing you can do to reduce your chance of being hurt during a mugging was to pull a gun and threaten the attacker. Cooperating, attacking with bare hands, or attacking with some other weapon all resulted in statistically the same chances of being injured, while drawing a gun slightly reduced the chances.
"We have nothing in common, your attitude annoys me, and your political views are appalling."
Are these rods the size of VWs or something?
No. Rods measure distance, and as far as I know (it's hard to be sure) VW Beetles are a measure of volume.
"My car gets forty hypervelocity rods to the hongshead and that's the way I like it!"
from the article:
.... "This will certainly prompt China into actually moving forward" on space weapon plans of its own, she added. "The Russians are likely to respond with something as well."
...further driving the point home. Is it really worth it?
"I don't think other countries will be taking this lying down," said Theresa Hitchens, the vice president of the Center for Defense Information.
The Chinese, in particular are willing to spend a lot more on their space program. Despite being latecomer to the space game, they're playing catch up extremely well.
This year, the Air Force will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to find ways to track enemy satellites -- and, if necessary, blind those eyes in the sky.
What is to stop them from doing the same to us? I'd say we have a lot more to loose since we are so much more heavily invested in using space as a military resource.
But it's unclear whether putting weapons into space would provide much protection. The arms themselves could become sitting ducks in orbit -- giving the United States a new weakness, not a new strength. Satellites are already a weak "center of gravity" in American militarty planning, argues Bruce DeBlois, the editor of Beyond the Paths of Heaven: The Emergence of Space Power Thought. They're vulnerbale to electronic jamming, orbiting projectiles and nuclear detonations in near-Earth space. The space-based weapons would have all of the same vulnerabilities -- and would make that center of gravity a more inviting target.
My point exactly...
"America is the country with the most satellites, he explained. By developing anti-satellite weapons, "it legitimizes systems that the U.S. has the most to lose from." Other countries could start pursuing long-taboo space weapons efforts. And while countries like China don't have the technical sophistication of the United States, they already have the capabilities to hurt us in space -- medium range missiles, and nuclear warheads.
Wright added, "This could trigger a backlash that actually leaves the U.S. worse off."
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
Your argument was moving along so convincingly. And then it completely fell apart with the last four words. Fox News is window dressed propaganda, complete with attractive host anchor and NO reporting of anything critical of the Bush administration.
Actually that's only partially right. According to a recent book that I read about the Cold War Khrushchev mitiousally planned the Soviet economy back in the 60s to overtake the West in about 20 years. Had the economy stayed where it was in the 60s (manufacturing, steel, raw resources -- basically the paradigm that had ruled since the industrial revolution) the West would have been screwed in an economic sense. Probably not a military one, because there's always the nuclear deterrent (the whole point of which was originally to stop the Russians from taking over Western Europe -- we had our doubts as to our ability to defeat their massed tank armies), but it's something to consider.
Fortunately the global economy went hi-tech and the West (with our non-centrally planned system) proved able to adapt faster. Reagan might get some of the credit for tying the Russians down in a massive arms race (hard to focus on improving your technology and economy if you need to devote 40% of your GDP to the military to keep up with the capitalist pigs) but the Cold War was going to end one way or another. All Reagan did was force it to happen sooner which arguably destabilized the World -- and oh by the way, we'll all be paying for his military buildup for the next couple of decades...
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Someone get on the interocitor, and call Klaatu. I think we need him and Gort to pay us a visit.
In terms of preserving our satellite infrastructure during warfare, a much better strategy would be to have numerous spare satellites waiting atop launchers, a la ICBM's in their silos. If an attack (EMP-based or otherwise) seriously degrades the satellite fleet, "turn the keys" and have replacements within 20 minutes.
Granted, the technology for this isn't ready to deploy, but it certainly seems more feasible than developing extravagant counter-measures. Plus, the R&D involved may have the nice side-effect of reducing the cost of lofting things into orbit.
Of course, this means making the satellites smaller and cheaper, as well. Again, not necessarily easy, but seemingly much more feasible. And, again, this would have benefits beyond simply making the system more survivable.
"Plans include firing hypervelocity rods from space to targets on the ground."
Dang, that's one of the things Lex Luthor was using in Dark Knight II...
Other similarities...an imaginary president and lots of naked babes on TV.
Incredible as it sounds, the EAGLE effort is underway at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy division, sources there confirm. Also under research at the lab is the Ground-Based Laser, which, according to the Air Force report, would shoot "laser beams through the atmosphere" to knock out enemy spacecraft in low-earth orbit.
If you remember, shortly after one of those commercial reconnaisance satelites went into orbit and photographed a military base (Area 51?), the military basically informed the company that it has the capability of dropping the satelite from orbit. Now, whether they mean via the space shuttle or now, I don't know. I have a hunch that the US military already has missles that can take out a satelite, especially since ICBM's have been around for decades.
Just thinking that with all the stray garbage in orbit today, perhaps the military will consider using some form of garbage collection as a way to deal with orbital threats. Set up a couple of space elevators, add a net casting feature that can go to any elevation along the way to geosync orbit, then start collecting "junk" that appears nearby.
Of course 'Junk' could be any orbital debries that the US didn't put into orbit. Which could be a problem for the US if say China were to do the same thing...
-Rusty
You never know...
>>>And Americans wonder why the rest of the world hates them.... ...invalid premise, and a bit suspect considering your anger (or just nausea). Not everyone in the world views America as simplistically as you do. ...and not all Americans view the world as "Americans and the rest", either. Outrage and indignation make for very poor solutions to complex problems.
Shouldn't they be renamed "Space Force"? Maybe "Air and Space Force"?
Zoid.com
( ok they aren't colonies they are client-states)
...the 70+ year old grandmother and her friends that were beaten and tied up with duct tape to point that they dies of suffocation...
Oh wait, you can't tell them, because they are dead...
Face it, you can get killed for absolutely no reason at all. Whether you are perceived as a threat or not, someone, somewhere will kill you for no reason at all and still be considered 'sane' by the majority of society. Definately evil and worthy of The Death Penalty, but not insane one bit.
What threat was Sharon Tate to Charles Manson? Did she wave a gun at him and threaten to kill him? Nope. She and the rest of those murdered people were simply slaughtered by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Any crime specialist should tell you that for the most part, you are pretty safe since it is statistically fairly low that some person will walk into the bank you are at and start shooting people to get the attention of the tellers in order to rob the place, or that the next time you are in a convenience store paying the cashier that someone with a gun will walk in, shoot you in the back of the head to make a point to the cashier in order to steal the 30 dollars in the drawer. Statistically, that's pretty low, but it does happen.
The Cold War was fun (very mild sarcasm BTW). It gave us wonderful games like 'Paranoia' the RPG, it provided us with hours of entertainment through the 'Wasteland' computer Role-Playing Game. It gave us 'Wargames' the movie and also in a way taught us that the world is more then just one country. It is a global community that can easily ruin life for most all of humanity by raining hot nuclear death upon one another.
Without the Cold War, I doubt that we as human beings would have learned some of those lessons.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
i think the move is primarily strategic. as noted in the article, you're able to deliver far less energy using weapons from space than from terrestrial sources. the problem for the US is that its traditional allies are starting to look more and more like strategic adversaries every day. space weapons allow the US to deliver military force *immediately* without having to worry about the next french/russian/german mutual masturbation festival, or what turkey's islamic parliament thinks about positioning infidel forces on its soil, or getting overfly rights from countries neighboring an enemy's territory.
also noted in the article: regardless of where the weapons are, there's a lot of communications stuff that *all* US forces depend on flying around up there. if it's possible, i imagine they want to protect that.
the US is in the unenviable position of being top-dog and being resented for it. china is playing it REAL smart, staying out of sight and biding its time as these global resentments and the resulting increased US military spending take their toll on the US economy.
oh well. i have no kids. if we can hold out another 30 years or so, i'm ok with that. i learned long ago that, even if you want to save the world, the world doesn't really give a fuck.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
..goes to...
This Inanimate Carbon Hypervelocity Rod!
(applause)
D'Oh!
