BEAM US OUTTA HERE... SchNEWS WASTE OF SPACE "Just as by the year 1500 it
was clear that the European experience of power would be it's domination of
the global seas, it does not take much to see that the American experience
of power will rest on the domination of space" - The Future of War: Power,
Technology and World Dominance in the 21st Century by George and Meredith
Friedman. On Saturday NASA- the American space agency- provided the people
of Texas with a spectacular firework display, as the space shuttle Columbia
burst into flames and disintegrated on re-entering the atmosphere. All 7
astronauts on board were killed and America became a grief struck nation.
SchNEWS hopes they show the same remorse when thousands of Iraqis are
killed by American bombs. The space shuttle Columbia is one of the shuttles
that are used like taxis by the Kennedy Space Centre to ferry equipment and
people out to the International Space Station, but on their way the
astronauts on board also carry out their own 'scientific research'.
Columbia's last crew included Israeli Air Force pilot Ilan Ramon, whose
mission was to test a multi-spectral camera that probes the effect of
sandstorms on climate change. The all-weather camera is also key technology
for military spy satellites and unmanned drones searching for targets
obscured by dust, smoke and clouds - sounds like that could come in useful
in the looming Iraqi war! The other international astronaut onboard was
Kalpana Chowla, an Indian born civilian engineer. It is probably a bit more
than a coincidence that both Israel and India are trying to establish their
own space programmes, which will concentrate on, you guessed it - military
purposes. It's no wonder that Columbia's ultimate mission was interpreted
as a threat across parts of the Middle East and South Asia. In recent years
space shuttles have been used for everything from repairing the Hubble
Telescope to studying the effects of weightlessness on tiny insects to
deploying global positioning satellites that provide signals for most of
today's precision-guided "smart" bombs. In recent years Congress has cut
NASA's funding and they've had to rely on the Pentagon for funding. With
the arrival of Bush and Dick-face Cheney at the Whitehouse this has meant
many Shuttle missions have military objectives, thinly disguised as
'scientific research'. Many people believe that through a combination of
financial cuts and mismanagement (the space shuttles have now been 92%
privatised and are now run by aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin)
the Columbia disaster was an accident waiting to happen. Over the summer a
retired 36-year veteran of NASA called on President Bush to enact a
temporary moratorium on all space shuttle flights, but his pleas were
ignored and now 7 astronauts are dead. START WARS Not content with being
the world's only superpower, the USA wants to extend its military might to
achieve what it so bashfully calls "Full Spectrum Dominance", which will
mean backing up it's dominance on earth by building up it's weapons in
space. The US is currently working on technology which is of course only
for 'defensive purposes' but which still makes a ridiculous farce of their
hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Without the help of Darth
Vader they're developing the so-called "Star Wars" programme - a series of
lasers that will form a protective shield, to shoot missiles out of the sky
before they ever reach American soil. This is accompanied by development of
a "Nuclear Space Initiative", which would see rockets powered by nuclear
generators - this is necessary to power long distance exploration into
deepest space and more significantly to provide the enormous power needed
to keep their mega laser battle stations orbiting above the Earth. For
America the Columbia shuttle disaster has come at a bad time just when it
was looking to greatly broaden its program to use nuclear power in space on
rockets launched from Kennedy Space station which has a 10% failure rate.
There's already been two nuclear rocket explosions over the US and after
being showered with plutonium residents of Florida were warned to stay away
from the rocket's debris which should have been easy to spot cos' it glowed
in the dark! If the much larger Columbia had been carrying plutonium Bush
might well have lost himself a few thousand of his Texas voters. LOCKED So
just why is the US so hell-bent on developing a Star Wars programme?
Perhaps it has something to do with the people behind the unelected Muppet.
People like Bruce Jackson, vice president of Lockheed Martin, the largest
weapons manufacturer and a major contractor in US space military work who
claimed "I wrote the Republican Party's foreign policy platform." No doubt
Lockheed Martin are doing very well out of the threat of war on Iraq. He
claims he hasn't pressed for development of Star Wars "That would be an
implicit conflict of interest with my day job." So who did advocate it?
Stephen Hadley, a military adviser to Bush Snr, and is a lawyer who
represents, er Lockheed Martin. He claims that "Space is going to be
important. It has a great feature in the military." And no doubt important
for swelling Lockheed Martin's bank balance and those associated with it,
like Lynn Cheney, the wife of US vice-President Dick Cheney, who is a board
member of...Lockheed Martin. The rest of the world is not too impressed
with America's war mongering. Last November 160 Nations passed a United
Nations resolution called "Prevention Of An Arms Race In Outer Space", with
only the US, Israel and Micronesia abstaining. This re-affirmed the 1967
Outer Space Treaty, international law that sets aside outer space for
peaceful uses. Canada is pressing for all weapons in outer space to be
outlawed (currently only weapons of mass destruction are banned) -because
they fear another arms race will start. "If one state actively pursues the
weaponization of space we can be sure others will follow" commented Marc
Vidricaire, Canadian representative to the UN. The USA is to start that
arms race with the development of a space air force. The US Air Force Space
Command in its Almanac 2000 stated "The future of the Air Force is space...
Globally dominant - The future Air Force will be better able to monitor and
shape world events..." Scary stuff. It might not be too long before space
terrorism becomes a reality. *In typical Tony Blair style Britain is doing
it's bit to help America retain it's world dominance by allowing two of our
military bases- Menwith Hill and Fylingdales- to be used to aid their Star
Wars programme. There are ongoing protests at both of these bases. Info
Yorkshire CND 01274 730795 www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org. *Foil the Base - Mass
action against war and Star Wars at Menwith Hill - 22 March. Info
[EMAIL PROTECTED] *More information on the nuclear space race at
www.space4peace.org
