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China Tests Anti-Satellite Laser Weapon
schnippy writes "U.S. intelligence agencies believe that China has successfully tested an anti-satellite weapon by destroying one of their old weather satellites. The test, if confirmed, would be an order of magnitude more provocative than earlier reports of Chinese blinding lasers being. Arms Control Wonk has a good writeup on what this will mean for U.S. policy."
Or is it OK for the USA to have it but no one else ? I suppose it depends on who you consider the bad guys. I note that China has invaded fewer countries in the last 50 years than the USA has ... so what is the answer to the question ?
That doesn't sound like a LASER weapon.
from the article: "destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile."
Lasers are not kinetic weapons. They are light-based.
The topic-writer appears to have been confused by the article mentioning that an earlier test used a laser to temporarily brighten a satellite.
The problem is two fold. Initially, it the debris now clogging up the orbit. This will cause damage to other satellites, possibly knocking them out completely (debris is a huge problem in space).
Secondly, it opens up an arms race in space, with money thrown into space weapons research, testing, and bigger and heavier weaponry.
I do disagree with some of the conclusions drawn in the article (the author was berating a Short sighted Chinese government for development of space weaponry). The US has quite active in the ASAT department for some time. The only reason the politicians didt create some treaty to ban or restrict research was that there was no space arms race. So, rather than sign up a treaty and lead saying We can do it, but we wont, if you wont, they went ahead, and now people are surprised that other sovereign nations are doing exactly the same thing.
Yes, another arms race is a bad thing, but it was all avoidable if the politicians on the US side had actually had the foresight to pull up a treaty in the first place, rather than going ahead believing they would remain the only show in town.
And this is different from any other country how? Maybe they feel it's just about time for China, the largest and oldest nation on earth, to keep up with the competition?
c++;
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Considering that they shot down one of their own satellites, perhaps the US could shoot down one of their own satellites. From a European perspective this would be the funniest escalation of hostilities since Freedom Fries.
America first, dude! A dictator in the whitehouse, military running amok all over the middle east (watch this space), global warming contributions, funamentalist influence. Don't act like the US is some beacon of how a country should be run. To the rest of the west it's quite the opposite. I apologise if this sounds like an anti-US rant, but I guess it technically is, as it's countering an anti-Chinese rant by demonstrating the hypocrisy employed by many people with regard to not acknowledging their own country's short comings, and jumping on another's.
i find the reaction among american media sources stunning, Its as tho the chinese premier had taken a shit in the white house garden. American military spending approaches 500 billion dollars a year. Chinese military spending verges on 90 billion. While it was irresponsible for the chinese to have endangered orbital vehicles, it is nowhere near the chest beating call to war that some of the linked articles have made it out to be.
prepare the survey weasels.
Things like censorship, product safety, military issues, global warming contributions, and anything that seems enough of a problem to become a law in western countries should be forced upon the Chinese government.
Half of these things the US is guilty of:
Excuses Are Like Assholes - Everybody's Got One
As Northrop Grumman has just opened a factory for high energy laser weapons in Redondo Beach, California. Admittedly they're aiming to shoot down ballistic missles and systems to protect buildings and areas.
Technically US owes to China about 0.6T (trillion) USD and counting. If China simply stops to buy those Treasuries US citizens will discover that their lifestyle is significantly less affordable. 30% of the US economy today is financial services. Above 60% of the US economy is "services". About zero of what they call "old industry". About 30% of the cars are not produced in the US. And so on. The list is infinite. War is not an option for the US. Neither is embargo. China is free to do whatever it likes. And you know I personally think that 1 bil people deserve it. They simply earned it.
I certainly won't claim that China wouldn't have pressed ahead with its anti-sattelite weapon if the US hadn't stated space hegemony as its policy objective, but in terms of being provocative it really seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The US space policy is confrontational if nothing else.
I'm fairly confident that the recently unveiled US space policy caused a massive "Oh yeah? We'll see about that!" response among China, Russia, India, and perhaps others too.
Maybe this will offset all the Global Warming.
first the story that the baiji, the blind chinese river dolphin, has gone extinct
now the announcement that the chinese have an advanced laser weapon
there's only one obvious conclusion: the extinction news was a lie, a cover up...
it isn't sharks with frickin' laser beams they're building, it's a top secret corp of dolphins with frickin' laser beams!
that's a very clever twist, but i see through your cynical machinations beijing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It is a provocation in the same way any new weapon is a provocation, but the response won't be military or economic. The response will be that the US starts upgrading their own anti-satellite weapon if they have not already done so and building in more stealth features to their old satellites. This starts a potential arms race, but that is it. Even then, I doubt it is going to be much of a race. The US has had known anti-satellite weapons for decades. It probably has other still classified anti-satellite weapons waiting in the wings as well.
