Slashdot Mirror
Do We Really Need Space Weapons?
tcd004 writes "The U.S. military is developing technology to disable, jam, and even destroy enemy satellites. But are space weapons necessary? No, says Michael Krepon, director of the Stimson Center's Space Security Project. He argues that developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapon race.
There will be no need to worry about weapons based in space...someone will just send a ship up and steal the whole satellite.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I disagree.
Space is essentially worthless until it is militarized.
Nothing worthwhile is left unguarded.
A space race would be a good thing, in my opinion, because it focuses the much-maligned military-industrial complex on a worthy goal: human occupancy in space.
It may be more efficient to send up the sleek craft of the X-Prize and other private ventures, but heavy lift will probably only come with military ventures.
Getting to space en mass via the military will doubtless cause distress to many who feel that space should be kept pure, untouched by the dirty and unwholesome aspects of human existence.
Keep in mind that most successful ventures in space (and all the major ones) were driven by a space race with heavy military overtones. Such motivation worked once and will work again.
I think it's up to the US taxpayer to put a stop to this insanity. I have a feeling that the US is gonna laugh at the Chinese & Russian efforts to legislate this, possibly causing a cold war in space. Hell, the Cuban missile crisis is nothing compared to some serious strike capabilities in space with a far greater range than some archaic missiles on a carribean island.
Besides, who appointed the USA to be the supreme ruler of space? Surely disabling a satellite orbiting some other nation's (high) air space could be construed as an act of war similar to say, spyplanes in a foreign country's airspace?
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
except that someone eventually will develop space weapons - it would be the height of arrogance to assume that just because the u.s. backs off, everyone will - and we really don't want to get a late start in that race.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Because if the US decides not to, the rest of the world will surely follow suit.
I share the opinion that they're a bad thing, but I think it's inevitable.
Nuke the moon!
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/
Since most technical advances come from arms races maybe this is not altogether a bad thing. Would be prefer money is spent on increasing the effectiveness of anthrax or smart intercepting rockets. .
The Army reading list
otherwise, what will we do when the Gamalons attack?
Could fry a satellite from Earth. This is not a high powered laser.
Keep in mind that there are people in the US government who own or consult for or are in some way related to the big business of providing military equiptment to the government. Of course they want this it's great to win a race, but it's even better to sell everyone shoes.
This is why we need the snooping powers provided by the USA-PATRIOT act. All we need do to foil the plots of satellite-stealing villains is track the purchases of large numbers of silver jumpsuits and miniskirts. An ounce of prevention...
stripShow - Where WordPress meets webcomics
I for one welcome our new outer space overlords...
Sorry, but this time it's on topic!
All you need to do is take a look at what country or countries would lose the most if space-based communication and localization functions were lost during a crisis. Actively working to increase the risk of such a scenario is self-defeating and shortsighted (I would like to use the expression "utterly stupid" but people may take offence).
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
is never a bad thing.
Whatever advantage you can give yourself could possibly turn the tide of a battle.
Imagine being able to blind an enemy in a war by knocking out its surveillance and communications capabilities. How is this a bad thing?
People make it sound like it's a bad thing by starting a space arms race, but there could be worse things- such as your enemy being able to knock out your satellites and you have no ability to do the same. If you're able to develop such technology, do it.
yes, because while we worry about the political corectness of space weapons, china will just march right along. what a brilliant idea.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Two of the biggest drives behind innovation are:
1) The military
2) Sex
The sooner we get both of those going into space, the sooner we'll get some decent progress in spaceflight technology.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Who is going to keep these weapons safe? These will have to be remotely fired, and with the state of system security these days I don't trust the government to keep their satellite weapons under control.
Give them the space shuttle (-: Pretty efficient (-:
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
A little bit of game theory shows why developing space weapons makes sense from the point of view of any one country.
Certainly, a "conspiracy" of ALL countries agreeing NOT to develop space weapons would be in our collective best interests. But no one works in terms of collective best interests unless it also maximizes their own best interests.
Suppose for a moment that a "conspiracy" (or to make the terminology better for this case, a treaty) existed between all nations that "prevented" the development of space weapons.
Any one country who secretly deviates from that treaty has a LOT to gain.
Thus unless the United States can trust other major powers (China, Russia, EU, Japan) NOT to develop space weapons (which it cannot), the best way to leverage its position is to develop its own space weapons first.
Am I totally opposed to space weapons? Well, not really. Krepon's arguments include:
... about $200 billion ago.)
1) North Korea and Iran don't have space programs. Space weapons would be useful against only Russia and China.
2) The US is the world's most important rule maker or rule breaker. We should set an example and develop a code of conduct.
My response to (1) is that militarily, it sucks to get leapfrogged. You don't want to get passed because of complacency. As for (2), bad actors tend not to follow rules anyway, so will the conduct of the US really shape the behavior of the rest of the world? (I would guess that many outside the US would hope not.)
That said, the opportunity cost for space weapons is *huge*. It feeds into the whole asymmetrical warfare concept -- the US can disable satellites but can't stop an insurgency that everybody saw coming except the secretary of defense.
Furthermore, even within military spending there are better places to spend the money than space weapon deployment. More unmanned systems, better infantry-level support, or faster mobilization (so that the US doesn't build up a force and then claim it's so expensive to keep them there that we have to start the war *right now* -- there were people who said we couldn't wait through a summer
But the best place to spend money, in my opinion, is accelerated research that supports reduced reliance on oil. (Yes, I'm a Thomas Friedman fan.) I wouldn't mind a grant or two to a brilliant poli sci researcher who could figure out how to sell the public on a large gas tax. (and mitigate the effects on the poor?) I think most economists would say a gas tax (or more generally, a carbon tax) is the most efficient way to spur adoption of renewable energy sources. Otherwise, you're hoping the government can pick technological winners and losers. (While reps are getting nice contributions from the farm lobby.)
Irrelevant. Whether or not developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapons race does not answer the question as to whether or not space weapons are necessary.
I find it so interesting how the world society as a whole is essentially allowing these things to occur. Where is our moral responsibility?
I am from Canada, and loathe the concept of space warfare. Why would anyone want this capability? Another arms race? Great....
The part of this article that really stumped me, is that the interviewee was stating how wrong it is to have Weapons in Space, but conludes with 'if we did, we would win anyway'... doesn't this statement essentially challenge an opponent?
This kind of mentality is exactly what causes arms races!
If we don't get along up there, we're going to have problems very quickly. Blow up a enough satellites, and now you have a cloud of virtually impossible to trace debris orbiting the earth at several km/s and presenting a deadly danger to anything else up there. Eventually, it'll be impossible to send anything up without it getting pelted.
Weapons in space do make sense, but only for protection of the Earth from outside dangers, such as wayward asteroids and comets, or as-yet undiscovered hostile alien races.
However, given our current capabilities, if aliens do come here, we better hope that they're friendly and enlightened, because if they're not, any aliens with technology capable of bridging interstellar space are going to laugh at our pitiful weapons. The Kent Brockman approach to dealing with such invaders is, unfortunately, for now, the best one.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Its all okay to have space weapons and all but How do you get there, when all the chips falling off of space shuttle.
What I am worried about is the coming war of independence - it is likely that the influence of the current nation states (USA, etc) will be extended into space.
Eventually, when we have enough people up there, they will want their own government. If it follows the pattern of the american war of independence, then it may destroy the human race. The people in orbit will have a big advantage, they can just throw rocks and debris down on us.
We plan for this, and set up a government with a constitution in space as soon as there are more than 5000 or so people living in space.
Space weapons have nothing to do with security and everything to do with generating a fresh revenue stream for the military/industrial complex.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Russian rockets to launch US Laser Array Satellites.
Vladimir "Pottie Poot" Putin quoted "I was originally against the idea, but George is paying us a shitload of cash"
Sorry but the old USSR already built and deployed space base weapons. They deployed orbital ASAT systems in the early 70s and even armed one of their manned space stations.
The idea that space is weapons free is a myth. If you do not think that spy satellites are not weapons you are just nuts.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The simplest argument:
Who are the most plausible opponents in a war in space?
Note that these countries are almost uniformly our close allies, our essential trading partners, and fellow democracies.
Do we really want to militarise against our friends, diverting funding from protecting against clear and present and active offensive enemies?
We must develope this basselope-based weapons system. Rumors are that the russians have a basselope of their own. Do you know what that means, boy? A BASSELOPE GAP!!!
Because of the space weapons race, countries create satellites that can defend themselves from attack. Unfortunately, satellites that pass each other too closely inadvertently fire upon each other and destroy themselves. So satellites have to be made smarter. Eventually satellites become smart enough to join together and restrict access to space as the best preemptive defense move. Mankind, not wanting to be trapped on Earth, launch a ground based attack to take out the satellites. Satellites retaliate, and destroy all human habitation on the planet, knocking mankind back to the stone age. Peace reigns in space.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
...are just interested in more than real estate in Miami. Otherwise, let 'em move in. No need for space guns.
IronChefMorimoto
Do we need to defend ourselves to the best degree possible in times of war? Certainly, we do.
Do we need war at all? Certainly, we don't.
Is war inevitable, space weapons or not? 3,000 years of history says it is.
Which is more practical, pretending that war won't happen or accepting that it will? With the latter being more realistic, we may then follow through with the most effective defense and proceed with developing space weapons.
We've always been in some weapons race, though not necessarily at the pace of the Cold War. Space weapons won't initiate any Cold War-esque weapons race as much as any of our other weapons have. They're not holocaust devices like nukes or any NBC weaponry. Without anti-satellite weapons, we're back at traditional warfare. With those weapons, we only take it outside of earth.
Space weaponry if anything will reduce war to a battle of communications and intelligence, where space coverage matters more than occupying ground. With troops and conventional weapons reduced in importance, satellites will be the main casualties, as long as they directly affect the ground war below.
And how are we supposed to ward off a cylon attack without space weapons?
People seem to forget or ignore the fact that deploying space-based wepondry goes against the ABM (Anti Ballistic Missile) Treaties signed by us and the USSR. Bush has already broken these treaties in testing many of his toys. Does no one care that he has such disregard for them? He has stated that the treaties are too limimting and therefore aren't in the best interest of our country, a fact I wholeheartedly disagree with.
today is spelling optional day.
Quote from the article:
MK: Weaponizing space would be very unwise. No satellite has been the subject of a direct physical attack in the history of warfare. Whatever we do sets a precedent that others will follow. We depend so heavily on satellites to protect lives and wage war with a minimum of collateral damage. Attacks on satellites would mean that wars become a whole lot more difficult for our forces in the field and a lot more harmful to noncombatants.
So in short, you can reduce the efficiency of the US army by taking out their satellites. Since other countries are denied access to space, this would be a good tactic for such a country. They will be more dependent and more trained in a war without satellite information, and will be enabled by such a move to get the upperhand in a conflict.
I think the US better invest in protecting their own satellites since they are the softpoint.
PS Disabling satellites by large lasers might work since you could fry just a few components like a photo optic chip, the rest of the satellite is packed in a heat blanket to reflect sunlight and thus a laser will just reflect of that too (at least most of it, rendering it pretty useless, if the atmosphere didn't do that yet)
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Space weapons already exist, and the U.S., China, and Russia most certainly have them deployed, and maybe others too.
but I, for one, need space weaponry.
I have this plan, see....... ++++D($(W*SD*Z[NO CARRIER]
Space weapon race doesn't promote Human Occupancy in space. All they need is something in the space to shoot down or jam other satellites or fighter jets.
there is a podcast called overclocked that had an entire podcast on this topic a few weeks ago, it was pretty interesting...worth a listen.
http://overclocked.libsyn.com/
If there were weapons systems that had to be placed in space in order to protect space assets than I suppose there might be a good argument for space weapons. However, that is simply not the case. I cannot think of a single potential threat to military or civilian satellites that cannot be countered from the ground more effectively for orders of magnitude less money. Really, the only argument for putting weapons into space is that it seems cool and would be intimidating - I'm tired of our military spending money this way. More accurately, there are a group of people in the present administration who believe that it is important to 'unfetter' the U.S.'s hands from any treaties or taboos in the event that somewhere down the line there will be something useful with this stuff we need to do. This is not wise. The taboo is actually valuable to us, because having explosions go off in space ends up creating debris fields which threaten present assets in space (which could be disastrous in Geosynchronous orbit) - and the U.S. is the country with the most military and civilian assets in space. In short - it costs more to use space weapons, it is less effective, and it removes a taboo which is primarily protecting U.S. space assets. Until those factors change, seems pretty dumb to me.
Because we all know how well banning weapons has worked before.
The first attempt I can remember was when the Pope tried to prohibit crossbows. The most recent is the Japanese ban on firearms - which worked quite well until Admiral Perry showed up.
Clear, Dark Skies
I'm already thinking that something like this could lead to things like they needed to have in planetes (manga & anime), debris cleanup crews and such to keep space in useable condition for things like commercial high-speed transport and such. from that picture, it looks like we've already got quite a dangerous amount of debris up there, and space weapons would probably increase that exponentially.
According to the report it was not feasible to make intercepts for IBCM weapons based on limited time and accuracy required. I wonder if space weapons will have any less technological challenges ?
I would have no problems with space based weapons if they worked, but like anything that NASA sends to space the issue will be over-engineered to the point of failure. Lasers and fancy missles will be researched and costs of billions of dollars when a handfull of dropped ball bearing could do just as much damage falling from space. Let those super-computers compute the falling trajectory of ball bearing from space and everytime we need something shot, just have a satellite push a handfull of ball bearing to earth and let then rain down on the target.
