not that it was hard for anyone to see aside from our lacking government
Analysts: Satellite shootdown also blows hole in diplomacy
In last week's space spectacular, a U.S. missile did more than turn a dead satellite into bits of space scrap. It also blew another hole in hopes that the world's nations could forge a treaty making outer space a weapons-free realm, analysts say.
Wednesday's orbiter shootdown by a U.S. Navy missile came just eight days after Russia and China, at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, submitted a draft treaty to ban weapons from space.
The U.S. action, ostensibly to eliminate a threat from a falling spy satellite, showed the world that the hundreds of communications, weather, reconnaissance and other satellites circling far overhead are vulnerable — as did a similar Chinese shootdown a year earlier.
The strike by a Navy cruiser's anti-missile missile also pointed up the fact that offensive "space weaponry" and defensive "missile shields" can be two faces of the same technology. The Navy's Aegis system, designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles in space, became a tool of attack last week.
cont...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080224/ap_on_hi_te/weapons_in_space
