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91 Comments
- proghead, on 11/02/2009, -5/+44Man, come on, China. Why you gotta be like that?
- skelooth, on 11/02/2009, -2/+31Anyone who thought space wouldn't be militarized was living in a dream world. You Always want the high ground! a modernized country would be crippled without orbit based communication and data services.
Controlling space controls earth's orbit, controls air space and communications, controls the ground, controls the earth. Pretty common sense imo.
Edit:
I would be shocked if we didn't already militarize space. You mean to tell me the military hasn't been developing ways to shoot down space craft and control orbit? Where do you think that giant defense budget goes, better tasting rations? - dtele, on 11/02/2009, -2/+22We can sleep easy at night knowing we are protected from above ;)
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-new ... - thebreach, on 11/02/2009, -0/+18At least I can be assured a future where we speak English for normal conversion and swear in Mandarin
- MSP1, on 11/02/2009, -3/+13That's where you humans keep on getting it wrong. Cooperation is so much more efficient than competition. Stupid human beings!
- 0biKwiet, on 11/02/2009, -1/+11People are just going to counter. Why don't we all just agree to be lazy.
- LonesomeFighter, on 11/02/2009, -0/+10ya but competition makes people always try their best and keep improving themselves
- shaka999, on 11/02/2009, -0/+9 To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women.
- aptanalogy, on 11/02/2009, -0/+8Cliches are human nature.
- JustinTX, on 11/02/2009, -0/+8Where it gets really hairy is when groups of cooperating humans compete with other groups fo cooperating humans.
- askantik, on 11/02/2009, -0/+8pew pew pew
I don't see how militarization of space could possibly ever go wrong! - mbraynard, on 11/02/2009, -1/+9Guess what?
Demiliterizing space is much easier than militarizing space.
One large capacity rocket. Loaded with millions of ball bearings. Detonated in orbit.
Downside: Mankind may never leave the planet again. - erichw1504, on 11/02/2009, -0/+7KHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNN!
- FreakyT, on 11/02/2009, -0/+7The US, Russia, and China currently all have the ability to shoot down orbiting satellites, apparently:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/world/asia/18cnd ... - Phazoni, on 11/02/2009, -0/+7You mean Agent Smith from The Matrix or the Mr. Smith that went to Washington?
- roseap, on 11/02/2009, -0/+6cue epic John Williams score
- PowderedToasty, on 11/02/2009, -0/+6It's inevidable. In.. in .. inevidable.
- aptanalogy, on 11/02/2009, -0/+6You just watch. The basic unit of human culture will be the "ragtag band of rough, yet courageous, ruffians", rather than families.
- monkeyrun, on 11/02/2009, -2/+8Are you asking why do they have to be so honest?
Fact of the matter is, everybody and their mom is at least thinking about it. - michirican123, on 11/02/2009, -6/+12Competition is human nature.
- quarando, on 11/02/2009, -0/+5The US needs no encouragement to overspend on militarism. Our whole economy is crucially dependent on excessive military spending. China is likely being honest here. The US has already taken significant steps towards weaponizing space. Other powers, like China are certainly thinking very hard about how to counter any potential threat or advantage the US might gain here.
- Leviathan433, on 11/02/2009, -0/+5Correction - competition is all nature. Every living thing competes.
- BridgeBurner, on 11/02/2009, -0/+4You're a gullible shill if you think space isn't already militarized.
- Coreyc150, on 11/02/2009, -0/+4space arms "race" you mean, and it already happened 50 years ago, and yes it was awesome... I wish we were still in the golden age of NASA
- Fleagleman, on 11/02/2009, -0/+4World domination 'an inevitability' says Cobra Commander.
- SpruceCaboose, on 11/02/2009, -0/+4Phelps got national acclaim for setting so many Olympic records and winning the most golds in a single Olympics. Beating China did not seem to be the big draw on that one.
- Jektal, on 11/02/2009, -2/+6Not the USA, we had a pretty good head start on everyone (well, after the initial prizes were won) and didn't think it was worth bothering about. Hell, we're practically on the verge of just canceling the whole space program and just letting private industry sort it out in this country. After all, capitalism has done such a bang-up job on our food, credit, housing, internet access, and investment industries.
- mejf2loy, on 11/02/2009, -1/+5Everyone knows what this means right?....... STAR WARS!
- SpruceCaboose, on 11/02/2009, -0/+4I'm pretty sure humanity is going to end up dooming itself in the end eventually anyway.
- FeloniusMonkey, on 11/02/2009, -1/+5I coulda said "Space Churches would be cool." Either way, I was just making a lame pun on the "pew" thing... no need to get all worked up about it.
- hauntedchippy, on 11/02/2009, -0/+3You used to be cool China!
