Slashdot Mirror
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.
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 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
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!"
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.
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.