Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The United States Space Arsenal

Posted by samzenpus on from the Q-36-explosive-space-modulator dept.

ntmokey writes "When China tested a missile on its own satellite in January, the nation's aggressive statement immediately raised eyebrows among the world's other space-faring nations. Popular Mechanics looks at the implications of a conflict in space — including debris that could render space unusable for decades — and examines the United States' own space arsenal."

4 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Star Wars by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It worked. It broke the economy of the Soviet Union.
    What a convenient post-hoc rationalization for a monumental waste of money that is. I guess that may have accelerated the fall of the Soviet Union by a month or two, at a cost of billions, but I'll bet the ROI from giving Stingers to the Afghanis was at least a million times better. (Just imagine how things would be in Iraq now if the insurgents had more than RPGs and light machine guns to bring down our helicopters and airplanes).
  2. USA tests by timmarhy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    so if china does it it's shocking, i wonder what it'd be called if you yanks did it

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
  3. Re:Star Wars by Enlightenment · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course, it helped that the enemy that we faced was morally bankrupt and couldn't have possibly won the cold war. It frightens me that people actually associate "morally bankrupt" with "couldn't have possibly won." The two don't necessarily go together.
  4. Re:Star Wars by tftp · · Score: 5, Insightful
    When they tried, it brought their creaky economy crashing down

    Your theory is fine, and your friends are entitled to their own views; however USSR never "tried" to make its own Star Wars hardware. USSR's ABM efforts were identical to USA's work and resulted in the ABM-limiting treaty that stood for decades, until Bush tore it up. The reason is that USSR's scientists did some calculations on a napkin and concluded, correctly, that it's impossible to build such a system at this time that would actually work (1000's US's missiles flying in and 100% intercept.) It's still impossible, decades later. Given the number of missiles that both camps had, the system indeed had to have very impressive reliability, or else it would be complete waste of money. So USSR never built one. After Reagan announced his SDI USSR just sent more money to shipyards and built a bunch more of nuclear submarines, that's it. After Bush's démarche Putin also did the same - ordered a bunch of warheads that make zigs and zags at reentry speed.

    And if you are interested in why the USSR fell, it's not even because of economy. It was bad, but there was no hunger yet. It might have been, though, if the USSR was allowed to rot some more. But it never happened, and "the people" in the street were as surprised with these developments as anyone in the West. The real reason is that when Gorbachev wanted to liberalize economy he accidentally liberalized the political life, and there were plenty of opportunists waiting and ready to insert themselves into the corridors of power. That's what they did, and that's where all the independent republics got their leaders from. Russia got Yeltsin, and that was not even the worst outcome. Gorbachev saw it happening but wasn't ready to defend the old way. For that he was briefly detained, and the conspirators tried to involve the army to put the toothpaste back; it did not work. So that's how it happened, and I did not even need to talk to anyone to offer you this overview.