lunatics on the loose

The report mentions that WMD's are barred. What does that leave? Lasers? Conventional missiles?

THe line that got me was at the end of the report:


But General Lord said such problems should not stand in the way of the Air Force's plans to move into space.

"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," he told an Air Force conference in September. "Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."

Oh dear - can anyone say megalomaniac? This vision must not be allowed succeed in any way, shape or form.

"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," he told an Air Force conference in September. "Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."

Oh dear - can anyone say megalomaniac? This vision must not be allowed succeed in any way, shape or form.

Well on the plus side, it means they might bugger off far enough to leave the rest of us to get on with life. The language is funny though; I wonder if americans see that as funny or deeply patriotic? I would cringe at that from an EU leader.

This is coming from a country that cant even safley fund its own space program properly without having the Ruskies to compete against. Let them try, I say. The USAF is not going to listen to the EU or China or anyone else, so let them go make a balls of their economy, reduce their population into poverty and shout "Hey! We gots da Bomb!" all they want. The US is a democracy (granted a system of which i personally dont quite get), and they did have the oppertunity recently to get rid of Bush and they (well 50.something percent) chose not to. The other 49.something percent are well... liberals apparently. Bottom line; only the American people can change the course of their country - its entirely up to them, they'll be paying for it.

Anyway; the future is more like red dwarf than starwars. Low orbital space is now within the realms of commercial business; within 20 years we will see the first steps of space hotels and cheap ($30,000?) flights. The pioneers will then be onto the moon; shortly followed by business. The real pioneering work is being done 100% commercially; pioneers are explicitly not partnering with government and miliraty to accomplish their goals. Then of course will come the mining ships; and blokes called Lister...

Space is no longer the sole realm of governments; and efforts to make it so will fail miserably. Like maritime today; governments will have the equivalent of the submarines, aricraft carriers, gunships; and the rest of the world will have the pleaseure cruisers, cargo ships etc. Sure the US will have a large space military presence in time; as will other countries but no more than in naval terms today; where the US has a very strong navy, but I would not classify it as having supremacy - the US Navy does not have supreme authority on the seas. The article states `Air Force doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack" in space.` - good luck. Looking at space supremacy another way; assume they get their supremacy. Then the Chinese or the EU launch an ISS type station with some weapon capability - is the USA seriously going to shoot it down? If they dont they no longer have their supremacy since they can not guarntee freedom from attack while it is in orbit. If they do hit it...

Is there not some UN treaty prohibiting weapons in space?

i think bush has pulled them out of that.
stephen.

:roll:

Its a pretty disheartening world we have been forced to live in...

If only they could put a fraction of that money into something worth while like the HST instead, then again who are we to tell another country what to do with their money.
This isnt anti-american BTW, just anti-war.
I just dont think orbiting nuclear platform are needed to catch binladen and co. .