Follow my logic here:
Without Space Weapons, there would be no Star Trek
Without Star Trek, there would be no Captain Kirk
Without Captain Kirk, there would be no Geeks
Without Geeks, there would be no Slashdot
Without Slashdot, I would stop wasting time at work
So: No Space Weapons = No Geeks = No Slashdot = A Raise in our National GDP
Therefore: Profit!
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I have a feeling that the US is gonna laugh at the Chinese & Russian efforts to legislate this, possibly causing a cold war in space.
"In space, all wars are cold."
-Michael Scovetta, Slashdot, 8/8/2005.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
We need space weapons in order to defend ourselves against the Goa'uld and the Replicators.
Kidding aside, it is inevitable that we develop such weapons, as it is inevitable that we will someday extend the human race's Lebensraum. Far away from today, there will be en encounter with another world's creatures, and I'd rather be prepared for the worst than be a sitting duck offering the potential enemy a peace pipe.
If a weapon can be devloped, it will be developed. Any weapon that is developed will be deployed.
Haven't you heard? There is no USSR.
'He has stated that the treaties are too limimting and therefore aren't in the best interest of our country, a fact I wholeheartedly disagree with'
At least you admit it is a fact. Too bad you do not like it. Treaties which ban entirely-defensive efforts are certainly not in our interest.
Where were you when the voynix came?
The US has been anything but responsible over the past 5 years, so I wouldn't think of it as a good idea to do this right now.
Maybe in the future once dickhead is out of office, but.. not any time soon.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Please explain how ASATs violate the ABM treaty.
Also, please explain how a treaty with a country that does not exist can remain in force.
Clear, Dark Skies
That's a term that's not fashionable anymore, but it's still no joke. Defense contracting is enormously big business. The contractors employ people in as many states as possible, so that they can go to as many Representatives and Senators as possible and say, "if you push for X, there will be more jobs for your constituents." So Congress approves tons of defense projects, which further enriches the contractors so they can keep the cycle going. Also, tons of military officers "retire" (at an early age -- the military lets you do that) and go straight into the contractor side of the industry, so there's a ton of cronyism and friends pushing contracts for each other's benefit.
Don't listen to anyone's arguments about the necessity for space-based weapons unless they don't have a personal financial stake in a "space race". Defense contractors would LOVE to have another cold-war-ish Reagan-style flood of money into the industry, and a "space race" sounds like a great way to do that.
Recon satellites (imaging and communications) provide vital intel to the military, and are thus (in a sense) weapons. They are certainly things you might want to negate.
Comsats are also vital to military operations.
Negating the above, and making the above resistant to negation, are certainly aspects of weaponization, and are just as certainly important.
Best Slashdot Co
Plus, as everyone knows, if we don't have space weapons, we can be conquered by aliens who only have a stick with a nail in the end.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The illusion that the arms race ever ended is a joke. The US and Russians came in first (you can argue who got there first), now the other guys are trying to finish the race. Once this happens, we will "need" other ways to defend ourselves. In this case, you destroy an enemies methods of communications/information gathering and you destroy their ability to effectively use these weapons. It would be kind of hard for a country to target a strategic point if it can't see it. W/O a satellite you cannot see it. Even if you have recon forces on the ground pointing their laser device at the target, how is the information going to get bounced back accross the world? Satellites...without them the information does not get there...Though a semi-intelligent enemy will bounce the information off cell phone satellites.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Of course it is! The question isn't "will militarising space create an arms race?" but "would we rather be the ones starting the race, or the ones struggling to catch up?"
Perhaps the most succinct way to put the question is "would you trust the US or the (Red Chinese|North Koreans|Iranians) more with a space-based weapons system?" I'll accept that you might not particularly trust the US with such a system. I'm going to be severely troubled if you really think that the PRC, DPRK, or Iranian government is more trustworthy in that position, though. Of these, the PRC is very close to being, if they aren't already, to putting such a device in orbit.
Besides, how can you not like the idea of giant laser cannons? I mean, come on: LASER CANNONS. Are you some sort of wuss?
Canthros
Objects traveling in low Earth orbit--even those as small as marble or grains of sand--are traveling at a speed equivalent to a 1-ton safe being dropped from a five-story building
Wind resistance aside, wouldn't that be the same speed as a marble or grain of sand dropped from a 5-story building?
The thing with space is that given the energy levels and distances involved, any spacecraft is a powerful weapon.
Slam a basic comm satellite into the ISS and it's done for. A nuke can be a warhead; it can also be used to propel a spacecraft (google "Orion") or mine an asteroid. A cutting laser makes a great long-distance comm device. At short ranges, some mapping radars will fry an unprotected human being.
So excuse me if I'm not too worried about "weapons in space."
spells it out nicely. Members/contributors of the PNAC include Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, David Wurmer, and Scooter Libby.
The above document spells out the blueprint for world dominance, starting with seizing the oil in Iraq. It goes on and pushes for space warfare. Ugly document written by ugly people.
photosMy Photostream
Are space weapons necessary? No, unless there is a world leader who is a bully and invades other people's territories, killing tens of thousands of civilians, and sacrficing the lives of several thousand of his own people in the process.
Seriously, the weaponizing of space is inevitable no matter how much we all wish it weren't so. It's kind of like the commercialization of the Internet. Only in space, rather than porn, we get deadly weapons. Not exactly a good trade off, but we're fucked either way.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Today, you have to do research or your grand children will be poor farmers. Sure, NASA is FUBAR. Start another agency and give the money to them. If you stop space research for a couple of decades, China will own you.
Cut something less important. Say, only start serious wars. Sure, a democratic arab country would make the world a better place -- but there has to be a cheaper way!
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
No.
Russia is holding its own with its shattered economy. China does not have all of the money in the world either. Neither country has a deep hostility towards the US and would not deploy space weapons unless the US did it first.
The reason it is talked about at all is that rich contractors in the US want to build it so they can make a lot of money off of the government.
If they were just confined to space, that is, nations took turns destroying each other's satellites that would be, well, completely terrifyingly intolerable. But that would be puppies and fairies and sunshine compared to, say, orbital Ion Cannons (Command & Conquer style) being used to vaporize ground targets.
There you'd be, out for a stroll through the neighborhood walking your dog, waving hello to the neighbors, complimenting them on their fine garden. Birds are chirping happily, blue skies, sun's shining pleasantly, not a care in the world. Miles up in the sky, a pattern matching algorithm on an orbital Ion Cannon thought you walked a lot like the head of some enemy state. You're vaporized. Your dog keeps walking, smoldering leash end dragging behind him. No one else seemed to notice the flash.
*shiver*
Not only will we see a race for space weapons, but we're going to see the re-surfacing of a once-extinct Druidic cult form who can wield cosmic powers, which shall remain nameless right now.
Slowly there will form a federation of merchants and traders while the rest of the population will join a vast intergalactic republic.
Then somebody will start marketing Jar Jar Binks lunchboxes, and everything will go to hell.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
If Reagan used Star Wars as a bluff to getting the Soviets to spend themselves into oblivion on useless technology, is the U.S. just stepping into the trap it used to crush the Soviets saying "Mmmmm, cheeeeese!"???
Nobody has mentioned that after the first (even minor) "attack" on another satellite, there will be bits and pieces of the former satellite whizzing around in orbit. most of these bits and pieces will be too small to track by radar and so become very very dangerous for years and years.
Basically, after the first "space war", low earth orbit becomes unusable for a few years, even for the victor.
TDz.
Space-based weapons? What are we comming to? No, they are not necessary, as they will only be used to terrorize the world into compliance with the US wishes.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Okay, space weapons are scary... but how cool would it be to giant mechs battling above us?!?!
;)
Okay, enough of the 12-year old Transformers fan that still lives in me. As frightening as potential space weapons and veritable death stars will be. I still find it a morbidly interesting topic. Yes, these could be potentially destructive to a new level, but there are countries who have bio-chemical weapons that don't even have the money to deploy them. The destructive capability we have in our own backyard should terrify us first and foremost.
Another part of me wonders if some kind of space-weapons development could revitalize space and technology in general to achieve the goal before 'terrorists' the way the old space race was against 'communists'. It could be a puff of smoke across the science section of the newspaper, but if it develops, this could be interesting.
Besides, I want my own Gundam
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
Someone's gotta protect my DirecTV signal. If some damn European agency who believes more strongly in Sky decides to take out the DirecTV birds, what's to stop them today? Nothing! They've already successfully eliminated DirecTV in Mexico. DirecTV in the United States is certainly one of their next goals.
--Jim (me)
The thing about the possibility of an arms race is space is that there's no disadvantage for the U.S. to get involved in one. The only countries that could compete effectively with the U.S. (Japan and the E.U.) probably wouldn't bother and, even if they did, they are U.S. allies. China and Russia simply couldn't compete at the same level.
However, if the U.S. waits 10 years, it may be China that is in the no-disadvantage position. Of course, I'm assuming that there are no Russian-speaking, all-powerful aliens out there. . .
Having said that, I think weaponization of space is bad. Until we have a few space-colonies with backup populations, we should probably try to avoid any further weaponization period.
It's like the nuclear weapons peace movement.
It has NOTHING to do with military necessity and EVERYTHING to do with paying contractors billions of dollars of taxpayer money in exchange for campaign contributions to politicians and cushy "retirement" jobs for military people.
It's completely irrelevant to the discussion whether ANY of this crap will actually work or have an actual purpose.
It's amazing how few people comprehend this simple fact. The distraction effort is nearly perfect because so few people really can bring themselves to believe that every single member of the state is a crooked asshole only out for himself.
It's a perfect demonstration of primate hierarchical social structure. The beta monkeys follow the alpha around no matter what disasters he leads them to.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
You have a problem withe someone, you pick you the weapon - "ZAP!" - Big space between you and bully.
Then you could go away feeling proud of your space weapon.
Long live TUX!
Well, if Michael Krepon, the director of something called the "Space Security Project" for something called the "Stimson Center" says we don't need space-based weapons, that pretty much settles the issue, doesn't it?
I mean, he's an EXPERT!
It sounds like he might even be an expert on SCIENCE and stuff!
What more is there to discuss!?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The .mil figured out decades ago how to push enemy sats out of orbit using decomissioned sats that have some thruster fuel left.
*gulp!*
Brian Griffin: We have everything we need. And no crime, no guns, no pollution.
Peter Griffin: Brian's right.
Peter Griffin: We've left ourselves defenseless. Guys, we need to make some guns.
Cleveland: Guns? Guns only lead to trouble.
Peter Griffin: When that trouble happens, we'll be ready to blow its freakin' head off!
Weapons in space is inevitable. Looking at militiary history, it's also logical.
100 years ago wars were fought as ground wars.
When planes first appeared in warfare, they were used simply for data gathering -- They would fly over the enemy position and the pilot would report his observations.
The military soon realized that if they could knock out their enemy's use of aerial surveylance they would realize a huge tactical advantage and Air combat was born.
The same thing holds true with satellites. The launch of the first communcations / spy satellite ensured that one day someone would develop the ability to neutralize enemy satellites.
We don't have to like it, but it is inevitable.
then we all should know how the concept of frontier explortation has unfolded over history. When the early European explorers found our little rock over here, the first thing they did was check it out. The next thing they did was build a military presence on it. It is only logical to assume that the human exploration of space will follow the same human pattern as before.
The problem isn't littering space which, as you point out, is pretty much a non-issue.
The problem is poluting low-Earth orbit, a narrow sphere around our planet. Putting even the most malicious space-based weapons somewhere in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri is no big deal. Ading a bunch of items to an already crowded area including the ISS, most shuttle flight paths, communications satellites, etc. would probably not be the best idea.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
Since when has common sense ever dictated what our paranoid protectors do?
The people this guy is trying to stop make a living out of being paranoid and seeing a bad guy round every corner (how does that work in space because it has no corners). No amount of common sense reasoning is going to stop them.
Even if we could cure them of their paranoia they have a vested interest in making the non-problem seem as bad as it possibly can be.
While a weapon free space would be nice I doubt very much if we will ever see it. In fact I am sure there are weapons up there already. The only reason I don't think we will see a huge number up there is because a) it's hard (impossible) to maintain them b) it's very expensive to put them up there in the first place and c) they are very prone to attack because they are on display 24/7.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
He argues that developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapon race.
The space race boosted technology, so it seems to reason that a space-weapons race would do the same thing.
The goal might not be admirable, but the technology we'd gain from it would be.
Objects traveling in low Earth orbit--even those as small as marble or grains of sand--are traveling at a speed equivalent to a 1-ton safe being dropped from a five-story building. I think when a 1-ton safe is dropped from a 5 story building, it's not the speed that you worry about. It would only get to about 70mph anyway. What's the force equivalent of space debris in trucks-hitting-walls?
Man these guys are stupid. Have these guys thought about the consequence of an even small scale exchange of weapons in space ? Space debris is already a major problem. If these weapons were actually used to any great degree it wouldn't be long before you'd end up with huge problems with some pretty permanent space debris problems.
Step 1: take over space Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit!!! I think /. already posted a story about the United States wanting to take control of certain key areas in space. Look where all of this "international cooporation" has gotten man's aspirations to go to space; nowhere! Compare this to the US v. USSR space race.
I think that the US military should have the ability to wage war in space, though I doubt it will happen in this generation.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
No.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
So we develop space weapons. They develop space weapons. We all develop space weapons. We decide to blow the 1,800 satellites out of the sky in some sort of stellar turf war.
What nobody has considered, is the gravity of the situation (literally, or lack thereof). Now you have billions of little pieces of satellite material flying around in all directions without any gravity to stop them.
