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Bush Reveals New Space Policy
Josh Fink writes "Space.com is reporting that President Bush has unveiled his new space policy. From the article: 'U.S. assets must be unhindered in carrying out their space duties,' the Bush space policy says, stressing that 'freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.'... As a civil space guideline, the policy calls upon NASA to 'execute a sustained and affordable human and robotic program of space exploration and develop, acquire, and use civil space systems to advance fundamental scientific knowledge of our Earth system, solar system, and universe.' While this policy does seem to push for more civil involvement in space for exploration and research, the article does go on to say, 'The policy calls upon the Secretary of Defense to "develop capabilities, plans, and options to ensure freedom of action in space, and, if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries."' So it will push into the intelligence community, and will supercede a similar policy from 1996. You can read the entire policy."
Can you say, "Nuclear Space Drive"?
Bush's policy effectively states that the usage of nuclear power as engines of exploration is considered to take priority over any over-reaching treaties that ban nuclear power for the purposes of weaponry. Which means that the United States would consider a treaty like the 1963 Test Ban Treaty (the one that effectively killed the Orion) to not apply to space propulsion. Which, IMHO, can only be a good thing in the modern day world.
Any concerns over the environmental effects of launch are much more effectively handled by environmental groups rather than treaties designed with weapons in mind rather than actual fall-out issues. If they have a realistic concern, then the public will have an opportunity to evaluate that concern, and either take action or reject it. (The latter happening with the Cassini-Huygens environmental protest.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
...that Bush is, in fact, a space cadet.
(Oh come on you knew it was coming)
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
Because not two months ago, he wanted to shut down the ISS missions because they were estimated to cost $200M.
... weekly?
Isn't that like one tenth of what we blow on a war
Mod this to oblivion, regardless of what positive action he takes, I still don't like him.
So it seems the Space Arms Race is begining afresh. We just have to hope that the technology it produces outweighs the destruction.
http://skeptobot.blogspot.com/ - A site for the Renaissance man and woman
Wow, we can't discuss the article and what good could come of it, we ahve to immediatly start politician bashing. Hey lets just stop submiting articles to /. instead why don't we just put a article on the front page that says "George W. Bush. DISCUSS!"
We would get rid of all these useless interesting topics about technology and we could all just bitch with reckless abandon about our favorite politician.
I mean FUCKING HELL. If any other president had said this most of you asshats would be having fucking orgasam on the spot.
You mad
I'm glad Bush proved he can be trusted with our space program. He perfected the Space Shuttle (by grounding it for years, now headed for termination). He put an American on Mars, just like his father promised when in political trouble a decade and a half ago. He's making sure other countries don't take American nuclear expansion as a signal to proliferate their own nukes, like in N Korea, Iran, India.
Yes, by all means trust this sober, reasonable man of science with an expensive program to put nukes in space. After he rebuilt New Orleans around the Space Shuttle fueltank factory, everyone there will gladly tell us that he can do anything he sets his mind to.
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make install -not war
Great. I think I can imagine Rummy's plans to improve space exploration. He'll take NASA's crew recommendations and cut them in half, send only enough fuel to get there, but not back, and ditch all the unnecessaries like food and water. It will be a leaner, more mobile space force.
Thank you. Drive through.
What you want is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. It's an agreement between the major super-powers that no Earthly country will own celestial bodies, and that these places exist for the exploration of all mankind.
I expect that this treaty would be modified once space colonies become common (a country, corporation, or individual would obviously "own" the property on which its Space Habitats reside, as it "owns" those habitats), but that's a matter that will be worked out when that bridge is crossed.
FWIW, historical property laws do offer some guidance. The original property laws provided complete ownership for everything below a property, and all the sky above a property. These laws have been modified as new technologies like airplanes and spacecraft made the skies above open space, and subways, power, and gas made the areas below into necessary points of infrastructure.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Where do people get the idea that something like international laws actually exist? If a country decides to do something they'll just rewrite their own laws to allow it. If someone decides to ignore the UN or what not then it's not "illegal".
