A Head Scratcher

Here’s a piece by a Greg Autrey in the Baltimore Sun on space policy. It’s kind of a mess:

Why should we care about missiles threatening low Earth orbit? When the Chinese get on with reabsorbing Taiwan – the most likely trigger for a U.S.-China confrontation – U.S. drivers may find that the navigation systems in their SUVs (not to mention their ambulances) aren’t working. Low-flying U.S. military spy satellites are the first target of the new weapon, but the slightly higher GPS (global positioning system) satellites that guide our weapons systems are also attractive to Chinese war planners.

Or, what about when the censorship-savvy Chinese government decides it has had enough of Howard Stern corrupting the youth and takes out Sirius satellite radio?

GPS isn’t “slightly higher.” It’s thousands of miles higher. GEO, where satellite radio satellites reside is thousand of miles higher than that.

But the real problem is that the whole thing is incoherent. What does the “sands of the moon” have to do with ASATs? Just what is it that he’s recommending, policy-wise? More money for NASA? More encouragement of private enterprise? How?

You’d think that with all the knowledge out here on the web, newspapers could find better commentators on space than “a lecturer on business strategy and entrepreneurship.”