You think some foam sticking out of the bottom of the shuttle has problems now, try plucking it out of there with billions of pieces of metal, plastic, glass, wire and other satellite debris flying around you in all directions at 16,000 miles per-hour.
Sure, some of it will orbitally degrade into the atmosphere, but much of it will not, and it will continue to fly in all directions at full-speed, until it either collides with something to slow it down, or it deflects off of something (such as the other billion pieces of debris) to change its path.
Forget going to the moon, other shuttle launches, Mars missions, all of it. Not without some major retrofit to the hull and other materials used in the manufacturing of them (i.e. adding weight, potentially).
Yes, lets all just blow ourselves out of the sky too, and keep our upper orbital atmosphere a nice fence of shrapnel traveling at thousands of miles per-hour.
Much too easy to get rid of, just create a heap of artificial space junk and send it towards the weapon and it's a gonner. Naturally it will create even more space junk than there already is so it's a really bad idea, but heh, so is space weapons.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I agree with you that we need to be out there. Do you suppose a space arms race would promote or discourage it? I really can't decide. On the one hand it would litter near-earth space with debris of dead satellites and such. On the other hand, it would mean lots of countries putting money into space travel (launches at least). Of course, if it precipitates a nuclear war, we're all fscked.
Have you ever wondered How to Take Over
The last time a rush for the biggest baddest weapon ended in a political fireworks show at the expense of Japanese civilians.
Save Japanese and American lives, my arse.
The U.S. will decide to incinerate some small, unsuspecting village to show the booming Chinese space program they're too far behind to catch up.
... then all hell breaks loose.
Will I get 'flamebait' or a discussion for my comments? Dunno, but I'll probably get flamebait for this:
If there is another arms race, I hope the United States loses. My long-term expectation is that the EU will get past their petty differences and finally take humanity into the next age.
we can already buy white contact lenses on teh Internets!
Its like asking do I really need a 72" TV? Of course you do, cause they are so neat. It better you have satellites blowing up satellites instead of people as well.
The current administration is always talking about how we must protect the American way of life. We must not let the terrorists threaten our freedom, which just happens to be something they hate us for! Well if the US starts a space weapons race, the very thread of American existence will be in harm's way. Without satellites we will lose countless television channels. This is simply unacceptable!
The space-weapon-race is the point. From the perspective of market development it's sensible, perhaps even reducing production cost for sectors of terrestrial weapons manufacture. Regardless such weapons programs are largely psychological artifices, in place purely to disseminate fear that can then be used as leverage in two directions (sanitise and control); The WhiteHouse to Americans: We must "Disarm the Armed "(Paranoia propogation). The WhiteHouse to the Rest-of-the-World: "Just try it Tough Guy" (Fear propogation).
It may be that the real bullethead of such programs is a *.WMV of an artists impression, a CNN documentary or a DoD PDF populated with ballistics stastics and networking jargon.
It makes perfect sense, America's primary industry is Fear after all - they make alot of it over there.
Maybe they'll have a web-based interface and we can slashdot the satellites/weapons by hosting some dorky 'I built a toaster oven out of legos' pages up there.
It could prevent a nukelurr tourist attack!
What if W gets a JS error when he clicks the LAUNCH button?
Maybe this is good. Maybe all the nations that could actually stand up to us will put weapons up there too. Then instead of war on earth, we could have robotic war in space. Which, really, would look like fireworks to people on earth.
We could settle international disputes and get a good show at the same time!
It's Win-Win.
That is until the newtypes build mobile suits and crash a colony into earth and that big 'normals vs. newtyes' war breaks out.
I guess the world is just tired of fighting on 'Earth'. It's so yesterday. Naval battles? Jungle warfare? Dessert power? That's lame, lets blow each other up in space!
i don't care
MAD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutually_assured_dest ruction will only continue to work when we have a way to fire back after destroyed. Assuming these weapons have offensive capability.
Star Wars boondoglle aside, The concept of space based defenses are admirable and might even work if only they'd take it away from the DOD & give it to a University. Or hold a "z" prize.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
He argues that developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapon race. In other words, "Doing something is a surefire way of doing just that."
Perhaps Iraq hid them in space - once we have such a ship that can steal the satellite we'll have proof that the war had some justification.
Yeah, the U.S. is seizing the oil in Iraq. That's why the price is up to $63/barrel now.
Basically, a mass driver will take a chunk of material with a high resistance to the heat that is generated by re-entry into the earth's atmoshere and drop it from space on a target on earth. I'm not sure exactly how much devestation this could cause, but I'll just point out the wikipedia article on the Tunguska Blast.
As with any other weapon of mass destruction, once these things are created we'll be stuck with them, and God forbid an enemy should hijack them. (Or as might possibly happen, the democratic government of the U.S. fell and was replaced by a fascist one or any number of other nasty scenarios.)
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Wow, that's a dumb question. You might as well ask if weapons are necessary. It's the same answer. Humans are naturally competitive creatures, and many of them, even today, are quite happy to take advantage of military superiority to subjugate and/or slaughter those that they feel superior to.
Until the end of the cold war, America was good at taking the moral high ground and only using our military superiority to defend ourselves and others. Now that we notably have no military equal in the world, we've kind of started on a path to subjugate and/or slaughter anyone who we can definitely identify superiority to.
Sound familiar? So the answer to the question is "necessary for what?" If you answer that, then you'll have a clearer picture of the mentality of the people who want to put weapons in orbit.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Not very often. Saddam attacked Kuwait with no expectations, or claims of expectations, than Kuwait was threatening to wage war against Iraq. Hitler invaded Poland without a reason of "stopping a Polish war". Etc etc etc.
Where were you when the voynix came?
All someone has to do is say "China is building space weapons" and we'll make it a priority.. The one thing in the arms race is that you don't want the other guy to get something you don't have.
However the actual use of a space weapon shouldn't be what most people think. A space weapon aimed at earth would be aweful, and devistating, however what if that same weapon instead is ready for stuff from outer space, not necessarily alien life, but other objects.
No one can deny there's asteroids out there, and no one can deny that Earth will never be hit by a single asteroid but the question is how much damage will they do, most do none, but consider how long it's taking SETI to search the skies WITH HELP! Notice how often the views of the immediate area of our universe has changed.
Now the question is this, how do we know there's no possibility that there's an asteroid aimed at earth. The bigger question is how long will we have from discovery to impact. The answer is not long. I'd guess in the neighborhood of a month if we're unlucky. A weapon will need to be tested, we can't just send up 100 shuttles, we've seen that the shuttles aren't ready for a launch at a moment. This one was pretty dangerous.
So I say we need a weapon capable of defending earth from what ever comes at us from the cosmos, but what's important here is it's Earth's weapon, like the ISS we need to work together to get it ready and active. We'll need a small test and if possible a large test, but if we act like we won't need it, when we need it, it'll be too late.
We could do with less terrestrial weapons
Except the satellites in the same orbit as the debris will be traveling at the same speed, otherwise it wouldn't be the same orbit.
Even if the debris were intersecting an orbit and impacting a satelite, some basic calculations show that it's not much. A 1 g mass (roughly a marble) traveling at 80 m/s (180 mph!) has a kinetic energy of 3.2 J, compared to a 9.8 J of a baseball flying at 14 m/s with a mass of 100 g. That means, roughly, a marble of debris would do less damage than a baseball moving at 30 mph. Satellites are designed to handle stresses much larger than that during launch, so a marble or piece of sand traveling quickly would do nothing to a satellite's structure. Physically destroying a satellite requires a significant weapon, whether explosive or purely kinetic.
And why does he mention a "1-ton safe" in his speed explanation? Does he think that heavier objects fall faster? Maybe we should focus on problems of American education before worrying about issues of space weaponry.
Agreed. Furthemore, his arguments (as presented in the article anyway) only seem to address space-to-space weaponry. His reasoning of "it's only useful against other spacefaring countries, and it makes too much space debris" doesn't apply to space-to-ground weaponry.
I do not say disabling, but the American goverment has to keep up appearances nowadays more than in the past. The dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima, or the bombing of Dresden with firebombs, was not a big deal in 1945. In the 1950s/60s it already became a big deal just to whipe out a complete city, and just to kill everybody. Nowadays the shooting of a innocent civilian can get a soldier into a war tribunal where he will have to answer for his supposed crime (I think that is ridiculous, but it can be necessary).
By disaabling satellites the number of victims will increase on both sites, more innocent bystanders will be killed, and the effectivity of the US army in a non-nuclear war will be reduced, maybe even to the point where they loose. Not because they are not strong enough, do not have the correct weapons for the situation, but just because of the fact that moms & dads will march to the capitol and demand an end to the war. That worked in the past, and it will work again. It is the democratic system in action, and if the president and its party want to have any chance to win the next election, they will have to give in to such a demand.
Just remember that the wars the US fights are clearly not on their own ground, the US is not under attack, has not been under attack by another country since the 2nd world war, and is not likely to be attacked by another country. All the wars they have fought since that time had to be ended just because of political pressure in the US, and have not yielded any positive effect anywhere, not to be said counterproductive effects.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Is to sit back congratulating ourselves on our enlightened progressivism while the other guy, who does not allow open debate or dissent on such matters, deploys his space weapons.
What?
well i guess it didn't go as smoothly as they had thought it would
"In 11 days, coalition forces have taken control of most of western and southern Iraq," Mr. Bush said to cheers from Coast Guard employees at the port of Philadelphia. "Day by day, we are moving closer to Baghdad. Day by day, we are moving closer to victory."-George Bush, April 1, 2003
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November
Henry L. Stimson Center: Space Security Project
---------------------------------- I like fig newtons...they're tasty
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Did he have any STATISTICS to offer, though? It means so much more when experts talk about science and use statistics. You just can't argue with that...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
You know where you are? You're in the $PATH, baby. You're gonna get executed!
There is really no way to avoid this. We all rely on communications for both public and military needs. The speed and in-accessibility of orbital platforms make surface based defense of orbiting satellites almost impossible. An orbiting weapons platform in space is almost untouchable except to other orbiting weapons. This means that if another nation put a weapon into orbit that could launch on another nation or take out their satellites, that nation would be helpless unless it had it's own orbiting weapon. Imagine the havoc that would be wreaked upon us if we suddenly lost satellite communications. No long distance, no TV, internet would be affected, we would effectively be rendered helpless. People would fall into mass hysteria without communication with the outside world. Think "Trigger effect" but on a national scale. I hate weapons. I hate war. But I have to be realistic about the whole thing. It's going to happen. You can either be prepared for it, or pretend it's not a problem.
If you get tons of debris 40,000km up, who has the most satellites there to lose?
You think north korea would care as much? China? India?
It costs a lot more to defend a satellite against this than to destroy a satellite. It's also not too hard to disguise a killer satellite as a civilian satellite (but this would have to be in a "normal" orbit travelling in the same direction as other satellites- makes it a bit harder to be very damaging).
I don't see why one should spend so much money on space weapons. A few dozen _cheap_ satellites with explosives and hard to deflect shrapnel (glass?) can make tons of orbits useless. How it could work - someone just has to stop broadcasting the relevant keepalive signals, or broadcast a "trigger" signal and the shrapnel satellites will blow up and wipe various orbits within a day.
So your mucho expensive space weapons better be parked in different orbits or be capable of moving significantly. And you better be able to decide and use them quickly.
If stuff happens we'd probably lose use of the prime orbit regions, for quite a long time.
It's like MAD but in space.
...can we all please remember that the current government of mainland China is comprised of some very not nice people?
China is presently a "Thugocracy". When something like that is in the neighborhood, you keep your guns oiled and loaded at all times.
This is just a bunch of thinly-veiled liberal propaganda. I don't mind reading the viewpoints of others, but please don't insult my intelligence by posing it as some sort of "interview", under the pretense of an objective question-and-answer session.
Please... questions like "Are these steps necessary to protect the country?" and "What is a smarter alternative?" lead me to believe that maybe this "interview" is a bit slanted. Especially when the home page of this "ForeignPolicy.com" lists it as published by the "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace."
way to remove the context from that statement. here it is in full:
"MK: Weaponizing space would be very unwise. No satellite has been the subject of a direct physical attack in the history of warfare. Whatever we do sets a precedent that others will follow. We depend so heavily on satellites to protect lives and wage war with a minimum of collateral damage. Attacks on satellites would mean that wars become a whole lot more difficult for our forces in the field and a lot more harmful to noncombatants."
this is a forward looking statement [eg 'sets a precedent'].
your statement that it is inaccurate because it has not happened in the past is a gross mischaracterization of what is actually being said.
sum.zero
During the Reagan years this was known as SDI or Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI, AKA "Star Wars".
t m
They spent BILLIONS and never deployed anything (that we know of). They got some cool laser technology out of it though.
Reagan on many occasions in speeches alluded to "outside forces" and perhaps this was something to combat it. Here is an excerpt from a UN speech:
"I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask: is not an alien force ALREADY among us?"
Maybe he knew something we don't...
http://www.presidentialufo.com/reagan_ufo_story.h
You really want to hit ground targets. I bet you wouldn't even need explosives. Just drop a 30 LB depleted uranium dart and let it fall to it's target.
It would be awesome!! We have intelligence that Osama is in a house in Cashmere and 10 minutes later the house is gone. No one even knows what happened.
Way Cool.
Can anyone think of any weapon we don't need? Or to put it more plainly, once technology and cost make it an attainable goal, *someone* is sure to have them. So would we *not* want space based weapons once the Chinese have them?
Stop thinking like a bunch of granola eating, utopian dreaming, liberal nimrods and get real for a second here. The common defense requires weapons to provide said defense.
Plus, they're uber cool...
Of course we need space weapons!
