According to a watchdog group, the Chinese will be testing a space weapon during their moon launch this week, reports the Associated Press:
A Chinese submarine will send test signals that could change the course of a satellite when China launches its first moon orbiter, as part of the country’s effort to develop space war technology, a human rights watchdog said Tuesday.
The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said two survey ships are deployed in the South Pacific Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean to send signals to maneuver the lunar exploration satellite, expected to be launched Wednesday. At the same time, a nuclear-powered submarine will send simulated signals to the satellite as a test, it said in a statement.
Once the satellite-maneuvering technology matures, the group said, China would have the know-how to destroy other satellites in space in wartime. China could launch cheaply-made weapon-carrying objects into space and change their courses to destroy or damage satellites of other countries by sending signals from submarines, the center said.
China shocked the world in January by firing a missile at an old weather satellite without notifying anyone in advance, showing off its anti-satellite weaponry and its ability to shoot down satellites without being immediately noticed.
Read the rest at the link above. If the United States imagined putting even a purely defensive weapon in space, the cacophony of caterwauling from the peaceniks could be heard from Coosahatchie to Timbuktu. We know this because it happened at least once before, when one of the missile defense theories envisioned high-tech chaff launched via satellite as a potential way to disable incoming ICBMs.
The Chinese have already experimented with destroying satellites, so the report shouldn’t shock anyone. It would be nice, though, if at least every now and then our own citizens recognized that countries other than the United States can present a threat to world peace, and acted accordingly.
Not holding breath, though.
