Any "denial of access" that the USA can do to foreign satellites, can also be done to US satellites. Remember "Captain Midnight" of HBO jamming fame? If he'd kept his mouth shut, the authorities would NEVER have known who was responsible. Today's terrorists could easily hold multimillion dollar satellites hostage with an old radar unit and a BIG TVRO dish (or array) for uplink. 2600 magazine recently had an article on how to jam civilian GPS signals with just $30 worth of parts. It wouldn't be much harder to jam the P code signals too (just raise the chip rate to match the P code rate). DDOS (distributed denial of service) for satellite is extraordinarily difficult to combat. A ship or two or three, offshore, could do a LOT of damage to the US satellite infrastructure, and cheaply too. And what if the 'terrorists' set up their dishes next to existing teleports? And there is also the potential to use stealth drones to fly over the USA for reconnaissance purposes. How is the USA going to stop them if they come in by the dozens? The Russians have demonstrated their decades old ability to "Kill" satellites within an orbit or two. With modern computers that becomes even easier for any space capable nation to do (China, Japan, etc.). Leave it to the USA brain trust to start a war that they can only loose in the long run. R Marc Nicholas wrote: > > "All your satellites are belong to us!" ;-) > > That could be seriously scary. I wonder if it'll affect my plans to > eventually launch my own PIC-based satellite? ;-) > > -marc > > On 25/5/03 07:51, "Russell McMahon" wrote: > > > US sets out to be the ONLY ones who can look down on you. > > > > http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20030522S0050 > > > > > > "Beginning next year, NRO will be in charge of the new Offensive > > Counter-Space program, which will come up with plans to specifically deny > > the use of near-Earth space to (all) other nations, said US National > > Reconnaissance Office Director Peter Teets. > > > > The program will include two components: the Counter Communication System, > > designed to disrupt other nations' communication networks from space; and > > the Counter Surveillance Reconnaissance System, formed to prevent other > > countries from using advanced intelligence-gathering technology in air or > > space." -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body