Who the hell is this guy to tell us we need to keep war EASY? One of war's few redeeming characteristics in our age is that it can no longer hide what a terrifying and painful process it is behind tales of valor and individual combat. War isn't meant to be easy, it never has been.
The easier war gets the less people will hesitate before engaging in it. It's already bad enough that I can "know" we are at war, with people dying bloodily every day, and barely give it a thought because it effects me not at all. Make war the dirtiest, most painful, and degrading thing possible and keep it that way.
**insert favorite profound quotation here**
Oh God Yes!
Space weapons wont help us against the Cylons anyway since everyone is planing to aim them the wrong way.
Sindri Traustason.
Land is essentially worthless until it is militarized.
Ocean is essentially worthless until it is militarized.
Orbital space is essentially worthless until it is militarized.
Antartica is essentially worthless until it is militarized.
Moon is essentially worthless until it is militarized.
Mars is essentially worthless until it is militarized.
Did I miss the mark here or is this seemingly endless progress of mankind?
...we'll avoid weapons that blow satellites to pieces. There's already a growing problem with deadly space debris - let's not make it any worse by filling LEO space with junk flying overhead at 6 miles/second.
If the gov't does develop space weapons, I hope they are of the ilk that just fry the electronics and shut them down.
... that international law and treaties is of no concern for the United States...
Outer Space Treaty of 1963
Yes, I know those "space weapons" will (officially) not be nuclear. Have a look at article 8, however. I doubt the US wants to pay for foreign satellites, development and launch costs.
Overall, I think if the US would finally stop bullying the rest of this planet around, they would be a lot more liked.
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
"He argues that developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapon race."
One might also argue that not building space weapons is a surefire way to lose the space weapon race that has already begun.
. . . but when the Klingons attack, then we'll see what you have to say for yourself.
Space Assurance or Space Dominance? The Case Against Weaponizing Space (Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003).
Paperback: 133 pages Publisher: The Henry L. Stimson Center (April 1, 2003) ISBN: 0974725528
**insert favorite profound quotation here**
Unless, of course, the satellite is capable of shooting down the oncoming ship.
When you have them, they're dangerous.
They're also a good investment. If I really don't think I need them, I can sell them. Until people quit wanting to kill each other, there will always be a demand. And if the demand really dries up, I won't cry about that either.
There's really now downside to having more weapons.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
> a gross mischaracterization of what
> is actually being said.
I disagree. To me it sounded as if he was invoking "the history of warfare" as if there was a long and august tradition of not attacking satellites, stretching back over the annals of time. There's not; it's just that satellites haven't been around very long and they haven't been worth attacking. As soon as they are and there's a country that think it's worth the trouble, it'll happen.
The Army reading list
Why only space weapons? You can make the same silly argument about all kinds of weapons. We should not develop new kinds of tanks because that would lead to a weapons race in tanks. We should not develop new kinds of warplanes because that would lead to a weapons race in planes. ....
The fact is that if these new weapons will help us in war, then we should build them. If not, then we should not build them. Let's judge the weapons based on their technical merits and not on some fantasy of a NEW weapons race (there always was and always will be a weapons race).
Dr. No: Missile toppling
Tomorrow Never Dies: Hijacked GPS
That's right! Everyone who currently has oil and can sell it for $63/barrel! None of their fields became more expensive to drill, so to them it's just more profit.
And don't worry! We're building what will be our three largest permanent foreign military bases in Iraq. So when we really do need that oil, we'll have the facilities to grab it.
And who gets paid to rebuild the pipelines and other oil infrastructure in Iraq when it gets blown up?
Funny how all three groups are at least in part the same people.
The situation in Iraq only doesn't make sense as an oil grab if you mistakenly think it was done for your benefit.
The enemies of Democracy are
The whole nature of war is taking conflict to its extreme. If you don't militarize space, someone else will and they will use it against you.
hmm, tax on gas?
who would've thought that would happen.
gas would cost about $0.50 without tax right now, but it's the taxes that make it cost the $2.499 that it does now. but you don't gas your car often, do you.
sent from my slashdot browser.
I for one, welcome our new techno-space overlords.
Perhaps little has changed except that the rest of society has progressed. Enlightened as it was back then, the Muslim empire was savage and brutal by today's standards. Much is made of how well they treated the Jews, but also realize that they made Jews pay a special tax just for being Jewish. They also desecrated and destroyed the vast majority of synagogues in areas they conquered. The area known as Saudi Arabia today once had a large Jewish population. Muhammad ordered these Jews exterminated, and to this day his edict of "no Jews allowed" keeps the peninsula pretty much free of Jews.
Much of the world looked at horror at happened during the Sudan during the 1990s, as the Muslim north raped and pillaged the Christian south. This is what the Muslim empire led by Muhammad typically did in order to expand. it looks pretty bad now, but was the typical "modus operandi" back then.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I guess there were job security at Boeing et al to consider. :-(
Sigh, what a neat world it could have been...
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
All I can say is:
"SEIG ZION!"
It is ignorant.
See there are these wonderful countries out there that don't have qualms about squashing anyone including their own people. They have a propesity to sponsor violence versus other parts of the world.
So while it may be great to spout off against the capitalist society we live in please realize that there are many leaders who see that success as a threat to their control. Hence they will not balk at finding a way to strike out.
Space based weaponry has been here for years. The issue at hand is, can we afford NOT to put something in place. I say we cannot. Russia and America have a gentleman's understanding of each other. We both bluster and such but know exactly there would be no winner. So they are not the real problem, it is a country like China, who will find a way to take Taiwan down regardless of the legality of it, that will make for space based weaponry so they can prevent other countries from acting once they decide to exercise their regional power. Throw in a North Korea who may want to buy themselves out of their hole by threatening anyone who can give them what they need and you now have reasons beyond merely keeping the "military/industrial" complexes running.
Your statement is best viewed as sarcasm as any intelligent person who see it as absurdity or just plain ignorance.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Leaving aside the GP's (apparently) incorrect assessment of the M-I Complex's fortunes...
"People like you (Liberal Democrats) have made defense contracting a hard place to break even, much less make a profit! I suggest you go learn a little something about a field you obviously do not know a single thing about, other than the name."
And how is that a bad thing?
You seem to be implying that it's something they've done wrong, but I can't see a much more progressive step for the world than making it economically unviable to get rich by enabling the deaths or maiming of millions...
Let's be honest - the US is never (at least, not before the Big Post-Bush Economic Collapse) going to be unable to afford weapons to defend itself.
Given your country's always going to be safe and well-supplied, what's wrong with making it damn hard for people to acquire wealth and influence by profiting from human misery and suffering?
Frankly, it'd be a better world if weapons were totally unnecessary, but I'll settle for now for them being merely prohibitively expensive.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
he is saying that up to the present there has been no policy of attacking staellites, but that once we attack the first one this will change. he is saying there are lots of things common in war today that were once without precedent too.
that is the only way in which he is invoking the history of war: to illustrate that things change, to point out that there will likely be no turning back once we launch down this road and that the people most likely to suffer are the civilians.
sum.zero
Your assertion that Bush "broke" the treaty is incorrect.
The treaty included an opt-out provision that allowed either signatory to leave the treaty, as long as adequate notice was given.
The US obeyed the details of this clause: it gave notice.
No treaty was broken.
Ok, they won't. His thesis has a major problem. Bad countries exist. They will militarize space. Hoping in the goodness of countries is very naive. And extremely dangerous.
I'm sure it will go over well with a large segment of blame America first-types. We'll get blamed while helping protect the world from the North Korea's of the world. What else is new.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
If I was a small country and wanting to take out a bunch of satellites, I would just launch a bucket of sand into retrograde orbit. It doesn't take much to knock out satellites.
In God we trust, all others require data.
someone should abandon their ethical and moral principles in order to be "liked".
Clear, Dark Skies
China: Deal!
Russia: Deal!
China and Russia then develops space warfare technology secretly and the next time war breaks out (which could very likely be precipritated by the fact that they will now have a technological advantage over us), they'll be able to send up their space weapons which are years ahead because we squandered our technological advantage by sitting on our hands.
Suggesting that we should not develop a space warfare capability is more than foolish, it could very likely be our downfall.
AFAIK, the Russian space station Mir, had a 20mm gun mounted onboard.
Oh well, what the hell...
Do you think samurai had the industrial skills to create Gatling guns?
It was, in fact, the refusal of the Chinese and Japanese to develop that technological and industrial base that left them vulnerable to the colonial powers and ensured that the West would dominate them in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Japan survived by becoming a satellite of the West while China is only now realizing the geopolitical power it really has.
Clear, Dark Skies
Sure let's develop space weapons to take out enemy satellites. Hell why not throw in Orbital Ion cannons too?
This kind of shit is so like the military to do. How exactly will ASAT weapons be useful against terrorists? or Al-Qaida?
Meanwhile, our soldiers are driving around in humvees that even when armored are completely useless against IEDs. They are shooting Beretta pistols that are 20 years old. Not enough aimpoints to go around. Not enough of everything that's necessary for urban combat.
and yet the military wants to build and deploy ASAT weapons. Wow, color me shocked. The US military has a history of screwing the troops on the ground in favor of high tech shenanigans.
Hello Comanche helicopter. That 6 billion dollar boondoggle might pay for a fair amount of armor or new guns or NVGs or even ammo!
Are defense contractors worth more than the common soldier's life?
oh wait, i guess that's a rhetorical question.
-- Believe your Justice!
about history and the history of technology. If Japan and China had been able to start producing guns the day the western ships showed up in their ports, history would be very different.
You might also make a literary side trip and explore who it was that paid for and developed things like the revolver, the rifle, who invented mass production and why did they do it, etc...
Clear, Dark Skies
Pax Americana ?
Why do we always have to have an external enemy?
Why do we have to have the fastest car on the strip?
There is no way any country can develop space based weapon in secret. Everyone will be able to see the test. If they don't test it, it'll probably be useless: like our missile defense system (sic).
Yes.
Smiting idiots the old fashioned way is tiresome. These days, it's all about the orbital laser platforms and ortillery. ^_^ b
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
They aren't. Spy satellites are intelligence-gathering devices that allow you to know where to point your weapons. They're no more a weapon themselves than your lungs are a weapon - hey, without lungs you'd have no oxygen to power your muscles to move your finger to press the button that fires the nuke that actually is a weapon...
Mentally separating high-tech weapons from the systems used to guide them seems like a stretch. If a weapon is guided by a satellite, and cannot fnction with reasonable accuracy without that data, then it seems to me that the satellite is part of the weapon.
It's akin to handing somebody a gun barrel without giving them a way to aim. While you could argue the hand pulling the trigger is not a weapon, it's much harder to argue the same for the sight/scope.
If we proceed to militarize space with weapons, not just spy satellites, we will doom future mankind to a life only on planet Earth. Space debris will prevent future rockets from leaving earth. Unless some science fiction space shield can be developed, debris as small as an old bolt would destroy any ship with which it comes in contact.
signature pending slashdot approval
Keep the bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, infantile clap trap to yourself.
Space borne weapons are already here. Now its a question of limiting the cost and the damage to national 'prestige.'
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
It's hard to get good help when you're a homocidal madman with a freakshow hairdo.
Kim Il Jong is now sporting a more conservative crew-cut these days, ever since the Ministry Of Making Everyone The Same has decided that long or strange hairdo's are for counter-cultural revo-- err... dissidents. And you don't want to be a dissident in NPRK.
Without this, along with lots of robotic fighters and intercontinental bombers, there's no way we can properly Protect Our Freedom.
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
[...]
He argues that developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapon race.
We might not need weapons in space. But we surely need a space race, desperately. The last one is over for almost twenty years now and we didn't move a bit since then. What we are left with is a space station that serves no real purpose and a bunch of used, aged shuttles (which, BTW, didn't match their requirements, as their operation is more expensive than Saturn V's has been). Russia doesn't look much better.
And we need space race desperately as a species, because we need to be able to do something if a rock large enough would happen to be on a collision course with us. And we need it in the long run because we need to get out of this single planet and spread.
Go into space or perish, it's as simple as that. And it's a harsh reality, so, please, let's dispose of stupid idealistic pacifism.
currently in synchronous orbits. Source: "Deep Black" by William E Burows"
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Is war inevitable, space weapons or not? 3,000 years of history says it is.
Which is more practical, pretending that war won't happen or accepting that it will?
History tells us that war will occur. It does not tell us that any particular conflict is unavoidable. It does not tell us that we are incapable of creating a war where none would have occured with our own actions. History tells us that a particular war is innevitable only when one side believes that it is.
So when you are deciding whether it is practical to just accept that war will happen, you must take into account whether your practical preparations for this hypothetical war will in fact create the circumstances in which a real war will occur.
The only possible enemies against whom militarizing space would be relevent are Russia, China, and potentially in the future India or Pakistan. Mostly likely would be China.
Is war with China inevitable? If we treat China as if war with them is inevitable, then it will be. Militarizing space under the assumption that we will get into a war with a space power only makes that more likely as it will be seen as an act of agression -- and they would be right, because as you yourself say we would be doing it to prepare for the "inevitable" war.
I'm all for maintaining the ability to launch weapons into space should the need arise. I'm all for improving our launch capability across the board, such that militarization would be made easier as well. I am not for sticking a flag into the vacuum of space and declaring it ours under threat of military retaliation. I am not for provoking those who are not yet even enemies.
We must balance the ability to wage war with the diplomacy and restraint necessary to prevent it.
The enemies of Democracy are
LOL! I like you, you're silly!
Stupid, but silly!
The U.S.A. and the Soviet Union never tried to kill each other because each was convinced that the victory would be phyrric.
