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Military Seeks Approval to Develop Space Weapons
ranson writes "The New York Times is reporting that U.S. Air Force officials are seeking Bush's Approval to begin researching and developing space arms. While analysts feel this move will be unwelcome in the international community, military officials believe that "Space superiority ... is our destiny, ... our vision for the future.""
Based on the fact that a 82-billion-dollar emergency budget for military operations has just been approved, this "Space Arm Race" might just be the only realistic hope for us to see any space ventures in our life time.
Is this a variant of how sticky-note Bill are attached (and passed) under another guaranteed Bill?
I'm sure in order to bring weapons into the space, a lot of technologies will have to be developed, which hopefully will benefit many other sectors.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
That's no moon that's a space station!!!!
__________ Leave me alone I'm compiling a RPG II program on my S/36...Thanks to metamucil I'm a Regular Meta Moderator
So they are going to close some 20-30 bases in the US so we can have weapons in space. Space weapons sound cool, but a substantial ground presence is needed in any confrontation, either to mop up the mess, or contain it.
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
It's to enable them to legally deploy them. From TFA:
With little public debate, the Pentagon has already spent billions of dollars developing space weapons and preparing plans to deploy them.
I'm wondering if perhaps this isn't also the military wanting to show off a little and provide the public a glimpse of yesterday's technology, similar to what happened with the F-117 circa 1990. Maybe they want to show us what the Aurora really looks like.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
He's never going to sign this... right? Not Bush... Right. That guy is a conservative who hates spending our tax money on pie in the sky ideas, and loves life... right? He believes we've already got the best weapons in the world, and couldn't imagine us needing more...right? Besides, at his heart, Bush is a diplomat who understands that the US can't go it alone in the world and far be it for him to swing his cock around... right? Right?
DefenceTech.org Times' shaky spacewar story:
"[Global Strike] -- which we first looked at back in November 2003 -- is legit, with a hefty $91 million invested into it over the last two years. But, by making so little distinction between this effort and more pie-in-the-sky plans, the Times does its readers a bit of a disservice."
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
They're afraid of a leak, so they have to get approval before their existance is made public. Then, the weapons in space will be OK, because they are approved.
I mean, why bother publishing the request. Any thinking adult already understands the situation. If anything the request is nothing more than "going through the motions".
Why it is newsworthy is beyond me? Perhaps to say "Hey we really really really don't have these things yet" Or perhaps it is too alert the not so bright that yeah, someone is bound to do it so lets make sure we are there and ready.
In a perfect world this type of waste would not be needed, unfortunately a few nutjobs out there are trying to get nuclear weapons or have them and they have very few moral reasons to not use them except self preservation. With the current idiocy of allowing Iran to become a fully fledged nuclear power just how long before they try to become a spaceborne power?
I don't think the Chinese would tell anyone either until after they threaten to use such capability on Taiwan.
As for the UN, I figure on some good old bashing of America for doing something that so obviously is going to be done by anyone who can lob it up there.
Hell now that I think of it it almost seems as if it were bait.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I just put a deposit on a house, oh and I had a really nice sandwich for lunch.
From informative, well researched fiction by Stephen Baxter (Moonseed) and others, I gather than the USAF has long held a grudge against NASA. Could this be the not so thin edge of the wedge of moving all space funding to a militarily organisation rather than a civilian one?
You might need it some rainy day,
Dreams can come true again,
When ev'ry thing old is new again!
- Throw rock
- Hit other guy with stick
- Throw rock with stick on the end of it
- Shoot stick with rock on end of it at guy with curved stick
- Hit rock with fire, make copper, bronze, iron, steel rocks to put on ends of stick
- Put fire in tube, throw rock with fire.
- Put fire in metal tube, throw metal rock with fire.
- Put fire in metal rocks, drop exploding rocks on other guy
- Drop rocks made of unstable atomic metals on other guy
- Head for the asteroid belt. Throw rock
Ronald Reagan pushed his Star Wars plan at around the same time (rough estimation) that Episode VI was released, and Bush is pushing Star Wars part II at the same time that Episode 3 is being released. Coincidence? I think not!
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
They mean that they want to get approval now, sow that when they need to use the already developed weapons in the next 1-whatever years, they can say they were developed after they were given "permission".
Did the public know about any of the stealth projects prior to accidents involving them or a substancial time has passed?
We must arm ourselves against interstellar invaders!
First the space race, then the arms race...looks like the two just had kids!
Yup...nuke 'em from orbit...that sure sounds like us.
Apparently they weren't listening a few years ago when Dubya called 'dibs'.
'Rods of God'? Just when I think that the neoconservatives can't get any more arrogant, they serve up this gem. Way to go, guys.
Sounds like those Air Force boys have been watching too much Real Genius.
Ahh, yes...the Death Star...just in time for the release of Revenge of the Sith. I wonder how much George paid George for that tie-in.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
If you look at the upcoming global landscape, China looks to be number potential enemy. They are already working on a space program that will only getter better, and more advanced.
Right now, the US undisputablly has the technogical superiority over the rest of the world. It's high time we develop a space strategy while we still have the edge. Right now, there are no enemies that can attack from space, but you never know in 20 years or so.
It's time to get the ball rolling. Reagan had it right with Star Wars, and he only helped bankrupt the Soviet Union by funding it. I hope Bush follows in Reagan's footsteps.
Will some nation eventually deploy weapons in space? I'd say there's a high liklihood.
To me then, the question boils down to, do you want to be first or attempt to be second?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Wasn't there an SG1 episode that dealt with space weapons. And, even though the intentions were good, wasn't the weapon used on our enemies as an offence. So, we may not be able to control all the weapons we put in place.
Evolution or ID?
So how exactly does spending billions of dollers on weapons in space help defend america.
Sure it will defend against missile attack but suitecase bombs and various other things are
more apparent problems.
Seeing America getting them more and more into debt, without any real sign of stopping, and
arming themself up even further is very disturbing.
Ok maybe I need to find my tinfoil hat but this seems to look even more like getting
armed to the teeth for a land grab, how else they going to get the money.
On a less serious note; Space arms are those long bendy things with grippy bits at the end to move equipment around in space. Personally, I think funding for space arms has gone as far as it can, and now we need space legs and space feet. Haw Haw. Mod -1 Really Lame Humour
This is old stuff. See, I've already got this. It's called an Ion Painter. It "paints" a harmless bit of ions on a surface that it is pointed at while the trigger is held down. Soon after, however, a 2 gigawatt orbital laser fires at the ion spot and obliterates whatever is there. UT2k4 is sooooo visionary.
Presently, there's very little we could do about it. We'd basically just sit and watch helplessly as the missile tracked onto our soil and exploded.
With space-based weapons, we could at least have a chance to prevent it.
Having a reasonable space-based defense just makes sense. The only alternative is to promise Mutual Assured Destruction to anyone who'd launch something like that at us -- and that only works if the one who's doing the launching is rational, and isn't more than willing to die.
This is an escalation targetted against the rest of the world, and will be taken as such.
Nothing will defeat terrorism like billion dollar space weapons!!!
You never know when Al Qaeda is going to build a rocket.
Those kids in Explorers did.
...Stuff that happened two weeks ago.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Remember his speech, now known in history as the "Star Wars" speech.
"As we pursue our goal of defensive technologies, we recognize that our allies rely upon our strategic offensive power to deter attacks against them. Their vital interests and ours are inextricably linked. Their safety and ours are one. And no change in technology can or will alter that reality. We must and shall continue to honor our commitments."
Sad how little has changed.
Linux Resources
Isn't it enough that the US is screwing over the rest of the world? Now we have to go and take over space too.
Won't somebody think of the martians?
...haven't read the "Patriot Act" have you?
'Emergency Powers'
'suspend the Constitution'
'Martial Law'
Who needs elections with legislation like that?
We keep being told that the new threats to our national security are groups of terrorists hiding in caves in third world countries. Clearly the logical conclusion is that we need space based weapons in case they're hiding their WMDs there?
their PROM with my EEPROM and ... Popcorn!
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein
Here Bush goes will go breaking international laws again...
a sp
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans the stationing of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in outer space, prohibits military activities on celestial bodies, and details legally binding rules governing the peaceful exploration and use of space.
The treaty's key arms control provisions are in Article IV. States-parties commit not to:
* Place in orbit around the Earth or other celestial bodies any nuclear weapons or objects carrying WMD.
* Install WMD on celestial bodies or station WMD in outer space in any other manner.
* Establish military bases or installations, test "any type of weapons," or conduct military exercises on the moon and other celestial bodies.
The USA fully signed and ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.
http://www.peaceinspace.com/sp_faq.shtml
http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/outerspace.
(among others)
I have not heard of any science fiction that is anonymous. Since science will lead to transhumans who abandon the silly idea of ego, we'll finally have works of fiction that do not need to be associated with a name. Can you name even one anonymous science-fiction book (pseudonymous doesn't count)? Getting the nature of ideas itself is bad enough that I wouldn't count on Orson to get space warfare right.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
If the US of A is the strongest country in the world then it can get away with whatever it wants to do. When, however, other countries finally become strong, they will govern themselves by the current behavior of Uncle Sam. If China becomes the next super power, we will complain bitterly if they behave themselves the way we are behaving now.
Repudiating treaties will come back to haunt us and it will serve us right. We have a treaty that says space is not supposed to be weaponised. We should honor that treaty. While we're at it how about respecting the human and basic legal rights of the prisoners we are illegally holding without charge and without trial and torturing.
Me stops rant and goes looking for a stiff drink so I can hold off reality for a while.
There has been a loose agreement over arms in space for decades. Everyone agrees not to go there. The simple reality is this. USA puts arms in space and has a vast superiority over other contries. France, Russia, China, India, and half a dozen other capable countries send rockets straight up into orbit to explode. Hundreds of rockets creating millions of super speed projectiles. End result. USA has no superiority, as does anyone else. No one could send ICBMs into space, no one could send shuttles, or space stations up. Space close to earth would be scorched earth (figuratively).
Why not develope space technologies to help in safely travling through and living in space instead of ones to kill each other out there. We're already killing ourselves too much here so why must we be able to do so elsewhere before we'll even work on being able to go elsewhere?
-Tim Louden
Probably. Who knows with Captain Coo-Coo Bananas in charge?
Sugapablo
Space weapons must be communicated over a network, which is susceptible to hacking, which if done could be used against us.
If they crack the encryption all the hackers have to do is aim a more powerful beam at the weapon to override the legitimate communications.
Likewise these same weapons can be jammed easily by any country posessing satellite communications technology so when you need it they can just jam it.
For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
This is a quote from John F. Kennedy's speech on September 12, 1962 to Rice University about the Space Effort. For the rest of the speech visit the Rice University Archives.
The problem is our open southern border which guys like Osama and the like can exploit fully three yeras after 9/11 and with an elected president "fighting the war on terror".
The problem is out-sourcing which is eroding our industrial base to the extent that already, about one-third of our defense machinery is foreign made.
