Preventing an Arms Race in Outer Space
As World War I broke out, Henry James identified an inexorable current that had been running below international events, leading to the “monstrous scene” of August “as its grand Niagara.” Below the glassy upriver surface, the swift tide had been driven by habits of mind, arms merchant greed, imperial hubris, and a politics that was wholly inadequate. At the deadly cascade, nations tumbled into the most violent century in history. Writer Jonathan Schell cites the Niagara metaphor to define the still running momentum of war.
But as James wrote, humans stood on another threshold. Wars had always been fought on land and sea, but then new technologies of flight carried combat into the realm above. Airborne weapons transformed killing. Indeed, air force was the invention that made 20th century warfare catastrophic. In looking back on that development, is it only naïve to ask if governments could have agreed to ban weapons in the air? What if the dropping of bombs from the newfangled aeroplane had been outlawed? The mind reels to think of it.A century later, the human race stands at an equivalent threshold, and a version of that exact question is indeed being asked. Can weapons be banned from outer space? Or will the Niagara current of defense contractor greed, imperial hubris, and inadequate politics carry the destructiveness of war into the “fourth battlefield” of the very cosmos? That is the question that has been asked at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva for the last six years. But not by Washington. How many Americans know that the nation refusing to discuss a treaty aimed at preventing an arms race in outer space is their own? Indeed, the United States, in various Pentagon documents published during the Bush administration, is explicit in aiming to put weapons in space — lasers, directed energy weapons, kinetic kill vehicles. The US Space Command, in its “Vision for 2020,” plans for “counterspace operations.” The already deployed missile defense system is a first step toward an anti-satellite capability, giving the Pentagon control of the “high frontier.”
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences recently published “Russian and Chinese Responses to US Military Plans in Space,” a stark look at where the American project is taking the world. The academy was instrumental half a century ago in creating the arms control regime that enabled the Cold War to end nonviolently. Now it warns that “US space weaponization plans would have potentially disastrous effects on international security and the peaceful uses of space.” Russia and China have insisted in Geneva that a treaty banning such weapons is urgently needed. Failing that, neither nation sees a choice but to respond — Russia by extending its aging ballistic missile forces, and China by readying a space weapons program of its own. Last week, for the first time since the Soviet era, missiles were paraded through Red Square. Last year, China fired the warning shot of a first anti-satellite missile test.
And how is the crucial question of weapons in outer space being considered in America? As the quadrennial political conversation of the presidential primaries was moving into gear last February, the Pentagon announced its intention to send a missile into space to shoot down a “wayward satellite,” supposedly to protect Earth from its unspent fuel. Many observers — certainly including Chinese and Russians — questioned whether this was not, in fact, a step toward anti-satellite weaponry? If Henry James were alive, wouldn’t he have recognized an upshift in the current toward Niagara? Yet neither the presidential candidates, nor the pundits and moderators who yap at them, saw in this event anything to discuss. The missile was fired, the satellite destroyed. No big issue. The world-historic decision about carrying warfare across the last threshold into outer space is being left to defense contractors, military commanders, and their wholly owned subsidiary on Capitol Hill. Not since August 1914 has politics seemed so irrelevant.
Humans who did not think to ban weapons from the air a century ago know better when it comes to outer space. Yet what are we doing? And if the deadly current is still hidden, what is that low rumble that can be heard, rolling toward us from down the river?
James Carroll’s column appears regularly in the Globe.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
I think it’s important for Americans to realize that the threat of US satellites armed with lasers, controlled from the ground, is en unprecedented threat not only to any country whose leaders dare to oppose whoever controls the US military–they’re also an equal threat to any US citizen who dares to oppose the reigning junta in Washington. What an excellent domestic control mechanism this could be! Using one satellite to track down the “enemy” who wrote a critical op-ed yesterday, and another to turn that person into a little grease spot. Those who protest such events disappear also. Pretty soon, nobody protests anymore, and the pretense of democracy can be dropped. The dream of achieving absolute power is a very old one, and no one has ever succeeded. But no one ever had this kind of technology before.