The 'threat' and the problem is not one of placing such a 'high barrier' to entry as it is to place the same kind of MAD logic.
Until and unless the powers that be can garantee that there won't be any more mad mullah's like Omar, we have to watch everybody carefully and keep weapons which can strike down from space out of the reach of these 'children'.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I have problems with those kinds of crackpot assertions.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Roughly 96 percent of people going on about the horrors of the Patriot act have very little idea of what is actually in the USA PATRIOT Act. My theory: It's all in the name. Branding really means a lot these days, no?
There is a great SF book called "And Having Writ," can't remember the author and too lazy to google it, but anyway, it's about these aliens who come to study Earth some time ago but their ship breaks down. They are on their way to becoming the Tunguska event when they use an experimental device to alter probability, which sends them to an alternate universe where they don't blow up. They still crash, but survive. They figure the only way to repair their ship is to get the local tech up to snuff, and the best way to do that is to start a war. Well, they do their best to incite the world to war, but due to humorous misunderstandings of human motivations and whatnot they actually end up preventing World War I. So they decide to pack it in, put themselves into suspended animation for a few hundred years and just wait. Turns that thanks to them preventing war, (and us just knowing they are there) we actually progress faster and by 1950 we have interstellar travel and whatnot, so we wake them up and offer them a ride home.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yes we need space weapons, maybe not for destroying irish spying satellites, but we need them to defend ourselves against aliens allergic to water and bacteria.
Well, it would be just the same as if it would've been under Ronnie RAYGUN's administration, him simply remarking "Sorry, I thought it was my alarm clock snooze button..."
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]
All your space are belong to us Russia and China. Stay out its not big enough for everyone.
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
Does that mean the Germans born in 1980 are all mass murderers?
Clear, Dark Skies
So, at least there's no if a tree fell in the forest from a laser blast and no one was around to hear it metephores.
I say, go StarWars part deux!
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
All we need is for the oil market to keep tightening for the U.S. and China to start getting quite.... snippy... with each other.
Clear, Dark Skies
Even if we have to stab each other in the eye with dinner cuttlery.
We're only human, and the average IQ is only 100(1) and that's not enough.
Hell, the ones we call 'clever' are ones who have figured out better ways to blow us up, from Alfred Nobel (chemical) to Einstein (fission).
1) In a room full of Einsteins the average IQ is still only 100. You get my drift anyway.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
You wouldn't have so much debris if you vaporized the target. Let's go nuclear!
As if we haven't thought of this already, folks. I mean, come on. The Russians put up a satellite to watch us, we know about it, they deny it, so what do we do? Well, we could either ignore it and censor it, like we do the Russian spies in the Capital...Or we -could- blow it up. The Russian's aren't going to protest us blowing up their spy satellite because complaining about it would admit that they're doing it. It's an implied neutrality.
And besides, what do we really need advanced tech for? We've been able to crash satellites into other satellites (intentionally or not) for a while now.
This smells exactly like the same idiotiarians who spent most of the 90's calling for a freeze by the warmongering US building more nukes on the grounds that if we stopped that the Soviets, being a peaceloving people, would stop their hellbent buildup.
Wrong. And thankfully we have RWR in charge over here to ignore em. Got news for ya. Doesn't matter whether we are stupid enough to cripple ourselves or not. For China to take Taiwan back means dealing with our naval superiority. And much of that these days depends on space based assets. If the situation in India and Pakistan deteriorates into war, they have space based assets (especially India) that will be attractive military targets. etc. etc.
Once we began putting valuable military targets into space, it was only a matter of time until someone got the idea to (while reading the initial intelligence reports on the payload most likely) destroying them and figured out the details of how to go about it.
All the calls for a unilateral US 'freeze' and all of the old Soviet Era sanctimonious crap from the UN won't change this reality.
Democrat delenda est
We just need space sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.
Question everything
We shouldn't develop weapons in space, because unilaterally declaring peace has been so successful in the past.
</sarcasm>
[ home ]
no, until we create cylons... which we will surely do in a near future :/
Shrapnel in low-earth orbit could make any further travel dangerous. Look at what happens to shuttles when they get hit with foam or paint chips!
Space is big, yes. But there are bottlenecks, and momentum + debris is not your friend.
were toys. They held to a tradition of honour. It cost them the world at the time.
As for who paid for the revolver (Colt), the rifle (Remington), invented mass production (Ford) the answer is WE did. And we've been getting shot at and sold crap ever since.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I didn't mean outside the nuclear club. I meant within the club: US, China, Japan probably (in response to China), maybe Europe.
That doesn't mean I think it's a good idea, of course.
Have you ever wondered How to Take Over
Unless youre thinking China vs America in a new cold war (very unlikely given how much money China makes by selling what it produces to America), it's not going to be a race.
Space has been militarized, but not weaponized, that is to say the military is using space, but there are no weapons in space. This is somewhat analogous to the internet - in that the military uses the internet, but there are no known military weapons for use on the internet that aren't available to the public. To respond to a previous poster's comment on spy satelites as weapons, I've used google maps, and I wasn't able to blow anything up.
That being said, space weapons that actually attack targets on the ground are highly unlikely. Space based lasers would have problems with - cloud cover, large amount of fuel required (600 lbs if I remember correctly) and easy defence (a large pool of water over the building, thick ceilings). Kinetic weapons working on the principle of Force = Mass * Acceleration, instead of explosive power aren't that much more effective than conventional weapons. Add to all that the cost of defending these specialized weapons leads another arms race, that thankfully no country really wants to run.
As implied in the article satelites are the real vulnerability, because they provide such essential communications technology. However, the threats aren't there yet. So, nothing against the Air Force, but they need to be focused on the real issues and threats of today, not Buck Rogers time.
It does when ASAT weapons come into play. As the need to defend oneself from satellite-borne weapons increases, the likelihood of developing a weapon capable of taking them down also increases. ASATs are difficult to do, but not impossible, and the nations most likely to need defense against satellite-borne weapons are the ones that already have (US, Russia) or could develop (UK, France, India, Pakistan, Iran, Japan, North Korea) ASAT missiles.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Lakoff commented that the better the title of a given bill sounds, the more we need to hold onto our wallets. Anyone remember the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005"? Who, after all, could possibly be against abuse and protecting consumers? Or adding another $9 billion or so to the creditor's and lender's bottom lines?
Or the "Class Action Fairness Act"? Everyone wants to be fair, right?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Can we all agree that the current government is also comprised of some very not nice people?
Without attempting to troll, but this is the classic pot calling the kettle black.
The goverment of China does things that I do not agree with. The government of the US does things that I do not agree with. Both throw their weight around internationally, and believe that their laws are the only ones that matter and have no desire to understand international opinion. It is a comparison of Orwell vs. Huxley: Big Brother vs. the Brave New World. Neither one presents a bright future for mankind.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
Bottlenecks in space? Hmm... I didn't know space gets narrow at points
Ok, whats to keep these debris in low earth orbit? As it is, our satellites have to continuously correct themselves so they don't reenter the atmosphere and fall to the ground.
I also wasn't mentioning throwing debree in low Earth orbit...and anything outside of Earths orbit is most likely going to float away and away and away - to be encountered by a starship, where three of the bridge crew will get stuck in a Casino book story, that has terrible dialogues from the people who inhabit this casino.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I guess I'm just tired, but when I first saw this I thought it said "Do we really need space wagons?" My answer took practically no contemplation cycles: "Uh, no?" But I did enjoy the brief visual and I thought I'd share it.
RP
I've heard of the right to bear arms. And the right to arm bears. Now, this, the right to bear bears, is something that is quite new to me.
Where were you when the voynix came?
...the Eludium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator!
North Korea doesn't have the economics or science to be involved in a space race.
Sure, the Chinese have space ambitions, but they suffer from the same economic and technological hurdles... they want to put a man on the moon to stir national pride. Why the hell would they want to spend billions in Star Wars when they already have numerical superiority? In a conventional ground war, hi-tech technology is not decided advantage.
I like your McCarthyism though - keeps Boeing going.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
This was already discussed in the March issue of IEEE Spectrum. I'm tickled pink to see that engineers aren't the only ones paying attention.
[o]_O
The US is dependent on its space assets, domestic and military. The vulnerability of those assets are an asymmetric threat. Powers that could not defeat the US military on the ground could exploit anti-space weapons to cripple the US by disrupting communications, GPS, and imaging systems.
The Chinese have already thought about this. Don't think others haven't as well. The probability of a great power conflict with the US from any corner is pretty low, but the military has to think about and plan for any eventuality. Yes, space weapons to protect US (and allied) space assets is at least called for.
How about their claiming the worst mass murderer in human history as their beloved founder? His icon is still shown all over the place, and his "friendly" ideas still drive the government. Some things are beyond "not being nice".
'The goverment of China does things that I do not agree with. The government of the US does things that I do not agree with.'
I am guessing that you are in the United States. In China you'd be sent to a slave labor camp for half of that statement.
Where were you when the voynix came?
There's a concept called "metaphor" you should check out. As well as "Lagrange points"; I think that's a good illustration that some space is more equal than others.
From Space.com: The U.S. military tracks about 9,000 big pieces of debris orbiting the Earth. Small pieces, such as micrometeorites or paint specks chipped off old rocket segments or satellites, can't be seen. The shuttle and the debris are zipping around the Earth as fast as six miles per second, making collisions with even the tiniest fragments potentially lethal.
I'm sure once you explain that there's nothing to keep that debris in low earth orbit, it'll fall out of the sky and clear things up.
The point of this thread is "space weapons". These space weapons will tend to orbit the earth, since that's where we keep our stuff. When these weapons get blown up - as frequently happens in wartime - shrapnel will result in orbit. Thus polluting space.
As for who paid for the revolver (Colt), the rifle (Remington), invented mass production (Ford) the answer is WE did.
Actually the answer to all three is "the military" which was the point of the original discussion.
Also, you might want to check out a book yourself. Ford invented the assembly line, not mass production. Mass production and interchangeable parts were invented so that guns could be produced in large quantities and be repaired by swapping in spare parts. IIRC, it was Eli Whitney who developed the technique.
Clear, Dark Skies
I think the US still has more potential in the long run. The Constitution and Bill Of Rights aren't quite dead YET, although they're damned well on life support!
Both the basic structure of the mainland Chinese government and it's actual practices are rotten to the core. And with dissent brutally and violently suppressed, there's no way in hell short of civil war it'll get any better.
You think we're aggressive? Watch China goes to war to get Siberian resources sometime soon, the last big untapped resource pool on the planet other than Antarctica and the seabeds.
Take a hard look at China and tell me Bush is in the same league. Ain't no WAY.
to knock something down, or to drop weights at sub-orbital velocities.
Clear, Dark Skies
the We that is the military-industrial complex that cares nothing for earth's citizens?
or
the current regime?
or
the people who actually live in the world who disagree with most of what is done in their name?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This was published on http://www.cryptome.org/ a while back. It's an Air Force space command newsletter all about the rationale behind developing this technology.
u rnalWinter05Web.pdf
(WARNING: large PDF)
http://www.peterson.af.mil/hqafspc/news/images/Jo
"There's a book out there called "Don't Think of an Elephant" that describes the current Replication tactic of "framing" issues."
Yea, Lakoff sure has figured out the trick of those wily Republicans. Perhaps the Democrats could do this too? The abortion thingie could be called "Pro-Choice" - after all, who can oppose "choice"?
Higher taxes? Let's call that "social justice". Justice is good, no? Fancy writing law from the bench? Meet the "living, breathing constitution"...
Putting weapons in space is a bad idea for a number of reasons.
1. They are very expensive.
2. They are highly vulnerable.
3. Their effectiveness is unproven
The cost of launching and maintaining space based weapons is very high, plus all the engineering that needs to go into having them remain reliable in the harsh environment of space. I'd much rather see my tax dollars go towards proven weapons which are a hell of a lot cheaper.
Space based weapons are highly vulnerable and can be defeated with relatively low tech. All it takes would be for someone to release a few million BBs or sand or similar material in orbit. It will quickly destroy anything up there. Given the high velocities involved in orbit, it will make short work of anything up there. Also, as more satellites are destroyed, each of them releases more material, causing even more damage. I don't think it would be all that difficult to render space unusable for weapons for anybody. This would also make space unusable for non-military operations as well.
And finally, many of the weapon systems are unproven as to how effective they'd actually be. For example, the missile defense being implemented hasn't performed well in tests and would probably be ineffective against missiles from countries like North Korea, China, India or Pakistan due to the instability of the rockets compared to US and Russian rockets.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Frankly, it'd be a better world if weapons were totally unnecessary, but I'll settle for now for them being merely prohibitively expensive.
Chris Rock summed that up on the micro-scale more or less like this: "If bullets cost $5,000 there would be no more shootings of innocent bystanders."
Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.
most satellites - well, the official ones not launched under the black ops budget - are actually Canadian or European, not American.
seriously, check the published stats at space.com
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
or "campaign finance reform" of any of the years in which it occured. What're you, against reform?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
What it really comes down to is this - we rely on space based systems to protect and enhance our military. Without these spaced based force multipliers, the US military is in some pretty serious trouble. GPS, Satellite Communications, Orbital Imaging -- if we don't have our multibillion dollar toys in the sky, we're not the worlds most powerful military anymore.
Now, the deployment of weapons that can take away our space based advantage is something that we should expect other countries to pursue. After all, they become more secure when they can hold the US military at by debilitating our satellites.
In a classical prisoners dilemma, we are thus forced to develop our own anti-satellite weapons to protect our existing infrastructure -- we can't risk being left behind in this matter because the security of our other military capabilities rests upon
If debris is such a big deal, it would seem that we might see some value in cleaning up after ourselves.