The problem is the lack of competitive leverage that is now known of American workers. This is helping out-sourcing.
The problem is big business. This is evidenced by the fact that all innovation in important fields is coming from Europe/Asia. Look around your living room and tell me what you see. Where were those electronics made?
The problem is hypocricy. Consider this: In year one, India and Pakistan must not have nuclear weapons and all efforts are taken to ensure this is the case. In year two, they are our best allies even after testing the same weapons. You know why? It's because we do not have an answer to a nuclear bomb. This bomb once on its way to its destination, it cannot be stopped. That's why we as USA do not want Iran to get this weapon.
More problems: Cuba/China and so many others. Have a good nite guys.
Cb..
I don't know about you but I read that as a grand "fuck you" to the rest of the world. "We own the entire rest of the universe and we'll blast you to subatomic particles if you try to have a piece..."
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Breaking treaties isn't exactly a new sport for the American Politic. Remember the American Indians? Yeah... no, really, we wont utterly annihilate anyone in our way using nefarious means. Never. One only hopes to learn from history...
A giant "laser beam" ?
Failing to learn from history dooms you to repeat it.
they want their star wars plans back.
Meh.
...regarding NOT militarizing space?
zork% mv *.asp
283 files eaten by a grue
... for what? to fight aliens? to fight ground terrorists?
Please, we don't want space weapons... YET.
ajf
I'd rather see no further manned exploration in space for another 50 years than see any exploration (exploitation?) that's driven by a military agenda: all that will acheive is a military build up in space with the US and most probably China developing space-based weapons.
Space exploration and space science should be carried out on peaceful, scientific grounds only. The world's major militaries can all wipe out life on the face of the Earth already, so being able to do it a few minutes faster with space-borne weapons is hardly my idea of progress.
Serious science, and even pseudo-science like manned missions to the Moon or Mars, provides the West with the best means of fostering positive relations with China in the medium term, and I'd hate to see any opportunity for the betterment of mankind blown because some cowboy decides that putting nukes above our heads is a smarter move than making sure that nobody will want to do it.
Just as the US's nukes begat the USSR's, which begat China's, which begat India's, which begat Pakistan's, any overt US militarisation of space would only lead to others following suit.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You'd better not make a mistake with one.
You'd better hope their orbits are stable.
You'd better hope their orbits don't decay
What if one gets fired by accident or software bug?
The basic problem is that once the weapon is deployed into orbit, it's already half fired.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
One element of a facist government is excessive, disproportionate militaristic spending. *sigh*
Seriously, though, I wonder how much damage a 100 kilogram projectile could inflict, striking at 120 miles per minute.
This was the second post, how can it be Redundant?
Star Wars gets released and all of the US Generals start getting ideas....
They are going to implant RFID chips into every citizen and you can be zapped by the giant space laser the next time you step outside because your neighbour ratted you out for "mind-crimes". Yay future!!
Meh.
I have some great news
I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Gieco.
In the second Dark Knight book the Green Lantern makes a comment about how only humans would point so many weapons from space at their own earth and mentions that is why the aliens left earth alone. Something along those lines. The space weapons were metal rods pointed at earth. Very interesting how Frank Miller & Co. predicted space weapons years before the military even began considering them. Even the technology is the same.
I can't wait for the new Batman and Robin comics from Miller. If his treatment on Batman's early years is any indications (Batman: Year One) we should be in for a serious treat!
zosxavius photography
...both in Cinemas and in American Congress.
I guess that's the power of the dark side of the farce.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This is not to say I support Mr. Bush, but as parent clearly indicates in the rest of his post, the 1967 treaty concerns WMD -- not all weapons. Quoth TFA: "no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction."
Moreover, the pentagon isn't stupid. Using (or threatening to use) nuclear weapons is not a central aspect of US security at the moment. The main threats come either from dictatorships (think N. Korea) or terrorism. Neither kind of enemy can be deterred with nuclear weapons. They are probably trying to revive SDI (i.e. place energy/kinetic antimissile weapons in space), but they may have plans for space-to-ground weapons that are not WMD.
"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."
-- Unkown.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
That will be easy for them to get around, they simply won't refer to the weapons as WMD's. If you don't think the distinction will hold water with the international community then do a little looking into what happened in Rwanda. As they say, and this time we knew.
deangelo
Well, we certainly don't want anyone *leaving* the planet without our permission!
dude, they're not building the death star... it might not even be a WMD. maybe a large laser like device... or maybe it'll just throw water balloons.
Rods From God? I mean cmon, any self respecting Syndicate fan KNOWS it's called Satellite Rain.
the last one broken was the 1972 ABM treaty; no anti-ballistic missles.
the next one likely will be regarding nuclear weapon testing in space.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Manifest Destiny, Part II.
Every post I make begins with the assumption P=~P.
If we're talking about arms in space, what's to stop [insert nuclear-capable country here] from declaring that their airspace extends above geostationary orbit levels, and that any transgression thereof will result in terrestrial nuclear retaliation?
The US is waning as a global superpower. Get over it.
The US *could* set an honourable standard of behaviour for superpowers while they still can, but I suspect that greed will get in the way. Oh well...
We already have our hands full managing the debris cloud in low earth orbit from the operations we've got on-going. If we ever get stupid enough to blow things to bits en masse on *purpose*, getting into space will become very, very risky.
Well, that'd be one way to keep the rest of the universe safe from manifest destiny. ET can just listen to our broadcasts safely knowing we'll be blowing things up on the ground, as God intended.
Shouldn't this article fall under the Political tag (of which I block).
Its not science yet, its a request for funding. Buts lets go ahead and bash America for what China, Russia, and the EU would do in a heartbeat.
I expect sensationalism from Drudge Report, not slashdot.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
I've seen this as an inevitable development at some time or other. So, we might as well get it over with now so we can at least have some kick-ass VF-1 Valkyries in my lifetime.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
More star wars hype. I bet Lucas planned this. ... and as long as we're on the subject, I want a landspeeder.
I don't know how, but he did.
If they get Cheney to cover himself in green paint and wear Yoda ears, I swear to God I'm moving to Canada. For real this time...
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Can I be the first to fire the GDI Ion Cannon?
Statesmen serve to better the country and help the people.
Politicians serve to better themselves and help friends.
are you arguing for or against?
You mention a lot of things including the very thing "Starwars" was meant to address: missile attacks.
Quack, quack.
Kill!
Kill!
Kill!
Kill!
} while (population > 0);
Had the OP a clue, he'd know that plans don't include stationing of WMD. But getting such a clue requires work, and intellectual honesty.
Wars will be fought by robots, in space (or possibly on top of very tall mountains). It will be your job to build and maintain those robots.
Or something to that extent.
Sounds like someone might want to RTFA...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Because it will just flame fanatics of all persuasions and give their
arguments of how the US is a crazed money and energy hungery monster
(which isn't so far from the truth) real weight and credibility.
The US of A, currently has many internal problems, including health
and educational infrastructural issues, inherent disunity between
minorities based on both rase and financial class lines. It also currently
has a critical problem with foreign policy only being able to maintain
control over smaller countries through so-called goodies like open
the doors into the US market for them, which sort has gone completely
wrong when it comes to trade with China, and many many more issues,
relating to crime, drugs and just standards of living for the typical
average joe or Jane.
The last thing they should be thinking about is launching weapons
into space...
Arash
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
Sounds like someone at the Pentagon eventually figured out that lots of the "extraterrestrial hydrocarbons" could be petroleum. As the sole superduperpowerranger, we must liberate space from the tyranny of . Everyone knows there's no democracy in space, and we're just the ones to destroy that village, in order to save it.
--
make install -not war
When you think of the cost of putting such systems into orbit, let alone maintaining systems with enormous destructive power (remember what the Hubble and ISS pricetags have been so far?), it's enough to bankrupt many a nation. And of course we also have to ensure that they can't be tampered with by other satellites or massive EM storms like the recent one.
The point of all this is not to say that space should stay completely demilitarized--much as everyone would like that, the odds are that it's a pipe dream. If the United States decides to play the altruist and refrain on ideological grounds from militarizing space, that's just an invitation for less scrupulous powers like North Korea to try it at a future time. At some point the issue will inevitably come up.
But this does not necessarily mean that America needs to be proactive in the deployment (though it certainly does in the development) of such systems. The astronomical pricetag and tremendous practical issues associated with any space-based weapons deployment are such that any country attempting it, including hostile countries, could not do so without extensive difficulty and a very long time, and wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being clandestine about it.
In other words, it is unlikely given America's current military superiority that we need to militarize space at this point. We would likely (for the time being, when anti-missile lasers are not yet practical) have sufficient time to destroy any hostile nation's weapons systems and implement our own--sharing the cost with our allies instead of unliaterally bankrupting ourselves for the sake of pie-in-the-sky showboating. Frankly, now is not the time to start the arms race when we don't have to. Keep space weapons free until such time as we reasonably expect to need space-based weapons (are we really going to need tungsten rods with the kinetic energy of tactical nukes in order to take out guerilla fighters and small terrorist bands? What's the immediate large-scale military threat that requires this sort of tech?).
We can't kid ourselves that it will never happen, but we can for the time being avoid spending astronomical sums on an unproven system to address a threat that doesn't exist at the expense of international censure. The arms race doesn't need to happen now.
when someone in the US government is talking about "destiny", soem indegenous people needs to get ready to be raped, horribly and repeatedly.
but i guess everybody's "safe" since we've already taken care of raping just about everybody.
mod bomb away.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Would such a system be more open to being hacked? There are reports that the outlawed Falun Gong religion hijacked a satellite and there's the Captain Midnight HBO escapade. So theoretically how open to attack would such systems be? I'm not well versed in missle systems but I've always understood chain of command and redundancy in personell kept a Dr. Strangelove type scenario from developing. Would this be the case with weapons in space probably reliant on satellite systems?
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Oh great! The US military seizes space - hey, that's really good, yes, we all love you, thank you. Hey...who is that at the door? No, guys, hey I was just...my, that's a very big gun...yes sir, on the floor, right...yes, take my children...thank you sir...no sir, I have no oil reserves...OK...bye...
Assuming these military industrial complex string pullers get their way, we will probably find ourselves in another version of the Starwars type programs Ronald Reagan tried to push during the 80's. It will for sure cost tens/hundreds of billions of dollars, makes go deeper in debt, and will bring nothing but space war stalemate.
Anyone remember playing Command and Conquer - the original? With the Ion Cannon?
Well, if you beat the game as the Brotherhood, you end up hacking the control systems for the cannon, and you use it to level your famous building/structure of choice.
Somehow, it doesn't seem so far fetched...
Brielle
We better be getting us some photon torpetos soon.
If the US puts guns in the sky, China or many other countries who feel rightly threatened by the US will rush to follow. It will be back to the cold war days, it seems Americans enjoy the feeling of having guns pointed at you.
We should follow Tibet's pacifist example, that way we won't have to worry about Chinese guns being pointed at us.
On /.
