Militarization Moonbattery

An article so slanted, it should be on BBC. Instead, I’ll just fisk it.

Note: I have not excerpted the whole article here, just choice bits.

Critics worry the United States is developing space-based weapons in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, when the United States and other nations agreed not to place nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction in space.

Right. “Nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction”. What does this have to do with precision-guided weapons with localized destructive capabilities? Geez, they fight a war, on television, with weapons almost smart enough to sneak up on an individual enemy commander, tap him on the shoulder, and shout “BOOM” when he turns around…and everyone still thinks the military is drooling at the prospect of an orbital platform capable of dishing out Dresdens on demand.

In an interview last week with Florida Today, Shelton said he would “neither confirm nor deny” the United States is using or developing space-based weapons.

“I’d prefer not to answer that question,” Shelton said.

Which, naturally, means he’s hiding something. What is it? Space nukes? Flying crowbars? Rail guns? Psychotronic ray guns that can see through our tinfoil beanies and turn us into Candy Joneses?

The military was developing an experimental space-based laser, Shelton said, but the Pentagon downgraded it to “a research project. It’s not part of the immediate plan anymore.”

Such pronouncements haven’t allayed the concerns of activists such as Bruce Gagnon, a Gainesville resident and coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

“Never mind the truth, I’ve got hysteria to peddle!”

The group is planning to demonstrate Saturday against what it sees as NASA’s growing involvement in military affairs by handing out leaflets at the entrance of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, NASA’s tourist attraction.

“The huge mistake NASA is making is that, as a lot of people find out about NASA’s military involvement, they’ll begin to lose the confidence and support of the American people and the world for the space program,” Gagnon said.

Buddy, if chronic budget overruns on ISS and losing yet another Shuttle (with no viable replacement on the horizon despite numerous expensive, failed projects intended to provide just that) haven’t cost the agency the confidence and support of the American people, a few leaflets from moonbats will hardly do it.

The United States started militarizing space during the 1960s by launching spy satellites to track Soviet missile deployment, said Barry Watts, a former Air Force and Pentagon official and author of “The Military Use of Space: A Diagnostic Assessment.”

Interesting phrasing there…Yup, we started it all (so it seems to imply) by sending up Corona satellites to peek in on the Soviets. All our fault. We’re a bunch of militarists.

Oh, wait a minute…if we already militarized space forty-odd years ago, why are they only complaining about it now?

Instead, spy-satellite operations are being handled by the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Reconnaissance Organization, which Watts described as a cabal of the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Ooooh, a cabal…scaaary. You don’t suppose they have secret initiation rituals and club handshakes in this “cabal”, do you?

“That’s why the U.S. has development programs in directed energy and hit-to-kill mechanisms,” Ashy said. “We will engage terrestrial targets someday — ships, airplanes, land targets — from space.”

What? But those are military targets! What about the space-based carpet-bombing? Where are my puppy-seeking warheads and orphanage-vaporizing death rays?

Man, what a ripoff.

NASA and the U.S. military have worked together virtually since NASA’s inception in 1958 in apparent conflict with NASA’s charter, which calls for the agency to be used for “peaceful space exploration,” Gagnon said. In recent years, he said, the Pentagon sometimes has used NASA’s space shuttles for military purposes.

Note to Bruce: read up on the history of the development of the Space Shuttle. Certain basic features of the Shuttle are the direct result of USAF involvement in the design, and were included in exchange for their quiet support for the program.

“In recent years” is a load of rubbish…the last DOD Shuttle mission was STS-53 in December 1992.

Shelton, who is speaking at the upcoming 40th Space Congress, said there is “a strong partnership” between NASA and the Air Force, but the military’s use of NASA’s shuttles is limited to transporting “secondary payloads” involving experiments in orbit that could have military applications.

“We’re testing new materials, and we want to see how they perform in a space environment,” he said. “We also cooperate with NASA in technology development. They’re doing some things of interest to us.”

Ooh, that’s as scaaary as all the aeronautics development work they do for the military. What? The luddites aren’t protesting that, too? Why not?

But, as far as placing actual weapons in space goes, Shelton said, “We’ve got a treaty,” referring to the Outer Space Treaty banning weapons of mass destruction in space.

“The Department of Defense has no plans to use nuclear power with our space systems.”

Note that these two things are not actually related. The treaty bans nuclear weapons and other WMD, but it doesn’t ban nuclear power in space.

In addition to the 1967 treaty, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in 2001 on the prevention of an arms race in outer space.

“The prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security,” the resolution states.

Yeah, right…the UN. The General Assembly. Yawn.

Critics, meanwhile, fear the Bush administration is changing NASA’s focus from scientific exploration to the full-blown militarization of space. They point to the fact NASA and the administration intend to spend more than $1 billion during the next five years to expand its space nuclear-propulsion program.

Huh. And here I thought Rummy was using the Pentagon to militarize space.

Note that space nuclear power for probe propulsion does not equate to space militarization. Note too the plug for the “space is for science” meme.

A focus of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space’s demonstration at the Visitor Complex on Saturday is to protest NASA’s launching of two plutonium-carrying Mars exploration rovers from Cape Canaveral, both scheduled for June.

Because the Sons of Sojourner are really some sort of nuclear weapon or secret military project, I suppose? Note to Bruce: plutonium heating elements are not weapons, and they are only nuclear power in a broad reading of the term (certainly nothing like what we are talking about with Prometheus).

Gagnon said his group sometimes hears from employees of NASA contractors who are frustrated about how the shuttles and the International Space Station are being used for military purposes.

“These are people who work for contractors and who went into the space industry because they wanted to get into space exploration. But then they get inside the machine (of the space industry) and see how it’s being betrayed by these military agendas,” he said.

Ooh, the “stolen future” theme…yes, it’s all just a vast conspiracy to subvert space activities to the control of the killbots. Umm, you folks with misgivings about the space program’s relationship with the military…you do know that a good portion of the hardware that gets us there, and has always gotten us there, was developed from weapons, right?

What a pile.