Of course, the development of a space elevator changes this whole game. Knocking down satellite systems that aid ground forces is one thing - and not of earth shattering importance. But when one country gains the ability to drop very heavy things from orbit more or less at will -- then priorities shift.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
And he doesn't say dem's don't do it. In fact, the entire book is about the fact they don't do enough of it, and they don't fund a tenth as many multi-million dollar think tanks to do strategic planning on such issues and how to "market" them.
But it doesn't change the fact that the more the words "patriot" or "fairness" appear in an Act's title, the more ALL of us need to look behind the facade to see if all the fancy "who can be against it" words are just a cover for something else entirely...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
No where do I see a mention of trade deficit. the ggp, the gp (my posting), and the article that I pointed to, all talk about the budget deficit. nothing about a trade deficit. Even the amount of money that we have talked about (100's of billions) is trivial small compared to the trade deficits (which is now in the 10's of trillions/month).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually no, to the WMD deliver.
Everybody probably already has nukes in space. That isn't a 'big deal' in terms of design/delivery. Easy peasy.
What is WANTED is the ability to strike within a few minutes, and hit a target the size of a car, destroying as little as possible aside from the target. That whole 'Rods from God' crap or whatever, plus lasers, plus ????? Who knows what else.
Not supporting military in space. Especially the US military, as we are currently the most aggressive of the large military forces already.
You have some interesting arguments, some of which bear responding to. However, there are a disturbing number of anti-semitic claims among them. I'll leave "Feeding the troll" to another. That will give you time to sew on a few more Swastika (tm) patches and come up with more arguments about the despicable Je... ahem, "Israeli".
Where were you when the voynix came?
The Bush Administration seeks changes that may destroy our national security, economic well-being, and the stability of the world order. These changes are going on way over your head - 50 miles above to be precise. The Neo-Cons aim to make outer space the new theater of war. Their blind ambitions threaten to ignite a new and ruinously expensive arms race that could destroy the international norms that have made outer space a vital and growing part of the world's civilian economy and a lynchpin of America's long-term security.
Pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2000, the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization undertook a study of our vulnerabilities and military capabilities in space. Donald Rumsfeld chaired the Commission until a few weeks before their report was issued, when Bush appointed him Secretary of Defense. Given this fact, little about the Commission's report will surprise you.
The Commission report warned of significant vulnerabilities in both civilian and military space assets that must be addressed. As there have not been any attacks on space borne assets to date, it is difficult to quantify how serious or how likely various threats might be. The Commission supports their recommendations with worse-case assumptions out of any proportion to likely threats. They insisting we prepare to meet a possible 'Pearl Harbor in space' where no enemy is known to exist. In their estimation, that preparation entails nothing less than the head-long introduction of weapons into space.
The world's consensus is that spaced borne weaponry is inconsistent with the "peaceful purposes" for which space is reserved by the Outer Space Treaty. However, the current legal regime does not specifically disallow weaponization of space, except for nuclear weapons and other WMD. Thus, this Administration advances an extreme interpretation that space based weapons systems are consistent with "peaceful uses" so long as they are not used for aggressive military operations. This means that development and deployment of first-strike capable anti-satellite and ground targeting weapons systems in orbit would be lawful as long as they are only used in a defensive capacity - and we all now know how flexible the concept of defense can become.
What kind of weapons might we see deployed in space? Anti-satellite weapons to destroy or disable an enemy's space assets, and systems to protect our own satellites. Space-based weapons platforms carrying lasers, particle beams, kinetic weapons, and other systems to disrupt or destroy targets on the ground or in the atmosphere. Contrary to common conception it does not include "Star Wars", the National Missile Defense (NMD) system. Only sensors and command and control systems of NMD would be in orbit as the system is currently concieved.
The Commission report is unequivocal in its judgment that deployment of weapons in space is purely a winning proposition, enhancing the security of our space-based assets and extending the reach and speed of our military options. Military planners see a golden moment in history and they want to seize it. No other nation can deploy military space systems that could match ours, and being first to the high ground of space allows us to dictate the terms of access. We are presented an opportunity to unilaterally shift the fulcrum of the world's strategic military balance in our favor. The Commission makes it plain that they believe weaponization of space will assure U.S. military predominance and preparedness for the forseeable future.
The question we must ask, is whether we should allow it. Will the militarization of space enhance or degrade our long-term security? One obvious reason not to place weapons in space is that despite any temporary strategic advantage we might gain, proliferation and an arms race are inevitable, though not necessarily immediate. Consider the obvious military advantages conveyed by t
Sorry. You are right. Mea Culpa. I missed that entirely.
That was pretty stupid.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
and pay down the debt for a few years
I assume that you've seen Congress in action? I think we can safely assume that any savings from shutting down this program would result in pork being spent elsewhere. Very few politicians have the inclination to cut spending - after all, it's not their money.He never said you lose the argument if you mention Nazis, he simply said that the longer a discussion goes on, the higher the likelhood that someone will mention the Nazis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
To some, racial hatred is a valid cultural trait to be cherished in the tapestry of cultural diversity.
'I don't think you get around Godwin's law that easily, you lost the argument. ;-)'
He lost it even before he invoked the ghost of Hitler. He used the term "unilateral" to describe a situation involving several nations. That is a good example of throwing a word around without having any idea what it means.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Moron. Nice try, troll, but you can't tar and feather IgnoramusMaximus with your anti-semtism just by pretending to be anti-semetic and agreeing with him. His arguments are not anti-semitic at all, and you can't discredit them with such a transparent ploy.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
They are essential to the continued well being of the American military/industrial complex.
More war is good business.
Not to worry. Someone will detonate a cargo of a 10 million ball-bearings, imprisoning us on the planet a couple of thousand years.
.. if we unilaterally start to weaponize space, any nation or group with a ballistic missle can (and one probably will) do this. We would be denied space, for pretty much any purpose, virtually over-night. It's a shame our illustrious leader isn't smart enough to figure this before he starts wasting our money and squandering our opportunity to keep space a common resource.
Seriously
Study the last few conflicts the US has engaged in. Real-time information and effective use of same has made all the difference. Anything that dispels the fog of war is a serious force multiplier and cannot be ignored by a commander. That is to say, you can bet that any technical nation that imagines the US to be a potential rival (ohh China, India, Russia, EU?) has a robust ECM/ASAT program in the works and is working out ways to reduce the effectiveness of our own tools and reduce our advantage. ASAT systems, GPS jammers, commlink jammers. Blinding the enemy has ALWAYS been a goal for a military commander just as he seeks to keep his own intelligence assets alive and functioning.
Iraq had many armored vehicles with effective guns, but did not know where the US hardware was while we knew exactly where they were.
Heck, the first targets were command and control, radar, SAM, aircraft... Making ASAT weapons only extends the strategy, it's nothing new. If your adversary has surveillance systems in orbit, they need to be blinded/silenced.
These will be developed. Certainly by rivals as a check to our power. The US will develop these weapons too - for the capability and for the understanding of how to better protect our own systems from attack.
Aside, any bets on how many chinese black-hats wear Red Army uniforms? Might be easier to count those that do not, heh.
-me
"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election." -Otto Von Bismarck
Congratulations, you officially close the discussion in defeat.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
In 11 days, coalition forces have taken control of most of western and southern Iraq," Mr. Bush said to cheers from Coast Guard employees at the port of Philadelphia. "Day by day, we are moving closer to Baghdad. Day by day, we are moving closer to victory."
It sounds like Bush was dead on target. The invasion of Iraq was an enormous success. (The occupation, though, not quite so much.)
why should *I* have to go to the expense and hassle of removing this when it is the neighbors responsibility.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"Nothing worthwhile is left unguarded."
Absolutely!
Which is why the Dubya regime themselves basically "ratted-out" their real goals regarding the "war on terror". The USA put 140,000 troops into Iraq, which has lots of oil but had very little linkage to terrorism, but would not put 2,000 more US Border Patrol on the USA's borders to limit the incursion of terrorists mingled in with the flood of illegal aliens. The 9-11 Commission recommended 2,000 more USBP, but Dubya requested funding for only 200 more agents. Even Dubya's allies in the US Congress agreed with the findings of the 9-11 Commission.
While the USA is busy breaking international treaties left and right (Geneva Conventions, Non-Militarization of Space, the ABM Treaty), we are unabashedly militaristic in our enforcement of the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty in the DPRK (North Korea) and the IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran). How could that possibly be considered hippocritical?
I'm completely anti Bush, so far left I can't even walk straight, and even I wouldn't put Bush in the same league as China's leaders. Not that he wouldn't do the same damn thing if he thought he could get away with it, but he can't. Claiming otherwise is a slight to all the people in China who have suffered real oppression at the hands of it's leaders.
That being said, I have heard people argue that the problems of feeding a country that size, let alone dragging it into the modern age are so great that we can't judge China's leaders by the same book we judge ours. Interesting point, but I still don't quite buy it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
What if the terrorist threat has expanded, with a much larger organization backed by several states? They'd develop nuclear weapons first, so whats the next step?
Taking their countries offline would be the first step then, so that like the WWII, they could do whatever in their countries they want without satellies looking at them, radars tracking them or cruise missiles smacking them. That is achieved by destroying satellies breaking all communication around the world.
Destroying satellites may well be easier than destroying fighter jets. You just scan the clear skies and locate all the orbiting objects, and destroy as many as possible by laser or more conventional means.
Now the US sphere of influence isnt just in the USA, its in outer space, all the high seas and even the atmosphere of the 'terrorist-infected' countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. It makes the production of chemical and nuclear weapons by terrorists very difficult. To keep this sphere of influence where it is, you need space weapons.
Sure it will spark a space race, but havent the nuclear weapons done that? The only people who can match the US are the large countries who desperately need economic uplift and need to keep their governments intact, and so will never need to go at war with the US. It is frequently these large countries who are themselves fighting the same 'terrorists'.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
To defeat the commie skum stiull in our mist
If You can read this sig you are on the internet
Not everyone against the Patriot Act is a total whackjob, just like not everyone for it is one too. It's not even the whole Patriot Act that matters. At least to me, the parts i don't like deal with the search and seizure without a warrant.
As for your statement, on wheather i have been affected by it, do i need to be affected by it to not like it? Do i first need to be shot, to want tougher gun laws?
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
if you want to fall behind and be controlled ( or obliterated ) by someone who DID build a fleet space weapons.
you cant seriously think that hiding you head in the sand actually works in this day and age?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...then only criminals will have space weapons!
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
In reality, the geostationary orbit is relatively unused.
Most activity happens much lower. In fact a lot of activity is in a relatively thin layer, as low as possible while avoiding drag from the athmosphere.
Also , think of the distribution of the space junk as a scaling law. Reducing the size with a factor x increases the number of particles with a factor y. you can make a lot of tiny particles from a cubic inch. Quick guess, to have the same kinetic energy as a bullet(3000km/h), a particle approaching with 60000km/h only needs 1/400th of the weight. To have the same impulse, it's 1/20th.
Lastly, we're not dealing with location but with trajectories. The changes of two particles colliding depend on their relative trajectories. If they are one mile apart and have the same speed, the chances of colliding are small, and the power of collision is small. If they have opposite speed, the chances are much bigger (imagine they cross each other each hour), and the power is much bigger.
1) Pro-war hawk, Bush appointee, former devout WMD believer, and head of the WMD search David Kay acknowleges that no such weapons existed at the time of the invasion. The search teams are no longer operating.
You confuse what was known at the time the decision was made with what was know a year or more after the decision. That is quite revisionist. In truth numerous intelligence agencies were saying Sadaam still had WMD, some of these agencies belonged to very anti-war governments, Germany for example. Believing that Sadaam had WMD was a quite reasonable and prudent thing to believe.
The IAEA and UNMOVIC heads themselves described good cooperation from the Iraqi government.
Excuse me, at one point the U.N. teams left because they were not permitted to do their job. You are referring to an exceptionally narrow timeframe and missing the big picture that Iraq sometimes cooperated and sometimes did not. The prudent interpretation would be that they interfere when the UN is on to something and they cooperate when the UN is on a dead end. You mentioned that Sadaam destroyed stockpiles. Why did he not do so under UN supervision? Clearly he wanted people to believe he still had WMD. He assumed it would enhance his ability to "negotiate" and provide a deterrent. Given the UN's spotty record, being suprised by his nuclear program and later his bio program, it was prudent to believe be a bit cautious with preliminary and politicised UN reports.
In general you confuse to separate issues: "Does Sadaam still have WMD?" and "Is an attack on the west imminent?". The WMD question has not been discussed rationally in a while, it had become a political wedge issue wield for political gain. Sometimes wielded by those who agreed Sadaam had WMD at the time, just like Bush, and some who even voted for force at the time. If you fail to consider the politics you will never truly understand events and will be easily manipulated. The left is as guilty as the right.
Are weapons necessary?
Just trying to put across the notion that slapping fancy names on your initiatives and positions is business as usual in politics.
Lakoff's notion that larger use of branding can reverse the trend for Democrats really isn't likely to change much in practice - But it will help Lakoff sell a lot of books to Democrats looking for a simple, painless explanation for why they couldn't even defeat Jorge W Bush... (If you want to sell lots of books, always tell people what they want to hear)
> yeah. like on 9-11 when we were attacked by the superior forces of the
> combined armies and navies of the Russian Empire - or was it China?
