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Weapons in Space
SWG_Eddie submits this story about the U.S. military beginning the militarization of space. We've done a few previous stories on this, such as this one. Putting weapons in earth orbit is not forbidden by any treaty or law.
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Sure the Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE) has a low-orbit only kill-vehicle now, but how long before it has an Electron Beam Device that can annihilate a person playing golf or taking a shower (possibly with company)?
Rather than do the typical knee-jerk US-Bashing, lets examine this. China is wanting to go into space. Do we REALLY want China to be the first ones with space weapons pointing back at us?
We'll have a space weapons gap!
Why not negotiate a treaty to keep weapons out of space without a global threat, as determined by the UN? Well, that would just be UnAmerican. We should just put weapons up there. That'll show those commie bastards.
Even to the most hawkish, another cold war can't be that appealing. Why not nip it in the bud?
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Ahh, yes, like the treaty that North Korea signed promising not to build nuclear weapons if we (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) gave him two nuclear reactors?
You can always trust evil dictators!
Thats insanely short sighted.
If I remember correctly, one of the co-inventors of the first nuke was quoted as saying that it would mean the end of war, as noone would be crazy enough to use it.
Instead, it launched the first cold war, and cost the planet millions of lives and a lot of karma.
We know that other nations are getting to be space-capable. Are we just to trust that they won't put weapons up there? Has China really got that great a record with respecting human rights? And do we really think that Pakistan/India wouldn't put a weapon system up if the other was suspected of having one?
The Pearl Harbor analogy is correct. Who loses space, loses any war.
People never mention that! During the war on Iraq, people were going on about how many security council resolutions Iraq broke, but they never mentioned the amount the US vetoed, thereby avoiding having to break them when they did what they wanted.
The US vetoes more international laws than any other country. It's not hard to see how it breaks as few international laws as it does.
Anyway. America doesn't care about the treaties it has signed up to, if it gets in the way.
weapons in space are used to counter weapons that travel through space to reach intended targets. China has weapons that travel through space, so to say that we are being racist or judgemental is false. there is a real threat by weapons that travel through space, and china has those weapons.
To say that china has an amicable relationship with the US is false. they crashed a jet into a radar plane of ours, and we had to do some real legwork to get the crew back.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Kyoto is rather mal-formed. It is based on false scientific premises, and is designed to do nothing but wreck economies of certain countries.
Well, we have actually seen global warming, and there is good evidence that carbon dioxide contributes to this global climate temperature change. But more importantly, Kyoto is just a step towards sustainability and becoming less reliant on exhaustible resources.
Economic costs should be weighed, certainly, but that cost includes the future cost of cleanup, and the health toll on our lungs (and associated medical insurance/taxes).
Having said that, the specifics of Kyoto are not exactly endearing, such as the carbon sink offsets and emissions credit trading. Countries coud pump CO2 like crazy by buying emissions credits to countries that have large forests.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
The US isn't going to put nuclear weapons into space because it doesn't fulfill any strategic goal.
Considering that the US has optical equipment in space that can read a license plate from orbit, it's not a far stretch to strap on a high powered laser and cut the car in half that the license plate is attached to...
Also, considering the huge advances the US has made in stealth technology, wrapping the whole thing up in a stealthy package that a foreign governments radar based space tracking equipment couldn't see seems very logical.
Here's something to think about as well. When the US retired the SR-71 from active service, did you really think they didn't have a replacement coming into active service? Space based sensing is nice but it has some inherent limitations.
I would take an uneducated guess that the US has a top secret spy plane that has eclipsed all of the short comings of the SR-71.
Also, why would the US need to put nuclear weapons into space when it has a state of the art fleet of nuclear missle submarines that are roaming all over the world with lots of ICBM's that can be launched from anywhere anytime and hit anything.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The reason we developed the first nuke was that we believed that Germany was well on their way to developing their own nuke during WWII. Who were the nuclear physicists who made this possible? German jews fleeing the Nazi regime.
