The United States Space Arsenal 297
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."
Star Wars (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Star Wars (Score:4, Funny)
Forget that! What happened to the other 49 states?!
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Re:Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Star Wars (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Well, at the time it was widely believed that they did.
See "Soviet Star Wars", Time Magazine, Monday October 14, 1985:
"While few people doubt that the Soviets have an aggressive program comparable to SDI and have scored impressive advances in basic technology, some critics -- even within the Pentagon -- point out that translating those achievements into battle-ready equipment is a very long step."
and
"Soviet efforts to develop laser beams as war
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But of course both sides were playing that game: see for instance the (fictitious) missile gap [wikipedia.org] that prompted an ICBM buildup by us (and therefore afterwards by them). Maybe we felt the need to "psych" the USSR with Star Wars (by wasting billions of dollars) because we fell for their ploy of appearing to be a worthy a
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Mayb
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Considering the fact that we haven't paid off any of the national debt we accumulated in those days, I think the question of whether or not we could afford it remains to be seen. It will be rather ironic if, after congratulating ourselves for 20 years about "winning" the cold war, we end up bankrupting ourselves due to debt financed military spending.
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Basically the idea as to build a huge centralised bunker under moscow. Then aim loads of nukes at moscow but set them to airburst in the upper atmosphere. This would have created a huge superheated nuclear fallout cloud that would cause any incoming nukes to detonate before they reached the ground. It would probably also have killed people all over Russia and the
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The USSR's system was called Galosh, or A35 [astronautix.com]. The missile was in operational use around Moscow from 1971 on. It has since been replaced, although by what I don't know. I think the Gorgon but I could be wrong. The system was only used to protect Moscow as p
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>
> In some cases, it backfired, and the Soviets came up with creative ways to develop technology that we were only pretending we had. I wish I could think of a specific example, but it slips my mind at the moment.
Here's one. "Hi, watchers! E
Re:Star Wars (Score:5, Informative)
The Soviet Union collapsed because of a coup, a radically reformist government, and breakaway republics. The Soviet Union's economic might declined radically from the sixties to the eighties. The Soviets themselves recognized this and wrote about this. It's one of the main issues that brought Gorbachev to power. There was already wide discontent because their industrial production couldn't provide their people the sort of standard of life that the west's did, because of widespread corruption, repression, and so forth. Soviet military spending during Reagan didn't even match their inflation rate. After the 1982 Afghanistan disaster, Andropov made it an economic strategy to disengage from foreign conflict. The big military expenditure boosts in the late Soviet Union's history were the waste that was Afghanistan and their two-way Cold War with China as well as America (largely because the two couldn't agree on what was the "right" form of Communism).
Here's an article [jstor.org] from 1991, published in International Affairs, analyzing the (already circulating) claim that the US military spending increase caused an increase in Soviet military spending, bringing about the country's downfall. The full article isn't online but you can read the abstract.
Re:Star Wars (Score:5, Informative)
That's doubleplus good doublespeak you have there, comrade.
First off, soviet economy was about to "collapse" late sixties already but they were bailed out by the oil crisis. Yeah. They ran the circus for additional 20 years with the oil income when the crude prices quadrupled due to the middle east oil czars getting their act together. Economic collapse is not quite that straightforward in the planned economy either as the value of goods was strictly controlled by the goverment. In any case sovs economy was in better shape late 70s than late 60s, cf age of stagnation in Brezhnev era. Interestingly enough to soviet citizens this may be the "golden era" since the system "worked" at that time.
As for military spend. GROWTH may not have exceeded their inflation rate, but so what? First off, the real inflation value was astronomical due to the central banks printing money with prices of goods fixed by the goverment. Yeah, you may have got cheap shoes from the shops but the tricky bit was finding the shop that actually had any shoes. Secondly, USSR military spending of their GDP was huge. See for reference the soviet tank production figures and other conventional munitions.. They could have fairly easily overrun NATO in 70s and 80s (Please, no red storm rising fantasies here. Yes, Leo 2A4 is much better tank than T-72, but if you have 10x the numbers in strategic reserve in one side, you can concentrate them on 1:100 numbers locally) if not for the pesky first strike and the whole mutually assured destruction-deal. So mainly soviets were exceeding military production combined NATO countries with economy that was basically crap. Doesn't leave much room for decent consumer goods production there. Plus, well, since prices were goverment sanctioned and there was waiting list of years for the crappy car, what for improve the product?!