Let's not kid ourselves. Russian Space Web has a nice piece on the thoroughly demonstrated anti-satellite weapon systems of the former USSR. I don't know much about our (USA's) own anit-satellite system, but I do know that Russia has done much of this testing, and I would guess a lot more than the USA. I say that because Russia would know if we had tested the weapons, just as we knew that they did. And that information that they knew would be leaked, of course. So I think that Russia had a lot more antisatellite weaponry than the U.S., at least when it comes to kinetic energy weapons (i.e. a shrapnel bomb) in space.
With this in mind, I believe that the USA military has a legitimate interest in developing at least a similar system for weapons parity. I mean, the US military depends heavily on space for communications, and if that were knocked down by China (say, if China wants to invade Taiwan) or maybe a future threat, we would need to be able to knock down either their weapons before they reached our satellites or to knock down their own satellites to make it a level playing field.
And who knows. Russia seems of late to have forgotten what it means to be a democracy, so if some dictator arose in the future, it would have been nice to have at least thought of what to do beforehand. The future can't be predicted too accurately. 250 years ago, the most powerful nation on the earth today was a disjointed band of colonies under the rule of the British Empire. You never know. Hopefully the next great empire won't be like Hitler or Stalin or Mao Tse Tung and murder millions. Being a citizen of the USA, I believe that the USA should try to prevent such a murderous empire from taking control of the high ground and rain down their own fire from the skies.
P.S. I realize that this is a huge piece of flamebait, but as this is a democracy, there needs to be contrasting opinions (diversity of opinion) for us to really function fairly here at slashdot, so please respect my opinion, as I respect yours.
I suppose our militarization of the seas and the air was a mistake too? I suppose when China/Russia puts orbital weapons in space you won't mind? Aside from the sexier hookers and the better cafes, just what is it about "outside this stupid country" that you find so appealing?
... by American standards ... PPO now that is a pale and distant last place to the plans I had in Europe).
... American sailor hangouts excepted! ... go use the toilet, come back, and no one will have touched it).
... remember, they stop counting people no longer eligable for unemployment benefits even though many are not reemployed in order to keep the numbers artificially, and dishonestly, low; etc.) has been accumulating a great deal of minuses, and losing many of its pluses.
Speaking as one American who has, in the past, lived for several years in Germany (pre and post reunification), the UK, Hong Kong (pre-reunification), and Japan, there is no "one" answer that applies to everywhere outside of this stupid country.
However, in Europe there is a great deal more personal freedom than in the United States in most areas (try drinking a beer in a public park in the US vs. England or Germany, for example). There is a great deal of protection against the distribution of personal information in Germany (read: virtaully no junk mail or junk phone calls). I have never had better health care than I had in Germany (and I have an excellent
Crime is lower in all of the places I've lived outside of the United states. It is lower in Europe and so much lower in Japan that the mind boggles (for example, you can leave your wallet on the bar in most parts of Tokyo
The list goes on. Every place has its pluses and minuses, but the United States, in its inability to be self critical and its profound policy of self-isolation and absolute denial of things that are obviously and painfully going wrong (such as the healthcare fiasco here; the massive debt; rising violent crime; the wholesale corporate export of well paying jobs; spiralling unemployment
Contrast this to the rest of the world, which remains a reasonable mix of pluses and minuses, and the outlook for quality of life in the United States gets grimmer by the day. Seing Bush on the Television touting his latest lies, and the passivity with which so many Americans are willing to accept them (rather than confront unpleasant truths about what we as a country have become) and the prognosis gets even worse.
It is a pity. The United States once stood for some very beautiful ideals, and was once a very nice place to live.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Plans include firing hypervelocity rods from space to targets on the ground
Fuhk 'em rods! Let's throw the entire ISS down!
Just load up Canadarm with Eric Gagne software and WhAm!
Oh wait. That would consist mostly a Canadian weapon with with an international bullet. An American one if we throw Hubbles first.
...the TERRIBLE secret of space!
"I'm an old-fashioned type of guy. I worship the Sun and Moon as gods. And fear them."
It's funny that this article came on the same page: Russia Tests New Wonder Weapon "Short on details but long on hype, a Russian military chief claims the hypersonic prototype maneuvers so quickly that it renders all missile-defense systems 'useless.'"
It's funny how we seem to spend a lot of time and resources on defenses that are either for the last war, or one that's unlikely to happen. We studiously take away anything vaguely sharp from people on airline flights (like anything but killing or knocking out all passengers will work again) when or inspection of incoming shipping is lacking, we spend big bucks on knocking missiles out of the sky, when any nuclear explosion that happens on US soil will have arrived literally Under the US Radar, since any remotely traceable missile launch will be met with overwhelming nuclear response...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Someone who knows better could point out some international agreements on the free non-militar use of space?
I'm pretty sure there is some legal problems with putting weapons on space. For one, it create huge and complex geopolitical problems- US could just put a "military base" up everyone air space.
Second, in a more moral view is just stupid to think any human, country or power could own or control space.. is as idiotic as infamous phrases like "US owns the moon".
The enemy may try to infiltrate our hypervelocity rods. Their expansionist ideas will cause them to develop more destructive rods. We must NOT allow a rod-gap!
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
That stupid Powell, keeping Bush and Rummsfeld from developing the greatest Pentagon program ever: The Death Star. And the renaming of the Marines is also encountering some annoying gridlock... Gah! We want our Stormtroopers now!
In addition to those links, I'd like to add that at the beginning of the recent war on iraq, there was television coverage of some US apache pilots using hellfire anti-tank/artillery heat seeking missles to attack buildings. Needless to say they missed their target =/.
They would have been better off with their regular rockets which actually have a straight flight path.
I think that's a slightly different scenario though. In a mugging, you have reason to believe thet physical harm is imminent. The mugger is a threat to you, so they are increasing their chances of you hurting them because of it. If you're walking down the street, and nobody is bothering you, you shouldn't pull out a couple of guns and brandish them menacingly and anyone and everyone. That will make you a threat to them, and increase your chances of being hurt by them as a result.
For God-fearing Christians, this administration seems to heavily favour "Do unto others before they do unto you" over "Turn the other cheek". :-/
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
"Stupid carbon rod. It's all just a popularity contest".
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_dol
Attention is called to the following excerpts in particular:
1.Israel $1,487.68 per person
2.Singapore $1,003.88 per person
3.United States $986.23 per person
Though the US is not the first in this list of the most militaristic nations, compare it to even a few of the other industrialized nations:
11.France $778.03 per person
15.United Kingdom $530.3 per person
16.Sweden $495.13 per person
18. Australia $475.78 per person
19.Germany $466.06 per person
20. Denmark $460.06 per person
21.Netherlands $404.54 per person
23.Italy $349.99 per person
24.Switzerland $348.95
27.Japan $321.12 per person
30.Canada $246.39 per person
Compare also those nations the US is "fond" of:
32.Korea, North $230.56 per person
39.Iran $145.6 per person
72.Iraq $54.16 per person
73.Syria $53.68 per person
Though the point stands well on its own, this will clarify the degree to which the US is more militaristic and places a heavier burden in tax for that militarism than the majority of other nations, and more than every other modern industrialized nation than Singapore and Israel.
Is the pretty blue glow which is given off when particles are slowing down, when they are traveling to fast for the medium they are in.
Most commonly seen in water nuclear reactors, but can seen around any really hot radioactive source.
Ummm, satellites orbit at something like 200-500miles above the earth. I don't think you can fairly say that the range was "much shorter" than that. You have already gotten modded to hell tho so probably no one is reading this... Oh well, just thought I'd throw some facts into this whole discussion.
-Comedian
Now the papers here have all picked up on the new Pentagon plans and our new PM, already embroiled in another scandal is backed into a corner of upsetting the electorate just before an election when his popularity is already falling, or upsetting the elephant living to the south of us.
social security is an insurance plan. insurance plans are based on the premise of distributing risk.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
You are completely disregarding all the bad things that will happen due to this, which FAR outweigh your fears.
