From: Adam 

Monte Davis wrote:
> Adam  wrote:
>
>> The budget would reappear should the need resurface.
>
> Ah, "the need"... well, there's the rub, isn't it, in military OR
> civilian space affaits?
>

Oh indeed. Once the Buran was gone the Russians were quite happy with the
lift vehicles needed to hoist their manned cans & satellites to the ISS
etc.

However were one to wish to lift something heavy it can be done.

> I must say there's a here-we-go-again flavor to the mini-brouhaha over
> China's ASAT test AND over the [really not substantively new] "Bush
> militarization of space" AND all the rest.
>

It will go one way or another now that the other powers are gaining on The
US. (A) A no weapons in space treaty (B) Most major powers will have an
anti-satellite capability.

(B) will be tied to the US driven ABM program. as any "long
range" ABM system will have an Anti-satellite capability almost as a
side effect.


> Anybody who thinks about it for longer than five minutes -- or did
> fifty years ago -- has to *know* that once you can do ICBMs, real
> military space capabilities are all about surveillance (including
> early warning of other people's ICBMs) and communications.  Pending
> great declines in launch cost, nobody can *afford* to put enough stuff
> (or enough power) in orbit to be more than a bee-sting compared to
> what we deploy on and from the ground.
>

Humm... I'll pick my words with care. I have related why the UK ditched
HOTOL because of the "take off from CONUS, drop out of space to
release weapons & then back home for tea" scenario. It's why world
+ dog are watching the US/Australian hypersonic hydrogen/ethylene trials as
a vehicle travelling at those speeds & heights is but a smallish
booster rocket from the into space & back in time for tea.....idea.

& all that is mil driven because of......time taken to get to an
airport, security checks etc making it no longer a commercial proposition.
i.e. if you have an 8 hour flight but time at each end adds another 8 hours
then.....chopping 8 to 2 is actually chopping 16 to 10.


> But the instinctive psychological ooga-booga power of "If they can be
> up there LOOKING DOWN on us, they can DO BAD THINGS to us" never seems
> to go away.
>

Beep beep beep as sputnik used to say 

Adam

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