The only real question is whether or not they can actually back up such a claim in a way that will make other countries go along with it.
What a surprise. A recent leak about US satellites being blinded by Chinese lasers and now a more military flavor to the US space program.
First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
Maybe reaction to last month's laser incident with China?
Access to space is like access to international waters -- if anything there is greater need to secure space from territorial claims than international waters. By claiming sovereigny over space above the 100km mark, a nation in effect denies access to space to every other country, since every satellite not in geosynchronous orbit above yourland mass would violate your "territorial space".
What China did was in one sense just an aggressive extension of the usual spy/counter spy stuff; you fly close to my territorial waters with listening equipment, I try to jam the equipment. However it was extremely risky in my opinion. First, if the satellite had been damaged it would be tantamount to an act of war, like sinking a ship in international waters. Secondly, it invites US interference with Chinese space vehicles. If China wants to become a world superpower, it will need spy satellites. If you're playing standoff with another country, with both coutries with their fingers on the nuclear trigger, misunderstandings can get costly. You want to see what the other guy is doing and you want the other guy to see what you are doing.
Reading carefully, this parapgraph suggests that the US is planning to engage in a kind of "tit for tat" crippling of Chinese satellites. This is a bad thing for strategic stability.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's pretty much what we'd expect from that source, but it doesn't make it any better.
Surely there should be some sort of Logic Advisor sitting next to the President's speech writers. I don't imagine that he wants to look evil and dishonest in front of a world audience well versed in elementary logic.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Since WW II, the U.S. has loomed as the most militarily and economically powerful nation in the world. Now China is making a bid to become a hegemony of its own. This is a Good Thing [tm].
Superior might through superior technology has always been the mantra of developed nations. Consequently, the U.S. experienced huge gains over the last few decades due to (perceived) competition with the Russians. Like it or not, most of the best technologies we have were originally purposed for military applications, financed through the Pentagon system, and then gradually re-purposed for civilian use (the Internet being a great example of this). This has always been the silver lining.
It would be melodramatic to claim that the U.S. is on the brink of another Cold War, this time with the Chinese. However, "friendly" competition with China will help the space program, it will help Silicon Valley--it will help the United States in any area in which there is a perceived technological deficiency.
We stand to gain so much if we're not all blown to bits first.
The PNAC statement drawn up before Bush even took office says the US must dominate not only the surface of the Earth, but space and cyberspace too.
He's just following the script that Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol and others wrote up for him.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Seems you could use the Advisor. Jet fighters and anti-aircraft missiles, guns and artillery are all means to deny an adversary freedom of movement in the air. Yet would you claim you do not have freedom of movement in the Terrestrial Atmosphere because of them and their potential use against you?
You have conflated the ability to take out enemy targets with the complete elimination of the ability for the targets to peacefully exist otherwise. You have conflated a temporary action with a full-time one. You have thus committed a logical fallacy - in the process of trying to impugne another's ability in logic. You have further assumed that the President wrote that document. A fallacious assumption I am certain.
Logic is not a form of universal truth, it is a means of confirming that a given conclusion is an accurate conclusion based on the premises presented, and nothing more. The premises can be false, but the conclusion could still be logical.
In the argument you failed to logically analyzed we have the following:
Argument 1:
Premise 1: Freedom of action in space is important
Premise 2: Freedom of action in space is important to the US and it's interests
Conclusion 1: The US should have freedom of action in space
Argument 2:
Premise 1: The US (and US interests') should have freedom of action in space
Premise 2: Other entities may strive to prevent or hinder US (and US interests') action in space
Premise 3: Threats to US freedom action in space will involve non-US utilization of action in space
Conclusion: The US needs to be able to deny such action in space in order to protect it's freedom of action in space
The above arugments, premises, and conclusions do not logically lead to the "There will be no freedom of action in space". Your argument that they do is unsupported and erroneous, not to mention fallacious. To demonstrate further, change the word space to the word sea, or to air, or to land.