Did I say that it was the only threat? No. And I saw the threat from Al Queda years ago, back when all your political philosophy could screw up the courage to do was lob a few expensive cruise missles at camels and declare terrorism a 'police' responsibility. Had we correctly seen Radical Islam as an ememy at least by the time of the 1st attempt on the World Trade Center and entered the war then, liberated Afganistan from the Taliban then, odds are they wouldn't have still been a problem, at least not one organized enough to accomplish something as complicated as 9-11.
I built cruise missiles while your political philosophy sold stingers to the same people who attacked us then. Before that, I did counter-terrorism against other extremists from a similar region.
And my point is that an investment in Space Weapons is one of the dumbest things you could do - and I say that because I actually know what does and what doesn't work and what the conditions would have to be for them to actually work in real war.
Now, if you want to argue the merits of hot rocks in space, fine - that plan was one of the few that might have worked. But the rest were a giant black hole that wouldn't have worked - and still won't - since physics hasn't changed due to your "philosophy".
The real world cares nothing for outdated 18th century philosophies posing as 20th century philosophies - they're still dead ends.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
But the message was clear: Dem's need to do more of it... if only they knew what "it" was.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
The prudent interpretation would be that they interfere when the UN is on to something and they cooperate when the UN is on a dead end.
Consider this: You are Sadaam, and you wish to deter a hostile superpower from removing you from power. Given that building WMD could be costly in terms of money, resources, and international goodwill, wouldn't it be better to make people wonder if you have them? If you build them, it might give the west a reason to invade, since you are then a threat to them. If you don't have them, the west might invade since there isn't any deterent. The best plan is to prevent any resolution of the question either way. FUD isn't just a weapon for mega-corps.
An alternate interpretation would be that they interfere when the UN is on a dead end to create disinformation. You don't stay a dictator for long by being stupid...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Sand.
In space.
The ultimate orbital denial system. Get enough propellant together to get the sand in orbit, burst, and spend the next few decades orbiting the earth. If you want to get really fancy, load it with, say, pennies instead. A cargo hold on a military shuttle filled with pennies would cost a mere percentage of a military satellite, and would deny orbit to everybody for years to come.
In all seriousness, this is something for countries to look at in the next century. Orbital denial will be a powerful threat, because it really will be easy to do.
"To pass through the jungle; silence, courtesy, ferocity, as the occasion demands." -- Kamau, "Proper Passage"
oh goody !! since we clearly cannot defend ourselves against roadside bombs, explosive laden speedboats, and backpacks, we must spend $$ to defend ourselves against non-existent threats ..
Shouldn't we first be spending $$ to armour the humvees ... ?
Denial is not a river in Egypt
While there may or may -not- have been bulk supplies of chemical and/or bioweapon WMDs in Iraq at the time of the US Coalition invasion, there is absolutely no doubt that there were previously. We know nerve gas was used on Kurdish villages. What can be made once can be made again.
Furthermore, there doesn't have to be very much of the stuff. A beer bottle full of persistent nerve agent dispensed in a handy subway/tube/Metro station will kill hundreds to thousands depending on the delivery system, and cost BILLIONS to clean up. VX gas of the type used in Kurdistan is particularly nasty, it stays in the environment for years unless scrubbed off. Imagine scrubbing the whole friggin' Paris Metro from one end to the other, plus you have to decontaminate the water used, etc. etc. etc.
Now imagine a 45 gallon drum full. In New York.
Getting the picture? If Saddam was willing to slip the Palestinians a few bucks for every suicide bomber (that alone is worth going to war incidentally, Israel is a US ally), with the smoke still rising out of the 9/11 hole can George Bush take the chance that maybe he'll slip Al Qaeda a couple quarts of death juice? Can Tony Blair take that chance? Nuh uh.
So regardless of the legal niceties, Saddam was going down. That was a given. What I find interesting is all the countries lined up against the idea were hip deep in the Oil for Fraud deal with Saddam the Ear Slicer. Puts paid to the idea of the Noble European Left, eh?
At any rate I shouldn't have to explain this kind of thing, its all perfectly obvious. The only explanation I have for the willfull blindness of people like yourself is hate. You hate Bush so much you'd rather see your own country fall to a bunch of hairy assed religious fundys than let Bush have a win.
Good luck with that.
I know, many will disagree with me, but many also thought that planes would never become weapons of war. Space is the ultimate high ground people! Let's not be short sighted and convinve ourselves that this is wrong, because it's not. It is simply an intelligent strategic maneuver.
I am Spartacus
Iraq also (allegedly) had loads of WMD which Colin Powel knew exactly where they were so that he paraded images on his imfamous speech in the UN council... And strangely enough American military with all their mighty sattelites couldn't find them.
The moral of this story is: Never trust generals and army.
It was probably probably that he used Vi instead of Glorious Emacs commands in the joke. :-)
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Sounds like you're thinking about Rods from God. They're using Tungsten not Iron-Nickel, but the idea is the same, and after it hits, nobody will be able to tell what it was made of anyway. Although something with the impact force of a small nuclear weapon sure sounds like it violates the ban on WMDs in space to me, or at least it ought to.
People are the problem, stop procreation now!
Yeah, this'll sure help the space debris problem.
A few satellites get blown up, and nothing's going to make it through that cloud of dirt.
But it may be for the best.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
{
He argues that developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapon race.
}
and not developing space weapons is a surefire way to avoid a space weapon race so if just one country develops space weapons they rule the world.
weapons races create checks and balances. superweapon A is great, but if everone has superweapon A it is just another gadget. look at nukes. what would the world be like if only russia has developed nukes? or if only the US had? why would one fear using nukes? their would be no fear so nukes would have been used in vietnam and korea, and iraq and afghanistan.
1. Comparing Gitmo to a concentration camp is like comparing Legos to a sky scraper. Here's a hint: no one has been killed in Cuba.
2. Please list the countries that *aren't* "close friends" with Saudi Arabia.
3. Please list all the ways we have shown our friendship with Pakistan since we learned they were the ones spreading bomb tech. Here's another hint: the US is now more closely aligned with India than we have been for 30 years.
Clear, Dark Skies
The red tape is there so contractor X doesn't come along, screw things up, then say "the contract requirements are satisfied, it's your mess now" to the government. Or "Yeah, we made a mess, but if you give us X billion dollars, we'll make it right." That's BS. And for the most part, that's why you have "funny" environmental laws, or laws protecting endangered species.
And it's also why it's illegal for company X to dump their waste from manufacturing those exotic materials that absorb radar.
I'll admit there is WAY TOO MUCH "me and my cronies" in the defense industry. But most of those funny laws are there because some former company screwed up and the taxpayers are paying for it. And it's definitely hard to get in on something if you don't have contacts. I used to work for a company that had a wonderful idea, the Air Force liked it, but the money dried up before we could even think of getting a contract awarded. A few years later, I read somewhere that another, similar, design had several of the exact same features that our design had. Someone talked along the way, or someone came up with the idea and had their buddies sign off on it.
I did a search on this page for 'China' and found no mention. Strictly speaking, space weapons have no particular use. Neither do bombers or missiles. However, the nation that lacks them is ( as we've seen throughout the past century ) likely to lose to the nation(s) that do. If China has anti-satellite weapons, they'll be able to neutralize any nation's ability to detect a missile launch.
WHile you can say 'gee-whiz' at this, not being able to retaliate in kind means that any response to such action will have to be greater to be considered meaningful. Better to be able to take out satellites in retaliation or be able to threaten to than have to level cities because being blinded could be a prelude to a strategic attack.
So while I don't like seeing space militarized, I prefer the US keep pace at least with those nations looking to acquire territory by threat or by force. In China's case, Taiwan, the Spratleys, Bhutan.
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
The weapons being discussed here are not space weapons! they are not weapons that can hit spaceships or other space targets. They are weapons situated in space that target Earth! I seriously doubt any good technologies will come out of this. The holy grail would be antigravity, in order to launch serious load in orbit, but I really don't think that gravity can be overcomed.
So, what's left after no possible grabity shielding? just big cannons, possibly lasers, than can hit Earth targets. Which means that no serious progress for technology/science, and a serious hit in democracy on Earth (since the one that installs space-based weapons first would have a tremendous tactical advantage).
funny... I've done that. I got lost driving to the ferry terminal in vancouver once, ended up on the wrong side of the peace arch (ie other side of the border). no one stopped me, no one searched me, they just saw my license plate (canadian) and let me through both ways with a wave.
You have a typo in your subject:
If space access becomes cheap and ubiquitous...
meh
... That there are people and organisations that actually want, need and desire a new weapons race?
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
that a cannon is a large caliber rifle, right?
Japanese cannon, IIRC, were extremely few, made of wood(!) or cast iron and were not rifled, which basically means "low range and no impact".
Clear, Dark Skies
the USAF had ASAT launch systems that could be fired from an F-15. I assume that capability has improved since then.
You don't need Cape Canaveral to put a small load into space.
Clear, Dark Skies
the horrific conditions at Gitmo:
Harry Potter popular with Guantanamo detainees: report
Yup. The torture never ends.
Clear, Dark Skies
If we need to destroy asteroids http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/
Slashdot = Sarcasm
If creating space weapons is a sure fire way to launch an arms race, refraining from creating these weapons is a sure fire way to lose said race.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Weaponizing of space would be terribly destructive, and that is why it is inevitable. We are a bunch of stupid apes who break everything we touch, and will eventually destroy ourselves.
How ya like dat?
Weapons in space will draw the attention of extraterrestrials, and they won't be popping by to chat. Look at what they did to CONTOUR.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
It's clear not?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
But when will we be ready to defend against space invaders? No Space Battle technology can be the doom of the human race! Read both way! haha. Doomed for not having them and doom from having them. any how doom will be cause by the russians (man mars mission).
If space weapons are outlawed, then only outlaws will have space weapons
Not sure satellites are nearly important to war fighting as you think these days. GPS is pretty important but spy satellites I'm not so sure any more. Personally I think the military should retain the ability to navigate without GPS or they deserve to get lost. Similarly they should maintain precision weapons that don't rely on GPS. Putting all your eggs in the GPS basket would be pretty stupid.
RPV's are rapidly gaining the ability to provide most of the visual and electronic intelligence gathering you need on a battlefield. They are developing great endurance, they are getting stealthy, they are really cheap compared to satellites, can be deployed in large numbers and put no pilot at risk. RPV's fly unpredictable trajectories while satellites tend to be predictable, unpredictable is definitely better since you can hide things from predictable.
Spy satellites had their place in the sun when it became difficult to overfly the Soviet Union with manned U-2's and SR-71's but if you have stealthy RPV's, with great endurance the need for satellites isn't what it once was. Lower flying RPV's are actually better for taking pictures, plus you can change payloads to suit the mission, you can repair them and you can send them where you want, when you want.
With every major new satellite program over budget and behind schedule I'd say its increasingly time to rethink how much is wasted on them. Proposing massive spending to try to defend them is pretty insane. You do want them to do things like detect missile launches and do electronic intelligence gathering in peace time, but if a major shooting war erupts between superpowers I'm inclined to think the military should be ready to switch to RPV's and old fashioned navigation rather than be completely dependent on fragile space assets that are really hard to defend.
@de_machina
We got sucked into fighting the type of war they wanted us to fight.
Ever wonder why they put up little resistance? First they knew they couldn't match us in open, face to face warfare. Second, they knew they had a good chance of beating us if they engage us in an urban guerrilla war.
Before the invasion Saddam came right out and told his people to clean and ready their guns for urban warfare.
They outsmarted us.
photosMy Photostream
Oh, wait we already have air-based weapons platforms. B1, B-52, Cruise missiles, ICBMS (which happen to travel through space, btw), U2, F117, F16, F14, F15, F/A-18, and so on.
We have "weaponized" every environment we go into. Air, land, sea. Not only is space weaponry inevitable (esp. since it has already happened), it is not a detriment to us any more than any other environment we've done it in.
But ultimately, yes, if we want to protect against wandering asteroids, comets, and such, yes we do need space weapons. You don't get an earthbound 100 ton rock to miss the Earth by asking politely, Bruce Willis ain't gettin any younger, and in case you haven't noticed the aging shuttle wouldn't be up to the task anyway.
A space weapons race will come in handy when we determine the big rocks are headed this way. if for no other reason, this is enough.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
It's premature to develop space weapons when there is no visible effort by a hostile nation to do so. By jumping the gun, we would only hasten and make worse a space-weapons race.
The same with biological weapons and chemical weapons. We're supposed to be Good Guys (TM), remember?
The "anti-space weapons" people are probably alien spies anyway.
"Oh, no, it's REEEAAAALLLL safe up here, no need for weapons at all!"
Some superior alien race could see us not evolving past militarism and entering space and think "No fucking way" and kill us all just for safetys sake. This is a really really immature and unwise move. I for one welcome our new microbial overlords.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I like Chinese
Who could've put this better than a Monty Python..
Was he also a Troll like me?
But to answer the Japanese GO / Chinese Chess dilemma : probably the greatest GO player of 20th century is a Chinese (Go Seigen), and the game was invented in China and brought to Japan.. of course.
After one year of unfettered access and crawling all over the place
And this is the key to the whole thing. Basically, there were amounts of WMDs in Iraq being destroyed that couldn't be verified. Since the U.S. couldn't be sure that Iraq had destroyed them all, we assumed they were guilty.
Basically, if there was the tiniest chance that Iraq was lying, we assumed they were guilty. Many others felt Iraq was just posturing to its neighbors, its citizens adn the world media.
What irritates so many people is that Bush seems to have use contrived evidence to drum up support when the only tangible fact was that we weren't sure. And Bush basically claims that WMDs were nothing to leave uncertainty about, so he had to invade. But he convinced his congress, his country, and enough of the world by mixing in these other pseudo-facts.
