You know, if your world view was really "shaken up by China's ASAT demonstration, you couldn't have been paying attention. China is a very real threat in military space (though not manned space), and has been for some time.

I agree Rand, but at the same time, I didn't realize they had the precision guidance down. It's not a major deal, but that's really what I get out of the ability to do ASAT vs a simple sub-orbital flight.

Precision guidance is not a problem in LEO as long as you know the target's location to a precision of 1 meter.

What is sad, and frightening, is that there are many people (read: Europeans) who are neither shocked or even disturbed by the Chinese test.

I have read comments (on certain internet forums) from Europeans who have in the past few years lambasted Bush to no end for simply changing a space policy document such that it seemed to them that he was contemplating defending US space assets, yet these very same people now DEFEND the Chinese test as "nothing the US hasn't already done". These same people say not a word about the orbital debris created by the Chinese test, yet they have in the past wrung their hands over other orbital debris issues that pale in comparison.

There is a huge fraction of the world population, heavily concentrated in the nations of Europe we think of as our "allies", that have their collective heads shoved up their A$$ when it comes to ANY threat other than the one they perceive as coming from the US in general and George W. Bush in particular. I am convinced it will take nothing short of a cloud of chemical or biological agents or the flash of a nuclear detonation over a major city to rip these peoples minds out of the fantasy world they live in and into reality. And even then there is a huge probability that they will somehow find a way to blame the "Great Satan".

There is a huge fraction of the world population, heavily concentrated in the nations of Europe we think of as our "allies", that have their collective heads shoved up their A$$ when it comes to ANY threat other than the one they perceive as coming from the US in general and George W. Bush in particular.

I guess America needs better leaders.

Yes, new leaders that have the balls to tell Eurpoe to save it's own ass next time the f-uck things up. We aren't bailing you ungrateful, spoiled children's chesnuts out fo the fire anymore.

Time you Euroweenies were completely on your own.

Europeans are not unanimous. In any large pool of people (like the EU or US) you will find a few percent that think weird stuff. No suprize here. If the majority would think that the US is their main enemy, then I would suprized. Miklos

Europeans are not unanimous.

Well said. I've been over there several times and have never encountered anything remotely approaching anti-Americanism. Of course, I was typically in smaller towns, and talking to regular people, not the European media.

We should remember that much of our view of Europeans is shaped by their news media. And those guys make our media look like paragons of truth and restraint.

Minor correction:

We should remember that much of our view of Europeans is shaped by OUR news media.

"I've been over there several times and have never encountered anything remotely approaching anti-Americanism"

Friend of mine just got back from serving a stint over in Kosovo. They took leave and went on a trip to Greece. They got yelled out of a restaurant, by the staff none the less, being accused as "Bush Lovers".

I have read comments...from Europeans who have in the past few years lambasted Bush to no end for simply changing a space policy document such that it seemed to them that he was contemplating defending US space assets, yet these very same people now DEFEND the Chinese test as "nothing the US hasn't already done"...

George Bush and the United States are no actual threat to them and they know it. China is different. China doesn't have nearly the same restraint.

See, sometimes the smaller guys in prison will learn to suck dick, not because they necessarily like it, but so they don't have to take it in the ass.

Dennis,

1 meter precision is pretty good when you are talking about vehicles traveling several km/s with a high delta between the target and penetrator. My concern is the 1m precision guidance for hitting an ASAT can be put into weapons that don't explode until they return to Earth.

I think I should add that while what I say is obvious; the real interesting thing is China's novel way of testing the precision of their systems. We, as in the posters here, don't know if the precision was 1m or less. I initially wasn't impressed with the ASAT if it were shotgun style (not much precision needed there at all), but this seemed to be a single unit hit-to-kill system.

And of course now Putin is blaming us for their Chinese masters test.