Weapons in Space Inevitable Says China

China, which hopes to put a man on the moon by 2020, has long stated that it supported the peaceful uses of outer space and opposed the introduction of weapons there.

However Xu Qiliang, a senior Chinese air force commander, said it was imperative for the PLA air force to develop offensive and defensive operations in outer space.

Although Beijing has also sought to establish an international treaty to control the deployment of weapons in space, China surprised the world in 2007 when it shot down one of its own weather satellites in a test seen by many, including the United States, as a possible trigger of an arms race in space.

“The PLA air force must establish in a timely manner the concepts of space security, space interests and space development,” Mr Xu added, “We must build an outer space force that conforms with the needs of our nation’s development (and) the demands of the development of the space age.”

Superiority in outer space can give a nation control over war zones both on land and at sea, while also offering a strategic advantage, Xu said, noting that such dominance was necessary to safeguard the nation.

“Only power can protect peace,” the 59-year-old commander added.

China is currently in the process of rapidly modernising its armed forces, investigating the construction hardware such as aircraft carriers as well as cyber warfare techniques that could paralyse enemy’s command and control systems.

Last year’s annual Pentagon report to the US Congress warned that Chinese militarisation was changing the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region.

China, however, dismisses such talk as alarmist and says that its rise will be peaceful. China currently spends 1.4 per cent of GDP on its armed forces, compared with two per cent in Britain and France and four per cent in the United States.

Satellite Tending Robot

Dots Representing Objects Orbiting Earth

Robots that rescue failing satellites and push “dead” ones into outer space should be ready in four years, it has emerged. Experts described the development by German scientists as a crucial step in preventing a disaster in the Earth’s crowded orbit.

Last year it was reported that critical levels of debris circling the Earth were threatening astronauts’ lives and the future of the multibillion-pound satellite communications industry. But senior figures at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) told the Observer they have been given the go-ahead to tackle a crisis that will come to a head in the next five to 10 years as more orbiting objects run out of fuel.

Their robots will dock with failing satellites to carry out repairs or push them into “graveyard orbits”, freeing vital space in geostationary orbit. This is the narrow band 22,000 miles above the Earth in which orbiting objects appear fixed at the same point. More than 200 dead satellites litter this orbit. Within 10 years that number could increase fivefold, the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety has warned.

Klaus Landzettel, head of space robotics at DLR, said engineering advances, including the development of machines that can withstand temperatures ranging from -170C (-274F) to 200C (392F), meant that the German robots will be “ready to be used on any satellite, whether it’s designed to be docked or not”.

In 2007, the US Orbital Express project succeeded in refuelling an orbiting satellite. However, that satellite had been specifically designed to dock with the device.

U.S. Suspicious of China’s Space Weaponization Concerns

See Video at end of Post…

China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi called Wednesday for international diplomacy to avert an “arms race in outer space.”

Space should be reserved for peaceful purposes, Yang told the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

“Outer space is now facing the looming danger of weaponization,” he said. “Credible and effective multilateral measures must be taken to forestall the weaponization and arms race in outer space.”

China and Russia have been vocal advocates of a global treaty against space-based weapons and argue for this to be included in future Conference of Disarmament negotiations.

The United States has dismissed the criticism as designed to block its plans for a missile interceptor system — while leaving untouched Chinese and Russian ground-based missiles that can fire into space.

“Countries should neither develop missile defense systems that undermine global strategic stability nor deploy weapons in outer space,” Yang said.

He added that China welcomed moves to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

“The complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons and a nuclear weapon-free world have become widely embraced goals,” Yang said. He appeared to be referring to President Barack Obama’s call in April for a “world without nuclear weapons.”

“We welcome these developments,” Yang said.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

This Video Demonstrates one reason why China would love to see these weapons and systems eliminated

Water Detected at Edge of Universe

A research group led by graduate student Violette Impellizzeri from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy has used the 100 m Effelsberg radio telescope to detect water at the greatest distance from Earth so far. The water vapour was discovered in the quasar MG J0414+0534 at redshift 2.64, which corresponds to a light travel time of 11.1 billion years, a time when the Universe was only a fifth of the age it is today.

The water vapour is thought to exist in clouds of dust and gas that feed the supermassive black hole at the centre of the distant quasar. The detection was later confirmed by high-resolution interferometric observations with the Expanded Very Large Array.

The discovery of water in the early Universe was possible only due to the chance alignment of a foreground galaxy and the distant quasar MG J0414+0534. The foreground galaxy acts like a cosmic telescope, magnifying and distorting the light from the quasar forming four distinct images of the quasar. Without this gravitational lensing effect, 580 days of continuous observations with the 100 m telescope would have been needed instead of the 14 hours used to make this remarkable discovery. “Others have tried and failed to find water, and we knew we were looking for a very faint signal”, says Violette Impellizzeri, “so we thought of using a foreground galaxy like a cosmic magnifying glass to observe at a far greater distance and had to be persistent, and sure enough the line emission of water popped up.”

The detection of water from MG J0414+0534 with the Effelsberg radio telescope also occurred thanks to a touch of fortune. The object is within just the right redshift interval to stretch the line emission of the H2O molecule from its original frequency of 22 GHz to 6 GHz and so within the tuning range of the 6 GHz receiver installed at the telescope.

“It is interesting that we found water in the first gravitationally-magnified object we observed from the distant Universe”, says co-author John McKean. “This suggests that the water molecule may have been much more abundant in the early Universe than first thought, and can be used for further research into supermassive black holes and galaxy evolution at high redshift.”
… Continue Reading

Hubble Discovers Strange Object in Space

The monotony of being an astronomer can be staggering, perched on mountain tops scanning the skies for the same old same old, but every once in a while a discovery is made, and in this case there is no current explanation for this particular object recently discovered by hubble.

Such was a recent case published in the Astrophysical Journal, just a few days ago, Scientists reported that they have located an unidentified object, virtually in the middle of nowhere. They actually characterized it using the words “We suggest that the transient may be one of a new class”.

What’s even more surprising is that it also came out of the middle of nowhere, and astrophysicists have no idea how far it is; they know it can’t be closer than 130 light-years and further than 11 billion light-years. The object just wasn’t there before, it is now, and it doesn’t behave in any known way, making us arrive at one simple conclusion, that they have no idea what it is.

The thing they do know is the fact that it’s not a supernova, and it appeared outside of any known galaxy, in a cluster named CL 1432.5+3332.8 (no, that shouldn’t tell you anything). Hubble noticed a spark which led to this discovery. So if there’s not any dust on the lens, scientists are dealing with something they have no idea about. So there’s nothing to be worried about, right?