To summerize, space has been militarized in the past (Soviet FOBS, plans for Mir, ASAT systems by US/Soviets).
There are hundreds of billions of dollars worth of US assets and dependance in LEO and Geosync orbit, why wouldn't the US military seek to develop systems to defend US and Allied assets in space?
As the US/Allies move more Command-Control-Communications (C3) systems to space along with more and more intelligence assets, there is an increasing need to defend these systems. As rockets become avaliable to more and more nation-states and organizations because of the cost reduction the chances increase of a smaller nation-state/organization being able to attack our commerical, government and military assets in Space.
Military R&D will spawn better systems for commerical and scientific systems in space. Look at Hubble, it's a NASA mod'ed K11 Enhanced Spy Sat.
What is with your attitude? Have you even fired a gun before? Seen a ded body? It may be "cool", but I do not want to have to deal with your damn video game fantasies terrorizing the whole panet before I become a transhuman cyberthalamus.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
You'd quietly develop better technology and *then* wait for someone else to jump on it first. Second (all though it would have to be an extremely close second) is probably the right place to be in these kinds of lateral steps.
I guess this has never really been one of our strong points.
Quack, quack.
I don't see the point. The US already has the capability to explode and/or irradiate every square inch of the planet. The only differences with space weapons would be:
-They could do it in 5 minutes instead of 10
-They could still do it someone magicly knocked out all their silos, subs and B-2s out of comission and
-Sattelites are infinitely more difficult to secure given the non-physical nature of the firing sequence, compared to current double-key etc. systems.
Oh, and space weapons would piss off the other 200 countries out there, cost a fortune, and fall from the sky more or less at random like any other sattelite.
Space weapons? You mean like lazers and photon torpedoes? Cloaking devices?
Awesome.
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
There is much written about the effect that not having to fight a war face to face with the risk of great loss of life on your own part has on the way a society perceives war.
Additionally, are you okay with countries that perceive the US as the enemy sending suicide bombers or missles or biological weapons over to the US from a safe distance?
There a very easy way to get this bill signed...tell Bush the terrorists are in space!
Moon Hummer. Mars Hummer. The mind boggles.
Say what you will about the United States and the American people. While Hollywood pop culture and defective ideas spread by the extreme left would have you believe otherwise, this nation has done the right thing time and time again.
It is perfectly fine for the United States to have space weapons. The same applies to nucular weapons (I voted for Bush, can you tell?) and every other type of weapon in existance. This is because the U.S. uses such weapons responsibly. It is not okay for most other nations to have access to such weapons. This is because they would use them irresponsibly. This is akin to a police officer carrying a gun (the United States) versus a bank robber carrying the same gun (parts of: Europe, Africa, Asia--these areas have demonstrated, within the last century, that they are not responsible).
The old USSR already did deploy weapons in space.t icles/sovtion3.htm
The USSR deployed a network of anti Satellite weapons.
The USSR deployed a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System.
One of the Some of the Soviet manned missions where military missions.
The Soviets tried to launch a space battle station it failed to make it to orbit.
http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/ar
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't there an international treaty that prohibits the militarization of space? (Prohibit is a rather strong word, still.)
Now, it might not be nuclear, but "force of a small nuclear weapon" sounds to me like it qualifies for the full intent and meaning of a WMD.
Wasn't our space program fueled by a tense rivalry with Russia? Didn't we build rockets rivaling and eventually surpassing Russia's because of the competition with the Soviets? If you think it was a battle of the intellect, you're sorely mistaken. We wanted to be better than them, pure and simple. I don't think that we should seek to drop weapons on the rest of the world -- I hate it -- but it's naive to think that a space program can exist divorced from any military interest.
You Don't Know the Power ... of the Dark Side!
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
!=War in Space.
Yup, you hit the nail on the head.
The first state that puts weapons in space will feel the wrath of the world. The second, third, fourth, etc will have no such restrictions.
When the sky gets full of shiny objects in the night sky, people will look back at this winning idea and shake their heads.
Nukes are 40s technology and look at the mess it is. Space is a 60s technology. Same mess, two decade lag.
If this gets passed North Korea and her ilk will be working on this and selling to the highest bidder, so go right ahead Einstein.
-b
This is our "vision for the future?" Destroying things from orbit? Quite a culture we've got here.
// This is not a sig.
-1, redundantly obvious. Furthermore, the subjects are related but the joke's not directly connected.
Translation: NOT FUNNY!
Our governemnt should not do anything that does not help to fight the war on terror. Gotta cut education. Space program's got to go. Don't even talk to me about this welfare and social security nonsense. And the nerve of the Wright brothers inventing the airplane while millions of people were dying of curable diseases!
This isn't about the "war on terror"; this is about the future.
The faster the U.S will die.
Seeking Bush's support for space weapons, do you say?
Good luck.
They might have better luck waiting for a more credulous and less pacifist president.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
This was described years ago by either Pournelle or Niven, I forget which, as part of a non-fiction essay in a collection of short stories. Part of the War series?
Also, the elephant aliens used them against us in "Footfall," which was either by Pournelle or Niven or both.
Anyway, the writer described this as "crowbars in space." I thought it was a horrible, terrible idea. It's bad for the human race, for several reasons.
First, these things would be activated by radio somehow, unless you have a crew up there montitoring them continuously. If it can be fired remotely, then someone will try to hack the system. Once that happens, then the mighty US would no longer be in command of these weapons, and everyone would be in trouble.
Second, once one of these systems gets deployed, then who is to say that the US system would be the only one. We don't need another arms race.
Nuclear weapons are bad enough, but these would be much worse. They essentially cause artificial asteroid strikes. Doesn't everyone agree that these are bad? I honestly hoped that everyone would forget this idea.
Hi fellow slashdotters,
We need to band together now more than ever. We need to get the united states to surrender to the world community. To give up its role as dominant superpower so that other nations may have a turn. We need to hurt the US. And this can only be done from within.
What I need everyone to do, is go out, and get jobs in Journalism. Start with your local paper... maybe there is a news magazine or broadcast TV station. Hell, even an online computer news message board. Just get in the door, and start exposing the US lies for what they are. We need this so bad right now. Please, if anyone can hear me. Help us attack from within.
"force of a small nuclear weapon"
They talked about this sort of thing in the March IEEE Spectrum cover story, Star-Crossed.
[o]_O
Space weapons? Just like in Star Wars? Cool! And on the evening of the Star Wars premiere to boot!
I can't wait for my light saber. Of course, they will develop a Death Star(tm) first. But light sabers will definitely be second! We're getting light sabers!
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
And just sit in a big circle, lovingly stroking each others genitals
Will women be there? I'm in.
Yet another treaty and or promise broken.
The main threats come either from dictatorships (think N. Korea) or terrorism. Neither kind of enemy can be deterred with nuclear weapons.
The propaganda has you believing that the leadership of North Korea is a bunch of nutbars that crave destruction, but I think reality has shown that to be entirely not the case: L'il Kim has been flexing his tiny muscles and showing off his paper maché nukes, all in hopes of averting an invasion (he started this after Gulf War I, and realizing that the US had the capability and the willpower to invade whoever they wanted). I think his actions clearly show that he has no death wish, nor does he want his little world threatened.
Terrorists, on the other hand, you can split into two camps - the suckers, and the leaders. The leaders do everything they can to remain alive: They have the normal fear of death that everyone has, and if they felt they could be located (the invasion of Afghanistan was a great war, by the way, in that it made known to the world that there is no sanctuary) they would do everything they can to avoid retaliation. The suckers you really can't do much about.
Hmm, one form of welfare has people sitting around watching tv and surfing porn the other keeps Americans working and keeps up our tech edge. I choose the latter.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
couple of thoughts about this. 1) This reminds me of "manifest destiny", and we all know how that turned out (for those who got ran over in the process). 2)this is the positive part - a LOT of technology and advancements get made due to military technology. Advancements that spill over into all areas from agriculture to zoology. Sometimes the only way to move foreward is due to this, case in point countries like Japan and Korea are so advanced today because they had to be rebuilt. If Iraq ever gets its act together imagine how advanced it will be after its rebuilt!
While there are many arguments to be made for and against space weaponry in terms of other nations rising to the challenge, possible space arms races, and the militarization of space as a whole, I think that there's a different way to look at this.
Is there anything we can do from space that we can't do from the air?
No.
We can bomb people just fine with aerial bombers and use directed energy weapons just as well a bit lower in the atmosphere (even a bit less air to cut through). We can disable enemy communications satellites from the ground with relative ease with directed energy weapons; vacumn is a great insulator, and if you can get the thing to heat up enough, the solar panels will suffer a huge failure in efficiency and you end up with a satellite with no power - a dead one.
Thus, the question becomes, is space weaponry better than aerial weaponry for these activities?
Technologically, there is precious little you can't do from the air that you can do from space. The only possible reason from this angle to choose space over air is if its cheaper, and guess what? Space operations cost a hell of a lot more than aerial operations, as a whole, and if you can do it in the air, almost anything can be done cheaper in the air.
Sure, GPS and communications satellites can't be done better from the air, but target bombardment and directed energy attacks can be done from airplanes.
So, what we're seeing is a huge push by the military to quietly create a huge surge in funding for technology that could do the job of other machines, but its more expensive. This is what we in the business call the military/industrial complex getting even richer; space weapons can't do anything air weapons can't, but they cost a lot more and are easier to sell as a whole than increased funding of aerial weaponry.
This is just government corruption and lack of military accountability at work, people.
Parent sounds like a hippie to me...
You however, say the military is just part of a natural evolution of technology. You are only half right. Some new technologies have been developed by the military first, like the internet. There are also many other inventions/technologies that were the product of a small group of inventors researchers...like powered human flight.
The military's track record with developing new technologies is mixed at best.
As far as the best way to explore space? It has to be a partnership of industry (not necessarily corporations per se), national space agencies (NASA, etc.), private investors, and the military if absolutely necessary. Just like America was "developed". It might not be perfect but it's the best idea yet.
Thank you Dave Raggett
The military wants weapons? You're kidding. Next you'll tell me maids want brooms.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
What the hell... If I was a military person looking to get some moola for developing space weapons, I'd keep it quiet.
:)
1. You don't really want your enemies knowing you are doing this until it's too late for them.
2. You don't want the public interest groups getting all riled up about it.
I'm all about freedom of information and such, but damn, I'm just saying what I'd do. Plus, I'm sure they have them already anyway, they are probably floating around there up in the sky, controlled by the Area 51 overlords. Probably mind control devices too, being controlled from bases on Titan. Supposedly their tech is 20 years ahead of anything we've seen.
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1) Like it or not the US no longer holds to the no weapons in space treaty. Bush pulled out of that a couple years ago. So everyone stop whining about Bush breaking international treaties. I don't like him either but at least focus on what he is really doing.
2) Space is the high ground making it highly strategic. All in all I think the US is better suited to handling the power of being first more than say China. ESA would be a good candidate too but they are pretty damn happy to sit back and let the US handle all the shit jobs and ensuing flak.