If you read the Bill McKibben piece below, you will see that climate change has become a red-light-flashing, siren-screaming emergency. The biweekly rise in the price of oil, and now food, shows that the Peak Oil people also have it right in their warnings. Study up on each of these problems and you will have to face a stark reality: maintenance of a halfway decent planet requires either a drastic drop in human numbers, or a drop in consumption levels, or some of both. Neither will happen voluntarily in time. What SHOULD be done about this is another matter–my point here is that the ruling junta are surely very well aware of these crises, and have been no doubt been aware of them longer than any of us. They’ve probably got plans for how to manage the situation–and space-based weapons will make it all so much easier for them.
Judging from the frequency of US Air Force commercials on TV warning viewers that the Air Force will save them from space war dangers, it appears the brainwashing of the US electorate on this issue is moving ahead at full throttle.
I recently watched a NOVA episode that I’d missed when it first appeared–”Astrospies,” about a DoD program to put astronauts in orbit as spies, and a comparable program by the Soviets.
What caught my eye in it, though, was a bit of DoD briefing film from circa 1964, in which the Air Force was saying exactly the same thing that it is now about “gaining the high ground” of space, developing anti-satellite systems and preparing global strike capability from space.
This has been a very, very long-term goal of the US and, particularly, its Air Force, suggesting that the technology has been catching up to the desire for over forty years. The Air Force, in its insatiable need for more appropriations than the other services, simply won’t let this go without a fight. No one’s going to be able to drive a stake through the heart of this program, but, with luck, it might still be contained.
Someone better contain it, because the throw-weight costs will bankrupt us.
Lasers do not yet work in space. We are not to the point in our understanding of Physics that Buck Rogers stuff is possible.
But, we’ve been trying hard since Reagan, much to the consternation of scientists that would rather be doing something more plausible.
Now, that being said, Noam Chomsky is convinced that the militarization of space will lead to the extinction of man.
Since Chomsky has been right on everything I know of so far, I’d love to hear his detailed arguments why this will be the ultimate threshold for humankind.
It is pretty spooky stuff.
The pursuit of space was barbaric from the onset.
Remember that it was a mongrel dog who first went into space, not a human, as well as other dogs and chimps.
Chomsky is probably right-although I think genetic engineering shouldnt be overlooked.
Humans accidentally unleashing a disease is very real-and scientists arent held to task over it.
I have a pretty good memory for sources from things read, but this one does escape me. In any case, as per my interest in esoteric/metaphysical subjects I do recall a source that made it clear if any nation sought to bring particularly nuclear weapons into space, HIGHER forms of intelligent life would essentially quarantine our planet.
Have you noticed the UFO sightings started up around the time bombs were tested in the SW? There is some corelation between the sightings and the onset of weapons development.
It would be sheer poetic justice if the US ended up shooting itself in the proverbial foot by allocating far too much of its now limited (hello impossible debt/trade deficits) resources to the military and the endless pursuit of so-called security, and had nothing left in the pot for food, solar energy, or dealing with the myriad challenges bad policy destines our way.
I was under the impression that an International Treaty banning the use of weapons in outer space has been in existence for decades.
The society and national defense system of the United States is probably the most vulnerable with regards to dependence on electronics and satellite technology.
roncypert wrote: I was under the impression that an International Treaty banning the use of weapons in outer space has been in existence for decades.
The Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963, and bans nuclear weapons in space. This is why the US actively researched space-based laser and kinetic weapons in the 80s and 90s.
But with the lunatic Bush instituting pre-emptive nuclear strike policies and the shredding of international arms treaties, the US will likely abrogate the LTBT.
mirf59 wrote: Lasers do not yet work in space. We are not to the point in our understanding of Physics that Buck Rogers stuff is possible.
