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Chirol
Author

Chirol

Date

February 15th, 2008

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Message or Creative Solution

With China’s not so subtle attempt to deter the US from weaponizing space by blowing up a satellite last year, one must view the current “problem” as an opportune moment to answer back:

US Plans to Shoot Down Broken Satellite
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush decided to make a first-of-its-kind attempt to use a missile to bring down a broken U.S. spy satellite because of the potential danger to people from its rocket fuel, officials said Thursday. Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffries, briefing reporters at the Pentagon, did not say when the attempted intercept would be conducted, but the satellite is expected to hit Earth during the first week of March.

“This is all about trying to reduce the danger to human beings,” Jeffries said. Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same briefing that the “window of opportunity” for such a shootdown, presumably to be launched from a Navy ship, will open in the next three or four days and last for seven or eight days. He did not say whether the Pentagon has decided on an exact launch date.

I think we can safely say this is no creative solution to the problem. Meanwhile, both Russia and China are teaming up on a treaty to ban space weapons since only the US would stand to lose while they would stand to gain much needed time.

Comments to this entry

Bal(t)imoron
February 15, 2008
1:42 am
The irony is, that the Sino-Russian space treaty proposal on non-WMD gives the US a way to scrap the current space treaty, and really open up space exploration to private enterprise. Beijing can try to duplicate the Apollo Program, but the US could really benefit economically from privatizing space.
Curzon
February 15, 2008
2:11 am
"Message or Creative Solution[?]"

Both. The US wants to send a message to China on how it should behave in the international sphere on the one hand, and on the other, they're routinely taking care of space garbage. If China hadn't shot down the satellite this would be a quiet story not even making it into most papers. Because of China's stunt, it is headline news.
sun bin
February 15, 2008
3:37 am
correct me if i am wrong, but i thought what china did (missile at satellite) was really low-tech, i.e., US did that 2 decades ago. what china demonstrated was just how vulnerable space-based weapons are, in general.

p.s. curzon, i thought you are going to draw the map for the alleged russian 'intrusion' to an japanese offshore island recently? :)
Curzon
February 15, 2008
4:48 am
SB, would be happy, to what event are you referring? I have been meaning to post a history of the changes of Sakhalin/Karafuto/Kurils between Russia and Japan.
sun bin
February 15, 2008
2:54 pm
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/327819/1/.html

sofugan island

---
also this
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=aqFlXFDM3H6s&refer=germany
Mutantfrog
February 15, 2008
8:53 pm
"If China hadn’t shot down the satellite this would be a quiet story not even making it into most papers. Because of China’s stunt, it is headline news."

I don't think that's totally true. I recall the last time a malfunctioning satellite was going to deorbit it was pretty major news, and as far as I know this is also the first time that a SPY satellite full of highly classified gizmos and code has crashed. That by itself justifies a major story, although certainly the Chinese space weapon incident does add more layers to the store.
sun bin
February 17, 2008
3:18 am
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/NEWS01/802150396/1006
Curzon
February 18, 2008
3:34 am
Now THIS is priceless:

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-02-17-voa24.cfm

Pot? Kettle? Black?
sun bin
February 20, 2008
2:03 am
haha... finally these big nations all got some sense of humour. :)

for tech related discussions see slashdot, eg
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/14/1858248&from=rss