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And you're also right about the huge ratio of military spending to the GDP. And about the T72. I believe this was said best by Stalin: "Quantity has a quality all its own."
But one thing that you didn't touch on that led to their crippled industrial production is just a horribly inefficient system. For examp
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You're selling penis mightiers?
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Probably the same place he was 9/11/2001.
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What happened ? It worked. It broke the economy of the Soviet Union. Of course, the technology largely didn't work. Like the x-ray space weapon proposed by Edward Teller.
To elaborate on the previous reply directed your way, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_ the_Great_Powers [wikipedia.org]
He compares the Great Powers at the close of the twentieth century and predicts the decline of the Soviet Union (the book was originally published on the cusp of the Soviet collapse, the suddeness of which Kennedy did not predict), the rise of China and Japan, the struggles and potential for the EEC, and the relative decline of the United States. He highlights the precedence of the "four modernizations" in Deng Xiaoping's plans for China--agriculture, industry, science and military--deemphasizing military while the United States and the Soviet Union are emphasizing it. He predicts that continued deficit spending, especially on military build-up, will be the single most important reason for decline of any Great Power.
If you read the book, you'll see the fact-based analysis showing that the USSR was in serious trouble going into the 80's. As Kennedy describes it, the USSR struggled to support a first-rate military on a third-rate economy. The sorry state of Soviet-style agriculture was telling. A third of the harvest rotted in the field, a third rotted in transit, and a third rotted on the
Re:Star Wars (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it was — just as Reagan was taking the office (in 1981). USSR's attempts to keep up the arms-race, including SDI — duly decried by the Soviet newspapers daily — helped kill it, instead of allowing it to survive (again) on higher oil prices and slave labor.
Millions of people of the former USSR, myself included, have a lot to thank Ronald Reagan for. The fact, that various Commies (and Commie-sympathizers) still hate him, only adds to the guy's credits.
Re:Star Wars (Score:4, Funny)
Millions of people of the former USSR, myself included, have a lot to thank Ronald Reagan for. The fact, that various Commies (and Commie-sympathizers) still hate him, only adds to the guy's credits.
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That's a bit of a stretch. Event if it had any effect on the USSR whatsoever, it scared other nations to the point where China, having pushed for treaties banning space weapons, felt nervous enough to develop their own.
This will in turn cause those Americans who view any attempt by any other country to have close to equal millitary power as an affront to God to develop the next generation of space weapons, kicking off another arms race. Violence begets v
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is, not was. Remember the ABM interceptor tests where the target was only hit when they fitted a beacon on it? Forget about sifting through decoys, they had a hard time hitting even a single target.
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What happened ? It worked. It broke the economy of the Soviet Union.
My god! That's some Cold War Reagan is Genius bullshit.
SDI was laughable at the time, because the fundamental problems of Rods for God, Brilliant Pebbles, space and ground based lasers, and kinetic kill vehicles were unsolvable at the time, and easily defeated by incredibly inexpesive counter-measures (everything from mylar baloon decoys, to liquid nitrogen jackets, to -- my personal favorite -- simply detonating one warhead in space, and then sending the rest through. Most importantly to this conversati
The true genius of Reagan (Score:2, Insightful)
> and couldn't have possibly won the cold war.
Yup, but the genuis of RWR was in realizing that the way to defeat the Soviets was by breaking the taboo on SAYING that. Before Reagan 'all right thinking people' believed: (or were too afraid to disagree with in public)
1. That socialism was the future.
2. That the Cold War was either just a dick size contest between two 'great powers; equally bent on world domination' or just the de
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Re:The true genius of Reagan (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll see your Ayn Rand. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know... me letting people starve in the street 'cause I consider them lazy seems fairly evil to me. Maybe it's just Jesus talking though.
Re:Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
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A bad oversimplification. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you aren't frightened by people that confuse strength with righteousness, then you almost certainly can't be counted amongst be the righteous. Might doesn't not make right, nor does it prove it.
The winner is not always the just, but history will do its best to remember them that way.
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David Parnas: It didn't work. That's what. (Score:3, Informative)
http://klabs.org/richcontent/software_content/pape rs/parnas_acm_85.pdf [klabs.org]
http://www.wordyard.com/2007/01/05/parnas-sdi/feed
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I think you mean (Score:5, Informative)
It really makes no sense for one state to be united.
