Posted on 12/10/2004, 4:38:59 AM by the conservative bean
The most likely scenario for the first-ever space battle would see Chinese satellites equipped with high-energy lasers disabling or destroying large numbers of United States communications, weather and military satellites. Under such a scenario, the U.S. and its allies would be incapable of repairing or replacing such a large number of sophisticated satellites. This becomes especially acute when recent failures and tragedies of the U.S. shuttle program are taken into account.
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
Back in the 1980's Hollywood and other assorted Leftists all ran with the theme that it would be the Soviet Union that finally invented the first stealth fighter jet.
This article is FireFox revisited, but set in space...
You know, there are so many of these pants-wetting articles inflating Chinese military capability there's got to be some sort of overarching psychology behind it.
Why, then, would China, known chiefly for communism, militarism, human rights violations and illegal arms sales, make a large monetary investment in the space travel industry? (from the article)
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Doh! Even Homer Simpson could answer this one....try world domination, their primary totalitarian goal. Oh, and thanks to Benedict Clinton for providing the needed missle guidance technology they needed for their space race....selling out American security for campaign dollars...
More of the Clinton legacy.
Only if they can steal the technology. A more likely scenario:
"...the first-ever space battle would see US satellites equipped with high-energy lasers disabling or destroying large numbers of Chinese communications, weather and military satellites."
The second is Taiwan. No Chinese Imperial dynasty paid the least attention to Taiwan, or bothered to claim it. The Manchus did, though, in 1683, and ruled it in a desultory way, as a prefecture of Fujian Province, until 1887, when it was upgraded to a province in its own right. Eight years later it was ceded to Japan, whose property it remained until 1945. In its entire history, it has been ruled by Chinese people seated in China's capital for less than four years. China's current attitudes to Taiwan are, I think, pretty well known.
And the third stumbling block to the restoration of China's greatness is…….the United States. To the modern Chinese way of thinking, China's proper sphere of influence encompasses all of East Asia and the western Pacific. This does not mean that they necessarily want to invade and subjugate all the nations of that region, though they certainly do want to do just that to Taiwan and some groups of smaller islands. For Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Micronesia, etc., the old imperial-suzerainty model would do well enough, at least in the short term. These places could conduct their own internal affairs, so long as they acknowledged the overlordship of Beijing, and, above all, did not enter into alliances, nor even close friendships, with other powers.
Which, of course, too many of them have done, the competitor power in every case being the U.S. It is impossible to overstate how angry it makes the Chinese to think about all those American troops in Japan, Korea, and Guam, together with the U.S. Seventh Fleet steaming up and down in "Chinese" waters, and electronic reconnaissance planes like the EP-3 brought down on April 1 operating within listening distance of the mainland. If you tackle Chinese people on this, they usually say: "How would you feel if there were Chinese troops in Mexico and Jamaica, and Chinese planes flying up and down your coasts?" Leaving aside the fact that front companies for the Beijing regime now control both ends of the Panama Canal, as well as Freeport in the Bahamas, the answer is that the United States is a democracy of free people, whose government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, so that the wider America's influence spreads, the better for humanity: while China is a corrupt, brutish, and lawless despotism, the close containment of which is a pressing interest for the whole human race. One cannot, of course, expect Chinese people to be very receptive to this answer.
Or, indeed, to anything much we have to say on the subject of their increasing militant and assertive nationalism. We simply have no leverage here. It is no use trying to pretend that this is the face-saving ideology of a small leadership group, forced on an unwilling populace at gunpoint. The Chinese people respond eagerly to these ultra-nationalist appeals: That is precisely why the leadership makes them. Resentment of the U.S., and a determination to enforce Chinese hegemony in Asia, are well-nigh universal among modern mainland Chinese. These emotions trump any desire for constitutional government, however much people dislike the current regime for its corruption and incompetence. Find a mainlander, preferably one under the age of thirty, and ask him which of the following he would prefer: for the Communists to stay in power indefinitely, unreformed, but in full control of the "three T's" (Tibet, Turkestan, Taiwan); or a democratic, constitutional government without the three T's. His answer will depress you. You can even try this unhappy little experiment with dissidents: same answer.
Is there anything we can do about all this? One thing only. We must understand clearly that there will be lasting peace in East Asia when, and only when, China abandons her atavistic fantasies of imperial hegemony, withdraws her armies from the 2 million square miles of other people's territory they currently occupy, and gets herself a democratic government under a rule of law. Until that day comes, if it ever does, the danger of war will be a constant in relations between China and the world beyond the Wall, as recent events in the South China Sea have illustrated. Free nations, under the indispensable leadership of the United States, must in the meantime struggle to maintain peace, using the one, single, and only method that wretched humanity, in all its millennia of experience, has so far been able to devise for that purpose: Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
ZIRCONIC / NEBULA MISTY / AFP-731ZIRCONIC / NEBULA was (is?) a stealth satellite program. Its purpose was to build a system of intelligence-gathering spacecraft capable of performing "a trans-SIOP mission” (i.e. surviving a nuclear war) by being undetectable by any known or projected means. And that was fourteen years ago — who knows what they’'ve built or how far they’ve advanced since then?ZIRCONIC is a security channel behind the traditional BYEMAN compartments which reportedly contains stealth satellite programs such as MISTY (AFP-731) and PROWLER.
NEBULA is the program name covering work on the general concept and technology of stealthy satellites.
In December 2004 Senators Rockefeller, Levin, Wyden and Durbin objected to an item in the classified schedule of authorizations that provided for continued funding of a major acquisition program that they believed is unnecessary and the cost of which they believe is unjustified. They believe that the funds for this item should be expended on other intelligence programs that will make a surer and greater contribution to national security. For this reason, which is more fully explained in the classified record of the conference, they have not signed the conference report.
Three senators refused to sign the recent intelligence reform bill based upon their objections to a certain program — name and purpose unspecified. The reason they refused is itself unspecified — too secret to even discuss. Politics at work, or something more?
I suspect that if it ever came down to all-out war, the defense establishment of our country (which may or may not be congruent with the outfit based in the Pentagon!) would employ technologies we've never dreamed of — eldritch and incomprehesible things developed in the deepest, blackest corners of nowhere, and kept sleeping there in anticipation of the day when all the backs are against all the walls there would literally be nothing left to lose.
God help us all if that day should ever come.
Could you please add me to the space ping list? Thanks
Lets just hope that the Air Force was smart enough to not let slick willie know about half the good stuff we have. I have a feeling we have stuff thats only been talked about in sci fi books.
I should have read the whole thread but thats what I am talking about. Think about how long they keep the stealth fighter under wraps.
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