Star Wars Redux
The U.S. will fire a missile into space in an attempt to shoot down a failing satellite:
The military will try to shoot down a crippled spy satellite in the next two weeks, senior officials said Thursday. The officials laid out a high-tech plan to intercept the satellite over the Pacific just before it tumbles uncontrollably to Earth carrying toxic fuel. . .
The challenging mission to demolish the satellite on the fringes of space will rely on an unforeseen use of ship-based weapons developed to defend against ballistic missile attacks.
The effort will be a real-world test of the nation’s antiballistic missile systems and its antisatellite abilities, even though the Pentagon said it was not using the effort to test its most exotic weapons or send a message to any adversaries.
The ramifications of the operation are diplomatic, as well as military and scientific, in part because the United States criticized China last year when Beijing tested an antisatellite system with an old weather satellite as a target.
So, is this a prudent idea, taken for the right reasons? [UPDATE: It appears not.] Or is it the next step in an escalation toward an arms race in space?
Political analyst Steve Clemons says:
Shooting down a spy satellite whose orbit is decaying is either an exercise in super power vanity or an action designed to escalate the further militarization of space.The Chinese shot down a satellite of their own last year and essentially took the first shot of this kind to break out of informal norms that powers would not formally flex muscles that showed their ability to potentially blind the space-based intel machinery of their rivals.
Even if those who agitated for this "shot" were not thinking in such GeoStratSpace terms and wanted to try and destroy the satellite just because they think they can, the "bad politics" of this are quite substantial.
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics blog
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