3) Very surprised nobody has put together the other obvious piece in this puzzle with Griffon announcing a major new initiative by NASA to deploy space based nuclear reactors. Lasers in space have to have gigantic sources of power... Solar arrays are not very feasible and they remove darkside firing. Nuclear power will provide both power for weapons and propulsion that does not exist today. At the very least this will bring about serious space based observation platforms. Think AWACS in Geosync over a Theater of operations. One of the military thriller wirters used that for a book a while back... can't remember which one but the title was Silver Tower.
4) for the gravel in space folks. Granted it can be effective... but I am not sure you grasp just how big an area you are talking about. Also, if you grasp orbital mechanics you will understand anything that is a continual problem (ie remains in orbit) you can match orbits with it to remove danger (small relative differences in velocities) or launch clean up efforts.
5) For those that think space is silly considering you need ground troops I suggest you read up on what people thought about air power prior to WWII. A single laser system with a good rate of fire, capable of tracking an air target long enough to destroy it will alter the face of war in a way not seen since the introduction of mechanized assault. If it cost 100 billion to develop and 100 billion to launch it would be cheap. Check out the cost of the air force... then consider such a weapon could theoretically render it obsolete. Make it like mounted Calvary taking on tanks.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
> Moreover, the pentagon isn't stupid.
oh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha {falls off chair}
Thanks for the chuckle...
signed,
Cowering masses outside the US (i.e. THEM)
Have the Buck Rogers types in the US Air Force had a look at the budget deficit recently?Flinging 10 billion at energy research would do far more to enhance America's security than this boondoggle, which is solving a non-existent problem, ever could.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
How does the United States Government possibly expect to build space worth weapons when NASA continues to be reduced and contractors can't build a reliable ground based missle defense system?
they may have plans for space-to-ground weapons that are not WMD
Kinetic weapons launched from space *are* WMDs.
Energy weapons, on the other hand, aren't quite "mass destruction", but carry their own problems--it only takes an extremely *miniscule* error in angle to go from taking out a power station to hitting a schoolyard a few miles away. But technically, they might be legal (like the "napalm" we're using in Iraq--it's not the "Napalm" brand, even though it's essentially the exact same (illegal) weapon).
in my mind a laser satellite (of whatever kind, IR/gamma/blue/green/red/radio/microwave) which is capable of firing every 120 mins is ITSELF a WMD... sure it may not be capable of wiping out a couple square kilometers of land for one shot, but operating over enought time it would vaporize, kill, maim just as many.
and those "rods from god", in my understanding, were to be used against underground hardeneded bunkers, for destroying the installation. Again playing against the energy curve is a bad idea. You could use a couple thousand soldiers to get the underground bunked without spending a couple billion to develop the system, and a couple hundred million to send it up for launching.
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
What law of the universe enforces this rule that only the military can undertake research unmotivated by profit?
If you undertook your own non-profit research you might find that there are in fact hundreds if not thousands of such organisations.
The main threats come either from dictatorships (think N. Korea) or terrorism.
For now. Who knows how our relations with China, Russia or even the EU are going to be in 10, 20 or 50 years from now? Fighting over a little oil in Iraq has already tremendously strained our international relations. Imagine the situation when resources are much scarcer than they are now in a few years!
Developing space weapons takes time too. Wouldn't it be better to be safe rather than sorry, when the next big conflict erupts?
Neither kind of enemy can be deterred with nuclear weapons.
Right. But at least dictators could be prevented from launching missiles at us or at our allies. It wouldn't prevent terrorists carrying germs in a suitcase from launching deadly attacks though...
They are probably trying to revive SDI (i.e. place energy/kinetic antimissile weapons in space), but they may have plans for space-to-ground weapons that are not WMD.
Why should they revive a project that's alife and kicking? Check out the Missile Defense Agency's agenda; and that's just the (public) tip of the iceberg.
If it were only SDI: there are a lot of passive interception techniques that can be used in space. Many of these techniques are not classified as weapons, so we can't talk about militarization of space here. Deploying active weapons like "killer satellites" in Space would require special permission from the President though. That's probably what's going on here.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
The main idea behind those rods was that they could be deployed anywhere, including deep behind enemy lines, within, literally, seconds.
If only we would have put weapons in space earlier maybe we could have prevented Michael Jackson from coming to this planet.
... is the phrase "is our destiny". When people start talking like this then really bad things start to happen. Surely I don't need to supply examples.
Bitter and proud of it.
Funny were seeing this happen just as the new Star Wars movie comes out.
1) Dubya sees advance screening of SW6
2) Dubya demands urgent funding to develop space weapons to protect against Sith invasion.
3) George Lucas is sent to Guantanamo.
4) Dubya blows up the moon, certain that it holds enough WMD to wipe out planets in a single burst.
5) Barbra calls Dubya and tells him it's just a movie.
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsContro l/Space.asp
... shall be for peaceful purposes and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interest of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development. ... [The] prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security"
"The exploration and use of outer space
-- Prevention of an arms race in outer space, United Nations General Assembly Resolution, A/RES/55/32, January 2001. (PDF Document)
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
The Mexican border is just a point that a bunch of politicians playing to xenophobia in the border states are exploiting. Someone who wants to get into the US can do it just as easily from the far larger Canadian border, where the police don't have machine guns.
The "Mexican border" nonsense is largely from southern, uneducated people pissed off that they suddenly have competition to flip burgers.
Do you know the history of WWII? What happened with Japan? Do you know why they entered into it? Many countries do not like being shut off from resources. Esp, when they have 1/2 of the world population on a space of less than 1/2 of the planet and will be doing major amounts of manufactuering.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
oh, and wipe out all life on earth
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Moral arguements aside, (although I do believe they are relevant when people are dying of hunger, et cetera,) space simply cannot be controlled. It is not a teritory that can be occupied like a country can, and there are several basic reasons for this.
First off, weapons placed in space cannot be hidden, so they sit in plain view of everyone. As an extension of this, they can also be tracked easily because they follow simple orbits, and thinking forward, this makes the weapons themselves vulnerable to attack. The United States and Russia have both already demonstrated effective precision anti-satellite capabilities, but a simpler approach would be to simply explode a nuclear weapon relatively nearby - something any major nuclear power could already do. Of course, a nuclear blast would damage other satellites as well, and not only directly. The destruction of satellites would create a huge amount of space debris, already a significant problem. In fact, intentionally launching debris would be another basic anti-satellite technique.
The United States has the most to lose - it already has the largest world share of satellite-based commerce, its military relies on satellites to function more than any other military. By shifting battle into outer space, the U.S. is effectively threatening its own interests.
Also, anti-satellite weapons cost orders of magnitude less than outer space weapons in terms of cost to develop or deploy, meaning there is no strategic advantage to being the first country to deploy space weapons. In fact, by deploying such weapons first, the United States may end up committing itself to an asymmetrical arms race in an attempt to protect its space assets - especially asymmetrical because of the prohibitive cost of space launches. Finally, you have to examine the motivation for space weaponization. The U.S. military is already by far the dominant world force. No other country in the world is currently undertaking serious research to weaponize space. Russia has unilaterally pledged not to be the first country to weaponize space and China is considering such a declaration itself. The allocation of money is not neutral, it must come from somewhere. This means either a decrease in other military forces or in domestic programs. Space weaponization is a waste of money, does nothing to solve current problems, and may very well create new international tensions, something that both the Russian and Chinese ambassadors have made quite clear.
They want to close bases in the US, but maybe they need to close the ones in Uzbekistan.
We go after dictators in Iraq and N. Korea but support them in other places like Uzbekistan. People world wide are seeing us as hypocrites.
It is too bad that our country is not consistent in our policies. The only consistency seems to be "how do we get more oil".
Any Neocon want to defend our support of Uzbek dictator?
Space does not belong to the US military. Space does not belong to the United States. I would rather not have those who pioneer the exploration of space have to ask for permission to pass the US military's ring of Death Stars.
This move should be viewed by citizens of the world in the same light as Native Americans might have viewed US military outpost showing up in the west.
With the immenent exporation and and exploitation of space, the Military WILL try to lock down control before it becomes an area outside their jurisdiction and control.
What benefit was received from the billions spent on Star Wars by Ronnie RayGun?
If bush would stick to conservative principals he would sign this. Conservatives consider the government for only a few things, but military defense is one of those things.
Gundams anyone?
Space exploration and space science should be carried out on peaceful, scientific grounds only.
Given our not-so-stellar record, that's unlikely.
Serious science, and even pseudo-science like manned missions to the Moon or Mars, provides the West with the best means of fostering positive relations with China in the medium term, and I'd hate to see any opportunity for the betterment of mankind blown because some cowboy decides that putting nukes above our heads is a smarter move than making sure that nobody will want to do it.
China, except for small altercations with Taiwan and Japan, seems to be taking the 'speak softly and carry a big stick' approach. I agree that any move towards weaponization of space would be matched by them.
There is an excellent book by Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought : Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War about World War I and Britain's efforts to stay ahead of Germany, to maintain their sea advantage as their land army was weaker. IIRC, they wanted to maintain a 3:1 ratio over the Germans. Britain as this sort of weakening power, overextended, struggling to maintain it's colonies across all parts of the globe, the sun never setting on their empire, yet the hordes ready to crush their Hadrian's Wall.
Now the U.S. in a similar situation, relatively unopposed superpower, but it's unclear where the financial and technical ability to invest in Space technology would come from not too far in the future.
One would think it imperative for the U.S. to balance the budget, start paying off debt, and likewise continuing to keep it's schools (whether college or grade school) top notch.
I guess space weapons are the only way for the righteous American People can defeat the evil Soviet Union, because the Soviet Union, and all those thermonuclear-tipped ICBMs that the Soviet Union currently owns and aims right at the White House, is evil, and is obviously going to nuke us and invade us at any moment.
Why should we try to protect ourselves from the asymmetrical threat that terrorism and armed insurgency present to the people of the US and our allies, when we can try to destroy the vast spectre of the Soviet Union for twice the price?
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
Take off and nuke the site from orbit.
It's the only way to be sure.
Sounds like some IT managers I formerly worked for: they were always busy dining the bosses, explaining the "Next Big Thing" while the worker bees were in the server room kludging networks with duct tape, wire strippers and Linux boxes.
I think the American public should take notice of some of the implications of this type of military involvement in space. From TFA:
"A third program would bounce laser beams off mirrors hung from space satellites or huge high-altitude blimps, redirecting the lethal rays down to targets around the world. A fourth seeks to turn radio waves into weapons whose powers could range "from tap on the shoulder to toast," in the words of an Air Force plan."
This is real. We already have unmanned drones armed with hellfire missies. Space lasers and the like are not a big jump, they are the next logical step.
This technology is giving those in control of it unprecedented power to kill/spy on/etc. an individual and government. I know it's better for us to have it than say, the Chinese, but there has to be a better alternative.
