Commercial space - - - a national security risk?

Bill White · 2004-03-19 21:43:18

Reading Jeff Bells piece about orbital debris created a frightening thought about terrorist applications of low cost to orbit and commercially available launch services.

Suppose a low cost to orbit launch system existed. Why couldnt a terrorist organization use one of these systems to deploy a few hundred kilograms of gravel into a polar orbit at the GPS altitude band of 12600 miles? GPS sats are launched by Delta II. Any rogue state with Delta II equivalent technology could eliminate all GPS coverage simply by exploding a warhead filled with tiny metal shards, in a polar orbit, at the GPS altitude bands. Right?

Or am I missing something?

If true, why would the Pentagon ever permit cheap low cost access to space to become commercially available?

Mundaka · 2004-03-20 12:41:54

Bill White · 2004-03-20 12:53:03

Mundaka,

I have restrained myself for years in raising these concerns, yet in a moment of weakness (and annoyance at the Rand Simberg types calling for us to just get NASA out of the way and let the private sector do it all) I decided to point out that the US government cannot just let the private sector do it all.

It just isnt safe.

Anyway, I have far more sympathy for the libertarian position that it may sometimes seem. However, I cannot fully accept the libertarian anti-government worldview since I believe Aristotle was spot on when he said:

A Man without a City is either a beast or a god.

= = =

Keith Cowing's recent flame war with a NASA union representative also fueled my indiscretion on this topic. National security requires an effective bureaucracy and while incessant government bashing by the Right may often be accurate, it just isn't useful.

= = =

Anyway, sorry for letting the secret out. I hope the Norks aren't reading this website! :;):

Wouldn't want to give 'em ideas they hadn't already thought of.

Bill White · 2004-03-20 13:14:50

I've got a buddy who was an artilleryman during desert storm, his crew got into an artillery dual with the iraqies (who had much better artillary equipment, at least, than we did.) His crew tried to make up for their equipments' shortcoming with the newest gadget: a radar that would track incoming shells and reveal the enimies position. Some Iraqi used some basic radio gear to track the radar signal and almost blasted them into next year.

I had a teacher who was a B-17 navigator. He would "waste" class time railing that learning celestial navigation remained an essential skill despite GPS, Loran and the like. Someday after I stop wasting time on the Web I will take a celestial nav class.

The first time I skippered my own Chicago-Mackinac race we lost power and I had to dead reckon through the Manitou Islands at night. It was a rather clear night and ultimately no big deal but it was pretty funny when one of the crew called out:

"Look, its Point Betsie!"

After counting the flashes of the light I had to correct him, since it was Frankfort airport, 5 or 10 miles inland! (Actually it was a red light as well and Betsie is white, so it was pretty easy for me.) :;):

= = =

A Desert Storm story I love was printed in the Boat US catalog (or maybe West Marine, I forget)

It seems the Texas Guard had an armor unit with Loran in the lead tank but not in the other tanks. One fellow was a boater back home and called his wife. He told her to find his West Marine catalog and order a dozen Loran units, which she shipped to him in Kuwait. Paid for by her VISA card. :;):

Then, the whole platoon had Loran!

Mundaka · 2004-03-20 13:36:51

Bill White · 2004-03-20 14:19:34

Lets see, political philosophy and political economy from my peculiar perspective. . .

Adam Smith is spot on, IMHO, concerning how economics works. And I believe rights of private property are essential for a successful society. As NY Times columnist Tom Friedman likes to quip: In the history of the world, aint no one ever washed a rental car.

I also believe all property rights ultimately originated in some primordial theft or another. Either by us or our ancestors. We killed the Indians with smallpox and then occupied their land, etc. . . Rousseau wrote that society began when some fellow had the audacity to build a fence and say, this is mine, and the other folks either believed him or lacked the power to sto him.

Being Catholic and having been taught about original sin I can readily accept the idea that private property is simultaneously necessary yet not ultimately pure or good. Private property is justified because we are all better off living in a society that recognizes private property rights.

Now suppose there is no government. How is private property protected? By force. Might makes right.

As Hernando de Soto points out, economies cannot work in those circumstances and that is why the 3rd World fails. I cannot encourage enough the reading of this book - - [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de … ce&s=books]The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. In the rural 3rd World, pigs are sold one at a time and the buyer looks in the mouth of each animal to make sure it isnt diseased.

