Worried on China, US seeks rules in space

[The Northerner]

The United States said on Wednesday it wanted to set guidelines with China on the use of space, voicing worries that the Asian power is increasingly able to destroy or jam satellites.

China stunned the United States in 2007 by becoming the third country to shoot down one of its own satellites in space, the first such test in the more than two decades since Washington and Moscow halted their "Star Wars" programs.

Gregory Schulte, a senior US official in charge of space defense, described China's investment in the field as "eyeballing" and said he has asked his Beijing counterparts in past talks to set "rules of the road" moving forward.

"We told them that we are worried that, particularly in crisis, a misunderstanding in space could easily lead to an inadvertent escalation that would not be in the interest of either of our countries," he said.

Read more: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/worried-china-us-seeks-rules-space-155411259.html

[gratuitous]

1. That's a switch

Back in the 1980s and through just a very short time ago, we were all for the militarization of space, confident in our ability to deploy weapons systems first, and highly resistant to any negotiations that would hamper our ability to rain down sudden death from the skies on anyone we darn well pleased. Now it appears that we've lost our edge (Anything to do with our preoccupation with creating fabulous wealth and funneling it into the pockets of the wealthy?), and we're suing for peace. Oh, we need some rules of the road now, boy!

This may come as a shock to certain segments of our population, but there are no guarantees that the United States will be the most lethal country on the planet forever. And it's just possible that the same measure that we have applied to others may be measured against us. Not a very savory prospect.

[Sonoman]

2. I suppose some percentage of our sats belong to China.

After all, China is carrying the note.

Sonoman