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U.S. Announces New Space Security Policy
hey! writes "The Bush administration has announced a new space security policy, which includes the statement that 'Consistent with this policy, the United States will preserve its rights, capabilities and freedom of action in space ... and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests.'" More from the article: "Eisendrath, co-author of a forthcoming book, 'War in Heaven: Stopping an Arms Race in Outer Space Before It Is Too Late,' says the United States is wasting its time. 'Defense Secretary Rumsfeld says we need to protect against a 'space Pearl Harbor,'' he says. 'But we're still the dominant power there.'"
Just in case you want to catch up on the last time we discussed this:
0 9/1333248
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/
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'Defense Secretary Rumsfeld says we need to protect against a 'space Pearl Harbor,'' he says. 'But we're still the dominant power there.'"
We were the dominant power in Pearl Harbor too. It doesn't take a lot to destroy a space station. That said, this is a pissing match I have no interest in having. I can see defending sites, systems, and transportation. By trying to claim ownership of a chunk of space is just retarded.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
So
Satelites can be taken out by ground-based lasers. Any major power planning a war with the US would need to have that capability.
With vulnerable satelites, the next level would be a moon base. There's not much an Earth-based attack can do against a moon base. We're at the bottom of the gravity well.
Sorry, no elaborate arguments, witty remarks, or logic this time. Damn you all who voted for these idiots and made them a trouble for the entire world.
Read radical news here
International treaties are just goddamned pieces of paper.
Space Pearl Harbor will be the best Ben Affleck movie ever
Mod me as flamebait but this is one of the stupidest and beligerant announcements I've heard in quite sometime. Appearantly, the rest of the world aggrees. Allow me to quote the headlines I see right now on websites (foreign and US):
- US turns space into its colony - Asian Times Online
- Bush asserts right to deny space access - Boston Globe
- Bush issues doctrine for US control of space - Mail & Guardian Online, Guardian Unlimited
- US insists it has right to keep its enemies out of space - Scotsman
- US Says 'Keep Out of My Space' - ABC News
- Space: America's new war zone - Independent, UK
- America wants it all - life, the Universe and everything - Times Online, UK
- America aims to control the space - The Money Times
- United Space of America - Hamilton Spectator, Canada
- US Claims Monopoly on the Use of Space for Weapons - ShortNews.com, Germany
- Emperor Zurg Has A Tiny Tiny Wiener And Must Be Told - OpEdNews, PA
What kind of feelings do you think the rest of the world is going through based on that?Is this the new SDI? I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat or Independent, this isn't about keeping bad people out of space. This isn't about securing space. It's about doing what we want the rest of the world to do. It's childish colonial imperialism and it's complete bullshit.
My work here is dung.
I read it. Different rules for the US. The US and its allies can have nuclear power, but not other countries it chooses to put on a list. You can enforce that sort of mindset through force, but it doesn't make it morally right, and there are consequences to all acts of unfairness.
All your base are belong to us!
One day the toilets of the world will rise up... And I'm going to nuke them.
The policy says that space access can be denied to groups "hostile to US interests."
The guy who wrote this policy believes in the idea that any group or country not with us is against us.
Therefore, it states that we can prevent neutral nations from spaceflight.
I guess the Iranian/N.Korean/Venezualan space station's gonna be put on hold for a while.
http://kitties.b-log.ca
Forget it. The last time we discussed this, the thread was overrun by DocRuby and his galant band of Bush haters. This thread has already devolved into the same sort of nonsense. Which is really too bad, because the document actually says is that Nuclear Power in Space is a Good Thing(TM) for space exploration. But too many people are busy making nonsensical claims about "reading between the lines" or it being evidence of the real agenda, which isn't actually contained in the document. (WTF?)
*sigh*
Looks like they already modded you down. And so it begins.
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For 50 years we've pretended that things were different in space; everyone would ignore national rivalries and history and stare with awe at the daring feats of cosmonauts and astronauts. It was a nice fantasy and flew in the face of reality. The Apollo missions grew out of a fear of sleeping "under a communist moon."
