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US Military Plans Space Combat
MacDork writes "Wired news is reporting that the US Air Force has documented its plans to shoot down "commercial spacecraft, neutral countries' launching pads -- even weather satellites" should the need arise. From potential Chinese militarization of space to commercial spy satellites their reasoning seems obvious, but there are just as obvious consequences of such actions. Just glancing at the PDF, I don't see any plans for the aftermath..."
By international consent, space is demilitarized (at least until the pod people attack us, or whatever). I doubt the US can afford breaking any more treaties.
You are not allowed to do this But since Bush thinks the UN is worthless, the rules fly out the window and the shit hits the fan. And people say Iraq didn't have international consequences.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
I found this in a link from the "consequences" link in the story.
A shuttle windsield impacted by a paint chip at 3 to 6km/sec
http://www.aero.org/cords/debrisks.html
The Air Force has messing with this stuff for quite some time.
In 1959, they launched a missile nicknamed "King Lofus IV" from a B-58 as an early test of satellite intercept using Explorer V as a target...the test was a miserable failure.
They were more successful in 1985, with a successful intercept and kinetic kill of a satellite with an F-15 launched ASAT prototype. The program was terminated in 1988.
Worst...sig...ever!
But we already have bioweapons, chemical weapons and nukes, at least here in europe, and we're not your closest friends these days, thanks to your total insanity in international relations.
A US/EU war is already near-MAD. My own european country doesn't have nukes or the ability to produce them, as such (but easily enough radioactives to make lots of dirty bombs) - but it does have really nasty engineered plant pathogens capable of destroying most of the world's arable crops.
The USA is the largest threat to europe at the moment... you idiots inflamed the middle east, undoing our carefully planned strategy (ever heard of that, you fucking tacticians?) to defang islam, and you are the only nation capable of taking on europe (unless you count russia, but that's part of europe more than the US is). We WILL retaliate if the US acts directly against us - unlikely at present, but you do seem to be getting just plain madder and madder and more and more corrupt.
- First US atomic bomb detonation: 12 July 1945 (deliverable)
- First Soviet atomic bomb detonation: 29 August 1949 (deliverable)
Or H-bombs instead:- First US hydrogen bomb detonation: 1 November 1952 (stationary)
- First Soviet hydrogen bomb detonation: 12 August 1953 (deliverable, first use of fusion in thermonuclear device), 22 November 1955 (deliverable, first "real" H-bomb)
(Sources: Wikipedia; Soviet nuclear weapons program)Of course. Tell that the guys who lived near the Nevada desert, they must be terrible wrongdoers indeed. (Then, on the other hand, every American who knows where Semipalatinsk is will comment on how evil the Soviets were to expose their own population to radiation at all.) You should probably try to get out of puberty and get a more balanced world view, where politics isn't explained in terms of "big fucking sticks". I can't help it, you remind me of the bone scene in 2001.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
I maintain that on 9/10, you and four other guys with boxcutters could hold a large room full of people hostage because of their expectation that the outcome wouldn't be their demise. 9/11 changed that equation - the expectation of a safe outcome for the hostages no longer exists, so it would take more than 5 guys to hold them, or better weaponry.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
A unique USAF space vehicle is the ASAT (Air-Launched Anti-Satellite Missile). Unlike the other vehicles on display here, this device can be used to destroy orbiting satellites that threaten the U.S. The Vought ASAT was designed and developed in response to a 1977 Air Force requirement for a small air-launched missile that was capable of intercepting and destroying enemy satellites in low earth orbit. The missile consists of a modified Short Range Attack Missile (SRAM) first stage, a Thiokol Altair III second stage, and a Vought miniature homing vehicle (MHV). The ASAT is launched from an F-15 aircraft that is in a steep climb. At high altitudes, this gives the ASAT's rocket a useful initial velocity to allow it to reach its target in orbit. After the first stage separates, the second stage propels the MHV into space on a collision course with the target satellite. The MHV destroys the target by ramming it at high speed.
Initial flight test began in 1983. The first successful test interception and destruction of a satellite in space occurred on September 13, 1985. The ASAT is 17 feet 9 1/2 inches long, 20 inches in diameter, and weighs about 2,600 lbs.
Wrong. The TARGET mark is ALREADY on foreheads. Look here.
This picture was shot during a music concert in Belgrad in 1999. Look
here
too. And don't forget that US army and Osama bin Laden were on the same side of Yugo barricades. Aren't USA going to warm another snakes on their breasts?