Furthermore, you assertion that the speech writers need a logic advisor is also erroneous. This wasn't a speech, it was/is a document not designed to be read aloud by the President. Surely you should have a reality advisor as well as a logic advisor sitting next to you. I don't imagine you want to look dumb in front of the world of well-versed, informed, and logical slashdot readers.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Honestly, most of what you said went above my head. I was speaking from my gut and my gut tells me uneqivocably that we are far less secure under a neocon government than a non-neocon one. This has been my feeling since the day I heard that George II was running. My first thought then was 'oh no, in six months we will be in a war'. I guess I was wrong..
(It was actually nine months)
The most distressing aspect of the current administration is their jettisoning of the "no first use' doctrine that had served us and the rest of the world well for so very long. Even Saint Ronald Reagan felt strongly about no first use. (he supported it, at least in theory)
We also are strongly fighting universal standards of law and human rights - a prime example is our opposition to the International Criminal Court - a court that could be used to try the leaders of nations that commit genocide. (and first use of nuclear weapons is inevitably genocide because civilians are always the bulk of the casualties of nuclear war.)
Perhaps we oppose the ICC so strongly because members of our own government and/or their advisors fear prosecution under it. (A prime example is Henry Kissinger, who ordered such obscenities as the secret bombing of Cambodia against US law, initiating a chain of events that led to the breakdown of civil law in that country. And many other US-sponsored, still largely unknown CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY)
Look at it this way. If the US did not reject no-first-use and fight organizations like the ICC we would have a FAR STRONGER PLATFORM from which to argue against countries like North Korea gaining nuclear weapons.
Why? Because of North Korea's terrible, terrible record on human rights.. their huge gulag of prison camps with the worst conditions one could ever imagine. Because they are guilty of a level of amoral and Machiavellian manipulation of world events that makes this imperative (that a nation like that should NOT have nuclear weapons) obvious.
The only problem? We have now lied so much and postured so much and yes, even killed so much, that many people who *should* know better now naiively equate us with North Korea in terms of evil.
Without a moral United States, human rights in the rest of the world suffer greatly.
That is why I do NOT trust this regime to make peaceful use of space. They politicize everything they touch. They do not understand science except as another tool of warfare. They suffer from a scarcity-driven mentality that pushes us back into the Dark Ages in our interpersonal relations with the rest of the world.
The United States needs to 'stop terrorism' not by fighting so many mindless wars that we create a whole new world of new terrorists.. (even the CIA admits this) but by ENDING THE KINDS OF POVERTY AND INEQUALITIES THAT CREATE TERRORISTS.
Until we realize that we will be our own worst enemy... Until we realize that we should not go into space, because we can't even handle or our own planet..or our own future..
In 50 years technology will do almost everything workers do now.. That means most of the kinds of people who would be people working today won't have jobs.. You will work not because you need to.. (obviously, that argument doesnt hold water) but because you love to..
If we keep the current mentality going into that future (which is inherently apolitical and non-denominational) our leaders will soon be panicking about the huge numbers of 'useless' people and another world war.. a genocide... will be the only possible result..
Thats why it is imperative that people realize that we can change our future.. War is not inevitable.. It is not the natural fate of man..
If there is one message the Jesuses, the Buddhas, the other enlightened people who could see ahead were telling us it is that..
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you..
It is within our power now to eliminate poverty and make terrorism irrelevant.. We are not doing that because we are ADDICTED TO WAR..
the stakes are huge.. all of our survival..
There will not be a World War IV...
Actually, the "high ground" in space isn't defined by distance from Earth. Moon is a better base than Mars (simply because Mars is too far away from the action, plus it has higher gravity), but if you really want to control the solar system, you aim for the Lagrange Points.