We already have the final say when diplomacy fails. Ever hear of Iraq? The rest of the world did not want us to go to war with them. And, what did we do? And this was with a country that didn't present a clear and present danger to us. In fact, they didn't even scare it's neighbors.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Agreed. Except for that nasty "Vote Republican" part. Only vote for them if you want to piss off the Dems, and only vote Dem if you want to die cold and hungry, for the good of society of course. But saving your own damn money instead of shilling out debt on future generations is certainly the key.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
Gee, a large boulder in space can consititute a WMD... depends on your definition and how fast its coming at you... or if you felt like launching it at your choice of urban areas...
meh
The US has learned not to underestimate the destructive power of our overmatched enemies. A bunch of desert peasants caused untold $billions in economic damage with a minimal attack. Space-based weapons would be used to prevent the Kim Jong Il's of the world from lobbing a homebrew missle our way as his regime collapses.
The US no doubt has the power to keep space off limits for anyone for military arms race. Why in gods name then do they push the envelope so that other countries has to follow?Because our "allies" continue to proliferate weapons of mass destruction, and despite international treaties the UN is too feckless to do anything about it.
Lets hope the administration gets changed to something less warhappy and perhaps a it more interested in all US citizens than of enriching a few select people.Its morning in America, Bush/Chaney 2004!
an ill wind that blows no good
We didn't try to militarize space after we put a man on the moon, so why should we try to do so today?
And any kind of SDI program isn't going to be of any use to us if someone enters a building and blows it and everyone inside said building to smithereens.
This is just another pork barrel project for defense contractors.
Forgive us for not trusting Fox News since it became the American equivalent of the USSR's Pravda.
"Do you ever have that dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?"
Kent: "You are just a bunch of degenerates."
Chris: "We are, but what about that time I found you naked with a bowl of jell-o?"
Kent: "You did not."
Chris: "This is true."
Kent: "I was hot and I was hungry, okay?"
It would be more accurate to divide THOSE per capita numbers by the GDP per capita as well. Then we'd see what percent of their incomes is being used for weapons.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
...looks like "AllUser" stole Randy's act.
...left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...
Quoth the master:
"R is a velocity measure, defined as a reasonable speed of travel that is consistent with health, mental wellbeing and not being more than say five minutes late. It is therefore clearly an almost infinitely variable figure according to circumstances, since the first two factors vary not only with speed taken as an absolute, but also with awareness of the third factor. Unless handled with tranquility this equation can result in considerable stress, ulcers and even death.
R17 is not a fixed velocity, but it is clearly far too fast."
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
This, of course, is a myth. What isn't a myth is that the Soviets tested a anti-satellite weapon on a US space shuttle. Obviously no one was injured, but there have been efforts to weaponize space for a loooong time.
The Tao that can be spoken is not the one eternal Tao
...the waring brats that spoil it for the rest of us?
Seems to me Free Software has helped to take the toys away from the sandbox bullies.
And the military budgets are certainly more than enough to address real world problems and solve them where the result will be a natural reduction in reason to create war.
So who is good enough to do this?
Hmmm... didn't it take many to do Free Software, not just one?
We already put this system in place in the movie SPIES LIKE US and Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd showed us in great detail the disaterous effect of these weapons with out source controlled guidance. Perhaps they will find a way for us to improve upon late '80 technology, but they tried this once and the fricken laser beam missed its target.
Also in regards to huge laser beams in space. Val Kilmer showed us that putting a large laser beam in a plane to kill people would not work in the movie REAL GENIUS. People trying to profit from weapons in space will always get outsmarted by engineers with silly a sense of humor. Perhaps this foiling will result in tremendous amounts of popcorn being popped, perhaps liquify the Stay Puff Marchmallow Man, or even cook a hot dog the size of a bus.
I think they should watch some movies before they start spending billions or even trillions of dollors. I think we have gone down these roads before.
- Kill Yourself, spare us all! -
It's the queers. They're in it with the aliens. They're building landing strips for gay Martians, I swear to God.
- Anonymous Slashdotter
If this is true, and I get a chance to kill me some GAY MARTIANS - I'm signing up!
Well, that's the problem - everyone will. China can do it, India can do it, Russia can do it, Europe can do it. Maybe others will in the future too.
No they won't. When one country can eliminate any missile or rocket launch anywhere within seconds of leaving the tube, and then vaporize the launcher, or detect and destroy ships and armoured formations without having a single soldier or vehicle nearby, they will be able to do whatever they want. And the rest of the world will be at their mercy. No space launches, no military maneuvers, no industrial projects or public meetings or building a new manhole unless it's on the terms of the controlling power. Total global domination.
I admit, this is an extreme example, but if this sort of system was run by a government even more unilateralist/aggressive than the current American one, nobody else would have a chance.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Uhh, I don't know if you've priced cat food lately, but if you're short on funds, look to the dog food aisle.
That? That was a pigeon.
Steve
Would that be so bad? Back in the ol' Roman days, the saying went that you could leave a gold ring in the road, and pick it up the next day. Since governments (in non-savage countries) hold a legal monopoly on the use of force against its citizens to preserve the peace, can we make the leap that one nation, or one body (not the UN, something with teeth) has the legal monopoly on the use of force?
As a previous posted put it, to 'rain destruction down on an enemy' can be an effective deterrent, like the nuke, the death penalty, or having your ass kicked by policemen.
Before you cry that its wrong to place all this power in 1 country's hands lest it be abused, consider the existing abuses of power going on around the globe on a daily basis.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Obey! or suffer the Heavenly Wrath of Rod!
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
This doesn't sound like very sound thinking...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Alright, I am pretty ignorant when it comes to this matter, but do any of our other plans that have to deal with space actually have any sort of economic reasoning behind them? I mean, it really isn't cost effective to mine the moon or get to Mars, but /.ers are all over that...
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just come up with a new system to better aim "Blue Ice"?!?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Wow! How amazingly talented the Graphic Designer was that put this together!
Now miscreants have an official vector-art image of the USAF logo, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs logo, and (drumroll), vector-converted signatures of both General Jumper USAF Chief of Staff, and Dr. Roche, Secretary of the Air Force.
Any manner of documents can now be forged. Someone could do something simple like faking a letter of recommendation from Dr. Roche...to...I shudder to think what could be done that would have more serious consequences.
Not that you couldn't scan these items in and recreate them, mind you, but why on earth make it that easy!
--
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
No, it is not insurance because the risk is universal. EVERYBODY gets old. EVERYBODY will drain the tax dollars of future generations. A better analogy would be comparing social security to welfare for the elderly who were too greedy to save for themselves. Don't get me wrong,... I don't think we should let any segment of our society hand out to dry. There should be a program to protect elderly who have been poor their whole life and never able to save for themselves; but why should we give welfare to others who worked for 45 years and never saved any of it?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
One thing that I find interesting about this thread is that the underlying airforce pdf, spanning 176 pages, spends only five pages or so on space and space weapons.
The remainder of the airforce strategy piece analyzes the current state of that part of the military, current threats, likely threats, their view on technological and other military developments by foes of the U.S., and sets out a vision for dealing with all of that.
In that context, five pages discussing the U.S.'s space-based assets (like GPS satellites, spy satellites, etc.), the threats to them, possible means to protect them, and possible uses of space-based weapons to protect the U.S. is entirely reasonable.
Indeed, for that type of presentation (i.e., a forward-looking, comprehensive effort to define military strategy for the coming decades) it would be a shocking, GLARING error if the airforce did NOT address space.
>Actually, we spend more on our military than all other industrialized countries COMBINED
Remember that the US has WAY, WAY more land mass to protect than a lot of other countries. For example France has less than 1/17 of the land of the US. Therefore just to be as "equally protected" as France we would need approximately 17 times as much, not counting all of our coastline which is much greater than theirs too. Also we have perportionately less people than France(5 times the people, 17 times the land) which means the tax burden will be higher per person too. Having and keeping all of this wonderful land we have costs money.