I am sorry, this is incorrect. Lasers work extremely well in the vacuum of space. And we understand the physics extremely well. The big problem arises when lasers travel through the unrelenting chaos of our atmosphere which scatters light.
Siouxrose wrote: Have you noticed the UFO sightings started up around the time bombs were tested in the SW? There is some correlation between the sightings and the onset of weapons development.
While I believe that life exists elsewhere in our universe, I would disagree that we have been visited recently, if ever at all in our planet’s history.
The UFO “scare” of the 40s and 50s was the result of several things:
1) A pumped-up citizenry after a war and trained to sniff out the evil red menace certainly had people scanning unlikely areas.
2) Hollywood had discovered science-fiction, and used aliens as an analogy of invasion for xenophobic Americans.
3) With the creation of the US Air Force in 1947, AF bases were constructed throughout the SW. Suddenly there were a LOT more aircraft in the air, mistaken by locals who had previously seen little air traffic. Remember too, it took years to bring home all the aircraft that were stationed abroad during WWII.
4) The MIC got its kickstart, and military superiority was equated with technological innovation. The US Govt funded a LOT of harebrained ideas, some of which the public accidentally witnessed.
5) Finally, my own contribution, is that if I was given a gazillion-dollar spacecraft to flit around the universe, I would NOT fly it into a planet’s atmosphere that is explosive, acidic and highly corrosive. Anyone who has ever lived within 3 miles of the ocean will attest to the rapidity that their cars rust out.
WTF,
Thanks for the confirmation, clarification and info.
For any idiot who believes in the militarisation of space, discarding the international treaties about nuclear technology sent from this planet into space, and for other sensible concerned citizens seeking facts about why nukes in space threaten the very existance of life on this planet (we came too close a few years ago with the real possibility of 72 pounds of plutonium crashing back to Earth…one pound could kill every person on earth BTW), I would suggest you take the time to view this video while it is still possible to do so:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4835966027154828456&q=arsenal+of+hypocrisy+bruce+gagnon+space+nasa
One of the options on the table for the implementation of One World Government is an attack from outerspace by ET. This will unify the world in the Global War against ET, a perpetual war that will require a global police state and mandatory DNA testing to weed out the ET spies who are able to take human forms. We need space weapons in which to attack us from space which will be blamed on ET. Hollywood is producing the necessary visuals which will be provided as news.
Laugh if you will. And those killer cyclones, tornados and earthquakes recently are likely a result of the DARP funded HAARP that can trigger such events, the beginning of the Trbulation they are staging, which will bring with it famines and disease (H5N1 that has been reengineered, or some other virus), and of course, wars. I can’t wait to find out who will be chosen as the anti-christ, followed by the messiah.
Supposedly there is a task force working on 111 variations of an End Times scenario.
Another theory of course is that those doing the globalizing are actually ET’s, or their descendants, who came down as angels thousands of years ago.
DNA testing is now being done to determine who has blood connections with the ET’s and who does not. Those w/o any trace will go to the crematorium.
Man, I got to get off this cool aid.
Outer space, orbit, is fundamentally a place that takes 17,500 mph to reach. Dropping a bomb on someone will, for the next three generations at least, be an exercise in accelerating some weapon 10 to 100 times as fast as is needed. Can you do it? Yes. Is anything gained over normal flight? No, and you’ve spent 10 to 100 times as much doing it. History is littered with dum-dum politicians supporting dum-dum weapons. In this case, going around the world a million times to hit someone with a bomb is like backing up 200 miles to hit someone with a snowball. Scientifically fascinating if you can do it, but a military waste of energy.
Smart bombs my elbow!
Leaving nukes in space is a fundamental disaster waiting to happen. Things break. Things fall out of the sky. The U.S. military dropped a bus-sized spy satellite onto the earth recently.