Above all, Ameridcan citizens should lead the world in demanding civil rights.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Ask any former prisoner, oops, I mean citizen, of the Soviet empire.
seriously, the two sides of this debate sound remarkably like the two sides of the gun control issue. One side says "the only way to protect yourself from bad people is to carry bigger guns." The other side says "wait a minute, carrying bigger guns just leads to more gun deaths and maybe criminals carrying even bigger guns"
Now in the continuum of things, I think we are closer to having no gun control at all than to having no guns at all (ie there is little impediment for law abiding citizens to buy guns). Which side is/was right? Do you feel safer today? or do you think there are two many gun related deaths?
And that's why hyperbole isn't a good source to draw your conclusions from. Nuclear weapons can be built awfully small, and a sub-tactical yield weapon does not qualify as a WMD in any sense that I know of, anymore than a conventional bomb.
I prefer 1984 for inspiration myself - a sobering read given the wars, actual and planned, that we're living through.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
(Indeed, the Joint Academic Network in the UK didn't migrate to an IP-based system until relatively late in the game. Many early UK networking projects were based on a series of protocols and libraries under the RAINBOW heading, and many an early MUD player can remember the PAD address of Essex University's DEC-10 mainframe, on which MUD-1 ran - A2206411411.)
It is also important to note that ARPAnet was designed to be fault-tolerent and highly resistant to attack. The Internet, as it exists today, is largely a spanning tree - there is b*** all anyone can do if a link goes down or some idiot cuts a cable when digging.
ARPAnet was also horribly primitive in many ways. Early networks used what is sometimes referred to today as IPv0 - essentially ICMP. Ethernet frames were in much earlier incarnations, where Ethernet was used at all. And then it was usually thick-wire T-piece terminate-or-die systems.
So, yeah, the military did put in a lot of early funds, but they were only one of many, and what they produced has been almost entirely replaced. Most of the "early" work that is still in place was done by the NSF, rather than the DoD, and I can't think of that much NSF stuff that is really in heavy use today.
The DoD also have been horribly lax in maintaining their level of activity, I might add. Let's see - the DoD "official" IPSec implementation never got passed version 0.1, and NIST's Linux IPSec has been dead and buried for many years. The Navy Research Labs did do a lot of work, especially in BSD-land, but the guys there seem to be unusually intelligent.
(The NRL also produced a generic IPv4/IPv6 cross-protocol library for Linux, an open-source S/Key implementation, lots of multicast and wireless stuff, and have a Sourceforge-based system for Open Source projects. Now, if only someone could find a way to get them to work on those projects...)
In general, though, the bulk of really good work is done in academia and usually in off-the-wall projects that have crappy funding and no status. Computing and physics research laboratories, where you need results yesterday and you still need official approval to build the time-machine to make it possible, also tend to produce some exceptionally good stuff. There's nothing quite like having a few billion dollars worth of liability and no budget to pay the insurance agent to focus the mind.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Of course, cloning would be the next logical step. Get a bunch of Bruce Lee's, Jet Lee's, and Arnies, and you'd have a kickass army. Take that, Mars!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7896613/
Article describes how they want to simply protect Satellites, while also revealing the counter-point regarding how this could turn into a Space Weapon race.
Concerns such as:
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said, "This is a military system that is unnecessary and provocative. It will lead other states to pursue military systems to knock out our space-based assets. The rationale of this program is to defend those assets. But this will have the reverse effect." Kimball said any move by the United States to start developing and testing space-based weapons will be met with very strong international condemnation, from foes and allies alike.
The Canadian government took a long time to turn the US down on its offer to spend money and political capital on BMD.
Many of the lefties were complaining that the US really wanted to militarize space.
Being one of those "commies" that disagreed with BMD for that very reason, let me again say that the biggest threats to US security do not come from space. That situation is unlikely to change in the near or medium future.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
The sooner that the air force can build up a presence in outer space, the more the Chinese, Iranian, North Korean, Syrian, and other evil autocratic regimes will get nervous, especially the ones that feel emboldened now that nukes are dangerously close to falling into the hands of minor third world dictators. Space is for the private sector and the military. It shouldn't be just a jobs program for scientists any more.
So, what do UN resolutions have to do with the law?
The US has never been bound by UN resolutions. Nor for that matter has just about any other nation in general (that is - I'm sure just about every nation on earth has dodged a UN resolution when that suited its needs, although nations do try to follow them at their convenience). Treaties, perhaps (although even those have been backed out of carefully).
We already have weapons in space anyway - they're called spy satellites. It is a prefectly legal act in warfare to shoot down reconissance aircraft. Since just about every nation on earth has access to satellite imagry (either via government or commercial sources), it only makes sense to have some capabilty for defeating this tactic.
War knows no limits. Rules of warfare are only obeyed when nations can afford to do so. Every nation has dropped them almost immediately when they become expensive to follow, or when they threaten a military objective. Do you think the allies checked for hospitals when making their bombing runs over germany?
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for not going nuts with military spending. However, every nation is going to try to stay ahead, and it isn't realistic to think that just because you don't develop a technology that your enemies won't try to take advantage of that fact...
I've got three words to say for this....
Star Wars Project.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Our military has weaponized spacecraft all over the sky. Why do they need approval?
Ad Astra Per Asper
Typical America. All countries are equal. Some countries are more equal than others.
People have had enough of this American destiny to be superior. Think about the number of countries America has invaded in the name of 'democracy'.
If the United States decide to militarize space I sincerely hope that the rest of the world does not tolerate it, and uses all available resources to protect the planet from them. There is no need for weapons in space, and the world would be a much safer place without America.
Some of the first technologies were invented to help people kill animals and each other -- spears, axes, knives, etc. It's natural for the desire to kill to drive people to figure out better and newer ways to do it -- new technology. The more enlightened among us can just try to take that war-driven technology and develop it for peaceful purposes.
It would be great if all our technology came from our peaceful desires to explore and understand things, but we also have a darker side to our nature that isn't going to go away just because want it to.
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
Wooo weee won't that be fun? 82 billion wasted on weapons. It's only a matter of time. There's plenty of terror to go around once security is breached :)
That all sounds rather nice, but is really rather hollow, reactionary thinking. Space-borne weapons might offer a way to fight conflicts with precision and minimal loss of life to both sides.
Or they might not - hasn't this been the excuse for ever more destructive weapons since time immemorial 'they'll save more lives than they destroy'? It has never turned out to be true. The aim of war is never minimal loss of lives to both sides.
The agressive militarisation of a domain which all space-capable countries have explicitly agreed not to militarise is an insane, hubristic waste of money which will backfire when China, Europe, India et al decide they can't tolerate a US with space weapons and start to arm their satellites. Why not press for ratification of a treaty which explicitly bans all weapons in space? You could then pour funding into the civilian related technologies directly.
The science involved will invariable trickle down. Do you have objections to the fact that airplanes benefitted from military research? Hell, we got the jet engine from the Nazis for the most part.
Why don't they spend the money on the science instead then? As an aside the Nazis were not the only ones developing a jet engine.
Sometimes the hippy dippy shit that sounds so good is just a gloss coat on reality that makes you feel smug. But it comes at the cost of the complexity of the real world.
Sometimes that jingoistic talk is just a varnish on a primitive desire to dominate driven by fear. An attempt at cooperation with other nation states would go a lot further than unfounded paranoia about possible future threats.
The complex reality is that war always kills thousands, maims hundreds of thousands, and sends the countries invaded back to the stone age. It is not something to be sought out or justified, even if it is, very rarely, a necessary evil. I'd be interested in an example of a war that has been fought with 'precision' - in Iraq they're not even counting the civilian casualties.
The US has no need of a bigger, better, weapon - they already spend more on weapons than any other nation, almost 10 times more.
I see nothing conservative about George Bush or his administration.
;p
1) Record deficits, and games that ignore the costs of Bush's wars. Let's face it guys, the terrorists won a large battle, because they gave our goverment a chance to use fear to manipulate us like sheep and we fell for it hook line and sinker. Herman Goering (sp?) said something to that effect at the Neruringburg trials. People enmasse are easy to manipulate in such ways..
2) Preemptive wars.
3) Medicare presciption benefits that do not allow any form of bargaining for prices.
4) Not satisified with having a majority in the house, senate, and white house they demand cart blance for their simple majority to get everything they want. Don't be stupid enough to believe that anyone with power stops at just a few lifetime appointed judges. Once the president is set it will be used on everything. Just give it time and if they can they will set it up so the democratic party can just go home as they will no longer be needed to show up for work.
5) For that matter is all the manipulation of our press and media a conservative policy? By definition they are doing lies of omission continously, yet they get by with it. Nothing morale there.
6) Even their so called defense of marriage crap seemed mainly a ploy to gain votes. Why the heck goverment has anything to do with marriage I'll never know. Marriage is, or at least should be, a church thing. If you want married go there. If you want a deduction on your taxes, then the goverment can store a checkbox for filing jointly on your taxes.
Ok must stop ranting and posting anonymously about my so called goverment. After all I'd hate for a prospective employer to figure out I have different political views
Please don't mistake or cause other people to mistake an unfortunate acronymn for a patriotic act.
Please tell me that's a code name.
"The psychological impact of such a blow might rival that of such devastating attacks as Hiroshima,"
Tell me about it, how many times has my connection gone dead after taking out an opponents MCV with an Orbital Ion Cannon.
Bart [over the radio] :"Rod! Todd! This is the Rod of God!"
Soon nuke will be of the size of the cell phone. Now they are of the briedfcase.
Try that people do to hate you. Time of Great Roman Empires are over. You look great and powerful only via your propaganda efforts. In fact the US is already backward country with obsolete system of measurements, which is stuck in the glory of 1990s. But it is 2005 outside. Wake up.
The US is hurting democracy process worldwide by now, because it started to milk it for its impersialistic plans.
Imagine you are China.
"So, if USA starts taking out our satellites and we've got no means by which to prevent it... that's a good thing?"
It reminds me of the Mutually Assured Destruction antics of Cold War, the one which nearly killed the planet many times over.
You know why Russians don't care about US initiatives of Space Wars, like SDI? Simple.
It takes one transport ship full of garbage, to effectively wipe out all satellites, friend or foe, from space. So USA can waste tens of millions, it will not become a serious argument agains any, even small, space country.
Actually, they did attempt to plan around certain things like hospitals, churches, and museums when planning raids. Nations at that time were, in some ways, more civilized, in that they usually didn't plant a hospital in the middle of a munitions factory.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority," Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress recently.
"Mr. President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!" (listen)
As usual, unjustified militarism to feed the military industrial complex. Paranoid fantasies, irrational aggression, these Pentagon people are just mentally sick, no better than General Jack D. Ripper.
"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," he told an Air Force conference in September. "Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."
"Uh, so let's get going, there's no other choice. God willing, we will prevail, in peace and freedom from fear, and in true health, through the purity and essence of our natural... fluids."
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
President Merkin Muffley: But this is absolute madness, Ambassador! Why should you *build* such a thing?
Ambassador de Sadesky: There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.
