So much for non-militarization of space....

[unixronin]

The USAF has filed a plan for militarization of near-earth space over the next ten years ranging from RF satellite-to-satellite weapons, to orbiting mirrors for directing over-the-horizon attacks with groundbased lasers, to a Thor weapon system and other orbital surface-bombardment weapons.  One has to wonder who the US is planning on fighting the next world war against.  There's an explicitly stated intention to deny space to anyone the US considers an "adversary".  (Oh, I'm sure the US will allow those pesky Europeans to play a little, so long as they don't do anything evil and destabilizing like, say, trying to put weapons in space.)  And of course, once all this shit is up there, you can just bet we'll have to justify the expense by finding someone to attack with it.

I don't know about you, but personally, I don't trust the US Government with a Damoclean sword hung over the heads of the entire planet.  They're stupid enough to use it.  At least with the strategic nuclear arsenals, anyone with three brain cells to rub together has the wit to realize that you can't actually use the damned things without wrecking civilization and possibly rendering the planet uninhabitable.

Didn't we talk everyone into signing a bunch of treaties promising not to do exactly this?  But then, the US Government has a long history of violating its treaties, so why change now?

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." -- Pogo, Walt Kelly

Comments

Obligatory Cyberpunk2020 Reference..

[databeast.livejournal.com]

dont worry, when the euro's get their Alpine mass-driver online, everyone will sure find out quick that rocks are a lot cheaper than nukes or orbitals - goodbye delaware... (hrm, must check my CP2020 sourcebooks, cant remember which city got stoned to death in the talsorian timeline).

Re: Obligatory Cyberpunk2020 Reference..

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, big mass-drivers will change a heck of a lot of equations. They're not really that useful from within a deep atmosphere, though, especially when it's combined with a deep gravity well.
(Not that we really have either, when compared to, say, Jupiter.)

[dang ... haven't gotten to play any CP2020 in years.]

Re: Obligatory Cyberpunk2020 Reference..

[databeast.livejournal.com]

When I'm mobile again, I'll be puting money into 'sights and sounds' for a travelling CP2020 game again. (looking to get two groups going in two diff cities, play them against each other in the same campaign world; I've got all the CP2020 stuff, and I'm a hideous neuropolitic cyberpunk purist .. so its going to be very 'now with the volume turned up'.

This is at least a couple of months off, but its something I've been working on for a while now. As it stands today I'm only missing four CP2020 sourcebooks, and with the exception of Brainware Blowout, they're all pretty rare ones.