So, I ask you, where are all of your pink elephants? Can you prove to me you destroyed all of your pink elephants? IF no, I must invade you!
US is actually sending out a very bad message to the world - equivalent to telling all the little boys to get their mace cans refilled, because the bully's out to punish. Consider the following 4 countries
Ok, US is negotiating with North Korea, re-opening talks with Iran, invaded Iraq and just invited Indian prime minister to meet Bush. See a pattern ?. If you don't have nukes, you have no bargaining weight with the US - you might be colonized or downright conquered. So what do you think the world's gonna do ?.
I'm an Indian, I know what's going to happen here - we're going to become US of A's battering ram aimed at China. Economic, military, politicalQuidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
And I read this day after finishing anime "Planetes"... ugh... beware the Space Defense Front!!!
What modern Obelix would say today? Of course, "Those crazy Americans!".
In a classical prisoners dilemma, we are thus forced to develop our own anti-satellite weapons to protect our existing infrastructure -- we can't risk being left behind in this matter because the security of our other military capabilities rests upon,/>
This doesn't make sense. No weapon is going to DEFEND a satellite. You can make a ground based weapon. You can use a laser or, as another poster mentioned "a million ball bearings". I think the fear that drives this is that we could get blind-sided. But, unless the US goes into an expensive and wasteful space weapon race, nobody is going to bother. Some nation might use EMPs or lasers to kill GPS satellites or spy satellites -- but we can't DEFEND these with another satellite. If we run headlong into space weapons, we will spend billions if no trillions of taxpayer money on something we will never know actually works. (see Patriot Missile system. OK, it works now, but that didn't stop the BS that it worked in the first Gulf War).
It would be better to try and get a treaty to NOT WEAPONIZE SPACE. Spy satellites might help enforce the treaty.
But this also depends upon the US as a credible and trustworthy country that abides by treaties and conventions. So if we continue on our policy of trying to be the biggest bad-ass, then we will have to spend accordingly.
Personally, I would prefer this money spent on real energy solutions and conservation. Not depending on foreign oil will reduce our need to prop up despotic governments. Perhaps if we actually stood up for real Democracy and integrity, we might be able to reduce our dependency on exotic weapons. Oh, and may be more than 3/10ths of 1% of GDP on helping countries that multinationals have ruined. Of course, this idea is seen as being a wimp and somehow everyone will play nice with us -- but this is the same presumption that weapons increases are based upon -- we have to have more weapons because others have more weapons. The only way out of the prisoners dilemma is to show good faith and reduce weapons. If the adversary reduces weapons -- then you can reduce some more.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Holy Ann Coulter batman!
Your case for better intelligence didn't turn up any WMD! That was the justification for the loss of hundreds of American lives, and thousands of Iraqi lives... and for what? Because Jr wanted to follow up on Sr grudge? This is the same guy who thinks an "Arbolist" is a guy who knows trees...
Red Baiting was bad. Lots of forward thinking Americans, regardless of political brand, were blacklisted - unable to work - or at worse incarserated. Nothing this bad has happened since the loss of civil liberties after 9/11 where you can be held without charge for months.
But back to military strategies and tactics.
Satelites can give you decent recon... WEATHER permitting. Satelites can jam only specific types of communication with very short range. You need a LOT of power to jam low FM, and thats a big distance [from space.] Its not workable - bad physics. Even in Iraq, the solution was to take out broadcast towers.
Its also easy to take out a satelite. Any space ground-based weapons are way, way, way cheaper and more effective. All you need to do is put up a missle with a payload of... gravel.
We're not talking about the little wars here where big superpowa first world nation walks all over 30 year behind the times dune dwellers. The Chinese have a lot of heavy industry. Any their politics, devoid of the same fiscal fiascos as the USofA, can quickly gear up to nullify the space based "advantage".
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
So we should wait for someone else to develop them first, gaining both a tactical and strategic advantage in the process, and then try to play catch-up after the fact when we're already behind the eight ball?
The best time to develop a new weapon is BEFORE your enemies do.
By "jumping the gun" we would hasten and make worse a space weapons race...for our enemies! Not only do our enemies lack the technical skill to be able to compete, their economies are a sad sick joke compared to ours. This is a big part of what did in the Soviets, they couldn't keep up with our technology or our development budget. When they tried to, they bankrupted themselves. Thus the cold war was won with out a single shot being fired between the principal adversaries.
The best way to achieve peace is to ensure that you always have a clear and decisive military advantage over your enemies. Hatred and animosity between nations and cultures will never end. The only way to avoid near continuous open war is to ensure that there is never any doubt in the mind of your enemy that they will always lose any and all confrontations with you. Their fear of you will be greater than their hatred, ensuring that they'll never fuck with you. And should they lose their minds and actually give you shit, your overwhelming military superiority will allow you to exterminate them quickly and efficiently, providing a clear example to your other enemies of what happens to those that fuck with you.
"Good Guys" huh? Weakness is a vice, never a virtue.
Biological and chemical weapons are simply ineffective because they cannot be controlled. This is why we have all these treaties banning their development and use. If they were actually useful militarily then you can rest assured that those treaties never would have made it out of committee.
You do realize of course that we have biological and chemical weapons anyway, as do many other countries. We don't use them because they're not useful, but that doesn't mean we don't maintain our mastery of the technology behind them. If we didn't then our ability to defend against these weapons would be greatly reduced. Bio and chem weapons are of very little use in conventional warfare, but as weapons of terror they're extremely effective. Just think back to all the ninnies who were buying gas masks and duck taping up their houses a couple of years ago, all because some ragheads mailed a little anthrax. Imagine what the response would be if bio or chem weapons were to be widely deployed. Now imagine the subsequent response when the government had no effective countermeasures to offer.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I'm not saying WMDs were made up. I believe that Iraq had them. I believe they were used on the Kurds.
I'm suggesting that Bush presented only one side of ambigous evidence, purposefully used false evidence when it was plausible to deny knowing it was false, and in general used scare tactics.
Now I don't have to subscribe to some conspiracy theory that Bush is a warmongerer. I actually think he's quite simple minded. And in that mindset, I can understand someone thinking feeling that there's a threat, and bending the truth to bring about the end you felt was justified, but couldn't prove otherwise.
But even if the case were driven by such a simple motive, it's still a dangerous one. Yes, Saddam as evil, but so are a lot of other countries. What was so evil about Iraq that we had to invade? Was there evidence that it could've been a threat? Sure, and but there was also evidence that it wasn't. And there was evidence that other countries were a threat too, but we didn't invade those (yet).
P.S. You're right, I used pink elephants incorrectly.
I hate the idea of tungsten kill-rods hanging over my head, but I love the idea of cheap, ubiquitous access to satellites for massive data transfers and media feeds and whatnot. Not to mention all the things that we can't even imagine yet that could come out of an enormous increase in satellite and near-earth space research.
Does that make you feel all rosy and happy inside?
.. then we probably deserve what we get. Unfortunately I don't see many scenarios playing out to prevent this.
I would be very dissapointed if that ever happened.. if we as a race can't get our shit together and need to orbit nuclear weapons (pointing DOWN, or perhaps tangentally to our orbit)
It's not going to start with nuclear weapons, but that's how it ends. I'm sure lots of great work on focusing x-ray and gamma ray radiation in a vaccum will come out of it.
..don't panic
Well DUH! of course it would launch a new space weapons race. To compound the problem, now there are more than two or three countries that can loft their stuff... making this the worst type of situation that could ever evolve.
==>dim strStatus = "DONE."<==
ordered the executions of large numbers of civilians each year
:)
And certainly you'll provide documentation for this claim! He most certainly did back in the 1980s and early 1990s (such as putting down the uprising in the south with overwhelming force), but I've followed Amnesty and HRW reports - there were no large executions in recent years. You'll note that almost all of the bodies we've found were from the aforementioned periods - very, very few were from any time recently (the closest I found was a reference to a prison carrying out about fifty executions of prisoners in a relatively short time).
Note that we suppored him and shielded him from international criticism in the 1980s, and encouraged the 1991 revolt.
"we will conquer and crush you" edicts
In the mid/late 90s and 00's? Such edicts issued were in response to American invasion threats, prefixed with a "If you invade us...".
Was this war
Any first grader knows that war involves armed movements fighting each other. Apparently you need to repeat the grade.
Was this peace?
For the general populace, yes.
were the ones ignoring the evidence
That's why our views turned out to be true, eh?
mentions recent Iraqi activity with WMD-related warheads
It mentions the discovery of *a* *empty* warhead by the team in a warehouse that hadn't been disturbed in a decade. The discovery, according to Blix, was met with Iraqi assistance; together, they tracked down several more in the area (leading to a whopping total of sixteen, compared to the literally tens of thousands that Iraq had produced in the war and distributed through its entire armed forces), and the issue was resolved. Blix's initial statement on the issue was that they "raise the question of whether they are "remnants of the past [or] the tip of an iceberg,". Blix ended up adopting the "remnants of the past" position.
proscribed WMD weapons "are being destroyed"
Yes. The UN has been destroying Iraqi weapons and proscribed equipment, under UN control and in sealed and monitored buildings, since the end of the first Gulf War. Were you unaware of this? They didn't *find* new WMD-related items; they've had them for a long time.
I believe you mean the February 2003 report - the quarterly report in 2002 was in March, not February, and doesn't mention any weapons destruction (or are you referring to a speech?). In it, they mention 50 litres of Mustard Gas. This incredibly small amount (in WWI, the nations involved produced a quarter of a million *tons* of chemical agents) was discovered in a warehouse in 1998, and had been in UN control ever since. It was the last find of non-trace amounts of chemical agents in the country.
middle of the 90s
They were doing weapons destruction straight up to the invasion. They were *old weapons*, apart from the al-Samouds (which only went barely beyond the range, and even that if you fly them without a warhead and guidance system).
that the weapons were gone by 1991
Back up the truck there - who is saying that? The bulk quantities of chemical and biological agents were destroyed in 1991, through a combination of US bombing and unilateral destruction. However, Iraq tried to retain samples of its biological agents, and they missed a number of small weapons stocks, which were later found by the inspectors through the early 1990s (in fact, the biological program wasn't even known about for several years, until exposed by Hussein Kamel, who also informed them of the unilateral bulk agent destruction). World frustration with Iraq, tightening sanctions, increasingly strict inspection regimes, the length of time (which rendered existing biological and chemical stocks worthless), and documents turned over by Kamel and others, eventually destroyed this notion. By the mid to late 90s, essentially everything that Iraq had produced was under UN control and Iraq's productio
I wish people would stop comparing JÃnsi to God. He's good, but he's no JÃnsi.
The ongoing large-scale executions were largely in the form of starvation.
That's not an execution - you're now trying to change your claim, given that your prior claim wasn't supported. Unfortunately, this claim is equally false (see below):
In 1999, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator estimated that 6,000 to 7,000 per month were dying due to starvation because Saddam was refusing food shipments allowed by the sanctions system.
Completely false. Here's what the coordinator, Dennis Halliday, actually had to say. Halliday resigned because he blamed *the UN*, and most specifically, the *US*, for the starvation deaths in Iraq. He reported that Iraq had been cooperating excellently with the program, and once described the country as a giant "soup kitchen".
The US invasion removed this obstacle that stood between Iraqis and their food.
Completely false. Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos: Malnutrition Nearly Double What It Was Before Invasion
"BAGHDAD -- Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government."
Iraq Body Count reports 26,599 victims.
IBC only counts direct war deaths, and of those, only the ones reported in the media. The only count of all deaths came up with a number of around 100,000, and that was half a year ago. Note that they tossed Falluja as a datapoint to get this *low* of a number.
There are imaginary totals as high as 100,000 killed as a result of war activity since the allies struck in early 2003.
The "imaginary" totals that you refer to are determined from the same method used to do epidemiology studies in Africa, and met the scholastic standards of the Lancet. Read up about passive vs. active counts, and why the former (such as IBC) are guaranteed to undercount.
The rest of the message included grudging admissions that Iraq had WMD just before the invasion.
It includes no such thing. Please repeat your attempt at reading.
You attempt to get around this by claiming that the WMD were too few or too small.
No. As I informed you, the mustard gas referred to was found in 1998, and was under UN control since then; even that find was miniscule, and considered by the teams to have been overlooked by Iraq.
You even try to justify Saddam having "50 litres of Mustard Gas" by mentioning WW1.
I said no such thing. Look, if all you're going to do is make straw men, why should I even bother talking to you? I was putting the quantity of Mustard Gas into perspective. I stated that's what I was doing, and nothing more. On average in WWI, there was one chemical agent fatality for every ~2400 kg of chemical agent produced.
The existence of any WMD was a gross violation.
Any violations were to be decided by the inspection teams. The inspection teams declared no "gross violations", and the heads of both the IAEA and UNMOVIC both opposed the invasion.
In it, they mention 50 litres of Mustard Gas
That Was Bloody Well Found Five Years Prior, And Had Been In UN Control Ever Since. Furthermore, it was a find that the teams considered to have been overlooked, and they did not refer the case to the SC (the referal would have been in 1998 anyways). In the US, we have several *tons* of unaccounted for chemical agents, most of them in unexploded shells on munitions ranges, but probably elsewhere as well.
At least, at this point, no-one can argue that the WMD did not exist.
Nobody is arguing that the WMD never existed! They didn't exist when we invaded. Just because the UN had
I wish people would stop comparing JÃnsi to God. He's good, but he's no JÃnsi.
Given the high taxes I pay, I want to see space weapons and a better military. I mean, the taxes are collected regardless of where it goes, so it may as well go into something phenomenal, intriguing, controversial, scandalous, attention-getting, or sexy.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.