President Merkin Muffley: This is preposterous. I've never approved of anything like that.
Ambassador de Sadesky: Our source was the New York Times.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Hell yeah! Xerox Parc was unprofitable for a good part of it's history.
Why?
Why does the US have to utterly dominate when it comes to "defense". To me it is obvious that the US is by far the most dominate force militarily. Is there a threat in space that we should be aware of? I don't know of any other countries threatening the US, or anyone else for that fact, form orbit. Is the US not already sufficeintly superior? By adding domination of space to the list of ground, air and sea is it not making other country's nervous? This fear of the US's power driving them to match it which thus drives the US to come up with yet another military advantage. Seems like a vicous cycle with an increasing destruction factor.
Domination of space seems like over kill to me. Why not put this money into something a little more useful to the people, like health care, education or social programs? I'm not saying forget about space but why the big push all of a sudden. It seems like the government is using the whole "Home Land Defense" idea to promote spending on military applications. The US has security and will not gain a great deal more from orbital defense. Why not educate and keep the people healthy?
At the vary least, perhaps you could give the Canadian Military a substantial cash infusion. Maybe then we could buy a gun or two.
from the that's-no-moon dept.
OMG! Parent poster has just proved himself to be as devastatingly witty as a Slashdot editor! What a glorious pinnacle of achievement! WTF LOL!
That is so rediculous and typical of the american governmental god-complexed ego, instead of developing weapons for space superiority, how about making space travel and the inhabiting of other planets possible first? When traffic jams become common-place in space, THEN worry about attaching laser-guided photon torpedos to everything!
how is babby formed?
I hate to tell you this, but air flight was developed by private enterprise for profit. The government's efforts were a disastrous failure. Aviation technology rapidly developed up to WW1, which is when the government got involved.
Furthermore, the jet engine was developed by private money, as the government considered it a pipe dream waste of time. The government got interested only after working prototypes were demonstrated.
Rockets also were initially developed by private funds.
From what I remember from history class, factories are very hard to hit in a night raid, and on average, only 2% of the bombs hit a target, so allied bombing raids often targeted residential areas because it was more effective - if you bomb the homes of 2/3 the workers in a factory, it'll shut down the factory more efficiently than trying to actually bomb that.
There aint never going to be another country's citizen who is "down" with U.S. policy. They'll hate us like the drama kids hated the football players in highschool because the dorks hate jocks. It's that simple. The jealous citizens of the Earth will hate the top captain for all they're worth, forever. All the U.S. can do is not care and lead. Enjoy your freedom and safety, drama kids. We sometimes don't enjoy protecting it, but we always will. You'll miss us when we're gone.
sounds good... we can also head to mars at the same time right? Oh and dont forget handling Iran and Horth Korea and finish up with the little skirmish in Iraq... oh and break Al Queda and reform our economy and hell even cut taxes at the same time, and all on the cheap of course!
Maybe i should learn Mandarin about now.
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
Please, please George, let Microsoft do the software! You know their software is rock solid security wise and poor Bill & Co need a leg up into the space industy.
I too want access to these babies! muahahahahaha. *right pinky finger rises to corner of mouth* muahahahaha! muahhahahahahahahahahaha!!
Space weapons can be shot down by ground-based high powered lasers or rockets. You can't protect these things flying up there, by design. This will happen within the first 10 minutes of any global conflict. So if you guys want to blow $100B on useless shit like this, please use your own, not taxpayers', money.
Of course you can't see how, you're as clueless as most Slashdotters on the issue. "Rods from God" isn't for suicide bombers, it's for hardened underground bunkers, such as those found in Iran or North Korea.
Calling other clueless, well, it speaks volumes..
What can be launched from space to take out these bunkers that can't be dropped by a bomber plane?
Anyways, bringing in bigger guns never solved any conflict.
Never.
Americans are the biggest assholes on earth. In the near future they will expand their assholic horizons in space?
Screw it. Let's develop Mobile Suits and just conquer/destroy everyone who doesn't like it!
SIEG ZEON!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
You're wrong. USA is LOVED, and still is by much of the entire western world at least. Most of our culture stems from USA and most of the news, laws and agenda, still comes from the USA. You believe yourself different, but truth is, we're relatives in blood. USA has strong ties to all corners of the world.
In Europe, we don't hate USA. We question your foreign policy and choice of leadership, but we don't hate USA. We cheer the American attitude in Cowboy-movies, but please, understand that this attitude gets you NOWHERE in the real world.
By adopting the right leadership, not one based on control, manipulation, fear and lies, you will feel the love once more. It's still there, but you can't feel it because there's just too much fear generated in your country.
While I'm certainly kidding about mobile suits, and by 'certainly kidding' I mean 'grudgingly aware of the difference between actual reality and my reality', maybe this kind of talk will jumpstart the sort of space program we should have had two decades ago... Like the old IBM commercial from awhile back with "Where are my flying cars? I want my flying cars!" I say 'Where are my space colonies? I want my space colonies!'
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
And I thought I was the only one worried about this when I read the article...
"In 2002, after weighing the report of the Rumsfeld space commission, President Bush withdrew from the 30-year-old Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which banned space-based weapons."
This seems to be a growing trend of seperatism by the US government. Treaties only have strength if a majority of nations sign up. It's similar with the Kyoto Agreement, US self-interest again rules, and with it the chances of trying to manage the future of the planet slip away.
"Rods From God, aims to hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon."
So, if you lived in one of these countries that the US considers 'bad' (yes, some do have dictatorships which I disagree with, but the majority of people just live their lives...), wouldn't you want your government to match the US weaponary so the US wouldn't dare use it?
Hell, I live in the UK, one of the least likely targets for the US to attack, and I'm scared about this.
As for the supposed threat from China - I think they are more interested in their economic future and trading relations. War is bad for business, and as long as we don't try and bring down their (admittedly dictatorship) government, they are happy to just keep on as they are now...
All I can see this doing is pushing other non-allied countries (and maybe some of the allies too) to rush to get their own weapons into space to take out the US ones, target the US in another MAD scenario, or just keep up appearances and bluffing.
Will some nation eventually deploy weapons in space? I'd say there's a high liklihood.
To me then, the question boils down to, do you want to be first or attempt to be second?
You sound like a character from Dr. Strangelove:
President Merkin Muffley: But this is absolute madness, Ambassador! Why should you *build* such a thing?
Ambassador de Sadesky: There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.
The "someone else is going to do it first" argument has been used by the military many times to justify the development of new weapons. The problem is that it is less of a reason, and more of a self fullfilling prophecy.
So far the Outer Space Treaty has worked well to prevent the militarization of space, and it will keep working until someone breaks it. Your argument is probably the worst possible reason you can have for breaking it.
siener's youtube channel
assholes
All this will accomplish is to further inflame nations of the world against US. The arrogance of US government is astounding. Not too long ago they spoke about working with foreign nations. And now they do this??
I don't think it will take too long (20-30 years) for the US is reduced to a second rate nation. Much like the British Empire was reduced to a bunch of nations pining for former glory.
Just look at the US budget deficit. This will only make it grow further. Do you know what country is right now the funding most of US governments loans?
Chinese Banks.
China will become the next super power. And there is little to be done about it. There is so much funding from all around the world going to China right now that this will be almost inevitable.
I only hope that ethical business will force China to adopt a more human rights conscious form of government.
What US needs to do is take a big peace of humble pie and work with other nations. Using scare tactics goes only so far. And with the advent of global war on terrorism, a form of terror in itself, and people constantly living in fear because of mass media pouring gasoline on the fire, this cannot last very long. The people will get tired of this. No super power/empire has lasted. They all fall down. This only one form of corruption that is evident before such a fall. I guess the time has come for United States to fall.
See the Roman Empire's demise because of corruption of leadership. See fall of Soviet Union because of it's corruption. See fall of British Empire. The corruption is evident there too although in different form. The British Empire mostly collapsed because it could not evolve with the times.
-This battlestation is now the ultimate power in the Universe - I suggest we use it.
-Don't be too proud of this technological terror you have created: the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
It would be cool if US developed space arms (and consequently, space technology) to defend Earth from an outer space enemy (which does not yet exist, but it will, some day). Unfortunately, the term "space" here is used as "above the ground" and not as it is supposed to be. In other words, US are gonna develop more arms to enforce their superiority against other countries.
Is that needed? certainly not. The last enemy of US are terrorists. Terrorists can not be fought from space! And this kind of act will only succeed to strengthen the (already) bad opinions of other countries against US.
So the only benefit is for Bush and Co, i.e. the industrial and economical establishment...in other words, the usual ones to profit from all acts of the US administration the last 15 years.
Who exactly are the fighting against ? Why would they need space weapons ? It's insane.
Now if it for defending against rogue asteroids, then maybe it *might* be useful, possibly.
We're the USA, if someone starts to militarize space, we'll just knock their systems down.
Do you realize that people from other countries also read this site? This whole "we do what we want, fuck the rest of the world" attitude has seem to become the norm in the US. I don't think most Americans realize how much their country has benefited from being viewed essentially as a benevolent power.
Don't misunderstand me. I agree with your general message and find your post insightful. That's precisely what scares me. Ann Coulter would nuke the whole middle east just because it would make her feel good. That's not a big deal, she's a loony extremist and all countries have their loony extremists. But you seem to be a reasonable, moderate person. And what you said basically amounts to: "we can do it or not do it, but we won't ever let anyone else do it". And that says a lot.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
"we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in" ... and a fucking big pipeline into the Caspian sea's oil reserves (the largest untapped source in the world). Why do you think Russia is so pissed off about thier "sphere of influence" being eroded in Georgia, Uzbekistan, and all the other 'stan' countries, the Russians also want the Caspian oil and have an eager customer if they can manage to pipe it into China.
Please don't kid yourself that war is motivated by anything else but a lust for power. The US, (not "the people" of the US such as yourself), does not want territory, it wants control and to this end has installed and proudly supported legions of dictators all over the planet. One of those dictators was Saddam, so yes I do "give America credit" for actively supporting a dictator that killed ~1M people fighting a proxy war against Iran. I also give them credit for the 100,000 people who have died because Saddam got "too big for his boots". They also deserve a large part of the credit for the ~0.5 million peasants that died due to sanctions. Iraq will be "free" on the same day it runs out of oil.
The US and others have sought control of world oil supplies because in the modern world Armies and Economies cannot begin to function without it. The US is the last super-power standing (so to speak) and can now do as they wish with impunity. Colin Powell, (who I have some respect for), was selling "mom and apple pie" with his speach, you ate it up because it speaks directly to your national pride. I don't for a second belive that the US is run by special, freedom loving people. What motivates the US is the same as what motivates thier "enemies", greed.
American pilots: I think it was more to do with the fact that the US continued doing bussiness with Hitler until 1942. The British public had a "too little, too late" attitude towards the US, many elderly Brits still carry that attitude today.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Homes were considered fair game, especially when the planners were pissed off. Consider the infamous firebombing of Dresden which, in retrospect, probably should have gotten some Allied commanders fired, court-martialed, or brought up on war crimes. It was the deliberate targeting of civilians for no reason that could be militarily justified.
