“Captain! She’s given us alla she’s got!”
US space commander predicts satellite attacks
The Air Force’s new top commander for space predicted on Tuesday future attacks on U.S. satellites and called for greatly expanded tracking and identification of payloads launched by other countries.
Currently, U.S. efforts are focused on determining if an overseas launch is a ballistic missile or designed to put an object in orbit, then cataloging it over a period that can take weeks, said Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, who heads the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.
“I say those days are over,” he told an annual conference here on the fledgling, multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile shield. “If it’s a space launch, we can’t afford to relax.”
“We need to know what the intent of that launch is,” he said, including whether an object could jam or otherwise harm satellites or spread micro-satellites that could do so.
Chilton said his goal was to learn all this in the object’s first orbit of the Earth so the United States could take unspecified actions “before an adversary can cripple us.”
Of course, nobody needs to know what our launches are for…
How many of those “classified” shuttle missions were there?
http://www.spaceline.org/shuttlechron.html
STS-51C, STS-51j…
We can count on an appropriate neo-con response: “Throw money at ’em!”
We can count on an appropriate leftist response: “Defense spending is mean and makes me sad/mad 🙁 “
Compared to your typical neo-Lib responses which involves the standard attack on conservatives, followed by a statement to support your weak stance on national security, and no explanation on how you plan to solve the problem but your damn certain the Republicans got it wrong.
1. You’re right nobody needs to know what were launching. When they have the technology and money to support the space system used to figure it out then I guess theyll know. How you got the idea that National Security should be a balanced playing field is beyond me. It is in our interest as a country to stay ahead of the rest of the world in defense and if you think different kindly keep it to yourself because your blind belief that others are not out to hurt America is endangering my life and those of my loved ones.
You bet. Based on the media reports from Lebanon, they’re just days away from getting a rocket to fly more than 20 miles in a straight line.
WELL,
Since this is Sat vs Sat…
Its not to bad..As all the junk thats released will eventually Run into everything up there and destroy ALL the rest.
A nut, flying from a destroyed Sat, flys at about 14,000 per hour, and can devistate just about anything…Figure that into ALOT of other junk after you destroy A few sats.. And if nothing else, make them into Flying Land mines… Something shoots it, and it Blows UP
As to Sat vs Land targets??
It cant and wont happen..
Lasers desperse on the atmosphere, to much.
rockets and missles, have to deal with SIZE, and Heat of re-entry..
NOW,
setting up a cruise missle, with ALOT of heat protection, and Starts up, at a LOWER altitude, MIGHT work…But the range would be VERT SHORT..
it reminds of of that ep of stargate sg1 where Daniel takes over the world… nice one
Isn’t this just a response to an arms race we escalated ourselves?
ISNT this a responce to an arms race, that ISNT there…
“And in the future, I’m convinced they’ll strike at these capabilities, if nothing else to attempt to level the playing field,” he said.
THIs person needs to stop wathcing so much “Doctor Strange Love”, and stop listening to Corps that want US money.
NO foreign Satilite can fly over ANY foriegn country. NOT even ours are SUPPOSED to fly over other countries. They are considered, LOST goods if they do, and can be destroyed.
We have so much CEAP up there now, that its redicules to even figure out “IF IT WORKS” or has gone bad.
US develops satellite technology, somebody else tries to top us, space tech as a whole advances, not a bad deal. I suspect there is quite a bit of covert space activity going on, just as there are undersea manueverings hidden in the ocean depths, that are never discussed in public. We Americans are not the only folks tempting the dark fates of space exploration.
ECA makes occasional sense in his lunatic ravings, and that scares me.
To quote K., “There’s always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague (or a 14 year old hacker in Korea) that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they Do… Not… Know about it!
In a sense that’s true, except that he left out the part about needing to keep an eye on the selling and buying of the next big Star Wars type idea in DC, just in case the MIYWs (Men In Your Wallet) happen to get distracted from their duties to act in the best interest of America and the rest of the planet that deserves consideration.
4 When they have the technology and money to support the space system used to figure it out then I guess theyll know.
Which is probably exactly what China, Russia, North Korea – and maybe even Iran – are thinking…
It is in our interest as a country to stay ahead of the rest of the world in defense and if you think different kindly keep it to yourself because your blind belief that others are not out to hurt America is endangering my life and those of my loved ones.
How far did you have to reach up your own butt to find that one? That much straw must have been quite a handful.
NO, NO NO NO…
We need to be a few steps ahead in TECH and sales…but we have to many Corps trying to TAKE our money..
That Viseo card made in Taiwan that you bought,m because IT WAS THE BEST, SHOULd have cost you about 1/4 of what you PAID.
Some RICh guy in the US, thanks you, for spending TO MUCH.
Well, what worries me most is that a major country with Nuclear capability was the one to strike first in a recent war…
Now, if these people strike first with conventional ammo (and I put depleted Uranium under “conventional”), will they strike first with intercontinental nuclear missiles as well???
Oh, and maybe this didn’t get much press in the US, but some bigshot US General vowed to blast the new European GPS sattelites out of the sky if they were used for military purposes…
And we’re a peace-loving (Switzerland), pot-smoking (Holland) lot until someone fires one bullet (Gavrilo Princip) and the whole place goes to war. (WWI)
Don’t get me wrong: everyone has a right to defend themselves. Just don’t strike first…
‘nuf said! 🙂
Fabrizio Marana
Given the amount of crap that’s orbiting up there right now, satellites are far more likely to get taken down by random spacejunk than by any coordinated mult-million dollar attack :/ If they’re going to spend money on space, let’s see a manned mission to mars or the moons of jupiter for goodness sake, not this crap…
16,
there is an interesting thought…
Testing Nukes is fun and easy, if you forget about radiation and fallout.
Testing an ICBM, cant be done in your OWN backyard. Ask N. Korea.
It really isnt a Private thing.
Its not just the missle thats HArd to test…
Its also the guidance systems, and rocket control systems.
Just becaus eyou shoot it into the air, dont mean its GOING VERY FAR, or is going to HIT anything very important.
I think there is a judge in Michigan who could shut this down.