Here's the reality check. The US Navy exists to do a few things:
- Project power ashore (i.e. shoot and bomb things that don't float or fly)
- Guarantee US access to sea lanes of control
- Deny access to SLoCs to US enemies
Both the US Air Force and US Navy have space commands and with good cause. Clearly access to orbit is as critical now as access to the seas were 100 years ago. It is in every nation's self-interest to guarantee its access to orbit. It's not much of a leap to get from there to seeing that having technologies to deny that access to enemies is a strategic advantage. How many lives (on either side of a conflict) might be saved by neutralizing an enemy's communications and recon satellites? It's a no-brainer policy. (Insert Bush joke here...)If you fuck with our space based assets or are openly hostile towards us, we will destroy your space based assets. That is like saying if you shoot at our costal positions, we will blow up what is shooting them and then blow the living hell out of your costal assets. Its common sense defensive posturing. For christ sake any country that has signifigant assets that doesn't take that position is stupid. It basically saying fuck with me and I will fuck you up in return.
You mad
Asked about how the United States could own a vacuum, the Bush administration spokesman said that "the President had been associated with a vacuum for many years."
"Oct. 18, 2006 -- The White House has quietly put out a new National Space Policy -- a document that, among other things, makes it clear that the Bush administration will not sign any treaty that limits America's ability to put weapons in orbit."
... and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests."
Apparently it is, at least in part, about weaponizing space.
"The document, much of which is classified,..."
Interesting that our own "policy" is a secret from the American people. Apparently we are not allowed to know our own position on this issue. Now that is retarded.
"Consistent with this policy, the United States will preserve its rights, capabilities and freedom of action in space
This is a broad and bold statement that will certainly piss off a lot of people. Which "national interests" do we feel gives us the right to deny to someone else what we absolutely refuse to be denied? All to often we seem to confuse "national interests" with "corporate interests" now days.
What an arrogant, pig headed, bully position.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The Bush Jr. administration has already expressed interest in a Mars mission, and nuclear pulse propulsion might greatly simplify that project. The first step in achieving that capability is breaking the various treaties which prohibit the detonation of nuclear weapons in space.
Perhaps Bush finds it easier to sell the treaty breakage as a security measure than to sell it as a first step towards Mars.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Depends on what you mean by "wiping out."
You'll recall Iraq under the government of Saddam Hussein launched two unprovoked aggressive wars of conquest, one against Iran in the 1980s and another against Kuwait in the 1990s. How these countries might have fared had Iraq won either might be demonstrated by how the Iraq government treated its own citizens (e.g. the Kurds and marsh Shia) who were out of favor with the government: mass graves and poison gassing of entire villages seems likely.
You may also recall that North Korea launched an aggressive war of conquest against South Korea in the 1950s. The way they would have treated an occupied South Korea is probably well demonstrated by conditions inside North Korea now. (Where, for example, the average citizen now reaches adulthood significantly stunted in his growth from lifelong malnutrition.)
I assume against that record you want to set that of the United States in Korea and Iraq. You can look at how the US treated (or would treat) conquered Korea by examining South Korea today. Prosperous, democratic, peaceful. Likewise, you can gain a glimpse into conquered Iraq now. While the US may or may not be doing its duty to prevent the Iraq from tearing itself apart from its age-old Sunni-Shia fratricidal hostility, and while the US may or may not be successfully restoring the Iraqi economy and democratic institutions fast enough, or even at all, no one can imagine the US is in the process of deliberately "wiping out" Iraq in any ordinary sense of those words.
"Moral relativism" often consists of making judgements of actions based on those actions alone, and neglecting to consider the reason for the actions, the consequences and side-effects of the actions, and so forth. If you think borrowing your friend's CD without asking is the same as stealing it, then you're guilty of a form of moral relativism. Likewise if you say all deliberate death -- executions, killings of soldiers in battle, self-defense against home intruders, and premeditated murder of innocents -- are morally the same, you are also guilty of a form of moral relativism. And if you say all warfare is equally evil, you are guilty of moral relativism. That I think was the point.
Basically, it says the USA can act in anyway it chooses in space, and others can't. It basically says no one can fuck with our space toys, but we can fuck with anyone else's space toys. It basically says that "Rules Don't Apply to Us".
It is, very simply, typical fascist horseshit that the Bush Junta has been coughing up for years, only this time it affects satellites. nice.
I'm not going to cough up line item to line item - /. It's not THAT much to read, and it's all there in black and white. DIY.
Now, I'll propose that 90% of the responses to THIS will be from pink neocon dupes of the conspiracy, and yes, Bush DOES deserve demonisation for this, as it is part and parcel of his evil Evil EVIL neocon agenda. And for that, the pink neocon dupes of the conspiracy will likely mod me "Flamebait" or "Overrated" and anyone with half an ounce of sense will mod me "Interesting" or "Insightful".
