At 03:19 PM 5/25/2003 -0600, you wrote:

>Save your political rhetoric for a more suitable list. My point on this
>list is that it is technically quite feasible for the proposed US space
>policy to backfire in spades.

A bunch of rusty old nails in orbit can take out any of these satellites
(and prevent any more from being useful for decades). Low tech and easy.

I don't doubt that there are rogue elements associated with the Pentagon
that would like the ability to threaten innocent countries with death
rained down from above in a first-strike unilateral way, but it will be
a good long time before the deterrent capabilities of Russian and China (and
the UK and France, and soon, Japan) are erased, if ever. The scrapping
of all these treaties (including, in effect, the NPT, which some people
forget was signed and ratified to require the US and USSR to dismantle ALL
their nuclear weapons in exchange for the rest of the countries not getting
any in the first place) is already sparking a mid-scale arms race. If it's
another cold war, so be it. Buy stocks of weapons firms, hope for the best
for our children.

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

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