Would you weaponize space?

[sloppy lombardi slaps]

China's military sees weaponizing space as inevitable:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9be4fa1c-c...44feabdc0.html

Obama has said he will not do it and China used to echo that, but not anymore.



If you were president would you continue America's military superiority and weaponize space, or not?









It reminds me of a line from a great movie, Total Recall, where a news broadcast talks about America needing to maintain their space based weapons, as they are the only defense we have against the southern block's superior numbers.

[sloppy lombardi slaps]

also, here's an american admiral who's concerned about China's military building up:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ory?id=8954989


China has 30 million excess males. I remember a history teacher once saying that when a country has a large number of excess males, that country goes to war.

[RavensLover69]

Yes, but not openly.

[CigarMatt]

Who's to say we haven't already?

[sloppy lombardi slaps]

Originally Posted by CigarMatt

Who's to say we haven't already?

Obama.

[sloppy lombardi slaps]

Originally Posted by RavensLover69

Yes, but not openly.

this would be my approach as well.

[bengals_in_miami]

Originally Posted by First Article

As the air force of a peace-loving country, [we] must forge a sword and a shield capable of winning peace.

Sounds an awful lot like war to me, coming from a "peace-loving" country.

I wouldn't weaponize space openly if no one else has, but if China plans on doing it then we have to

[Joe from Benton]

Originally Posted by CigarMatt

Who's to say we haven't already?

Originally Posted by sloppy lombardi slaps

Obama.

Originally Posted by RavensLover69

Yes, but not openly.

Originally Posted by sloppy lombardi slaps

this would be my approach as well.

Let me go find my hypocrisy shovel. I left it in another thread.

[CigarMatt]

Originally Posted by Joe from Benton

Let me go find my hypocrisy shovel. I left it in another thread.

Lol, I was just having fun with my response. This thread hearkens back to a few episodes of West Wing in my mind.

[TheBengals]

No because the aliens would not appreciate it and may not return if we do.

[WV_Bengalsfan]

This is unfortunately a serious question. Because of technologies being developed in others countries it is just a matter of time until someone weaponizes space. We need to weaponize space, but do it covertly. We will need the capability to eliminate weapons put into orbit by other countries. Besides this being a threat we will also need to protect our satellites that are currently in orbit. So much of our current technology relies on those satellites such as GPS and Communications. China has already developed the technology to destroy a satellite in orbit. It is just a matter of time before some country tries to use such technology on us. We have too much to lose not to defend our equipment.

Not to even get into attempting to shoot down ICBMs or attacks from space to ground targets. The potential to do what you want is limitless with space weapons. We should be at the forefront of this and not fall behind like we did in the early days of missile development.

[tbone77]

Originally Posted by sloppy lombardi slaps

China's military sees weaponizing space as inevitable:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9be4fa1c-c...44feabdc0.html

Obama has said he will not do it and China used to echo that, but not anymore.



If you were president would you continue America's military superiority and weaponize space, or not?









It reminds me of a line from a great movie, Total Recall, where a news broadcast talks about America needing to maintain their space based weapons, as they are the only defense we have against the southern block's superior numbers.

why? wtf would we want to waste money on weaponizing space? i think it's time to let china find their own boondoggles. we've already depleted our treasury on iraq and other military boondoggles -- are we still bribing the sunnis in iraq to be cool? -- let's let china waste their money on sending weapons to space. it's about time that we start spending our money on stuff that actually has merit and benefit for the taxpayers.

[GoldenBengal]

Originally Posted by tbone77

why? wtf would we want to waste money on weaponizing space? i think it's time to let china find their own boondoggles. we've already depleted our treasury on iraq and other military boondoggles -- are we still bribing the sunnis in iraq to be cool? -- let's let china waste their money on sending weapons to space. it's about time that we start spending our money on stuff that actually has merit and benefit for the taxpayers.

Yes, and we should sell all our current defense systems as well and quit wasting money on things like that too...

If people in the know believe China (or any other country) is doing it - we need to do it better and faster. If another country were to take out our comm sats we'd be thrown back to the dark ages in an instant. I can't imagine any of our enemies taking advantage of that though....

[CigarMatt]

Originally Posted by GoldenBengal

Yes, and we should sell all our current defense systems as well and quit wasting money on things like that too...

If people in the know believe China (or any other country) is doing it - we need to do it better and faster. If another country were to take out our comm sats we'd be thrown back to the dark ages in an instant. I can't imagine any of our enemies taking advantage of that though....

China wouldn't attack us. A war with us would screw them over fiscally what with all the U.S. debt they hold.

[devils advocate]

....Switching from vacuum to s u c k.