Homes were considered logistical targets, as you suggest, but Dresden was a pure vengeance raid.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Space as vast as it is does not belong to anyone....especially not the US... We have no rights as human beings to police the heavans..... Nor does any military have the right to put weapons there for the intent of causing harm..... If eventually we want to attain peace within our allready crumbling society the last thing that needs to be done is put more control on the world.... If you want peace then by intimidating other countries with precise tactical space weapons then they are just going to create bigger more powerful space weapons.... We really have to take a hard look at ourselves if we are to agree to anything like this.... More money should be spent on hybernation research for humans and the cure for cancer because until we have figured out these things We Aint goin Anywhere and space is just superflous....
The Russian Space Station was de-orbited intentionally after NASA paid them a lot of money to do so. I wonder why NASA thought it was worth buying off the competition?
The only good rocket engineers seem to be German ones. Given they were designing shuttles in the 1930s, I would put Germany 2-1 on, should they decide to compete.
the 1967 treaty concerns WMD -- not all weapons. Quoth TFA: "no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction."
And just what exactly do you call a tungsten rod that impacts with 7000mph and releases enough energy to vaporise a whole town, if not a weapon of mass destruction?
VStrider.
Of course, when you think about it, in a large scale war almost everybody is a combatant. One person fires a gun, somebody back home makes the gun, another person makes the metal that makes the gun, another person makes the fuel used to make the metal, and a bunch of people work to keep all those people fed. The war could not be fought without all of them.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for not targetting noncombatants, but from what I've seen - when a war becomes a war of attrition, noncombattants become very tempting targets. After all, if you don't take them out, the other side will never run out of combatants (somebody has to give birth to them).
Rules of war are something that nations try to respect, but everybody tends to ignore them when the going gets tough. If you're an army commander, which are you going to work harder to protect - the million guys who work for you, or the 50 million civilians amongst which the bad guys are intersperced. Most likely your orders will be "try not to hurt anybody, but don't let that stop you from doing what you need to do to get the mission done."
"Space superiority ... is our destiny, ... our vision for the future."
Don't you think you should be gaining superiority over Bagdad first?
I have yet to see a scenario for the use of weapons in space that wouldn't add millions of bits of debris to the tens of thousands already in near-Earth orbits.
One hopes that future generations, barred from the universe by our leavings, will agree that whatever we were fighting about was really, really important.
If space militarization comes to fruition, I think the average American would be more pissed off because they can't watch American Idol 2020 becuase some other country/group blew up all the television saltilites then the terrorist attacks in 2001.
The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle
Actually I had a glance at the Hague Convention Concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War recently. I was tolerably familiar with the Arms Control treaties of the Sixties and Seventies.
One provision of those treaties stands out, considering neither the US nor the Soviet Union trusted each other, quoting from SALT I
verification by national technical means refers to satellites. Military satellites observing the enemy, verifying that they were in fact keeping their word.
It's also consistent with the Hague Convention referred to above, in practically all its articles, effectively neutralizing NEO. It treats NEO as if it were a Neutral Power
and the only provision of the Hague Convention which is specifically disallowed is
as satellites are by definition wireless telegraphy stations so that cannot apply.
'Nuff sed?
What would you be saying if DoD went about quietly and pushed this through and already had a system in place? Nine out of ten times, in the name of national security, DoD and the military/navy and the like will not reveal plans about any system, until it is almost complete. Having said that, I am almost certain that Bush and his cronies will make sure this directive passes, because "You never know. It is possible for terrorists to have lasers, or sharks with lasers tied to their head"
....it is your destiny....."
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Take your endless kindness and altruism into space too! You are too good for this earth. And I really mean that. I wish you and your kind would just the fuck off this planet for good.
When you get right down to it weapons of any kind of useless.... but that isn't stopping anyone and everyone from producing them, not to mention using them.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Ok must stop ranting and posting anonymously about my so called goverment. After all I'd hate for a prospective employer to figure out I have different political views ;p
That's exactly what is wrong with the world. The intelligent people don't go into politics, arguments, protests.. They don't do anything that might risk their nice, nonconfrontational, happy, intelligent life. They're better off that way.
Meanwhile the unintelligent.. Well, I don't have to say what they do, you know already.
...we are as a species compelled by conflict. Even the most altruistic nations have a military of some sort. (Costa Rica is as close to an unarmed nation that I can think of.)
Are we the "Klingons" of our galaxy? Or are we merely average? It is impossible to say until we go out there and see. One thing is for sure: "we" aren't going out there unarmed.
Look at the most popular film series of all time: Star Wars. The most popular science fiction involves combat of some sort. The Borg. Romulans. Klendathu. Taurans. The list is endless. We fantasize about an alien enemy becuase we NEED to fight, we cannot and will not stop.
Until we find that external common foe to unite us in battle we will have to settle for fighting each other. Doesn't matter the reason, we will make one up: to free Iraq. Because the US is Satan. To exterminate the Jews. You're communist. Because Taiwan is not independant. Because the South is materialistic and corrupt. Whatever, any reason to fight is as good as the next.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
White collar wellfare - It kept a pack of scientists and engineers in work for a few years.
I mean seriously. First off, Europe is not a country, its a collection of sovereign states, with very different attitudes towards different aspects of their policy. It is worth noting that after 9/11, the US had more support, sympathy, and respect from Europe and most other countries in the world than ever before. The current leadership systematically squandered that in a breathtaking display of arrogance (which, by the way, is inextricably linked to ignorance) and militarism. I mean to take that much goodwill and turn it into the barely veiled contempt largely prevalent today takes some doing.
The Europeans hate us because we had the nerve to get up and leave the oppressive regimes running the joint.
France is in Europe, genius, and that was one of the nations that actively helped the United States of America against the British, sending armies and weapons to assist.
The Arabs hate us because they believe they're supposed to be running the world
The arabs hate you, slick, because you took a large part of their land and turned it into a refuge for Israel. This was largely sponsored by the religious right in US politics who actually want to bring about the apocalypse, and that can't happen until the jews are back in zion.
The Africans hate us because of slavery
Most Africans (thats a continent by the way, not a country, we call it gee-ogg-raffy) couldn't care less about America. They have enough troubles of their own.
The Japanese hate us because they thought they were supposed to be running the world by now.
The Japanese hate everyone, don't feel particularily special in that. Why do you think they spend so much time and money working on robotics? They want to replace all the migrant workers currently doing menial work in Japan with robots. Not that I'm saying thats wrong or right, thats just how their culture works.
So fine, let's just go ahead and do it.
Two points for you here, Einstein, invading a country and holding a country are two entirely different things, as you are slowly working out in Iraq. And the second point makes the first point moot, which is of course that other mations besides America have nucular weapons. Work with me here. Even assuming that a country has 10 nukes capable of hitting the US, which 10 cities would you like to permanently kiss goodbye to? And they will not launch unless they have been launched at first, so there would be an immediate exchange of nuclear weapons from everyone who has them. And then the sun goes down on the states for the last time... getting the picture?
In a century or so, the Chinese might be calling the shots worldwide
The Chinese are too terrified of having their own country fly apart at the seams to ever think about worldwide conquests.
It seems the world loves to call us when something dangerous or dirty needs to be done
Okay lets just deal with this whole rabid tirade. First of all, if the US hadn't gotten involved in WWII, they would have faced either a cosy little alliance between Hitler, Stalin and the Japanese stretching from Cornwall to Australia, or they would have been facing just Stalin. So, rather than face that kind of power (against which the US would ultimately lose), they got involved to save their own hides. Do us a favour and don't come over all altruistic now, the martyred heroes. The EU already exceeds the US in industrial power, wealth, and population. Imagine that under a dictator like Hitler...
but we're a damned sight better than anything else that's come into being on this blue and green ball.
Correction, you were better. Now you are shaping up to be worse. If the infiltration of the religious right into US politics is not stopped by the American people, you had better believe other countries will step in and stop it. What was the price for a congressman again?
Remind me again why I'm supposed to give a damn whether or not the world likes us?
You can give a damn or not as it suits you. The American people as a whole, however, had better start giving a damn.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
The military supposed to be using its cash to helping our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They just released the BRAC recommendations (Base Realignment and Closing) which means 33 bases, including the one I work at, is slated to be closed for cost savings, to support both Homeland Security and the war effort. Last time I checked, Al Qaeda and other terrorists haven't been raining down on us from space.
Something like this used to sound cool to me several years ago... okay, maybe just "okay" but with some utility.
Now, with what I have seen from my government and the way things are going, as well as recent movie releases it just makes me feel like I am living in Star Wars and the emperor is planning to build the death star to zap anyone who disagress with george bush.
That's ((7200*5280/3600)^2 * 100 / 2) ft lbs * 1.356 joules/ft lb = 7560622080 joules
A megaton bomb releases 4.185 x 10^15 joules I'm not sure why they would use the comparison of a nuclear weapon for this unless they're using a really big rod. When one compares a weapon to a nuclear bomb, most people think of a substantial weapon, at least a kiloton yield. For comparison, a 20 lb rod travelling at 7200 mph delivers about the explosive force of a substantial carbomb.
More and more, I feel like I don't belong in this world. Is the USA really this fucked in the head? Why are all the ultra-paranoid bully-type people running the country? You are talking a max of $1 trillion (which will probably be $2 trillion when finished) for more weapons. I wish there were lobbyists/people in power that pushed as hard for equal rights, and supplying the necessities of life, as there are for becoming "superior" in every other way. It's like the country is run by a bunch of kids that got beat up a lot when they were younger. They are out to prove that they are the strongest, most powerful people around. If the USA just used all of their money and power to help rebuild nations, peacekeep, provide great education, basically be a big brother to less fortunate nations (withOUT trying to "liberate" them the way they do now), then the world view of the USA would change substantially. Why would terrorists attack your nation if you are helping out their families. Sure, every country can spend a fuck-lot of wasted money on military games, or they can grow up and start spending it on helping the world out. You have soo much power and soo much ability to make world changes, and the USA consistantly makes poor choices. They cause death and destruction everywhere they go. They have military camps all over the world. For what purpose? To help people out? No, to push the American Way on the rest of the world. I guess it's just "... the American way of fighting."
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
The collapse of the Soviet empire comes to mind.
The first priority will be to build a giant spherical ship, with the power to decimate entire planets into dust, with visually stunning giant-ring-shaped explosions.
That should show those pesky rebels a thing or two.
Conventional wars of attrition aren't planned for by modern military planners (those running guerilla wars see things differently). While you're expending bombs taking out homes, your enemy is likely expending his bombs taking out your munitions factories. The advent of smart bombs and missiles has completely changed the way that war works, and the coming Small Diameter Bomb will allow even more changes. No more needing to use a 500-pound bomb to take out that annoying target sitting next to a hospital -- the SDB is much smaller at only 250 pounds, and can, like most bombs, be equipped for delayed detonation to improve internal damage and at the same time contain the blast further.
