I know that Science Friday is usually a breath of fresh air, sweeping you, however briefly, away from the troubles of the day.
Not today.
Today we're going to talk about Bush's master plan of making the Earth uninhabitable, only to flee to his PNAC Tree-House on the Moon (NO GURLZ ALOUD) where he can read Archie comics in peace, drink the Crown Royal peach wine coolers hidden in the floorboards, and of course, plot the further destruction of those that roll their eyes at him when he isn't looking.
Shooting Stars
U.S. Military Takes First Step Towards Weapons in Space
By Marc Lallanilla, ABC News
For all of human history, people have looked at the stars with a sense of wonder. More recently, some U.S. military planners have looked skyward and seen something very different -- the next battlefield.
While the military's presence in space stretches back decades, now there appears to be a new emphasis. Officials in the Bush administration and the Department of Defense are actively pursuing an agenda calling for the unprecedented weaponization of space.
The first real step in that direction appears to be coming in the form of a little-noticed weapons program at the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. The agency has now earmarked $68 million in 2005 for something called the Near Field Infrared Experiment.
The NFIRE satellite is primarily designed to gather data on exhaust plumes from rockets launched from earth, and defense officials claim it is therefore designed as a defensive, rather than offensive weapons.
But the satellite will also contain a smaller "kill vehicle," a projectile that takes advantage of the kinetic energy of objects traveling through low-Earth orbit (which move at several times the speed of a bullet) to disable or destroy an oncoming missile or another orbiting satellite.
As one senior government official and defense expert described the program, which has seen cost-related delays and increased congressional scrutiny: "We're crossing the Rubicon into space weaponization."
We've seen Bush living out every yuppie childhood fantasy he's ever had. First as Roy Rogers, then as G.I. Joe, then quickly on to Chuck Yeager. Given that progression, it was only a matter of time before he made his way to Buck Rogers.
But the idea of weapons in space is greeted coldly by some.
"Weapons in space are not inevitable. If it were, it would have happened already," argued the senior defense expert, adding, "We should instead be taking the lead to make [weapons] agreements with other countries."
Indeed, other nations have moved for the non-militarization of space. As early as 1967, for example, the United Nations brokered the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the use of weapons of mass destruction in space. The United States is a signatory to the treaty.
Summarizing the differences between the United States and European views on space was Jean-Jacques Dordain, head of the European Space Agency, who said in a recent interview: "For the U.S., space is an instrument of domination -- information domination and leadership. Europe should be proposing a different model -- space as a public good."
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Criticism of the U.S. plans to weaponize space is not limited to Europeans. The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Defense Information, a non-governmental organization founded by retired senior U.S. military offices, said in a 2002 report, "Space is already 'militarized' by both military and commercial satellites. The only practical place to draw the line today is space weaponization."
Concluded the report: "The United States has and will continue to have more interests in space assets both civil and military than most countries, and it will retain a net benefit if no one [including the United States itself] has weapons in space."
I look forward to the days when we will once again be a beacon for the rest of the world.</tongueslightlyincheek>
Until then, we can only hope that the next childhood fantasy that Bush gloms onto is the one that he should have tried in the first place... President of the United States.