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Your pedantry is weak (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, The Elements of Style expressly contradicts you. It states that one should use the form "Chris's book" unless the proper noun is a biblical persona. So "Moses' book" or "Jesus' book" is proper.
Re:Your pedantry is weak (Score:4, Funny)
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not a threat....yet (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the strategic targets are in a much safer place, sure they could easily knock out our spy satellites, but there are alternatives to those.
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Like what?
Spy planes?
Do you really want to give the Chinese another opportunity to dissect a surveillance aircraft? Or maybe we could fly 'em over Russian airspace... I'm sure Putin would love that.
Perhaps I'm being overly snarky, but I don't really see any other good alternative to the existing network of spy satellites.
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Like what?
Spy planes?
Do you really want to give the Chinese another opportunity to dissect a surveillance aircraft? Or maybe we could fly 'em over Russian airspace... I'm sure Putin would love that.
Perhaps I'm being overly snarky, but I don't really see any other good alternative to the existing network of spy satellites.
If we ever get to the point where China is actually shooting down US spy satellites, I wouldn't worry about it much anyway, because we'd probably be in WW3.
Re:not a threat....yet (Score:4, Interesting)
As for needing China because of manufacturing, we could always just return millions of jobs to our fellow citizens, pay them decent wages, and be able to purchase higher-quality, untainted products again. Gee, what a novel concept. I don't give a hoot about people having to pay a tiny bit more for their goods, because the overall economic strength of any country is founded on jobs, not imports. Bring back the manufacturing base and watch the middle class recover.
sad but inevitable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:sad but inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to fight a war in space, you need a launch capability that is beyond what we have today.
You need it to launch space stations that are bigger and stronger than the flimsy tin cans that we have in orbit now.
All the arguments that have been presented for not putting nuclear reactors into space suddenly become irrelevant.. Nuclear propulsion will become a standard feature of spacecraft. Big fat military dollars would then be poured into research to develop better than nuclear propulsion systems, not to mention weapons.
To fight a war in space you really need a working space-based economy. Which also happens to give you something to fight about: control of that economy. A working space-based economy is a necessity to colonization of the solar system - also something to fight over. Colonization of the solar system is essential to the survival of the species.
Re:sad but inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sad but inevitable (Score:4, Informative)
Newer missile designs are becoming accurate enough that the warhead can be dispensed with, the impact of the weapon alone will be sufficient. The Brits have found their smart bombs so accurate, they are replacing the actual bomb with a concrete casting, leaving the guidance system and fins the same. This kind of weapon can be used to plink tanks in civilian areas. 2 tons of concrete dropped on a tank from 10,000 feet means no more tank, an explosion would be overkill at that point. It also means that you can hit a tank sitting outside a school and not even break the windows. That's a win for any civilians unlucky enough to be nearby.
As for space weapons, the insane velocities involved with orbital speeds is what also makes an explosive redundant. A fleck of urine almost took out the cockpit window on a previous shuttle flight. Nothing is likely to survive the impact of a kinetic kill vehicle, assuming the defense contractors can get the thing to hit without having to rig the demo.
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In the early 80's a 0.3mm speck of paint travelling at 17,500mph punched a hole 3/4 of the way through the space shuttle's windshield - what sort of shielding material were you thinking of using to prevent more substantial chunks of debris from vaporizing the entire spacecraft?
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I never thought I would read that on
Re:sad but inevitable (Score:4, Informative)
This used to the case with thickness, but deflection has never been used. The reason sloped tank armour replaced flat planes was because it prevents a thicker cross section to an incoming projectile, and not (as many seem to believe) because it has any deflection value against high speed projectiles. Modern tank armour on the other hand is a series of almost flat planes, much like that of WWII tank armour, although for very different reasons.
Modern tanks basically face three types of threats (from other tanks and infantry -- the likes of hellfire missiles are beyond the scope of this topic): high-energy anti-tank (HEAT), high-explosive squash head (HESH), and APDS (armour-piercing discarding sabot, i.e. long-rod kinetic energy penetrators). Each works differently, so armour incorporates several different mechanisms, each of which is specifically designed to counter one of these.