Imagine if the Bush Junta said "the laws of the sea no longer apply to us." Imagine what kind of a row that would make. It's just the same thing, only in orbit in the vacuum of space.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
...which isn't actually contained in the document.
How the hell do you know that? From the linked article "The document, much of which is classified..." Good chunks of the document are classified. People HAVE to read between the lines.
Not that I'm agreeing with the anti-Bush, knee-jerkers, but you are also making unsubstantiated claims.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I think maybe the competitive types in the administration may not want to end up like Portugal did during the colonization of the new world. Much/most of the initial exploration and mapping of the Caribbean was done by the Portugese. Much more aggressive empires used that knowledge and work to expand their empires. Why couldn't portugal keep up? I can see the US doing all the initial space colonization/weaponization work on to have China duplicate the work and 1/1000th the cost. Being able to catch up with less resources gives you more to focus on jumping ahead. China = the New Spain. China will throw a 1000 people into space just to get 10 that actually survive much like spain throwing a hundred thousand conquistadors away to cleanse the way for its colonies. The US solution to this problem? Use their dominant position to keep competitors grounded.
I would have to provisionally disagree. Just because some launch profiles from certain countries in many circumstances are sufficiently ambiguous that there is no real value in taking action does not mean that all profiles from all countries are.
If the Iranians were to begin to launch satellites, or say they were, and there were sufficient evidence -- possibly some of it secret -- that their real intentions were to develop suborbital or quasi-orbital intercontinental ballistic missile technology, and the US decided it was possible to knock the test missiles down reasonably safely, then I'd have no problem with them doing so.
Where it gets tricky is if China wants to launch national technical means a.k.a. spy satellites that overfly US strategic assets, map out targets, et cetera, within the contintental US. Is this the kind of thing we'd want to knock down? It's hard to really say, for two reasons: (1) Experience in the Cold War showed that spy satellites were stabilizing technology, because they prevent hysteria and nasty surprises. When each side is well-informed about what the other has, and is up to, decisions tend to be calmer and better. (2) This business has been thrashed out before, in the 16th-17th centuries, with respect to navigation of the high seas. In addition to being a very expensive process, the end result was a general agreement that freedom to travel -- even for a warship -- peacefully anywhere in international waters is guaranteed, unless you are actually at war. Do we really need to repeat the bloody experiment in space to probably arrive at the same conclusion?
Are you likening the rest of the world to a urine soaked derelict?
If you are, you can take your cultural/moral superiority and shove it right up some detainee's ass.
I think americans should take a long hard look in a miror before they start calling other countries crazy.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
This has bothered me for a long time, because I've never heard a good answer. I mean, obviously not getting bombed is in our interest. But what about when our "interests" means things like, people won't give us oil that we "need" to keep our economy growing (when we won't consider alternatives like, I dunno, limiting our use)?
Why should anyone die to protect "US interests", when we have no reason whatsoever to believe that corporate profits and cheap goods at Walmart lie outside that category?
Under this rule, the space race would never have happened. It was in the US national interest to get to the moon first. Should they have been allowed to destroy all the Soviet missions ? (oh yeah, they would have got a bloody nose for that) Is the ESA going to get their equipment shot down ? What about the new European GPS system ? After all, it's in the US national interest to be in total unopposed control of space.
And you wonder why the USA gets such bad press ...
Look, I realise that as a nation, you are pretty young and inexperienced, but surely you get enough respect from the outside world that you don't have to act like a fuckin 12 year old in a schoolyard. You're showing signs of a serious inferiority complex.
You've got one of the highest standards of living in the world, coupled with one of the lowest population densities in the world. And you're still not happy.
BTW, didn't you ever learn - what goes around, comes around.
As an aside, the town I grew up in was already 700 years old when the USA was founded. The place I live now was founded by the Romans. That gives one a sense of perspective.
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert.
Several satellites (two would be good, three for optimal coverage if you need minimal angular divergence from the surface) in a Molniya orbit would provide coverage over a static point in space, not over the equator. For the vast majority of the orbit ( greater than 12 hours, 18 IIRC [it has been awhile since I've done orbital mechanics, I'm a missile guy]) the satellite is in clear view of the point. Russians have been using this technique for surveillance of American assets for decades. And yes, I am a Rocket Scientist.
If you havn't already seen it, PLEASE check out "The Power of Nightmares":
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmar
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=the+power+o
from the wikipedia page:
fear is the mind killer