>This will only instill even MORE fear...Which, coincidentally, is the reason for the growing animosity felt towards the US at the moment
We could just as easily say that France, Germany and Russia are angry with us for disrupting their tremendous, illegal oil & weapons contracts with Iraq. So they get their liberal media spin machine going to get their citizens all riled up and hating us. The fact is that fear is what keeps people in line. Always has and always will. From the first cave man waving a stick at another one when he got too close to their berry bush, all the way up until now. Humans a predators by nature, whether preying on animals for food or each other for land, resources, women, etc. Unless you can tell me one society ever, which has existed without a police or military force to keep the people in line?
-Comedian
It was supposed to be meticulous. I flipped right over it without even looking. Oops.
Thanks for pointing it out in good humor ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
And if you were dead, there would be one less generalizing, hate filled, bigot in the world. Something that would do FAR more to make this world a better place...
How about we concentrate on sending humans there in one piece first.
Would anyone explain why it has been labeled 'Flamebait'? I pity those moderators who did that.
That was Space Cowboys, tool.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
Kind of makes you wonder, what would be considered an excessive velocity? Is there an acceptable velocity for a metal rod being flung from space at the earth?
Exceeding the speed of light might be excessive.
-kgj
-kgj
I've been reading /. all day (don't tell my boss), and that's the funniest thing I've seen yet!
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
Klaatu and Gort, where are you?
Earth needs you now more than ever.
[and I would say we're better neighbors than about 1/3 of the world]
;-)
I'd suggest you ask your neighbours.
But seriously, why not aim for the top 5% rather than the top 67%?
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Granted, the proliferation of nuclear weapons terrifies me... but I would say that their deterrent value has been proven.
True, nuclear weapons may have prevented a WW2-like war between the US and the USSR, but is that worthwhile in the long term? Twenty years after WW2, even the most badly hit countries had been rebuilt and the damage more or less repaired.
Now think for a second what a full-scale nuclear war would imply for the planet - two continents totally wasted, nuclear radiations all over the planet, likely a nuclear winter. Humanity might never recover from that - there would obviously be survivors, but in a nuclear winter their long-term chances of survival are dim.
I'll rather have a dozen WW2 than a single full-scale nuclear war, and it's doubtful that nuclear weapons will even prevent that. It's simply not worth the price...
What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
... it's about protecting us from mean 'ol asteroids and nasty space aliens (or even nasty aliens who would use asteroids to destroy the earth!) Geez guys, don't you read the conspiracy theories posted here!?
Of course they're going to tell everyone else it's for national defense, but we all know better, right?
JQuoting shamelessly from a Tom Paxton song :
You can eat dog food! You really ought to try it.
You can fricassee it! You can deep fry it!
Flip it on over, eat it any way.
Eat along with Rover - three times a day!
BUSHES IN SPACE
Aircraft are extremely vulnerable and can be destroyed by a variety of means including man portable missiles and, significantly, NUCLEAR WEAPONS. If we start weaponizing the skies, other nations will do the same. Therefore, there is no benefit to having an airforce.
Ships are even slower and more ungainly than aircraft. They can be taken out by anti-ship missiles, or heck a ballistic missile tipped with a nuclear war head. If we start weaponizing the seas, what's to stop other nations from doing the same? Since we do a lot more shipping than other nations, we stand to loose much more than they do. We should therefore take weapons off of ships to prevent an arms race!
Now come to think of it, land based forces are the most vulnerable of all. Heck, any enemy soldier can walk up to a tank and shoot off a RPG. They don't even need nukes.
Fuck, we should just disband the military and go home. That way there will be no arms races and no way to hurt us since WE WON'T HAVE ANY CENTER OF GRAVITY TO SPEAK OF.
Brilliant analysis isn't it?
Terrorists and suicide bombers really seem concerned about the fact that the US military technology is so much more advanced than theirs, that they will decide that their bomb-in-shoe capable of killing a few dozen isn't worth setting off...
You can hear my sarcasm, right? Not everybody's "military" consists of stealth bombers and bigass tanks. Whom do you think is more afraid of getting killed right now in Iraq: American soldiery, suicidial fanatics, or innocent citizens?
Better weapons might help win a battle, but they don't prevent them... they only make the enemy decide to get more creative.
And we can't do that already with nuclear weapons? Why would this be any different then launching long-range missiles. If the US was going to do that they wouldn't have to wait until they have space weapons. Just about the only "real" point you have is that it is costing us money. Mod this guy down he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
Creative Demolition
"Being able to drop MORE weapons on other nations does not do ANYTHING to "protect" the US citizens."
It has little to do with dropping "more" weapons and everything to do with putting more accurate, more lethal, less collaterally destructive weapons on a target at a moment's notice with absolute impunity. Right now, the U.S. does not possess that ability.
Try to think about it from a bank robber's perspective. If you know that the instant you engage in some sort of nefarious activity, you're going to get engaged, perhaps lethally, by police officers, what's the likelihood you're going to do your evil deed? And if you have no method to dissuade or engage the officers yourself, you cannot prevent them from stopping you and you cannot intimidate them into not stopping you out of fear for their own lives.
This is the ultimate in "bolt from the blue" technology, and it sure as hell will raise the hairs on the back of any erstwhile fanatic setting up a terrorist training camp in the middle of the Gobi desert.
Bombers are vulnerable to being shot down with the accompanying worry of the loss of a serviceman's life. Cruise missles get rid of the loss-of-life worry (except on the receiving end, of course) but are sometimes not accurate enough for pinpoint strikes and always require a launch platform within a few hundred miles of the target. Satellites, on the other hand, are always up there, endanger no personnel, and require no overflight rights.
What you don't get is that "protection" also works proactively instead of reactively. What does getting a tetanus booster "protect" you from? Nothing, so long as you don't step on a rusty nail. But if you do get in a situation where you need that booster, you're much better off having proactively protected yourself than otherwise.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Hell yeah! Fire dead penguins at em!
I know I'll receive no karma for this since it is completely original humor and not an obscure inside joke referencing BSD, HHGG, or a Kevin Smith film.
You are completely disregarding all the bad things that will happen due to this, which FAR outweigh your fears.
You completely disregard all the bad things that will happen if the U.S. takes a stance an isolationist standpoint on global security matters. If we have no steel to back up our words and policies, how are we to enforce them when others oppose? Or would you argue that the U.S. just needs to quit opposing and start doing what everyone else tells us to do?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Although this would in some ways divert more money into certain areas of space vehicle development, what is the point? Is there some threat that the U.S. faces that requires these sort of weapons? Not only do we possess the nuclear, chemical and biological arsenals to end all arsenals, but we also have the most heavily funded, most technologically advanced air, sea and ground forces on the face of the planet, not to mention significant amounts of expenditure in non-lethal weapons and counter-weapons R&D.
I'm not what you'd call an anti-war activist, but if I actually had a say in these projects, I'd give 'em a big, fat thumbs-down. Seriously, what's the point?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Insightful? Excuse me? Mods, are you smoking crack? There was no insight in this post. The poster barely contributed anything. Only three links, two dismissals, and bit of sarcasm.
The links are the only thing that could possibly be remotely insightful, but they're all to highly biased sources, parties interested in what they're preaching.
The first has been pointed out by others as a website sponsored by the coal industry.
The second goes to the CATO Institute, hardly an unbiased source on anything. They are primarily funded by tobacco, fossil fuel, investment, media, medical, and other regulated industries. Their main function is to provide soundbites and other propaganda, conveniently free of references, for the media to use.
The third link goes to the White House. Enough said.
This is just another excuse for the hawks to give trillions of our tax dollars to their buddies in the aerospace corporations. A dumptruck worth of gravel launched in orbit would render all such technologies ineffective, not to mention bring down pretty much every satellite floating around up there. Even the nazis were capable of launching a rocket high enough or damn close too it.
Oh, maybe not directly, but its still likely. A defense contractor will take on a big cost plus contract. Many of their employees will need clearances, but they'll decide after a bit that they need a package to build Wodgets. Wodgets, conveniently enough, dont do anything that requires a clearance so the spec will be shopped out to the lowest bidder. In Bangalore.
And in many cases I'd expect that 80 percent or so of the contracts could be outsourced with nothing sensitive ever revealed.