The real 'provocation' in this is what it means for Taiwan. The US has been quietly backing away from its promise to defend the democracy of Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion. Even now, the prospect of fighting over Taiwan makes the US uneasy. The US could certainly win today, but it would be far more bloody and dramatically more costly then Iraq. Such a war would have both nations getting itchy nuclear weapon trigger fingers. Now, to top it all off, China has the capacity to knock down US satellites making the military game much more dangerous while at the same time offering up a way to put a real hurt on American economic interests.
It is a good old fashion Mexican standoff. A war between the US and China is a war that both sides could lose (read that as going nuclear). Even if both sides agreed to take nuclear weapons off the table, the economic damage done to the US would only be matched by the massive economic destruction wrought on China. The whole issue is messy and ugly, and it is coming to a head. China WILL make a move again Taiwan in the next 10 years.
Of course, the reason I stopped paying attention to the headlines here is that they often have litle relation to what's discussed in the article...
Best Slashdot Co
US Admiral: "Look at this, slitted eye! The Nimiz! The most phatt3st aircraft carrier ever build! Look what i can do!" ... *buzzz!*
*push button*
His colleague from the airforce: "You yellow little man think you can disarm ICBMs better than we can? I'll prove you that we disarm our complete arsenal in half the time your tech peons will find their screwdrivers, commi!"
Just what the world needs...
...another cold war.
A merican_Century
; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zirconic; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samos_(satellite); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar_(satellite); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_(satellite).
c e).
you can thank the USA for that.
the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a conservative think tank whose members include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz (among other prominent republicans) places among its goals, the proposal to "control the new "international commons" of space and "cyberspace" and pave the way for the creation of a new military service -- U.S. Space Forces -- with the mission of space control." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_
Of course, we're talking about military control and that means in large part getting the upper hand in terms of information (WWII was won because of information). Hence the US fascination with spy satellites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacrosse_(satellite)
and let's not forget the National Missile Defense program, which will cost 53b US from the years 2005 to 2009 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaponization_of_spa
It's as funny as nations conducting nuclear testing on their own soil!
Wait, that wasn't really funny at all. Maybe you had to be there.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Well, countries as well as people vary in the degree to which they can recognize enlightened self interest.
Throwing your weight around is not always the best way to get what you want, a lessone we've had to relearn here in the US these past few years.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You all are getting slow in your old age. ./ history.
Trim your beards and try to keep up.
Its not we pwn teh space, or we ownerz teh space.
its
ALL YOUR SPACE ARE BELONG TO US.
Know your
music lover since 1969
I am American and I have to agree with you about the removal of Saddam Hussein. The entire Middle East is unstable...why?? The citizens of Middle Eastern countries are oppressed by their leaders and poverty stricken, the only individuals that have power are the leaders and oil rich families. These countries have few sources of commerce, the main resource being oil; therefore there are few ways to overcome poverty. What does everyone know about poverty - IT LEADS TO CORRUPTION, DISHONESTY, AND THEFT. Add religous radicals to the fire and you have one heck of a mess.
Iraq was not ready for democracy and will not be anytime soon from the way it looks. As bad as this sounds, a dictator was needed to keep the country in check.
Unfortunately, I believe that we've made a big mistake and have involved ourselves in a war where the opposition's strategy is similar to that of the North Vietnamese...suicide bombs, remote detonation, etc... how do you combat that??? What did we do in Vietnam...we just left. The sad thing is that if we leave Iraq we're going to leave it in a chaotic civil war of political and religous parties that will ultimately end with another dictatorship and we'll be back at square one.
Can we fix our mistake - I don't know...probably not, at least not without angering millions, losing thousands of our own citizen's lives, and making our children and grand children pay for this continuing war. Is it worth it...I don't think so...what about you?
You mean not as many of "our" people are people are getting killed. If you look up a bit on the Cold War of the 80's, you'll see alot of policy of supporting fighting in other countries and many many people dying elsewhere. Hardly "fun" for those involved directly.
-- Humans, because the hardware IS the software.
but I have karma to burn...
Why does China still have Most Favored Nation status with the US?
Neither America nor China can afford a cold war. The cold war was born of a different political climate, post world war two, such a situation is unlikely to recurr. For one thing China has no Stalin. Contrary to what american politions were claiming, every soviet leader after Stalin tried to bring the cold war to and end, it was America's refusal to take part that messed each event, and it only ended when the USSR collapsed, which as it turns out was the worst way for it to possibly end, bar a war. The most they were able to do was agree not to blow up the entire world.
In light of the stated goal of the US to dominate space militarily, this is not something the can bitch about. China can legitimatelly argue, as the US would, that they are merely improving their ability to defend themselves.