1) HEAT rounds use plasma jets to burn their way through armour (the classic RPG uses this system). There are four possible counters:
a) Spacing. Armour has multiple air spaces in the hope that the jet will consume some layers, leaving the rest intact. It isn't very effective against modern HEAT rounds, but is still much better than a solid layer of equal thickness.
b) Stand-off plates / cages. These have been used for years to protect tank wheels from older, less powerful infantry HEAT weapons, and appeared on the bodies of the less heavily armoured German tanks during WWII. Some infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) in the current Iraq conflict carry "cage" versions, proving that it's still effective against weapons that don't carry tandem-charge warheads.
c) Explosive-reactive armour (ERA). Tanks are covered with small explosive-filled boxes with a metal face-plate. The plasma jet detonates the explosive, and the face plat is thrown laterally in its path to consume it. Not effective against tandem-charge warheads.
d) Ceramic pyramids that remain solid at extremely high temperatures are set inside the armour to dissipate the jet. This is the mechanism used by "Chobham" armour (originally a British design, hence the name); it is effective even against tandem charges, but is extremely costly to manufacture, and also very heavy.
2) HESH. This round flattens against the surface of the tank, and then detonates into the armour, sending a shock wave through it that causes the inner surface of the vehicle to "spall" (i.e. become shrapnel that ricochets around inside it, turning the crew into human sushi). It's fairly easily defeated by a combination of spaced armour and spall liners, which are layers of adhesive plastics on the inside surface of the armour. For this reason, it's primarily used against infantry fighting vehicles nowadays, whose thinner armour has little room for effective air spacing, and therefore spalls very well indeed.
3) APDS / APFSDS. A sabot is used to carry a long, thin, extremely heavy penetrator rod with a point that converts its considerable kinetic energy into very high pressures and temperatures where both the rod and armour become fluids (a process that's analogous to squirting a jet of water into a bucket of oil). The length of the rod must be more or less that same as the armour it's intended to penetrate because the solid rear moves "through" the liquid front (which loses kinetic energy rapidly), becoming liquid itself in the process. A rod that's too short will therefore simply "bore" a hole in the armour, leaving a "hot spot" on the inside that would be likely to burn anyone who touches it rather badly, but has no other effect. Note that DU penetrators are also pyrophoric, i.e. they burn inside the armour in addition to becoming liquid (sintered tungsten doesn't do this, and is also more prone to shatter than DU, although it's far less toxic to both tank crews and the post-battle environment). It can be countered in two ways, both of which are present in the best modern composite ar
Re:sad but inevitable (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure someone said that about Sea Warfare once, and it was true until Aegis anti-missile and torpedo decoys were developed. Every battlefield has it's differences and there are many for which defending is difficult without technology. The only real area where you can hide behind things is land battles, and I don't think anyone would suggest that Sea and Air warfare 'Involve almost no defensive options' as there are possible options, they're just not natural to the terrain.
Combat in orbit is no more unstable than combat in air, or combat at sea. The only difference is that the wreckage can remain in orbit. That seems at first to be a big deal however there are ways to deal with that, just as there are ways to deal with sat-kill vehicles. Combat in orbit will be no different than any other battlefield once countermeasures are deployed, I seem to recall an attitude of 'We shouldn't try to combatify air because of (list of reasons) which will inevitably make it a more dangerous and horrible place to fight and end humanity' which seems to be how many people treat space right now. As Fallout once said, "War. War never changes."
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You could say the same thing about undersea submarine warfare. If a submarine gets hit by a torpedo, it's pretty much Game Over. They don't bother giving them a lot of armor plate for a reason: it wouldn't work and i
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our feature presentation ... (Score:3, Funny)
a war in space
It's not often on Slashdot... (Score:2)
... that I get to reference a nearly 50 year old article as insightful commentary on the issue of today.
In the Feb 4, 1958 issue of The Atlanta Constitution noted historian Arnold J. Toynbee [wikipedia.org] wrote about just this issue. He represented that the competition with china over space as if it were a game of football was a perilous and ill considered game.
Now if some kind soul would just tell me where to get the text of that article I would be immensely grateful.
Re:sad but maybe not inevitable (Score:2)
...their long standing rivalry with us on economic, political and cyberspace issues we very much need to watch this a lot closer than Iraq/war on terror because of the real implications of possible future conflict.
Why are we assuming it's all about us? Could the Chinese have other concerns than trying to match the US militarily?