Some rehashing of some older concept weapons. I did get a kick out of the supposed "vulnerability" of space based weapons the writer was going for. I bailed on the article at that point. Extend "rules" of combat to space, you attack my base/fleet/airplane/cheese store, I attack you. What a major leap of thought...Or not.
The defense contractors, aerospace engineers, and republicans will have all of the justification they need to spend what they haven't spent of our money ( or children's money........borrowing/debt ) on a new arms race no one needs.
Steve
(BTW you also need to take into account the fact that $1000 of Israel's $1487 is supplied by the US)
If memory serves there were several international agreements with the purpose of preventing ALL WEAPONRY IN SPACE.
From an international standpoint though it doesn't matter, despite American military rhetoric nuclear weapons ARE ultimate weapons. The specifications for shelters to protect humans from GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR are sufficiently difficult that the survivors would number in the tens of thousands. And of course all major powers probably have really dirty bombs set up to go off every few dozen years after the initial war so that nuclear winter can last several hundred years. The American's because they are vindictive enough to kill everything and everyone else because if such a war occures we don't deserve to exist.
The reason American's seem to be saying that nuclear weapons aren't the ultimate weapon is because of menas of delivery, hence they try and track Russian Nuclear subs (good luck) and keep track of the 20,000+ nuclear war heads pointed at their citizens. (note they can't stop 1 with current technology). The nature of their nuclear testing indicates this ignorance in that they have been experimenting with diffrent delivery methods such as long range cannon. How stupid is that these are bomb's, other countries know how to get bombs around, planes trains and automobiles. For $3000 I will smuggle a nuclear bomb into downtown New York and place it centrally in a location that will render it undetectable for the next 1000 years($1000 to bribe U.S. Border guard while saying it's cigarretes, $2000 to undercut the construction costs and gain access to the corner stone [6ft by 6ft] of a skyscraper) There will be no 3 minute missile flight when I become angry.
So everyone has figured this out except for the states, so why does the states still think it can push ANYONE around? I mean even Andora could probably put together $50,004,000 to buy a nuke off the Russians or pay an unethical physicist.
Well if we assume that it's fairly cheap and easy on the government scale to obtain nukes and I've shown it's even easier to deliver them in a manner which will offer no insight into the government responsible. Then America is pushing everyone around and if someone fought back no one would win. (I wouldn't define it as a win if 10,000 people who decided to kill everyone else survived, maybe it's just me.) But American imperalism continues, why? Why do people let smaller bullies push them around? Because the cost of fighting is higher than aquiescing, however if it continues long enough the cost of a bullet is cheap.
Don't push the world much farther, some people aren't as patient as others and if one of them finds you stealing from the mouths of their citizens to buy SUV's and they have a bomb in Central Park that button will look more and more tempting. Especially since there will be no focus for retaliation, of course if you continue with your current pogrom of random recrimination everyone else might find themselves pushing buttons in unison.
Sources also from the CIA World Factbook 2002:
GDP Listing:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_gdp
Military expenditures per percent of GDP:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_per
With the use of the GDP, the population of a nation as a whole is involved. The costs to militarize that population based on the level of specific nations industrial development given current rates of taxation and potential for military production given total war must be considered. This is an area of significant projection, though some statistics do provide at least some idea of potentials.
Labor force:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/lab_lab_for
Rather what would be considered as most accurate is a combination of what was observed and cited by your comment and the military status of nations.
Military status(Weapon holdings): http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_wea_hol
From these two sources, present military development and current productive capabilities, are what can be used to determine the impact of the increased burden in taxes caused by aditional development. To clarify, the focus was that in accordance with the need for further military forces to increase the potential for aggression, the US is not justified in exacting the taxes from its populace that would be required for the construction and maintinance of alert for the systems proposed.
Thanks for what you did in Iraq or Afganistan (I can't tell if you were involved in both or just one).
Freeing the Iraqis from their dictator was one of the best things America has ever done, equal in importance to stopping the Holocaust. I don't know why all American's are not proud of this fact. I am and I don't particularly deserve to be. I know you are, and you should be.
Also, the accuracy of those weapons systems was one of the main reasons we had the political will to go through with the war. For the first time in history, there were no massacres of civilians. Mistakes, yes, but compared to the evil you fought, the mistakes were small. It's an awful calculus to have to make, but it's the truth.
That there are no small number of nations who, faced with ultimate provocation could supply M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) to the Uninted states from conventionally launched ICBMs, sea launched IRBMs and under-sea launched IRBMs/SRBMs.
Space warfare is by no means the be-all and end-all of mutual annihilation.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
FoxNews is worse than the Pravda. Every now and then the Pravda throws in stories about aliens or little girls with X-ray vision to keep the readers from getting TOO gullible. FoxNews doesn't provide that kind of disclaimer on its own credibility, preferring to skirt the line while claiming to be "fair" and "balanced."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The plan was that the Iraqis would love us for freeing them and happily establish a US-friendly democracy that would pay our expenses by selling oil.
I'm not sure if "fantasy" means the same as "plan", but that was the official "plan".
the problem for the US is that its traditional allies are starting to look more and more like strategic adversaries every day.
Yes, but it's the US that has changed, not the allies. When all your friends suddenly stop liking and trusting you, the chances are that it's you that's the problem, not your friends!
... the all-time classic by Robert A. Henlein
not only does this book explain how to organize a guerilla network to overthrow an entrenched power.
it also explains how you can easily terrorize earth by launching simple rocks from Moon's surface. you don't need much power to overcome Moon's gravity... so just build a (large) launcher, calculate the exact path it will take, and launch it... so it comes down on your enemy as a nice meteorite.
i didn't do the math, but i do have a feeling that Henlein did when he came up with the idea.. any physics students here?
" has so much money left over after ensuring it's people have the best healthcare, lowest crime and best education "
we ARE the only major 'industrialized' country without universal healthcare and the bush administration just clarified that hospitals could actually give discounts to the uninsured. why? i dunno...probably because all the insurance companies were complaining that they had negotiated discounts and that the uninsured didnt deserve them o_O
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/20/politics/20INS U.html
All your preview button are belong to Hello Kitty.
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote a book called Footfall back in '86.
Includes all the funs stuff like rods and gamma-ray lasers.
Brief synopsis: Space bad guys show up in orbit and use advance weaponry like rods to destroy tanks, drop meteors to destroy cities, etc. Lucky us they inherited the tech and aren't very imaginitive, so we strap nuclear bomb propulsion to a couple of shuttles and use nuclear powered gamma ray weapons to beat them into submission.
Your reaction? "HOLY FLURKING SHNIT!" What ya gonna do about it? You'd instantly realize you're way the hell out of your league.
Yeah, after all, being completely out of your league has worked soooooo well to stop terrorism in Israel, hasn't it?
Don't you understand that the entire reason war is being waged with terrorism is because disaffected people know that they're out of their league? If the Arabs could rise up, launch an military strike to drive Israel out of their homeland that they'd have done it? Oh, wait -- they already tried that for 60+ years and failed. Suicide bombing didn't start until 1994 in Afula and are a sign of desperation from an impoverished and vastly outgunned population against a nation backed with technology from the world's greatest superpower.
Why did Al-Qai'da use our own civilian planes against us? Because they didn't have the ability to do anything else to us. Orbital weaponry is a deterrent against nations and armies and not against terrorists.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I for one welcome our new space-based masters, but then I work in Air Force Space Command.
The Air Force is also looking to follow the Army's lead in giving Microsoft half a billion dollars.
Air Force mulls Microsoft license
Phillip
The Semai (among others)
Apologies, noted error of lack of inclusion of population and weapon holdings per capita. Now with this, and clarified focus of the second post, the requested can be calculated and full reality ascertained.
_ ca p
Population:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/peo_pop
Weapon holdings per capita:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_wea_hol
Somebody please for God's sake mod the parent up to 5, Insightful. I can't believe the grandparent, who obviously doesn't get that with power comes responsibility, is modded as insightful. I don't understand why there are so many Americans like the poster of the grandparent, whose sole interest is to make themselves rich by any possible means without any considerations whatsoever about others. As a Japanese I used to be very pro-American before I came to the U.S., but the more I know about this country, the less favorable my opinions about it became. No wonder the U.S. is alienating itself further and further away from the international community.
