There Goes the Neighbourhood

The space race is back on, that is the race to militarize space.

Last year the US announced an aggressive new space policy, one that saw Washington reject any efforts to restrict the deployment of offensive weapons in space while also putting the world on notice that the US reserved the right to deny space access to any nation it considered threatening to American interests. Not quite "it's all ours" but close enough.

Having put a space-size chip on its shoulder, it wasn't long before another nation responded - China.

Washington has criticized China for conducting an anti-satellite weapon test in which China used a rocket to destroy one of its old, weather satellites.

"The United States believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of co-operation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," was the official response. Spirit of co-operation? Okay, sure, just so long as you ignore the current US space policy.

Oh, as for co-operation, the US has had its own ASAT weapons under development and testing for more than a decade. It seems these things are only a problem if someone else gets them.

Meanwhile India is looking to join the space race. India is about to launch its first recoverable satellite. The idea is to test India's ability to cope with re-entry heat and retrieval at sea.