Space weapons

> Any system of National Missile Defense would be [snip]

Fairly useless IMHO (and that of most other people). If such a defense
is present, a hypothetical attacker (e.g. North Korea) with an attack
small enough to be theoretically taken out can just attack softer
targets using bioweapons or nukes in shipping containers or pickup
trucks coming over a land border or using stolen aircraft etc. Besides,
almost all the tests for this stuff have failed under ideal conditions,
and in real attacks there will be decoys, misleading information ("it's
a satellite launch") etc.

Big waste of money IMHO -- just more defense contractor welfare.

> And, I have the other articles elsewhere that detail China's
> plans to make space a battle ground.

What's the point? This sounds like what I was hearing before 9/11 as US
media reports seemed trying to stir up fear about China. Is China really
going to attack the US? Why? What can the accomplish by nuking the US (a
big trading partner)? Higher radioactive levels throughout the world? A
poisoned land? And if they want to do in the US, why not simply a
racially targeted virus, deliverable via infected tourists? That would
be a very cheap approach, and easily deniable. In any case, isn't it
time to move beyond these sorts of justifications for wasting money?
It's far cheaper for China to build "Aquarius" projects in the ocean or
to build other forms of habitats than risk war with any major countries
for more land for expanding populations. Or they can just use the
current account deficit the US is running with them to buy cheap land in
the US. Playing the "their weapons system is gonna be bigger than our
weapons system" is just so ... 20th century. :-) We need to move beyond
that if we are going to survive and prosper as a planet (and beyond).

--Paul Fernhout