Posted on 10/29/2010 11:02:53 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Earlier this month, the State Department learned that debris from the Chinese weather satellite destroyed in their 2007 anti-satellite test would be coming uncomfortably close to another — functioning — Chinese satellite.
So, like any good neighbor, State told China about the possibility of a collision. In technical terms, the US shared conjunction analysis with our PRC brethren. But, as often happens with the fabulously opaque Chinese government, the US isn’t sure if China heard us or believed us. At a conference on space debris last week in Germany, a U.S. military officer spoke with someone presumed to be a PLA officer and asked this person if they had heard of the US information. None of the three Chinese attending the conference admitted to knowing about this. (Of course, they also said they didn’t know much English but were spotted avidly reading policy papers handed out at the conference…)
But the fact that the US shared that information with China demonstrates clearly how much has changed since the Bush administration on this front. U.S. policy is now to work closely with all space powers on matters of mutual interest, such as space debris, possible collisions and other issues.
For example, for the first time in almost half a dozen years, State Department officials are speaking with their Russian colleagues about space policy issues, including TCBMs — transparency and confidence building measures — according to Frank Rose, deputy assistant secretary of State for space and defense policy. Rose spoke Friday at a conference on space policy sponsored by George Washington University. An important spur to those talks was the collision in February last year between a Russian satellite and one owned by Iridium. The Iridium satellite was destroyed.
(Excerpt) Read more at dodbuzz.com ...
Between 0bama and Hitlery, how much faith can be put in the State Department doing anything right for America other than for political gain?
We’re screwed if 0bama, Hitlery, et al have complete charge of the best interests of the United States.
They do not have faith in their State Department.It feels that they are “winging it” and making stuff as they go. I do not have faith in this State Department. Its a joke.
We are already screwed.
The State Departnent is a tool. It’s a joke, as you say. Bunch obfbastards at the top.
I agree.Its a useless organization now.
>>> that the US shared that information with China demonstrates clearly how much has changed since the Bush administration on this front. U.S. policy is now to work closely with all space powers on matters of mutual interest
Bunk. Nothing has changed.
A space-junk chain reaction of destroyed satellites would have been no more in the US interest under Bush then it is now. The United States is the most significant user of space operations. Each new impact increases the probabilities of new fields of 10,000 mph bullets our own space station, orbiters, and satellites must dodge.
Pre-January 2009, had there been a similar situation arise where a warning to the Chinese might have averted a new collision I am certain the effort would have been made.
The State Dept is full of blatantly anti-American operatives. Read “Triple Cross” and recall the multiple times that Bush policies were “gunnysacked”. That is why John Bolton was hated, he knows these people, and they see that he can see through them. The best thing any new President could do, would be to fire the entire bureaucratic sector within the Federal Govt, and hire all new people. What’s the worst that could happen? People would hate us? We would have large gaps in security? Doing that would go a long way to solving the problem of security, as it would all us to have lovers of America to go into public service.....think former Marines and GI’s.
You’re exactly right. I know first hand. I repeat: Bunch of Bastards.
You're also right that this is nothing new. There's no new great open-ness under hussien. No matter how the lamestream media tries to spin it.
As I understand it, the military is always tracking everything they can find up there at any and every opportunity. No radar or optical time goes to waste, they're always confirming or re-confirming ephemeris data. The military is always looking some number of hours out, possibly even several days, propagating orbits, looking for any object that may get close to one of their birds. They don't perform maneuvers ad-hoc. That wastes fuel and potentially just puts you on another collision course. So they want enough lead time to plan. I don't know if they perform collision analysis for the other objects. You get a combinatorial explosion of orbits to check, that's a lot of computer time. They probably only look at military birds, manned spacecraft, NASA missions, and high-value or significant commercial space assets.
The only interesting thing here is that they bothered to compute the possible collision with a Chinese comsat. They must be keeping a close eye on that debris cloud looking for any possible collisions that would make matters worse.
“our PRC brethren”
No such thing.
The Russian sat had some minor paint damage... :) Much like a 50’s Studebaker colliding with a 90’s Volvo...
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