Leaving nukes in space heightens the balance of terror. Currently we have a half an hour to react. What if we only had five minutes to use it or lose it? Our country has had a long and illustrious history of false alarms, of our radar seeing the moon coming over the horizon and telling the commander a flock of Russian missiles were on the way, of people leaving tapes on that simulated Russian strikes and then the tapes were run. Maybe all sides going back to hair-trigger alert isn’t good for humanity’s long term survival.
I’m not a fan of mutual assured destruction, especially the very long term “assured” part. We don’t need a system of war that approaches a 100% guarantee of all of our descendents’ deaths. Where’s the ultimate profit?
However, MAD is what we have right now, and saber rattling by threatening to put hair-triggering weapons in space only makes it worse. We shouldn’t plan out these weapons even if they were free, which they certainly aren’t.
Most Americans who enjoy science fiction - and that’s most - already accept “space weapons” as a done deal. And most Americans who are even vaguely familiar with our “Dept of Defense” and their already-in-use microwave weapons and sound weapons and heat weapons have pretty much assumed space weapons are also a done deal.
Which is why we’ll never ever see any outcry against such weapons. And, seriously, we already got enough nukes and shit to wipe ourselves out ten times. So space zappers make it eleven or twelve times - whatever…
” Laugh if you will. And those killer cyclones, tornados and earthquakes recently are likely a result of the DARP funded HAARP that can trigger such events, the beginning of the Trbulation they are staging, which will bring with it famines and disease (H5N1 that has been reengineered, or some other virus), and of course, wars. I can’t wait to find out who will be chosen as the anti-christ, followed by the messiah.
Supposedly there is a task force working on 111 variations of an End Times scenario.
Another theory of course is that those doing the globalizing are actually ET’s, or their descendants, who came down as angels thousands of years ago.
DNA testing is now being done to determine who has blood connections with the ET’s and who does not. Those w/o any trace will go to the crematorium.”
…what’s weird is that people will read things like the above, and think it’s just simply the crazy rantings of a lunatic….
Question to PaulK:
If “MAD” sounds mad to you; what do you see as our current alternative in today’s global reality? Would you now unilaterally disarm, just to prove peaceful intent?
If so, can you give a historical example that would support a theory of unilateral disarmament that went well for those who laid down their weapons?
Thanks ~ PDF
We’ve already WON this Arm’s-Race (like every-other, in our brief-History). [After-all, we’re into “Full Spectrum Dominance”!]
“” Laugh if you will. And those killer cyclones, tornados and earthquakes recently are likely a result of the DARP funded HAARP that can trigger such events…”
Nah…doesn’t work NEARLY as well for earthquakes as strategically-placed baby-Nukes do [the other-stuff, sure — that’s why HAARP has already won not-one-but-Two (!) Nobel Prizes since it started accumulating a bigger electric-bill than Anchorage — since 1992…].
Siouxrose wrote: It would be sheer poetic justice if the US ended up shooting itself in the proverbial foot by allocating far too much of its now limited (hello impossible debt/trade deficits) resources to the military and the endless pursuit of so-called security, and had nothing left in the pot for food, solar energy, or dealing with the myriad challenges bad policy destines our way.
Oh, that would be poetic justice! What has a century of American dominance brought the world anyway? The number of democratic countries rose from the single digits in 1900 to triple digits by 2000. The 20th century brought about the quickest rise in living standards, knowledge, and technology in the history of mankind. We certainly wouldn’t want another century of that! The world would be so much better off if one of the America’s competitors — such as the communists in China, the fascists in Russia, or the theocrats in Iran — were to lead the world in the 21st century instead.
RIMPINTHS: You have a very selective memory for the data you elect to use. Have you read Howard Zinn’s history of the U.S? Got any guilt going on for the fact this bloated materialistic nation builds and sells a good portion of the world’s arms, has left a trail of Agent Orange and/or depleted uranium in previous battles fields, both of which WRECK genes. No problem that this nation is creating 25% of the global warming problem, or that it’s citizenry is virtually somnabulistic thanks to a controlled media? PUlease… your idea of patriotism is what, licking George Bush’s boots?