> Censorship - Look at the things your government does eg censorship of games,
Violent games are not political speech in any meaninful way.
> trying to prevent flag burning,
When has the US ever tried to prevent flag burning. That would be very dangerous ground -- flag burning, although repugnant, is inherently an essential form of protected political speech, and MUST be permitted -- but I must have missed that news item, because I was not aware of its having happened. Can you cite an example?
> monitoring citizens/bloggers etc
Okay, monitoring is a privacy issue. Granted. Although comparing it with China's vigorous political censorship program is a bit... over the top. Nonetheless, it *is* an issue.
> Product safety - Right...
Agreed, the OP was being stupid on that one.
> Military issues - Whose government is an international joke for the wars it starts?
Germany, but I don't see how that's relevant here.
> Global warming
A stupid complaint also, yes.
> Forcing their government what to do - They are a soverign nation, not the 51st State of the USA
Agreed. We can't force anything. All we can do, at most, is break off relations. Which even at that could be construed as a little extreme.
We *should* be a little less timid about publically saying what we think about some of their more inane policies, however. The One China policy springs immediately to mind.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
China just need to put all the dollars they have accumulated in market and boom!!! it would affect US economy more than if they a war instead.
Throwing your weight around is not always the best way to get what you want, a lesson we need to learn here in the US.
T,FTFY.
Secondly, it opens up an arms race in space, with money thrown into space weapons research, testing, and bigger and heavier weaponry.
Why do people keep thinking this is new? It's not. The only new thing is that it's China doing it.
The USA successfully tested an anti-satellite missile over twenty years ago. And when I mean "successfully tested," I mean we did just what the Chinese did here: destroyed an actual satellite in actual orbit around the actual earth. And it wasn't something like NMD, where we had to test it a dozen times to get a single kill. There was one test, and it just worked.
The Soviets had a working anti-satellite program even earlier than that, basically big fragmentation warheads that they'd launch into a matching orbit and then maneuver into kill range of the target satellite. Seven interceptions. Hell, the Soviets even launched (unsuccessfully) an armed orbital battle station.
All of this was decades ago. So why the fears of opening up an arms race?
I recently read about the Kessler syndrome. Interesting theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_Syndrome
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I know this is Slashdot, but did anyone read the article? There is no mention that this is a laser based system at all. To quote, "destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile." That's not a laser, that's a high speed rocket launced from a larger missile. This isn't some laser based ground weapon, it sounds quite similar to the system that the U.S. has that is almost deployed for attempting to knock down ICBM's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ballistic_missil e , just applied to taking out a satellite instead of an incomming missile.
"I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days."
I prefer the "e" and "o" in people as they seem to be missing from your posts.
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
OTOH, throwing your weight around is usually a good way to get what you want. A lesson that the US, China, and many other countries know.
You know Russia and Canada are both larger then China right? Heck the US is almost the same size depending if you count Taiwan
d _outlying_territories_by_area
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_an
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
Seriously - did anyone even read the story?
"U. S. intelligence agencies believe China performed a successful anti-satellite (asat) weapons test at more than 500 mi. altitude Jan. 11 destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile."
The only time a laser is mentioned in the entire article is
"Neither the Office of the U. S. Secretary of Defense nor Air Force Space Command would comment on the attack, which followed by several months the alleged illumination of a U. S. military spacecraft by a Chinese ground based laser."
So the only laser involved here is one that is capable of illuminating, target painting, targets - not destroying them. The title is more than a little misleading - can we get an adjustment on it perhaps? Something like "Chinese successfully test anti-satellite weapon"?
As long as two people can get into a fight in a bar there will always be war.
Other animals don't make war.
Of course, other animals definitely do kill each other, and not just for food. Animals kill for sport, out of aggression or fear, for territory, etc. But they don't make war.
War is industrialization, mass-production, and most importantly strong authority, all applied to the natural tendency of people to kill. War is the cold mechanization of violence.
One can make a very arguable case that people will always kill, and I tend to agree. But the question of whether people will always form massive hierarchical structures which methodically and rationally cause as many deaths as possible - this is more debatable.
Massive power structures are required for real war to be waged. Primarily, the participants have been governments, but we've also seen religious sects make war (for example the crusades, or more recently the "Islamic Jihad"), and perhaps one day in the future we'll see a corporation make war.
I do not believe that massive power structures are inherent to human nature, as there are many societies which avoid them. There's obviously some kind of tendency to form strong governments and establish territorial borders, but I don't think it's strong enough to justify the assertion that it'll always be the unchangeable status quo.
While I do agree on your points about the current government and what constitutes a country, "China" is derived from the Qin ("Chin") Dynasty name for the country. This was over 2000 years ago when all the kingdom was first unified and a single official written language was established.