The concept was out there, we had to develop it and have it ready before anyone else. Who would you have preferred to develop the first nuke? Russia? Germany? China?
It was going to happen, with or without us. Sure, we could have stalled for another 50 years (maybe), but would that really have put the world in a better position for the long term? Not really.
I know this is going to start a flame-war but...
You earn respect. Note the keyword "earn" in that statement. And one of the primary ways for earning other people's respect is keeping your word.
Another method for earning respect is honesty.
We've had a very real problem with both of those in the last 4 years.
We submarined the Kyoto talks after making big promises. In the process, we destroyed our own delegate's credibility on a whim, then sent Colin Powell in to take her place.
We gave the big finger to the U.N. (whose formation and structure we are largely responsible for) because we didn't like the way the vote was coming down on Iraq's snubbing of U.N. orders.
We lied about the criticality of Iraq's intentions and capabilities. (You may think this is arguable; but 2 administration insiders who have little to do with eachother have corroborated this in their respective books.)
The list actually goes on a bit.
The thing is, we can't just run around saying we're the good guys; we have to BE the good guys.
I love our country. I want it to be strong and righteous.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
One of the most potent weapons we have uses the GPS network orbiting the earth to assit targeting.
Those satellites are themselves a very important part of a weapon system that allows us to hit any position on the globe with a sub 4 meter accuracy in almost any weather. ( JDAM, JSOW, JASSM, etc etc ). IMHO that makes those GPS satellites weapons.
Also, what about near space? That scram jet test the other day would lead the way for a very impractical airliner. It would lead the way to an excellent strategic bomber. The ability for an agent/Special Forces troop, put a modified 2000lb JDAM on someones head anywhere on the globe within a few hours sounds mighty handy. Like calling out for pizza.
The way I see it, this is one big pork barrel. From a military perspective, it seems quite useless. The two major threats to the US are terrorism and nuclear missiles. I don't see how space militarization will be more than marginally effective against terrorism. Furthermore, we know that a space shield is probably never going to be effective at stopping nukes. Tests to take down simple ballistic missiles were only marginally succesful and there are plenty of ways to increase the effectiveness of nukes. Multiple warheads and scramjet propulsion are just two techniques which complicate the interception of nukes by many orders of a magnitude.
When the US takes a step towards Star Wars, competitors will simply improve their missiles. It seems likely that those improvements are much less costly than the defensive technology. Let's face it, space is extremely expensive. Bombing or shooting rockets from space is incredibly costly because you must first lift the materials up there and then shoot them back down. Earth-based systems (such as nukes) will have the advantage until new lifting technologies are developed. The only option which doesn't require lifting materials to rearm are lasers, but they can be countered with a reflective layer, so they aren't likely to be the answer.
Finally, if war is brought to space, there is a serious risk of destroying both commercial and military sattelites and 'contaminating' geostationary orbit with debris, making it unusable. Is this a Pandora's box that the US wants to open?
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
No, it's the parent's responsibility to make sure the child gets an education by either homeschooling them or sending them to either the state provided school system or a private school.
It is the responsiblity of the state and federal government to make sure every child has access to at least elementary and high school education and the oppurtunity to further that education. That is why state and federal dollars go to public schools and universities.
that would be an incredibly useful military weapon. Remeber when Bill Clinton "wagged the dog" during Lewinskigate and tried to kill Osama by lobbing a few missles at him? The time it took for the missiles to travel to their destination gave Bin Laden ample time to escape.
If we had had a low-orbital beam weapon like this, there would not have been a 9/11.
This is plain laughable.
First, US intelligence is obviously not accurate enough to serve as a basis for where terrorist leaders camp. (bombed civilian factory, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, etc.)
Second, do you really think the military would have had time to react, decide they were a real threat and not a "regular" hijack, and annihilate these airplanes before they reached their targets?
Military fighters were stationed within reach and could easily have shot down these planes if official reaction and decision time were as short as you suggest.
The only way of abolishing terror is by changing the policies that feed the responsible organizations.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
OK.