Siouxrose, I have read Zinn’s People’s History before. I strongly believe in reading all viewpoints, which is why I come to this site to see what’s being talked about in the alternative press.
America has many faults, on that we agree, but I noticed that you did not dispute the fact that people in the 20th century experienced the greatest rise in living standards, knowledge, and technology, and all this occurred under America’s leadership. It reminds me of the Monty Python’s Life of Brian quote, “All right… all right… but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the Romans done for us?”
But I don’t want to drift too far off-topic from the original article: the militarization of space is inevitable. As soon as people could build seafaring ships, we had navies. As soon as people could build planes, we had air forces. Weapons will eventually make their way into space too, so better to prepare for it than to sit back and whine about how wrong it is.
Consider the other two counties that the author mentions as candidates to put weapons into space — China or Russia. Would you really prefer either of those countries to dominate space? What do you think the chances are that we would have Google Maps, GPS systems, open communication systems, or uncensored satellite television if China or Russia set the rules in space?
RE: MiMiCcS May 12th, 2008 7:00 pm
“DNA testing is now being done to determine who has blood connections with the ET’s and who does not.”
Maybe not that crazy, MiMiC, did you ever see the purported genetic/ancestral link between George Bush, John Kerry, and Vlad the Impaler (AKA Count Dracula), or recognized the Rothschilds (who at one time were said to own half all the assets in this world), just like Pharoahs of old, had a penchant to intermarry within their own families. What about all the monarchial families of Europe for the past thousand years or so? Perhaps your ‘cool-aid’ was laced with some truth serum, eh?
RE: Rimpinths May 12th, 2008 10:19 pm
You’re pretty behind the curve if you don’t realize the US, despite violent attempts to dominate the world stage in the 20th century, will likely be dominated by the Chinese toward the 22nd century, if not sooner. As far as the US creating democracies, what good does that do if miscreants in our government take down (overtly or covertly)any democratic majority elected government that doesn’t kow-tow to the demands of US emperors? Then again, if the vote can & has been rigged in the US what’s so hard about rigging the election in a lesser country, unless they count their votes honestly by hand, or stay away from electronic voting machines with no paper trails?
Rimpinths, are you sure you didn’t make a mistake by typing in “News for the Progressive Community” instead of “Regressive”?
In another post you said, “Weapons will eventually make their way into space too, so better to prepare for it than to sit back and whine about how wrong it is.”
As a point of gathering useful information, and to discover how nuclear in space, whether American, Russian, or Chinese, threatens the whole planet, I would suggest you take time to completely view the video from my earlier post. Here it is again just to make it easier for you, since it appears you have been too lazy to do your homework before speaking out on something you obviously know very little about:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4835966027154828456&q=arsenal+of+hypocrisy+bruce+gagnon+space+nasa
Once we start blowing things up in orbit we’re going to surround the planet with a murderous reef of whizzing projectiles, making it very difficult to use any satellites or to continue our space programs. Reason enough to ban carrying war into space.
Also war is stupid, over, done, boring, a sign of ignorance and bad for your hair.
“Consider the other two counties that the author mentions as candidates to put weapons into space — China or Russia. Would you really prefer either of those countries to dominate space? What do you think the chances are that we would have Google Maps, GPS systems, open communication systems, or uncensored satellite television if China or Russia set the rules in space?”
OOOH, the constant scary threat of the “others”. This is what most of human conflict is based on. I don’t know about how China or Russia would react in space, do you think they’d mercilessly kill 1 million Iraqi’s, just because they could ? To tell you the truth, the US’ track record isn’t so good. Fascism is fascism no matter who’s guarding the hen house. If one is as bad as the other, what does it matter? 20 years ago (or so) we were really starting to make headway in the global rush to peace (and we still got to keep all our cool toys and open communication was seen as a good thing) ! It is war-mongering leadership that fosters the need for the control of the populace (the US is far ahead of the game in controlling the media messages, and look what their trying to do with the internet).
