This is the house that dave broke

That is gong to piss everyone else off, quite possibly justifiably.

However, while missile defense systems have a long way to go before they actually work, I can see a time, fifty or a hundred or two hundred years from now, when it might be really important to have weapons platforms in space. The way North Korea and Iran are going, maybe even five years from now. I don't see China bothering to tell anyone it has put weapons in space, and they're going gangbusters on their space program.

That depends upon whether you're with them, or against them, Ian.

I'm thinking that once we put this stuff, there will no longer be that distinction!

Hey, if you had a weaponized space platform, I think that would put you in charge, too...

Personally, I think they're going to find it a lot harder than they expect. To make an effective offensive space weapon, you only really require a lump of matter with a GPS and some fins. Kinetic energy will do the rest. That means cheap, and (with the addition of some stealth paint) extremely hard to spot. My inference from that is either you catch these pebble bombs as they're launched (in which case you have to shoot down rockets and then claim they contained weapons, which will cause serious trouble) or you have to create some sort of defence ecosystem, with hundreds (thousands? millions? Space, even Low Earth Orbit, is big) of little hunter seeker satellites gobbling up space junk.

So short term, sure, make a missile defence system. But witness the feckin' great radar installation they've anchored off the Aleutians to cover the Pacific - it won't be cheap. And it won't guard against a whole host of far cheaper delivery systems. And long term, I just don't see it as being viable.

All this does is persuade more people that America is a clear and present danger to the rest of the world.

(so basically: what Hector said).

Not possible: said fuckwit has two more years to go, then he gets to leave no matter what anyone votes. And his cronies all have cabinet positions.

That link doesn't work for me, but I'm guessing you're talking about the Chinese destroying a satellite with a ballistic missile. If we don't have a space weapons program, we are going to be seriously regretting it in a couple of decades' time.

//President George W. Bush has approved a new national space policy aimed at denying "adversaries'" the use of space capabilities deemed hostile to US interests.//
//China successfully carried out its first test of an antisatellite weapon last week//

So I take it we're now at war? (again)

Anti-satellite lasers seem like a silly idea. How hard is it to cover your satellite in aluminum foil?

But how do you take out any of it if it's covered in aluminum foil? The only bit I can imagine that you can't cover in aluminum foil is a camera (and a solar array - but that's never going to be facing Earth anyway). But I can think of several designs where it won't get touched unless you're aiming it right at the laser.

Ah, I didn't think about satellites up there to reflect the lasers. They could put one far out, and be able to hit your solar array. Unless you install a large battery, and in times of war fold up your solar array. Or go for nuclear power. But I admit that's a weakness.

Communications can be done using directional devices - satellite dishes pointing at a very specific location. Make it highly reflective and lasers coming from anywhere but your transmitting station won't be able to hit the actual sensors. Correctional boosters can be built with reflective doors. When they aren't boosting, fold the doors over them.

Seems to me that a ballistic missile is pretty f***ing effective, however much tinfoil you have.

{someone's over-winding the doomsday clock - http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/world-fury-at-satellite-destruction/2007/01/19/1169095981210.html}