New revised Slashbot ideals:
#1. Republicans suck.
#2. Democrats suck.
Mix with reality:
#3. There is no alternative to the two.
The only problem with this is that it puts all of us into that category of people called 'radicals'. After all, even if both sides are total shit, you *have* to support one of them or else noone listens to a word you say.
Try to bash Bush and you get people attacking Clinton, saying he was no better.
Try to attack Clinton and you get the anti-Bush rhetoric that started this thread.
Try to say that the whole system sucks and you get people labelling you a tin-foil mad hatter.
Politics make me want to cry.
I don't buy the negative portrayals of either Kerry or Bush, though. Too many people get their information from the attack ads of opposing candidates, rather than actually bothering to learn about their real records.
As far as I'm concerned, either one would do a fairly good job as President for the upcoming term, and neither would be perfect.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Space defense has all the appearance of a Maginot line. Its very expensive to build and very easy to defeat, especially in an age of asymmetric warfare. When the most devastating attack in U.S. history was done with civilian airlines explain to me the value of fixating on missile defense. Its a relic of cold war thinking when the one true threat the U.S. had was a missile attack from the U.S.S.R.
Missile defense is also very lucrative to the big aerospace companies who want to get the multibillion dollar contracts. You can be sure they are lobbying hard and spreading around campaign contributions to make it happen. A sympathetic Republican administration and big defense companies lobbying for them is an assurance these programs will continue for the forseeable future and will expand.
The only attack this system might prevent is a rogue state, with a few primitive missiles, like North Korea launching a missile at the U.S. If they know the missile defense is there they can just put their nukes on tramp steamers and sail them in to the harbors of major U.S. cities. They only way to deal with states like North Korea is to disarm them, one way or another. If there is any state that deserves to be taken down for WMD's and repressive dictatorship its North Korea, not Iraq. Only prolbem is if we try they will probably devastate Seoul and may retaliate with nukes against South Korea and the U.S., if they have them. The Bush administration will never be able to explain the rational for leaving North Korea in tact, taking down Iraq, and letting Pakistan get away with proliferating nuclear weapons technology to anyone with a few million dollars. We took down Iraq for a vague suspicion of developing nuclear weapons. North Korean has them and Pakistan has been really proliferating them, wholesale, and we haven't done much since we caught on.
If you turn to Russia, they had largely stopped developing strategic weapons. Thanks to the Bush administrations saber rattling they are now going to resume the arms race. They've already announced plans to develop warheads with manuevering capability to defeat ABM's, massive decoy strategies are also inevitable, and they are resuming work on their own missile defense. Another way to beat missile defense is to deploy massive numbers of new missiles. One reason the U.S. and U.S.S.R signed a treaty banning ABM's is because they had the foresight to look ahead and see the consequence of deploying them. Both countries would have dramaticly escalated missile production in order to be sure they could overwhelm the new defense. As bad as the arms race was Mutual Assured Destruction kept it in check. When you start deploying defenses and start planning to try to win a nuclear war it leads to two things:
A. A greater risk of a war happening if one side thinks they can win without significant damage thanks to defenses.
B. The arms race spirals out of control, as countries build massive numbers of new missiles to overwhelm the others defenses, and then massive new defense to counter the huge numbers of new missiles.
All in all the world would have been a better place without restarting the arms race. Thank you again, little George.
@de_machina
I can just see it now.... Some alien species is going to see this and wonder "WTF, they have space weapons, and they're pointed at themselves!?"
Also known as surrender? Yeah I suppose that works. I'll get in my time machine and tell that to Churchill -- it would have been the most effective way to end the Battle of Britain after all.
No. It's known as "knowing thy enemy."
The best way to end any war is to convince your enemy not to fight it. If you can do so by taking actions that do not compromise your position, you should do so.
Since the terrorist's main real claim is our abhorrent treatment of other nations, the best way to stop the terrorists is to stop mistreating the various nations they come from.
As for the other significant causes of terrorism--How about we just leave Israel alone for a few years, and let that problem sort itself out?