All that aside, why exactly do weapons need to make their way into space ? If we were all committed to global peace, who would we need to fight ? The fact is that the fear of the “others” keeps the money flowing in, and we are buying it hook line and sinker while we trade our freedom for security.
I feel the US should save its money since some little Chinese guy will put up it bolt throwing Sat killer for 1/10th the cost and take out the US WAR machine. How is the US going to pay for any arms race? Something like the average age of the military jets the US has is 25 years old.
Well, it looks like at least one person on this page actually took the time to do their homework by either viewing the link I posted; here it is again:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4835966027154828456&q=arsenal+of+hypocrisy+bruce+gagnon+space+nasa
Or got this crucial information through other sources judging by this comment,
“Once we start blowing things up in orbit we’re going to surround the planet with a murderous reef of whizzing projectiles, making it very difficult to use any satellites or to continue our space programs.” (Maplefudge May 13th, 2008 1:52 am)
Another just seems to have been burned too many times to fall for the big boogey man under the bed lie yet one more time, has as equally solid fact-based scientific information to base an informed opinion on as Maplefudge, or is refusing to be a chicken little sissy running around screaming, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling”, just because a corporate/government controlled media says that should be the trembling response, to wit;
“OOOH, the constant scary threat of the “others”. This is what most of human conflict is based on.” (scheiber6923 May 13th, 2008 4:57 am)
Thankyou, Maplefudge & schieber6923, for not succumbing to the tactic of terror, which has gotten most Americans to give up to their liberties & purse to these fascist two dollar pimps on only a threat designed to instill fear.
Get a grip you idiots! The Russians & Chinese might be the illusive mythical ‘other’, but they aren’t crazy enough to possibly seal off Earthians from future space travel PERMANENTLY by detonating nuclear weapons in near space. Ask yourselves, are we crazy enough to do this?
How safe do you feel after getting to know the man who has had his hand closest to THE button for the past 8 years? I think I’d trust the Russians & Chinese, both of whom have seen their countries devastated & disrupted by the ravages of war (within the lifetimes of people still alive), rather than some chickenhawk playboy flyboy, with no real sense of responsibility except to the uberwealthy, and who claims allegiance to a cult looking forward to Armageddon (perhaps as a way to erase the fact of his dreadful ‘legacy’).
I like many of the benefits space exploration has given us, and with the Russians & Chinese just beginning the long trek out of the 19th century toward ‘modernity’, I don’t believe they will be so foolish as to kill their chance at such a golden goose.
NASA (Never A Straight Answer) has been complicit in arranging militarization of space. The public organization it turns out is really a proxy for the military industrial complex. They consume much of the hardware and software produced by military and contractors and subcontractors under the guise of “research”. We have personally discredited some of their spcae research programs. For instance the DAWN mission to Ceres and Vesta (Asteroids) are really nothing more than an attempt to test the limits of military hardware and software. When we personally discovered and tested our own cometary and super nova (extraterrestrial ) samples; we put a big crimp on their fake research plans for comets and the “always questioned but never resolveable” beginnings of the Universe. All one need do is Google NASA secret meeting of April 10, 2007, and ask what this meeting was about? This is a meeting called with NASA General HQ and all NASA Centers participating, in which certain announcements were made regarding our website, samples, and research.
SRD
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
Oh yes, this is also the meeting in which the NASA General Counsel went around the country personally collecting all evidence of the meeting including DVD’s and CD’s and admitting to destroying them in his office.
SRD
www.bccmeteorites.com
RIMPINTHS: Your name seems new to me on this site. In a sense it’s a community and many of us who post regularly have our particular slants on things. I am a mystic, so I do NOT accept the paradigm of war, militarism and aggression as INEVITABLE postures or states of being. These behaviors may have been a portion of a great many states in their development, but the glory around war is like a bad advertising campaign that’s gone too far. Exactly where does this military triumphalism lead us? To M.A.D?