[sloppy lombardi slaps]

Originally Posted by tbone77

why? wtf would we want to waste money on weaponizing space? i think it's time to let china find their own boondoggles. we've already depleted our treasury on iraq and other military boondoggles -- are we still bribing the sunnis in iraq to be cool? -- let's let china waste their money on sending weapons to space. it's about time that we start spending our money on stuff that actually has merit and benefit for the taxpayers.

so you're in favor of china having the advantage in both numbers and technology?

[tbone77]

Originally Posted by sloppy lombardi slaps

so you're in favor of china having the advantage in both numbers and technology?

I agree with Matt. WTF would China screw with America? I think you underestimate the interdependency of the industrialized nations of the world. Russia, China, Japan, India, Europe, and America... we are all too advanced to even pretend that we want to blow each other up. Europe just strengthened their political union this week. We depend on each other for commerce, raw materials, food, credit and many other products and services. Just in the last 50 years the world has advanced to such a level that we have no choice but to find a way to coexist in peace. Wasting money on gigantic weapons for outer space is unnecessary. Get real.

We simply have waaaay too much to lose. We can not afford to blow each other up and start over again. The infrastructure is too sophisticated and the economies are too interdependent.

Even if another bellicose, psychotic, or violent racist leader wins a major election in an industrialized country, he would be utterly stupid to even pretend to want to blow up neighboring industrialized countries. The ensuing destruction, humanitarian disaster, and loss of communication and trade would quickly destroy the psychotic lunatic's own economy. This fact is obvious to everyone who is in touch with reality. The old days of toy soldiers and big bombs are soon to be gone. Yes we will still have big bomb, but we won't need them because the days of industrializing countries declaring war on other industrialized countries are gone. we live in a different age. We face different threats. We already have the ability to exterminate our own species in an instant. We all know it. Why on earth would we want to have the ability to blow up the world from outer space? We already have land based nuclear weapons that can do the job instantly.

The only people who want to destroy the industrialized countries in the 21st century are pschotic nihlists and the terrorists and those idiots who romanticize about each generation having their own world war. You can't do it in today's world and expect to benefit from the ensuing chaos and destruction. The human population is too large. The infrastructure is too sophisticated. And the risks are too obvious. You might as well retire yourself to watching Ultimate Fighting on Spike TV to satisfy your bloodlust because the world wars are becoming increasing unlikely as human beings learn to coexist and communicate with each other effectively.

We don't need to weaponize space. We need to capture Osama Bin Laden and develop and international bureau of investigation to capture and thwart future Osama Bin Laden's. And we need to think long term about scarcity of resources and other problems that we face.

[tbone77]

Originally Posted by sloppy lombardi slaps

so you're in favor of china having the advantage in both numbers and technology?

It's a waste of money. Where is the return on investment?

Do you really want a world in which we have weapons orbiting the globe pointing down on us? Why is that necessary? That will not solve any real problems. It might create problems. It is a waste of money.

[tbone77]

From Sloppy's own link in the OP:

Chinese military experts fiercely denied that the country might be planning to build weapons in space.

“[Gen Xu] just characterised the source of a threat and stated a technological outlook,” said Wang Xiangsui at Beihang University. But he added: “Of course, all satellites, military or private, have a certain military background.”

Some security experts believe Beijing is playing down the air force chief’s comments because he was not so much expressing a strategic shift as lobbying for more funds in competition with the PLA navy.

I think Sloppy that you are just rabble rousing.

[RazourWeed]

Originally Posted by tbone77

From Sloppy's own link in the OP:



I think Sloppy that you are just rabble rousing.

NO!

Would Sloppy do that.


Hundreds of billions of dollars for Healthcare, that's socialism!!!!!

Hundreds of billions of dollars for bombs in space, that's proactive!

I love reading people trying to justify this.

[bengals_in_miami]

I've changed my mind, I agree with tbone

[fredtoast]

Originally Posted by sloppy lombardi slaps

China's military sees weaponizing space as inevitable.

Outer space or Myspace?

Outer space would be a waste of money, but it would be way cool to have a Myspace account that I could use to shoot lasers at my enemies.

[Steely_J]

Originally Posted by sloppy lombardi slaps

China's military sees weaponizing space as inevitable:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9be4fa1c-c...44feabdc0.html

Obama has said he will not do it and China used to echo that, but not anymore.



If you were president would you continue America's military superiority and weaponize space, or not?









It reminds me of a line from a great movie, Total Recall, where a news broadcast talks about America needing to maintain their space based weapons, as they are the only defense we have against the southern block's superior numbers.

We already have space weapons.

[Steely_J]

Originally Posted by fredtoast

Outer space or Myspace?

Outer space would be a waste of money, but it would be way cool to have a Myspace account that I could use to shoot lasers at my enemies.

pew pew!

[CigarMatt]

Originally Posted by Steely_J

We already have space weapons.

Of course we do. Little known to most people, Hubble is dual purpose.

Telescope/OMGWTF PWNSAUZ PEW PEW

Trustori.