I'll trust your opinion more than anyone else's, on any matter. After all those years of unquestioning obedience, I'm sure you're real good at thinking for yourself.
the international laws regarding PoWs :: the people that are being held at guntanamo bay without any legal claims against them.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Strategic in a "swinging it around to show 'em who's the best" kind of way, sure.
I expect it's got more to do with other nations getting seriously into space, and China in particular. Raining terror down onto Earth based targets is only a bonus I think, and it'll be more about shooting down satellites and possibly manned military space craft (in the future).
Seriously, world politics makes me laugh. It's like a bunch of pre-schoolers making forts and fighting over who's the king of the castle. Except it's not funny, because people die and stuff.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Not to mention the fact that the original quote quote said nothing about world war II...pretty damn quick with that card.
(\(\
(^.^) INFECTED
(")")
Heh, maybe those space burials wasnt such a bad idea after all?
On second thought, will the dead be disturbed by all the military activity and become space zombies?
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I'm not so sure I would consider this worthy news. I have been planning on taking over space for years.
It bogs my mind to think what kind of monsters we let rule ourselves. What the fuck?! Is everyone fucking mad?! Wake up!
-=- 4ntifa -=-
This is not surprising. The US government has indicated pretty openly that they are going to militarize space. Their future Star Wars program, which will start rolling once the Missile Shield is "successful", will necessarily involve militarization of space.
Recent attempts by Bush administration to reshape NASA is also consistent with this space goal.
I have always claimed that the UN will collapse* if USA militarizes space. We'll see if I'm right.
(* If you wonder why I think this, it is because of human behaviour. When USA militarizes space, it will most likely start claiming territory on the moon, mars, etc as its own. This is pretty consistent with human behaviour over time (just think of colonization, circa 1500's/1600's/etc). Whoever that has power in space will have power over territory in space. This is true if human behaviour is the same as in the past (i.e. warmongering territorial animals)--I don't see why it be any different since humans stopped evolving tens of thousands of years ago. This will mean that the UN has no say in territory disputes in space, and the UN will have no power to promote peace. Once that happens, there is no point of having the UN. People always mistakenly assume that the most important elements of the UN are things like WHO, WTO, UNICEF, UNHCR, and so forth, but the truth of the matter is, UN is primarily a body that is responsible for territories (ie. borders of countries).... On a different note, I also have a hypothesis that the UN will collapse right before WWIII--just like how the League of Nations collapses just before WWII. This has nothing to do with militarization of space. )
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Maybe the _MOST_ _INSIGHTFUL_ _COMMENT_, _EVER_.
Well, not to me particularly, since I happen to share his insight, but to any "OMFG teh evil turorists hate our guts coz they're sick bastards who can't stand the thought of our freedom and prosperity"-patriot Americans.
-=- 4ntifa -=-
Rates of crimes other than murder are significantly higher in much of Europe than in the US. In addition, crime rates in the US have been dropping dramatically while those in Europe have been increasing.
Prepared to refute you with data from the United Nations Crime and Justice Information Network's statistics page, I found that a lot of what you said to be true -- except maybe the "significantly much higher" bit. The USA has hovered at about 5-6K crimes per 100K people with a slight decreasing trend, while all EU member nations have seen between 10%-50% increase in crime from 1980 to 1997.
However, in terms of violent crime, the USA is still king. Our murder, rape, and robbery rates are from 4-10 times larger than in EU states, and our incarceration rates are 7 times that of European nations outside of the former Warsaw Pact states. Apparently, while crime is more prolific in Europe (in spite of our much harsher drug laws), they are overwhelmingly not serious crimes.
Now, Japan is another story entirely. Crime rates in Japan went from about 11 in 1000 to 15 in 1000 over the same period of time. Violent crimes are nearly nonexistant (though on the rise). Having been to Japan, I can say that you really could leave a wallet on the bar without much worry in most places in Tokyo (and Sendai too). This is becoming less and less true now as a younger, less traditional generation is supplanting the values of the old, but Japan is much, much safer than America.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Yes, but the Semai were chased off of their ancestral land by other settlers. Not exactly the best example of something we should base our society on.
"The land of the East Semai was gradually taken over by Malay farmers who displaced the Semai by raiding settlements, slaughtering the men, and taking the younger women and children back to sell as slaves or to use as domestic servants. Slave raids pretty much ended in 1920, but they still live on in the Semai memories and cultural tales. The Semai response was to flee ever farther into the interior, living in smaller groups in inaccessible places. Despite this, most Semai land has now been logged and they have once again been settled into "regroupment villages" by the government. These are put in lands that nobody else wants for the moment. Thus, the land is also incapable of supporting their former way of life (much like the story of the Lakota Sioux). They have lost their former autonomy as the only thing they have left to sell is their labor and selves. Most now work as day laborers or pieceworkers in logging or agricultural plantations; many women now work as prostitutes. These wages do not support the former standard of living they obtained as most Semai are now poorer than before. This is a key point: "development" and "modernization" has created increased poverty among these people. "
-Comedian
I am pretty sure that Canada has a real Army and they are not all riding around on horseback looking like Dudley Doright. They are obviously experimenting with some sort of Audio Cerebral Disrupter too if Celine Dion is any indication.
-Comedian
Reminds me of The Cardinal of the Kremlin... I hope we're ahead of the Russians. :)
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
Look, the military has plans for EVERYTHING. Part of being in the military means drawing up plans: "What would we do if XYZ happened?" So that in the odd chance that XYZ happens -- say, we get invaded by aliens -- then the military has a plan that they can execute.
And it's not just about plans for war in space. It's about plans for how chocolate-chip cookies should be made in the mess hall. Or for how clothes must be made, right down to the stitching, type of thread, precise colors and sizes.
It's part of the military's duty: Create a plan that any idiot can follow and execute given existing equipment, along with several acceptable alternatives, for any given scenario -- be it making a bunk bed for a training facility or the threat of Earth being mowed down by Vogons to build a hyperspace bypass.
Just because the military has plans to do something, doesn't mean they're going to do them. Because having plans they're not necessarily going to execute today is just part of what they do, so that if something DOES happen, they are prepared for it.
I guess I should be happy that the word was "adversary" and not "enemy" -- but it shocks me how many of my compatriots seem ready to abandon the Western alliance just because the Europeans had a difference of opinon with us. My God, look at what history usually produces and how closely aligned the nations of Western Europe and North America are, and you'll be more careful before flinging around accusations of adversarial intent.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
During the mid-nineties there was a push to rename the USAF the "United State Aeropspace Force". Two things killed it. First, traditionalists within the USAF itself. More importantly, the sister services objected, for very good reasons, which leads me to my next point....
Look for a lot of inter-service infighting about this issue of weapons in space. The Air Force has been viewed by other services, especially the Navy, as trying to hog the authority over any weapons that fly. They've been pretty arrogant about it as well, stating in the past that the USAF was "first among equals" in the Pentagon, and that it was the "only global force". Since the Navy's territory is water, which covers most of the earth (and having the capability to reach the rest of it via air from carriers), they objected to that.
Basically, the USAF wants exclusive rights to space combat, should it ever come to that. And I mean ALL space weaponry in the future, including any posted around other planets or in deep space. The other services fear becoming a kind of backwater police force on Earth while the USAF becomes the defacto US Military in whole. Frankly, I think the Air Force is working towards that goal.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I really lived this quote: "But it's unclear whether putting weapons into space would provide much protection. The arms themselves could become sitting ducks in orbit -- giving the United States a new weakness, not a new strength. Satellites are already a weak "center of gravity" in American militarty planning, argues Bruce DeBlois, the editor of Beyond the Paths of Heaven: The Emergence of Space Power Thought. They're vulnerbale to electronic jamming, orbiting projectiles and nuclear detonations in near-Earth space. The space-based weapons would have all of the same vulnerabilities -- and would make that center of gravity a more inviting target." That's right, and the more your forces advance on my country, the more vulnerable they become. Once you have overrun my country your forces will be so spread out that you'll have no chance. Victory is mine!