- Jektal, on 11/02/2009, -0/+3"Orbit" is 3D. And VERY big. You'd need waaaaay more than a million ball bearings, and probably deployed at varying altitudes. And that's assuming you do this preemptively before your enemies can shoot down your rocket. Plus, your ball bearings would need to be orbiting at a high velocity, preferably in the opposite direction of whatever you wanted to get rid of.
- wreckosaurus, on 11/02/2009, -0/+3I wouldn't call china hellbent on the destruction of capitalism by any means.
- rizzono, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3The problem is that what is the US system doing to protect against the future.
1. There are huge numbers of Chinese nationals that have jobs in our government, military, top schools, top tech businesses that can easily steal technology secrets and just take them back home.
2. The Chinese have the largest espionage campaign in the world against America in all positions.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/spy/ ...
3. There are huge numbers of companies that are lobby groups whose sole purpose is to promote all things China in the America and protect all interests of Chinese.
America is so open and leaving itself vulnerable. The Chinese system is closed and only caters to the interests of Chinese and no one else. If America continues to live in a world that thinks that China is our friends and only wants to work together we are on a quick road to ruin. As soon as you give them what they want, that's it, they are done with and you are not worth anything to them anymore. That is why there is such a push to acquire all foreign technology and knowledge in all areas so that they can be completely dependent from the world.
Another good blog on the realities of China.
http://spkntruth.blogs.experienceproject.com/ - TxAggie08, on 11/02/2009, -2/+5China should be nice or we'll let the Japanese off the leash.
- Kungfumantis239, on 11/02/2009, -1/+4Not a big surprise here.
Although, we could benefit each other leaps and bounds over trying to help just ourselves. History has shown that humans do better when there's more of us on the same side. If we're all on the same side, no one loses.
Unless of course, a technologically advanced species comes and glasses us all.... - BotchaMcCoola, on 11/02/2009, -4/+7Not so fast. The Chinese are smart but not smarter than all of us. They want to keep the US overspending on Militarism. Want proof? Check who is borrowing from whom and who is how much in debt. That guy is probably a plant.
- skelooth, on 11/02/2009, -1/+4Well its certainly not going to education! lol. I jest, state run universities are excellent, it's the k-12 that's in trouble.
- milwaukeesbeast, on 11/02/2009, -2/+5if anyone didnt see space weapons coming and is outraged at china right now, just relax, you havent been this mad since you missed the season finale of the hills
- michirican123, on 11/02/2009, -2/+5I thought it went to expensive jets, helicopters, and missiles. Maybe that's our education budget.
- KahRahTay, on 11/02/2009, -0/+2@skelooth
from all the information i can gather most state run universities in the US only receive about 30-35% of their budget from taxpayers, and that number keeps dropping which is why tuition rates keep increasing. the bulk of their income comes from tuition and fees. there are no actual "state run" universities in the US. - brettg102, on 11/02/2009, -0/+2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT <Anti satellite missile...launched by taking an F-15 at a 65 degree climb at Mach 1.22 and launching at ~38,000 feet. Hits the satellite at around 15,000 mph...no explosive, just impact.
- hyped, on 11/02/2009, -0/+2haha, that's immediately what i thought when i read the title. thanks for delivering
- screwkevin, on 11/02/2009, -0/+2Hey China still cool! You pay later, LATER!
- inactive, on 11/02/2009, -1/+3I think we should be funding the off-world colonies and nationalizing the oxygen extractors on Luna first.
- TxAggie08, on 11/02/2009, -0/+2No history has shown us competition pushes us harder and a lack of it makes us complacent. Look at the explosion of technology that came out of WWII and the Cold War. As long as we don't actually go to war with China (the whole nuclear holocaust being counterproductive) it may actually be a good thing, technologically speaking.
- mbraynard, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11239
orly? - e2superman, on 11/02/2009, -1/+3Lol. We have had ***** up there for years and the ability to attack targets in orbit for years too. The US already through the first blow. Other countries are just catching up.
- FeloniusMonkey, on 11/02/2009, -0/+2You'll get over it.
- arkwald, on 11/02/2009, -1/+3That really wouldn't be too hard to do. If you can launch a satellite into a polar orbit it isn't much more energy to launch something into an opposing orbit. All you need to be is close and by close I mean within a few thousand miles. Satellites aren't too physically robust and each individual bearing would pack a lot of momentum, a 1 gram ball bearing moving at a relative velocity of 6500m/s would have the the momentum of a 6.5kg ball moving at 1m/s which isn't too impressive as that is a walking pace. However when your talking about that force applied to the cross section of a ball bearing to something like a satellite in orbit then your going to have to have something in place to keep the satellite from drifting off target.
That is just for a dumb rocket with a load of ball bearings only landing 1 of those. If you wanted to refine the system you could put a kicker motor to add more momentum or use bigger ball bearings and get better results. This sort of thing would easily be in the reach of Iran or North Korea, assuming their rocket could attain orbit. So it wouldn't be that hard to make a multi-million dollar satellite pretty useless with some pretty cheap counter measures. -
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