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.