BUSH CHENEY ESCALATE MILITARIZATION OF SPACE UNDERLINING THE NEED FOR THE DEMILITARIZATION OF SPACE

With the decision to destroy a military satellite, or at least to try to destroy one, it is clear that the Bush-Cheney administration has decided to follow China's example. China destroyed a satellite of its own earlier in the year with one of its own space weapons. I suppose that China was demonstrating to the world its military prowess in this area. They too claimed that they were somehow tiding up the heavens with another missile. Of course we need to remember that both China and Japan have extensive space programs of their own that include manned and unmanned missions. Proliferators are proliferating.

I saw something about the probability that the U. S. satellite will actually be hit by the U. S. missile sent to destroy it. This is the kind of thing you hear about when they are testing antimissile missiles. Anti-missile missiles tend to miss their targets. They are more properly designated anti-satellite MISSilesThey have a low probability of hitting their targets. A satellite is, physically speaking, a lot like a missile because it is an object going tens of thousands of miles an hour.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the U.S. could not hit its own reentering satellite? Of course hitting a satellite in orbit should be relatively easy since an orbit in the near vacuum of space would be highly predictable. A reentering satellite is another matter since it would be buffeted by the atmosphere upon reentry. It would skid this way and that, and might even break apart before a missile catches up to it.

So it's the bullet hitting a bullet problem except these bullets may go ten or twenty times the speed of more earthly bullets. Wiley Coyote has much the same problem trying to hit the Road Runner with a boulder but at much slower velocities.

Frankly, the whole era of satellite technology could be severely compromised or even ended if any capable party blows up the right satellites or otherwise introduces orbiting debris where communications and other vital satellites orbit. Goodbye satellite tv, internet and gps. Maybe the system is more robust than I think but the militarization of space seems likely to lead to more debris rather than less. Nightmare scenarios are endless.

A particle the size of a piece of sand, perhaps a hard metallic pellet, could annihilate a large satellite if it hit the right place at the right speed. If thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of these were to be orbited in vital satellite routes those satellites would be in grave danger.

The extreme aggressiveness of the United States toward many nations after 9-11 only intensified its already existing efforts to create a unipolar world where everything would be the U. S. way or the highway. This aggressiveness has led to nations like North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran,among others, to develop their missile technology so they can have the deterrence of satellite destruction in their quiver. Of course debris-filled satellite bombs could be deployed just waiting for a command from the ground to detonate. These nations are puny compared to the military might of the United States but they still could destroy our way of life and inflict great damage on us nonetheless. The peaceful regulation of earth and space is far more beneficial to nations than harsh competition and war.

These common sense observations underline the necessity and urgency of an international disarmament process that includes all wmd capable parties. Disarmament needs to include a ban on all satellite based weapons and anti-satellite weapons. Peace is more practical than war and a prohibition of certain weapons like nuclear weapons, mines and these space weapons makes us all a lot more secure. It looks like we are seeing more and more deployers of these weapons over the years and the more we have the more the necessity of disarmament. Sooner or later one of these parties will deploy anti-satellite weapons in a way that changes life on earth for a long time. Who knows, even this effort by Bush-Cheney to blow up a reentering satellite could lead to unintended consequences.

If the powers that be cannot resolve these threats our future may end up in the hands of the revolutionary peoples of the world because it is they who suffer from militarization on earth and in space and it is they who benefit by taking all political, economic and military power into their own hands for their own benefit. Surely the average chinese, russian, african or american has no need for weapons of mass destruction or those who hold the world hostage with them. Period.