At the very least this guy can check with an urban-legends site like snopes before he passes this crap on as fact. In the early days of space, BOTH countries used pencil. But NASA was afraid of shards of lead doing damage in a zero G environment. The company that developed the pen for NASA did it AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE. NASA didn't spend a dime until the prototype was proven. Then the USSR ordered them too.
Jesus, this stuff is out there if you just look for it.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
but you know what? If no one can prove you haven't, and you claim that you have, it's hard for me to work up a lot of sympathy for you when people treat you like you have. If they were claiming they hadn't, it would be a different matter. Claiming to have a gun while committing a crime is legally the same as actually having one, after all.
God help us if the RIAA gets their hands on one of these...
2. Hold citizens of earth hostage for 1 BILLION dollars.
You see, Dr. Evil, this is exactly why I deserted you. Admit it: were it not for my correction, all you would've done was extort the word for a lousy 1 MILLION dollars.
Number Two.
... we would have had a continuously manned space station (Manned Orbiting Laboratory or MOL) as well as a fleet of rapid turnover missile-or-aircraft launched, horizontal landing lifting body spacecraft (where do you think I got this nifty nick?) by 1975. Instead, we got von Braun's moon project. OK, so MOL and DynaSoar we to double as weapons platforms. We might have gotten to the moon later (and considering what's happened since, so what?), but we probably would have hda semi-permanent bases there now, and I'd give even money we'd have people who'd been to Mars and back.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
This hypervelocity rod!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
In fact, they didn't even scare it's neighbors. 30,000 dead Iranians might disagree with you on this one...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Actually, there is a treaty banning the use of lasers on ground troops. If those lasers are used, they better make sure that they aren't used on troops. Troops in tanks might also be pusing the limit...
No, you are confusing the post-Soviet Pravda with the old Pravda. It used to be propaganda paper, now it's just a tabloid.
Let re-route asteroids so that they rain down out of the sky on our enemies, and then when people look at us suspicious, act nonchalant and say "hey, it wasn't us, it was an act of God!" The best weapon is one that can't be traced back to it's source for retribution!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
...we are the next Evil Empire, we are destined to rule the world, all your base is belong to us and you will all have to learn to eat at McDonald's and like it.
Wah.
You know, I think that instead of having a space race with the Russians, we should have talked to them and tried to understand their feelings, and then they would have gone away and everyone would live happily ever after. We should do the same thing with terrorism in the middle east--talk to them and understand their feelings. That will make the whole world peaceful. Of course, that's what Sarah Conner should have done with the cyberborg from the future in The Terminator. Remember how Reese was saying that it has no feelings and no remorse, and that it won't stop, ever, until she's dead? Well, I don't believe that. I'm sure that they could have gone to a diner together, talked to each other, and understood each others' feelings... Because violence is NEVER the answer, even if it's against an enemy that WILL kill you and will NOT back down, no matter what.
Stupid liberals.
We are going to make sure we take you with us.
:)*
Have a nice day! *insert smiley face here
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
This is really pretty simple. Put a launcher on the moon. Launch big rocks. If you aren't carrying a human, you can get a projectile out of the moon's gravity well at great speeds and G-force. It would be impossible for all but a few nations to stop you, and you would have plenty of warning to stop them. They have to pull their weapon out of Earth's gravity well.
Basically, a rail or tube, a lump of iron rock, and a computer to compute the trajectory and you have an unlimited supply of kinetic weapons. It makes any general salivate. If you can protect your own homeland on the planet, you could conceiveably leave the rest of the planet a cratered wasteland within a week.
I doubt that's the plan, but if you think the Chinese aren't thinking the same thing with their "moonbase" you're insane. A permanent human presence, and a few "spare parts" kept around the base for times of war could make any base on the moon THE premiere weapons system.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
That is certainly believable.
However, from a purely selfish viewpoint when I look around at all the idiots inhabiting this great nation I definitely do *not* want all of them carrying guns just in case they get mugged.
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
since the average american isn't willing to look at the issues and maybe ask for the removal of that fraud rod paige (or secretary of education) or do anything at all on a national (and barely anything on a local) level in regards to structural changes we'll just keep throwing money at schools and the innefficient bureaucracies that run them. Should we cut school money? no. Should we raise it? yes. Why? teachers are underpaid, and even in my upper middle class school (location wise) funds were always lacking. Even for things like books. But as long as the public only has to hear a buzzword like 'no child left behind' (that travesty of dysfunction) they'll assume that we're trying our damndest.
Photos.
beginning with your parenthetical: that is exactly my point. The debate is about technology and an arms race. Sure, technology improved little from 1700-1920 (mass land engagements)and then dramatically from 1920ish to 1945 (prevalance of tanks and air power). The death rates basically follow the trends as you point out... rather constant, then a spike up to 1945. I suggest that the paradigmn shift in weapon technology in 1945 (and the arms race/cold war) is responsible for the turnaround after WW2. I know it sounds cliche, but what better reason to keep conflicts 'small' than to prevent escalation into the unknown?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
And the adolescent male homosexual in me is also giddily excited at the prospects. We're not all pansies ya know.
This is neither news nor a surprise.
As a general rule, in combat, he who holds the high ground wins. Space is the new high ground.
Military organizations do endless contingency plans covering any possible threat they can see and how it might best be countered. The U.S. military is no exception. If they _didn't_ do this, they wouldn't be doing thier jobs.
An absolute essential in any combat situation is communications, command, and control (known as "C cubed"). Troops on the battlefield need effective intelligence on what they face, communications with thier fellows to coordinate responses, and communications from thier superiors about what those responses should be.
Satellites provide all of those things. If you can take out the other guy's satellites, you effectively blind him, and leave him at a severe disadvantage.
This doesn't even count the possibility of actual _weapons_ platforms in space, which are a whole other set of problems.
I'm not upset that the US military is looking at this area. It's part of thier job. I'm concerned with thier ability to get it right.
______
Dennis
Killed with the massive help of the US in a war that was basically between the US and Russia. In 2003, Kuwait had a larger army for cripes sakes, and everyone knew it. They had no army, no air force, NOTHING. etc... They just weren't a threat. Whether or not they had killed each other in a war in the 80's was simply beside the point in the present.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
What if only a small group of your friends stopped liking you, as is the case? There are 200+ countries in this world. How many opposed the war? How many offered support to the effort?
Stop perpetuating the myth that we went into Iraq "alone".
John Susek
F15/16 launched devices in the mid 80's. These "kinetic antisatellite devices" were successful and very low tech (guided rocks) The unclassified program was renamed and focused on another goal. By treaty, nuclear weapons are not deployed in space.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
the problem for the US is that its traditional allies are starting to look more and more like strategic adversaries every day. space weapons allow the US to deliver military force *immediately* without having to worry about the next french/russian/german mutual masturbation festival, or what turkey's islamic parliament thinks about positioning infidel forces on its soil, or getting overfly rights from countries neighboring an enemy's territory.
Did it ever occur to you that this might also be the *reason* your allies are starting to consider you a strategic adversary? The US is already substantially ahead on military force, and they're quite obviously trying to remove dependance on their allies, and potential counter-attacks (missile shield), in short, the US is seeking to become all-powerful and invunerable.
Combine that with a progressively more agressive and arrogant US ever since the end of the cold war, not to mention the recent paranoia after 9/11, are you really surprised that the rest of the world, including your own allies, is worried? If so, I think you are living even more in your own world than I feared.
Not too long ago Europe let Germany come to a position of power like that. The rest of Europe didn't exactly see it coming then, and I don't think anyone sees it coming in the US now. But they know the danger of such a concentration of power better than you. You may have fought in the war, but we were the victims of it. And that time, we had the US to save Europe. If the US does the same to the world, who's to save us then?
Believe it or not, the rethoric of "We have to invade Afghanistan/Iraq (and maybe Iran, North Korea and a few more) in order to ensure the safety of the American people" isn't *that* far off from Hitlers "We have to invade Sudetendeutschland, Czechoslovakia, Poland (etc. etc.) to ensure the safety of the German people". And the "liberation" of the people not that far from the way Soviet Russia "liberated" the people of Eastern Europe, providing goverments friendly to the regime.