In Chicago, at the Merc, a fellow wiggles his pinky and buys or sells 100,000 pork bellies in 30 seconds. If one of those 100,000 is diseased, the USDA cracks the whip.

Beauracracy saves the day!

De Soto points out that in Peru no one can open a chain of delis. Why? If the manager of deli #2 steals the receipts there is no effective recourse under law. The owner must guard his store in person to assure it isnt embezzled since the manager will deny the embezzlement if the owner isnt present. In America, Subway opens thousands of chains, all protected by law.

Land ownership. After 1917, the first thing the Leninists did was burn all the land title records. All paper trails proving land titles were destroyed. How can you own land without a Recorder of Deeds? or a County Clerk?

An effiicent, neutral bureacracy is essential to protect private property.

Okay, enough rambling. Hope this is a start. . .

= = =

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
It's become clear by now the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in most places around the globe hasn't ushered in an unequivocal flowering of capitalism in the developing and postcommunist world. Western thinkers have blamed this on everything from these countries' lack of sellable assets to their inherently non-entrepreneurial "mindset." In this book, the renowned Peruvian economist and adviser to presidents and prime ministers Hernando de Soto proposes and argues another reason: it's not that poor, postcommunist countries don't have the assets to make capitalism flourish. As de Soto points out by way of example, in Egypt, the wealth the poor have accumulated is worth 55 times as much as the sum of all direct foreign investment ever recorded there, including that spent on building the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam.
No, the real problem is that such countries have yet to establish and normalize the invisible network of laws that turns assets from "dead" into "liquid" capital. In the West, standardized laws allow us to mortgage a house to raise money for a new venture, permit the worth of a company to be broken up into so many publicly tradable stocks, and make it possible to govern and appraise property with agreed-upon rules that hold across neighborhoods, towns, or regions. This invisible infrastructure of "asset management"--so taken for granted in the West, even though it has only fully existed in the United States for the past 100 years--is the missing ingredient to success with capitalism, insists de Soto. But even though that link is primarily a legal one, he argues that the process of making it a normalized component of a society is more a political--or attitude-changing--challenge than anything else.
With a fleet of researchers, de Soto has sought out detailed evidence from struggling economies around the world to back up his claims. The result is a fascinating and solidly supported look at the one component that's holding much of the world back from developing healthy free markets.

When FOX News bashes government on general principles the are killing the goose that laid Americas golden eggs.

Can government be better? Sure. But its the proper balance between enough regulation and bureuacrcay and not too much.

Suppose I am Burt Rutan and I want to buy some bolts. I need to know that if the supplier gives me inferior product and the bolt fails and SpaceShipOne breaks apart I have recourse, I can sue for damages, which makes it more likely the bolt meets specs.

Mundaka · 2004-03-20 15:05:30

dicktice · 2004-03-21 12:03:42

I really like your stuff. But, if you didn't know already, Piper Aircraft went under, way back in the 50's or 60's, being successfully sued for "unsafe design" regarding their tail-dragger Super Cub configuration. (I still refer to it as the "conventional landing gear" configuration, as opposed to tricycle, but that's another matter entirely.) We have, I believe, Bill Clinton (of only slightly-tarnished saintly memory) to thank, for the anti-litigation-forever bill, preventing a production aircraft design from being sued-for after--is it 17?--years. So, all is not lost--it just takes enough flying types, like you/us to keep 'em at bay. I admit, though: Those suicidal pilots, who never wanted to learn how to land, couldn't have cared less what configuration they were flying.

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#1 2004-03-19 21:43:18

Re: Commercial space - - - a national security risk?

#2 2004-03-20 12:41:54

Re: Commercial space - - - a national security risk?

#3 2004-03-20 12:53:03

Re: Commercial space - - - a national security risk?

#4 2004-03-20 13:14:50

Re: Commercial space - - - a national security risk?

#5 2004-03-20 13:36:51

Re: Commercial space - - - a national security risk?

#6 2004-03-20 14:19:34

Re: Commercial space - - - a national security risk?

#7 2004-03-20 15:05:30

Re: Commercial space - - - a national security risk?

#8 2004-03-21 12:03:42

Re: Commercial space - - - a national security risk?

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