Yes, the US played a substantial role in bringing industrial and technological developments to a great many lands; but, what of the polluting factors that have accompanied this “progress?” What of the burgeoning resource depletion, the unnecessary “toys” that now bring nature to the brink of extinction? I mean for every good thing you mention there is its opposite, and given the combined perils of a potential expanded Middle East war, the state of the US treasury having given up its bounty to the pursuit of naked empire, the potential end of oil, and intensified climatic disruptions, I don’t think your concept of progress has substantial merit in the face of these things it’s helped to bring about.
WE need a new paradigm, one that does not lend homage to who’s the biggest, baddest, bully… or who’s got the most STUFF. We need simplicity, grace, and a realization of the DIVINE in the human being… EVERY human being. WE need to recognize that LIFE is the gift, not what we can consume or destroy or use aggression to co-opt. Got it?
I think if the weaponization of space is given as inevitable, then what I would prefer is a balance of power among the competing agencies, as opposed to some chauvinistic impetus towards hegemony.
What I hope for is the brighter side of the Star Trek fable: that human beings have given up the baser pursuits of material wealth and political power. Instead, development of the self and discovery of the other are the goals of society. But we’ve got to grow up before we destroy ourselves, or else nothing worth the pursuit will even emerge as a possibility.
The militarization of the skies is what Star Wars is all about . . . and huge amounts of money have been siphoned off for this project — another on the PNAC agenda!
We have already exploded at least three nuclear bombs in outer space — evidently trying to knock out the Van Allen Radiation Belts. What idiots atomic weapons for TESTING on their own planet? What idiots pollute outer space with nuclear weapons?
Patriarchy and capitalism are suicidal —
Wake up, folks!!!
So with all the outlandish accusations conspiracy theories. Does anyone have any actual evidence to support there claims? I have read a lot about one government worlds and alien attacks and GMen and yet strangely enough not a single bit of evidence backing up what the majority of you are saying.
WTF,
I am not a scientist, but I am fairly certain you are wrong about lasers. Lasers behave completely differently in a vacuum. We do not have the capability to focus a laser in space right now.
My source is DARPA. My father was a Program Manager at DARPA, and was asked to look into this with others starting with Reagan. Despite protests that the optics of lasers in space defy the laws of physics and it’s a waste of time, they were told to spin their wheels on it anyway.
Well, it remained a fiction through the Clinton Administration and up until today as far as I know.
Maybe you can present evidence that shows how lasers can be focused in space.
Good to see you back, Nam, and I’m sure Kem will think likewise. Were you ostracized for awhile or just busy?
It is not that big a deal to make lasers work in space, but it may take some work. As noted above, weather is an issue when illuminating ground targets.
The real problem with weaponizing space is the arms race issue. From all I’ve thought about it, and I’ve worked in the field, it is inherently destabilizing, and horrendously expensive if it is built.
Michael Griffin (NASA administrator) has a background in working on space weapons. His appointment 3 years ago worried me. I don’t know it is a bad sign, but it is not a good one.
The USAF itself is a major problem. It was separated from the Army primarily to carry the Strategic mission: carry out war by attacking civilian populations as a primary target, despite the known ineffectiveness of doing so from the air. The USAF is now full of “Fundamentalist Christians”, who do not think WWJD (What would Jesus do), but many of whom would welcome Armageddon as a precursor to the second coming of Christ.
Gotcha, Nam, and I seem to remember the last time you posted pics the same happened. I would like to know how you put those peace signs in my name instead of dots, though.
Paul.Magill@Rockitz.net
Thanks Paul M Smith for acknowledging my post. Thanks also to John R May for this comment- “But we’ve got to grow up before we destroy ourselves, or else nothing worth the pursuit will even emerge as a possibility.”
At one point in my adulthood, I thought we WERE growing up (in a global sense). We finally seemed to be awakening from the clouds of war and death to realize- “Hey those other guys want to live as much as we do” ! We seemed to be moving towards some positive ends, for everyone on the planet. I remember all my nuclear dreams (nightmares) as a child, and then a brilliant emergence into my own adulthood with the feeling that we had solved it, it was going to be OK.