If I were the Chinese leadership, I'd be more scared of my own people. Look at it from their point of view: the US does not seem to be able to get it's political leadership together to really crush someone since WWII. Vietnam, Korea, Iraq 1, Iraq 2, etc. ( Ok, we crushed Grenada, but they could have been taken out by the SWAT team from any major US city )
But their own people are becom
US "defense" spending compared to China's (Score:3, Informative)
That turns out not to be the case. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-06-11-mili tary-report_n.htm [usatoday.com]
Note that the USA spent about $529 billion on armaments in 2006, whereas China spent nearly $50 billion - maybe 9 percent as much, 9.5 percent at most. When you bear in mind that China has about four times as many people as the USA, the disparity becomes even more glaring. At least the USA
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We are in not more of a vulnerable position the we were before Iraq. We have more then half our military force free to do whatever if absolutely needed.
The need for -1, Wrong.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The economy isn't tanking, but the overall population isn't benefiting. Median salary has increased by less than inflation in the last 5-6 years, while average salary has gone up. Employees are taking on more risks by having to pay larger health insurance premiums with larger deductibles. What does this mean? The wealt
Re:sad but inevitable (Score:4, Funny)
*this post doesn't need a sarcasm tag, it needs a sarcasm suppository*
How can we clean it up? (Score:3, Interesting)
What happens if we set of a nuke in the upper atmosphere? Will debris be vaporized? Would it cause other problems? Maybe I'm just being naive, but I think we need to think about this.
P.S. Space Roomba?
Re:How can we clean it up? (Score:5, Informative)
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Apart from the technology not being ready yet, we are faced with the usual trouble of how to get heavy hardware up there. Laser systems, magnets and giant Hoovers are not generally lightweight items. There's also the issue of whether we want to have nuclear stuff in orbit.
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The obvious problems are: Space is big - lots of room up there the debris isn't all going in the same direction, they are hauling ass and can't be tracked A good portion of the debris isn't metallic - paint, plastic, even organic (the russians du
Why is it shocking? (Score:3, Insightful)
What -could- be considered shocking is that they'd litter their own skies with junk debris, thus making it harder for them (and everyone else) to use space in the future.
Ronald Reagan said no, began arms reduction (Score:2, Funny)
He also didn't change his policy when he was shot by a complete looney.
Where did all the moderates go? Even Obama seems like a hardliner to me.
nothing like a bit of historical revisionism (Score:2)
But I guess he looks pretty good compared to the current fella.
Nothing like a bit of historical forgetfulness (Score:2)
You're right that Reagan left office with the biggest deficit ever, but he also set in motion the policies (hint: NOT trickle-down economics) that birthed the boom-time 1990's.
As for icy relations with Russia, after the Russian El Al bombing, Reagan had every chance to 'push the button' against Moscow, or if not go nuclear, start sinking ships and submarines. What did Reagan do? Talk to the Kremlin.
Reagan was also one of the most staunch supporters of the Polish Solidarnosë movement, leading to t
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Reagan was also one of the most staunch supporters of the Polish Solidarnosë movement, leading to the end of Polish dictatorship. The Poles, today, are talking about a Mount Rushmore-like memorial to those who spearheaded the movement. Reagan is to be enshrined there as well.
This had nothing to do with supporting the Polish Trade Union [wikipedia.org] movement and everything to do with blocking Soviet influence [wikipedia.org] in Poland. So please don't paint Reagan up as some altruistic leader. This ploy is exactly the reason that US troops face up against US weaponry and US trained militia in Afghanistan. Great policy!
Sense Reagan? No, Sense FDR! (Score:3, Interesting)
Truman was a surprise (though he was very low rated in his day). Sense then they have learned to select better (worse) V.P.s
Johnson was another exception. Kennedy selected well, no one but a madman or Johnson himself would have considered assassinating JFK. But again lessons were learned, which is why no matter what happens Hillary will not be V.P. No one has that kind of death wish.
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USA tests (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:USA tests (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I think shocking would cover it.
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What's shocking about the Chinese effort is that most folks tend to underestimate them in the progress they've made in their space program. What they don't take into account is that they are able to stand on the shoulders of giants...they won't need nearly as much time to develop theirs as we did since most of the "hard work" of basic designs and calcs has already been done and is readily av
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they already have, back in 1985...
This is probably just to justify the increasing military spendings in the US. If anything, the Americans should be celebrating that the Chinese is around 20 years behind in this field of weaponry.
Please also look at this article I found [ft.com]:
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Decades old history?