Now, you will argue that the US is doing this for the good of the world, or some bullshit like that. The US has shown a complete and utter disregard for the good of the world, last but not least shown by the rejection of the Kyoto agreement because it would hurt the American economy. The US couldn't give a damn about the rest of the world, as long as it doesn't hurt the almight US of A.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If you read my post you'll see I didn't say they cooperated with UNSCOM or even UNMOVIC. I said they allowed inspections. UNSCOM did a fantastic job of aggressive inspection. In the end, they said there were a few hundred shells unaccounted for. UNMOVIC later found most of those, the 122mm rockets you mention, which did not contain any agent. OTOH, Iraq did sometimes have legitimate arguments based on sovereignty, which the UN recognized, legal technicalities or other considerations. For instance in 2002 they strongly opposed allowing UNMOVIC to restart U2 flights. Their logic was that they were still in a warm war with the US and UK. Iraqi anti-aircraft crews fired on US/UK no fly zone patrols on a regular basis. If a U2 entered these zones it was likely to take a missile. Since the no fly zones were not UN sanctioned Iraq had every right to fight for her airspace. Now if Iraq was hiding facilities, this would have been a plausible ruse. As it turns out they weren't hiding anything, certainly nothing a U2 could find, so it seems pretty likely they were just afraid the US would use a smoking U2 as a pretext for invasion. They eventually ceded the flights.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
When we first started sending stuff into space, some smart men figured out that any space weapons (even those pointed at earth) would only prompt counter-measures, and the only way to beat a space-based laser was with something already in orbit.
If one satelite is destroyed the debris will spread and destroy every other satellite in space (not to mention a lot of satelites are nuclear powered). Further, we won't be able to launch something into space for a few thousand years, as we wait for the debris to rain down. Everything from cell phones to the internet to GPS will cease to work, or be severely crippled.
Sure, we may have good intentions in putting weapons up there, and won't destroy anyone else's stuff with our high-tech frying of circuits, but that doesn't re-assure anyone else who might have the weapons turned against them. Hell, the Europeans are launching their own version of GPS just because of the threat of degredation of signal - not that big of deal, but a telling sign for how much the rest of the world trusts the US and Bush's "Nobody tells me what to do" attitude.
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
Will one of the lasers start carving "friends" into rocks on earth and be called MPU?!
(think Cowboy Bebop)
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
remember in all the RTS games and Sci-fi TV, what do we have? Carrier, cruiser, battleship, leviathan?, corvette, destroyer, captain, fleet, battlegroup etc...
Ever see the movie "Spies Like Us?"
This is just more of the same crap as the "Cold War" and nuclear weapons - a way to extort money from taxpayers to pay to corporate executives who contribute money to political campaigns (and bribes).
These things aren't built to be USED - they're built to be paid for and for career-boosting.
If it weren't for tax-paying suckers, none of it would exist.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now we can liberate the Martians.
Where is your research - you are just a robot spewing information without looking into it - try looking at the following VERY disturbing link on the effects of DU on babies
or follow any of the other links and read more than just the links on DU from 'official' sources...
Earth was destoried?!? When? I must have missed it... what did they do with Earth's story when they took it away?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
my guess is this is aR TGAM .20040219.wruss0219/BNPrint/International/
reaction to
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
Something fishy here... http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.a sp?ID=12272
-Exitus
"We know from the attempted jamming of our GPS (global positioning system, which relies on satellites) during OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) that our enemies are going to try to deny us from using space."
Yeah, right. A ground based attempt at jamming signals used for guidance of weapons and stuff just shows so much eagerness on part of the U.S.'s so called "enemies" to challenge them in space. Most of the countries that the U.S. considers hostile are entirely incapable of anything near getting a satellite into orbit. I suppose they (the U.S.'s enemies) are next going to make rocket propelled grenades that can orbit the earth and knock out a GPS satellite... about the same time the U.S. finally gets its smelly fingers out of business that ain't theirs.
In terms of our GDP, social security makes up the bulk of our govt. spending.
This is only a plan. It will take a while for some "people" to come up with actual standards, then depending who is in office, give the bidding to certain companies. Then when the companies have won the bids then we have to give them billions of dollars to research and build some prototypes. Then after ten years of vigorous testing and many flawed attempts the military will by "more stuff" from the company in the hopes that something will come out of it. In the end some company will get very rich, so high brass will get the cool points and they will cut the number of troops because of the extensive costs related to the program. Kinda sounds like the f-22 and xf-35 programs now, just with a higher money potential.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
.. but heck, who's going to moderate us? :)
Nobody likes war, but you have to keep your guard up. If you don't, well... even Rome fell to barbarians in the end.
That's not entierly true.. Rome fell because of internal disputes and corruption. When those barbarians entered Rome, they found the emperor to be a (11y old iirc) kid!!!! Nobody else wanted to be an emperor because you'd get a knife between your ribs before you'd know. Rome rotted away from the inside, not because of external armies.
That's what they told me during my latin schooldays, at least..
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Don't worry, our Imperial Sardukar will put down those dirty Fremen rebels and their terrorist "Maud'dib" leader without having to resort to orbital bombardment. Do you not trust our glorious leader, the Baron George Bush? We just have to watch out for those blasted sandworms....
You know, against countries like Iraq and maybe Iran when they try to invade the US of A.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
gassed their own people.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
actually it is far worse than that: the US speands more on weapons per year than the next top 20 countries combined. that is seriously fucked up.
the US paid off all the smaller/3rd world countries for their support... the "coalition of the (un)willing" - that is - those countries who actually sent troops to the war - were the US, england, and australia. the payoff for australian involvement (read: vote of support) was the recent "free trade" agreement, which, as usual, was not about actually freeing trade between aust and the US at all.
i think that if you scratch the surface you'll find that there is now a deep-seated distrust of the US and its motives more than has ever existed up to this point as a result of what happened with the iraq war over (nonexistent) WMDs. the US has played its hand as the petulant playground bully; it has to now live with the consequences.
Yes, but it's the US that has changed, not the allies. When all your friends suddenly stop liking and trusting you, the chances are that it's you that's the problem, not your friends!
spot on. if only the US administration would pull its head out of its arse and start playing like a *world* citizen instead of petulant child with big toys.
The world as a whole needs more connection to their history, like this post.
They were just ignored. See Blind Into Baghdad in the January Atlantic.
Best Slashdot Co
From the First Saga, Journal of the Whills
"The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that...it was the Republic.
Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But, as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match.
So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was not visible from the outside.
Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce..."
Of course. I don't understand your point, however. Are you saying that we should base our society on domination by force of any one who gets in our way? The Semai are responsible for their loss because they didn't "develop"? I thought that the fault lies with the external influence. Are you saying that a strong culture that dominates others is by default a better model for ours? Are African cultures to blame for slavery because they didn't "adapt" to it? Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here.
In the post-apocalypic world of Mad Max 2, perhaps something like what the US has planned, Mel Gibson does indeed eat dog food out of a tin. Then the dog gets a go. Then the gyro-captain. They all seem to have better cars than us though... so...
maybe if another plane crashes into a building someone in the US administration with sense will come to realise that the rising anti-US sentiment is due to the US's interventionist/imperialist approach to foreign policy.
ffs american
We shouldn't enforce anything "they" don't want.
And what should we do when what "they" want is diametrically opposed to what "we" want? Give in? I think not. Compromise if possible, but if it's us or them, I choose us. If "they" have a problem with it, they can meet us on the field of battle and die for their stiff-necked inability to compromise with their betters.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
nyah. Too much like hard work
Sounds pretty Reasonable to Me. After all, it is only a matter of inference that the other planets in the Solar System are uninhabited. Human history alone is much longer than you read in the books, you know. There might be Martians. They might even be Human. Skepticism does not consist of an unreasoning rejection of all that does not fit into one's preconceived picture of the World. Skepticism is a reasoned reservation of decision until all of the facts are in and a continual willingness to modify one's picture of the World to conform to the Known Facts. .
There Is No God Where I Is.