:) And since the SDB is going to be guided, that's a lot of targets to hit in one strike. The guidance system now is very similar to that of the JDAM, and the next revision of the system will include active seeking and target recognition, enabling striking of moving targets, and perhaps even open release to let them find their own targets on a busy battlefield.
This also means an increase in capacity -- standard loadouts that now carry perhaps six bombs will be able to carry a dozen, and extreme loadouts like what the F-15E can carry will improve even further. The B-1 will be able to carry 96 of these, and if the B-52 will be able to carry them... Well, that number will just be really scary.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
...if you took a third (1/3) of all the billions spent by the U.S. on war and warmongering you would be able to feed the entire population of earth for one year.
But I guess that makes me a commie worth shooting.
Time for a reality check!
I can't speak for the other continents, but as for Europe, we don't hate you for reinventing the republic (do you, honestly, think that the people of Europe actually enjoyed being opressed by their governments? Do you think the French revolution was just for fun?).
What we do hate you for is, that when we did learn from your example and introduced proper parliamentary democracy, freedom of speach etc., you turned the tables on us and became an endlessly more arrogant colonial opressor than we ever were! That is what pisses us off.
We don't envy your success - we are inspired by it. But if, when we try to emulate your success, you attempt to force Coca-Cola down our throat, we will revolt! You see, it all boils down to each individual's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (does any of those words ring any bells with you..?).
And finally, has it ever occured to you that, if everyone didn't hate you (for, more or less, well founded reasons), things like 9-11, USS Cole, ebassy bombings, etc. wouldn't happen in the first place..?
Ethics is what you say you do. Morals is what you actually do.
Another stupid attempt to once again become a world superpower.
"In the immediate future -- by that I mean in the course of the naval careers of the class of '73 -- there will be nuclear-powered, constant-boost spaceships -- ships capable of going to Mars and back in a couple of weeks -- and these ships will be armed with Buck-Rogerish death rays. Despite all treaties now existing or still to be signed concerning the peaceful use of space, these spaceships will be used in warfare. Space navies will change beyond recognition our present methods of warfare and will control the political shape of the world for the foreseeable future."
--Robert A. Heinlein, the James Forrestal Memorial Lecture to the Brigade of Midshipmen, 4-5-73
What happens when those systems get hacked? And they will,the militay still uses ancient OS for "sensitive" information...Bad i dead for science and humanity.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
This is what he really said:
While analysts feel this move will be unwelcome in the international community, military officials believe that "If they can't take a joke, fuck 'em."
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I heard on the BBC yesterday, that the next campaign issue has become women in the military. Somehow, after having women in the military since '91, now they want the 9000 women that are in... out.
This is one of the many reasons for anti-american sentiments. The arrogant forcing of american culture and values on systems and people that intially wanted nothing to do with you
Actually, it is only the hard-liners in power who want nothing to do with American culture (and not even all of them. N. Korea's Kim is a huge cinephile, loves Hollywood movies). Most youth are enamored of pop culture (look at Japan, they make American pop culture look tame). And that is why the leaders hate it so much: it erodes their power, which is in large part based on hating the US (well, Western culture/Christianity, symbolized by the US). Pretty much exactly the same way the Bush administration relies on hatred/fear of terrorism/homosexuals/liberals for power, spending a large amount of time & effort villifying them.
Ask the French how effective this strategy was in 1940.
So, who's Hitler now, then?
Seriously, if you're just hearing about it now, it's already been in play for 5 years.
Seriously, do we want to wait for the Chinese to have this stuff before we do? Besides, what we really need to get USB is a space-based death-ray laser that can be fired with pinpoint accuracy at a moments notice. Lasers like this would also allow us to reduce civilian casulaties due to greater accuracy in taking out the enemy.
Not sure why this is coming about now - but there are already certain "weapons" in-place (and they have been for quite some time). Of course, you'd never find out about it unless you worked in the military.
And.... we need... to deal with.... the ellipsis shortage.......
So, let's review:
Nuclear Weapons: The US and their allies have them. Most of the rest of the world, excepting what's left of Russia, doesn't.
US thinking: Anyone else having nuclear weapons is bad. We will stop anyone from having them, no matter what we have to do or who we have to kill.
Problem: Finding them is hard, hiding them is easy, and taking them away from people is exceptionally difficult.
Now, let's look at Space Weapons (should this be approved and fast-tracked):
US has them. The rest of the world doesn't.
US thinking: Anyone else having Space Weapons is bad. We will stop anyone from having them, no matter what we have to do or who we have to kill.
Problem: What problem? Launch facilities are easy to find, it's easy to use Space Weapons to destroy launch facilities, and we can keep doing it as much as we want.
Upsides: Every launch facility becomes a valid target. What if Al Quada took over one and launched their own weapon? Why does China need a launchpad, they still wear sandals! It must be for Evil. India? They still wear sheets on their head! We'll convince them otherwise. And, once every launch facility is either destroyed or locked down, with US troops monitoring all activity and US inspection and approval required to launch anything, suddenly the civilian telecommunications market is owned by US corporations who can launch at will.
Oh, look, outstanding military might and unprecedented control of the economy, AND we get to tell everyone it's for their own safety. How convenient.
Face it, once they get those weapons up their, the first thing they're going to be designed to do is not to snipe some suspected operative or scare North Korea. They'll be designed to destroy any possible launch site for other countries to get their weapons into space. Even if they're sucky first-gen weapons, once they're there, the US gains a huge advantage. Other countries will try to adapt, perhaps build armoured launch facilities, but they'll always be behind because the easiest way to kill a satallite is with another satallite. Killing them from the ground is hella-hard.
And, once the US has spy sats and killbot sats in orbit and doesn't have to risk US lives to exert their will.. well, we've seen how the CIA likes to use unmanned drones to execute suspected AQ operatives. Personally, I wasn't aware that the CIA had the right to execute people, let alone in foreign countries, let alone without fair trial... but hey, what do I know, I'm just a Canuck.
For those of you who say "No, we'd never do that..." I point out that Operation Iraqi Liberation has killed 1600 US troops and (averaging estimates) 100,000 Iraqis, and you reelected the fucker who lied to you about it... and only now is the mainstream Thought Police (sorry, Media) starting to do a few little stories here and there about hippy liberals unhappy at all the death. If Vietnam was any guide, it'll be another 3 years before hardcore stories of the suffering and death are regular fare on TV, the cows start to moo, and the politicians get ready for the next election by pulling out the troops. So, how bad do you think it's gonna be when NO US citizens will die when they launch an attack? There's a reason that there is very little foreign media shown in the US. They can't be controlled. If there's only US media, and they show what they're told, who's to tell that the latest Space Bombardment killed 100,000 Koreans? And if no-one tells and all you get is spin, who's to stop the Politburo from blowing up whoever they want?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Sounds like a "Star Wars" - project has been resurrected from the dust to me... Think about it! and next all we need is that some cracker will crack into that system and start ww3 or system it self will start thinking "hey, I think, I think and hate people, People are plague..." and so on. Okey I admit maybe little too imaginary, but if this continues we will be in that situation where something bad will happen. -Andy A from Finland- Ps. Hello to all! :)
Sorry. According to this, the 10^15 joules figure is appropriate for a 100 megaton weapon. A 10^9 joules weapon would barely qualify as a car bomb, just under a ton of TNT. However, I can see the use in this thing being totally unpredictable. But as efficiency goes, why not use a well known tech, say... bombers?
Just because a post has the f-word and/or some ideas you don't like doesn't make it flamebait. There were legitimate ideas in my post that were substantive, if not exactly PC. So let people decide for themselves before you go moderating stuff just because you don't like it, you small-minded shit.
By the way, THIS is flamebait, you stupid fuck. Notice how in addition to calling you names, I have no substantive ideas in this post. That's the difference. The parent post is just something that pisses you off. Hypocritical fucker, you probably flatter yourself by considering yourself a champion of dissent, while repressing posts that actually dissent from your views.
How can people be so naïve and so apathetic? I used to be a big fan of the USA, but over the last 5 years, that esteem has just died in the proverbial arse.
You can draw a lot of parallels between the USA and some of the great historical empires like Rome. The one thing they all have in common is that they all eventually fall with a tiny bit of external pressure, a lot of pressure from within and having overstretched themselves abroad.
Many centuries on, this question still holds:
"Who will guard the guards?"
If you haven't read the "Global Frequency" graphic novelsm they have a story about these rods (but made out of high-density carbon) used for the purpose of population culling.
Fascinating stuff.
... and you'll go on thinking that, because it's what we (Canada) want you to think.
Mu-hu-hahaha!
Oh, now USA is a god?
Ummm.....your reading comprehension is amazing. You used your laser-like reson to cut to the bone of my statement. The collective United States is now a divine being.
Tell me, when your mother put that helmet on your head every morning before the short bus picked you up for school, did she tell you the other kids teased you about it because it was so 'cool'? Just curious.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
My guess is you'll be thinking: "Shit, I wish it were the Americans making that announcement if somebody had to!"
I'm afraid this shows just how out of touch with the world public opinion in the States is. I can't think of any countries I know where anyone would think such a thing. I can't think of anyone I know (including conservatives in the UK who love to bash Europe) - even sympathetic friends of the US wince at such blatant self-aggrandisement and dreams of global domination. With George Bush in charge most people would be more worried if the US had space weapons and China didn't (as they're proposing). Who the fuck would the US bomb next? Iran? Syria? China?
America is no longer seen as any kind of protector in the world, they're seen as a bully.
The current ambitions of global hegomony from the US are pretty scary - can't you learn to live with the rest of the world?
I think you miss the real strategic game though and its real cost.
The idea of space weaponry and antisattelite weaponry is that it enables a country to do two things: 1) Rapidly deploy weapons anywhere on the planet and 2) control the gravity well. Both these objectives *greatly* enhance conventional fighting technologies, perhaps more than any other attempt.
The problem then arises: Mere superiority at conventional fighting does not ensure stability. Certainly strategic nuclear weapons do if at least two powers have reasonable arsenals of them in that they drive up the cost of invasion to a point where it is not acceptable. However, with control of the gravity well, one could destroy most of an enemies strategic nukes in their silos.
So what is an enemy (like North Korea) to do? Well there are a few options:
1) Hide nuclear weapons on enemy soil in enemy cities.
2) Use low-flying cruise missiles from submarines or submarine launched balistic missiles from a close enough range that early warning systems will not be alerted before it is too late.
3) Use mobile launchers in hidden metropolitan areas. If an attack occurs, give the nukes to terrorists who share your problems with your enemy. During a time of war, such could be done with plausible deniability (a "security lapse" could be staged, etc).
Note what happens: early warning systems become useless, and we have increased the likelihood that an attack could be made on American soil without warning. It also helps encourage our enemies to back terrorists.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I can't believe that no one has made any referances to government spending on White Persian Cats.
At least I found none in the short scan I did of this article's comments.
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.