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my favorite cold war short story (Score:5, Interesting)
So our narrator is watching the first rocket trying to get back into space in the twenty years since the war. The night sky is still full of shooting stars as the debris comes back down into the atmosphere. All but the highest of the pre-war satellites were destroyed and nothing new has been able to survive making it through the shrapnel cloud. The thought is that most of it will deorbit in the next hundred or so years. The hope is that armored rockets might be able to survive impacts. The narrator sees this new rocket struck by debris and destroyed, the astronauts lost along with it. Mankind survived the war but lost space in the process.
The story probably isn't as scientifically accurate as one could hope but it still has emotional impact, an visceral truthiness.
Future jobs? (Score:2, Interesting)
With the mention of "space debris", making space unusable: Well, wouldn't this give us a brief glimpse into the possible job descriptions of the future? Crews of "space garbagemen" drifting off into the abyss to clean up this debris.
It seems quite interesting to think about it. What new occupations will arise if space, or another planet were conquered and colonized? Would there be scores of men, eager to
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debris (Score:2)
I can hear Farnsworth already: "Maybe we bring all that debris down with some sort of space elevator!"
(I'm not aiming for this to be flamebait)
Han Solo said it best.... (Score:4, Funny)
Far bigger problems (Score:2, Insightful)
If there is a conflict big enough to F-up space, I am sure that there will be far worse problems back home such that space junk would be the least of our worries.
could render space unusable for decades (Score:5, Funny)
Rhetorical Hairsplitting (Score:5, Informative)
Successful. If by "you yanks" you mean the US Air Force. They launched the Vought ASM-135A ASAT against a "retired communications satellite" from an F-15 in 1985 and killed it. Note this was an air launched weapon (the "could this be next?" question on the article), not rocket launched as was the Chinese weapon.
If by "you yanks" you mean the US scientists who were at the time using the Solwind research satellite that the USAF actually shot down, I suppose it'd be called "what the fuck happened to our satellite?", until they figured out what happened. At that point it probably became "what the fuck did you do that to our satellite for?"
Since the official story is still that they shot down a retired communications satellite, rather than acknowledging the actual kill (the answer to the above questions being essentially "What satellite? Shut the fuck up."), we've no way to know if they missed their target and the ASAT locked onto Solwind by mistake, or if they just took out a target of opportunity that wouldn't cost them anything. Both are disturbing in their own way.
There's also no word on how much debris was created by Solwind's destruction. The US Space Surveillance Network knows they answer, but they're not saying. They are, after all, operated primarily by the USAF.
Although the ASM-135A ASAT project was cancelled soon after the Solwind kill, there's no reason to expect the USAF stopped ASAT development. The ASM-135A was built from an AGM-69 SRAM and Vought Scout B fourth stage (a Thiokol Altair III motor). These had both been operational for more than a decade when they put the ASAT together. They could have used much newer and more powerful, already operational hardware the very next day, taking it off the active armament shelf, bypassing the messy PR problem of using a defense contractor directly and so having to admit they launched something. The Vought project proved the feasibility based on older hardware. The US military doesn't readily let go of a proven idea they deem necessary unless it has something better to replace it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Moreover, the spacecraft was barely functional enough to maintain despin and a telemetry downlink (which was iffy at best because antenna had degenerated years before). No one was getting much useful data due to mult
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sure it is. Now. See also http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/asat.htm [astronautix.com]
22 years ago it wasn't. Solwind was still downlinking data when it poofed. http://www.patricksaviation.com/wiki/F-15_ASAT [patricksaviation.com] I got the story from Astronomy magazine at the time.
It was taking a lot of work to keep it synched, but USAF (its original owner) had not shut it down. http://franksblog.hoferfamily.org/2004/01/21/ [hoferfamily.org]
Usually very complete wi
United State's (Score:2)
Or perhaps the trained chimps who who are the editors/janitors for slashdot meant United States', but are too hampered by crippling illiteracy to know how to apply punctuation correctly so as to indicate plural possessive. That's OK though, because it's not like they're being paid to be editors, right?
Re: (Score:2)
China is taking over the tops of very tall mountains?
Re: (Score:2)
Wait a second. I was specifically told I would be receiving Social Security benefits. Is this not the case?
Who's going to win? Whoever can stop playing pussyfoot and acknowledge the goal first, of course. My money is on the Chinese or Europeans.
Ok, you had me up until there. I don't think the Europeans are fed up with