WTF happened !?! Don’t answer, rhetorical question.
RE: scheiber6923 May 13th, 2008 9:55 pm
“…awakening from the clouds of war and death to realize- “Hey those other guys want to live as much as we do”
I grew up under the same attempt to instill an impending fear of doom during the fifties that kids today surely go through in some fashion or degree. ‘Duck & Cover’ drills in school, home fallout shelters, and learn to hate the Ruskies because they were our mortal enemy not to be trusted any farther than a mouse could shot-put a city bus. I am most thankful in my life to have challenged authority because it seemed to be the intuitive thing to do that was correct. “Because”, might be an answer, but never seemed a valid reason based explanation for some of life’s most important queries.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the overiding question in my mind was a resounding ‘WHY?’. As my intellect grew some I began to see things a bit differently. One day it dawned on me like a flash…the Russian people are no different than us, no better no worse, and the one major thing we shared in common, besides just wanting a fruitful peaceful life, was crappy militaristic leaders.
The leaders on both sides of the ‘pond’ were only little boys with big toys, just wishing to see if they worked, and itching for an opportunity to cause the murder & mayhem that was such an adrenaline pumping part of their life while they reached maturity around the time of WWII. They hadn’t evolved from competition toward collaboration, and judging by the current crop of world leaders they still haven’t.
So what have we learned over the past 50 odd years? Not much, apparently. The cold war arms race seemed to have subsided a bit, but don’t kid yourselves; it never went away, only undercover. Are we now going to embark on an extremely foolish space arms race, wasting diminishing precious natural resources continually fighting in competition, or truly become Earthlings evolved to the point of collaboration? There’s too much at stake here to leave it up to the new crop of psychotic warmongering ‘boys with badder toys’.
mirf59 wrote: Lasers behave completely differently in a vacuum. We do not have the capability to focus a laser in space right now.
DARPA is an interesting organization, and I am sure your father had a ball when he was working there.
Perhaps you are confusing a number of issues. A lot of land-based technologies for generating laser do not work in space. Space-Based Laser (SBL) platforms require sustained energy production and do so using chemical reaction of hydrogen fluoride (HF) molecules. The HF molecules are created in an excited state from which the subsequent optical energy is drawn by an optical resonator surrounding the gain generator.
The SBL program built on a broad variety of technologies developed by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) in the 1980s (when DARPA transferred SBL research to SDIO in 1984). The work on the Large Optics Demonstration Experiment (LODE), completed in 1987, provided the means to control the beams of large, high powered lasers. The Large Advanced Mirror Program (LAMP) designed and built a 4 meter diameter space designed mirror with the required optical figure and surface quality. In 1991, the Alpha laser (2.8 mm) developed by the SDIO achieved megawatt power at the requisite operating level in a low pressure environment similar to space. Today, SBL work is conducted by the successor to SDIO, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). A good read is here:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/sbl.htm
The big problem with SBL is verification. Unlike kinetic weapons, ascertaining a kill with lasers can take a prohibitively long time, because the targets will generally not explode, instead sustaining damage to tracking and arming systems. Sustained illumination of a target until either detonation or confirmed trajectory anomalies prevents SBL from acquiring new targets, deemed important during a massive launch or MIRV attacks. Clearly, these kinds or threats have been marginalized with the demise of the “evil empire”.
Namaste,
Mea culpa. I’m “retired” now and so do not keep up with the military turf wars as I used to. Thanks for the update.
Namaste, for remuneration, I now do a lot of things. Some consulting for the National Labs and nearby University, math and science tutoring for the local school kids, bartering my “exotic” crops for food grown on the nearby reservation, and as-needed welding on surrounding ranches. Keeps me busy! There is certainly a ton of things to do, even in the nearby 800-person town.