can’t see the forest

Space News reports that on January 11 China used a ground-based missile to decommission one of its own aging weather satellites at an altitude of about 537 miles.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe (that name can’t be real) had this to say: “The United States [meaning, of course, all Americans---ed.] believes China’s development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area. We and other countries have expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese.”

You mean—other countries have missiles?

Like that one brat in the group of kiddies who just has to be in charge of which kid can play with which toys, US policymakers are bound and determined that the Chinese simply can’t be trusted to destroy their own defunct space gadgets without permission from Washington.

Chinese authorities refused to acknowledge the decommissioning—er, I mean, the missile test—to which I say: More power to you. If you want to provoke Amurrica, knock out the ESPN satellite. Anything else is fine with me.

All of the sudden the U.S. press is abuzz with talk about an arms race in space, a competition which so far appears to have only one registered entry: the U.S.

Ever vigilant, Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) commented: “I don’t think we should be overly worried about it at this point. We have ways to deal with that ability.” Americans should be relieved that their government “has ways to deal” with a Chinese government capable of knocking down its own meteorological equipment. We are all aware, after all, of the brutal aggressiveness of Chinese foreign policy down through the millennia. I think we should be very afraid.

What we should be worried about is this: that last October, President Bush signed a fairly snarling executive order which said, in so many words, that the U.S. has the right to determine when another nation is accessing space for hostile purposes, and that it has the right to dosump’nboudit.

Perhaps Beijing is flexing a bit of aerospace muscle, eh? If China can knock out one satellite at that orbit, it could potentially destroy just about any other. But that’s the way we play fair, isn’t it? I am no fan of any human instrument of destruction achieving escape velocity—but with a kingly decree like that on the books, why shouldn’t what’s good for George be good for Jintao?