Debating Myself

The first real post on this blog covered a seemingly innocuous, but entertaining, news story pertaining to the US military’s success in shooting down an ailing and falling satellite.

Is this the future of warfare?

At the time I thought the story was amusing, but not very significant. Now it looks like I might be wrong.

The Pentagon has issued a new report [pdf] detailing the increasing concern in the military about China’s space and cyberwarfare capabilities. The New York Times reports:

The report places increased emphasis on concern about China’s space programs and potential for space warfare. It also said China was improving its own satellite capability, including construction of a new satellite launching complex on Hainan Island.

So is the US falling behind? It is tough to say, but the US is probably quite interested in sending the Chinese military a message.

To think that less than 40 years ago man walked on the moon, and now X-Prize and Google are sponsoring a contest for a private entity to put a robotic rover on the moon by 2012. (Man first achieved that in 1966!)

Technology really develops fast. If the US thought the space race against the Soviets was tough, then this is the Indy 500 of space races—

The international group of widely diverse teams will compete to land a privately funded robotic craft on the Moon that is capable of roaming the lunar surface for at least 1,600 feet and sending video, images and data back to the Earth. Since the competition was first announced six months ago, 567 potential teams from 53 countries have requested registration information…

All in all only 10 teams were chosen. A list and description of the teams can be found here.

And they’re off…

Only 384,403 kilometers to go. Good luck.

I am really proud of our military today. After almost thirty years of developing surface-to-space weaponry we managed, allegedly and unconfirmed, to down a crippled and failing satellite. Even the headline makes it sound ridiculous: US missile hits crippled satellite. I am not categorically against developing weapons that reach into space–I think it has to happen and China seems to have them–but I don’t think the Pentagon should get in the habit of touting its ability to shoot down defenseless space junk just yet.

Then again, we all remember that Iraq was touted as “Mission Accomplished“–so we know the Pentagon has different standards.