TAKE OVER THE ENERGY INDUSTRY

its the SAME DAMN THING

and not in say, Russia?

I really have to laugh at you some times. at you.

its "black" research for a reason.

this reason, specifically.

No it isn't. Unless somehow a piece of something equals the entire whole.



Well yes, but we don't have laws against it. You guys do.

piece or whole its entirely irrelevant, even if they claimed rights over making a 2.34845 volt battery thats not used in ANYTHING whatsoever thats overstepping their bounds.

they dont do that.

were? I dont remember there being a clause about not hiding things.

Except they're arguing over whether having the military "want to take control" over the satellite power idea means trying to control the entire energy industry or just a part. I'm really looking forward to their silliness, don't interrupt

Freedom of Information Act requires all budgets to ben accurate. Meaning that nothing can just be 'unacounted for' if they are ussing it for a black budget then they have to label it under 'general millitary expenses' or something like that.

And I seriously doubt that the Pentagon is using that money for research. I personally feel they are referbishing their bathrooms and buying too many $600 toilet seats.

The Freedom of Information act has a clause which exempts things which if revealed would threaten national security. There are in fact nine exemptions from the FOIA. I for one completely understand that most of the exceptions made (except for the one where geological information is exempt from a FOIA request; I don't quite get that one). Want proof?

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/foia/guide.html#exemptions

Oh and by the way, in case you try to argue that these exemptions make FOIA useless and the government will just cover up embarrasing stuff under "national security" consider all the embarrasing stuff that has come out because of the FOIA (like the long history of the CIA usage of coups in third world nations). The FOIA has a very important purpose, but let's be honest. If all the US military budget (the R&D especially) was released to the public that WOULD be a threat to national security. Understand that I think politicians do pull out the national security crap too often (like the Patriot Act or NSA warrent-less wiretapping). However, sometimes things DO need to be kept secret and those things are on the US's black budget.

Thats why they can use generalizations.

But these three billion dollars are missing. Its the same thing that happened to the 300,000 weapons that disspeared in Iraq.

Three billion dollars are black, not missing, unless you have evidence to the contrary.

of course he does, but for reasons of national security he cannot tell us them.

own3d, just 0\/\/|\|3|)

Useless, more cost effective to build it in the desert.

I'd like to see Richard Branson or someone say 'you know, this might actually be a pretty good platform for launches' and use the cable as a space elevator, though!


fake edit: oh it's wireless. what a bummer.

First of its three trillion, I made a small mistake in my typing.

Secondly they are completely unaccounted for as in they don't know where they are.

absolutely not.

as in sunk in a black ops-hole someplace.

listen emp, they arent going to say "this is our budget for black, mystery stuffs!"

when we do something, we do it well.

Well I still think they are secretly referbishing the Pentagon. For 600 dollars a toilet seat just the bathrooms would cost a fortune alone.

LIES!!! EVERYONE KNOWS DESERTS HAVE MORE LOGISTIC AND TACTICAL POINTS THAN ANYWHERE ELSE!!!

Dur!!!

finaly a smart person who knows what he is talking about!!!!!



but seriously, you ppl take things way to seriously, this is a GAMING FORUM, any view you express here, will have no impact on ANYTHING.

if you have a strong view, I recomend you keep the tone down, becouse here, it doesn't matter. However save your strenght so you can argue it somewhere where it would make a serious deffernce.

As TGE says in Star Wars..."UNLIMITED POWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" *zaps Mace Windu

I fixed it for ya

Well, I think that the real question here is economic feasibility - just as they said in the article. If it really does turn out to be better/cheaper than ground-based solar arrays then I say go for it. Most of our military action these days is focused in small countries that aren't able to shoot at our satellites. If space-based solar power helps those operations then it is worth it.

The way I see it, if we get into a war with China it will likely be over access to middle-eastern oil. If these things help us to need less oil then butting heads with them is that much more unlikely. I don't doubt that China is able to shoot down our satellites and that we could shoot down theirs. In fact, that is probably among the first things that will happen if we ever do go to war. There are also other dangers to a space-based system. For these reasons it is good not to rely on them completely but that is true for any system. "Don't put all of your eggs into one basket."

Heck, if it really did work out well then we might end up selling energy to China - then they would have an incentive not to shoot them down.

You forget that for any significant energy gathering these satelites will have to be placed in very high orbit or even around other planets. Unlikely the Chinese will come up with a missle that will take a nuclear charge to Venus.

*tasers TGE*

only a true god knows pity.
heh, I'm a schod

*tasers TGE again*

thing is that we can easily put up two satellites for every one they shoot down, even if they went for a shotgun aproach it wouldnt accomplish much.

simply put what little damage they could do we could replace with much more economic ease. it would be foolish to go on anything more than a small pre-emptive campaign against our satellites.

what did we forget again?
the chinese have no such missile power, btw.

Well, you say there is three trillion dollars missing from the budget.

I say I'm the Lord God of Abarawuhatutha! And my claim is just as valid as yours, seeing as how neither of us is bothering with such completely unnecessary niceties as evidence.

Edit: ./smites the unbeliever TGE when he tries to dispute this fact, foolishly neglecting evidence after several requests

... are you saying that it is more expensive for them to take out a satellite than it is for us to put one up? I would find that incredibly hard to believe.



Who said it would take a nuke? Satellites aren't very strong. It wouldn't take much to turn one into a pile of spacejunk. Heck, you wouldn't even need an explosive. Just bump the rocket into it hard enough and it won't work anymore.

given the relative expenses, yes thats exactly what I'm saying

in this day and age its still hard to believe people dont understand how big space is.

"bumping" requires contact, which requires precise calculations, which requires good surveillence equipment

all of which the Chinese have a vast scarcity of. besides they would do more damage to random nation's satellites than to ours, and then the little damage they do to ours costs a half pence to put back up in space

there are several factors at work behind my claim:
1) satellites practically roll off the factory line now, replacing them is a breeze for us, very few are so expensive that we would fret losing them, and those tend to be international or just curiousity stuffs (the international space station, hubble etc.)
2) the chinese arent precisely experts at getting things into orbit, they can do it, but we're much better at it. if you ask me if they can consistantly hit a region with enough of accuracy for a shotgun approach to work effectively, I doubt it. you ask if they can hit a satellite consistantly? I laugh in your face.
3) relative costs, the chinese would have to waste a lot of manpower and time for to make a missile, we really dont need to to make a satellite.
yes they have lots of manpower, but we're talking relative costs here, it would be extremely expensive for them
4) space is vast, really this should be a given. even if they used a shrapenel approach (because a shock wave would do bollocks) the chances of it hitting, eh... not really.

I'm not saying they cannot do it. I'm just saying its easier for us to replace the damage than it is for them to do it in the first place, at best they would slow any invasion of ours, not stop it.

not to mention how much all the europeans would FLIP when their satellites start getting shot down too, talk about a big alliance there.

In short, the missile needed to take out a sattelite is expensive too, and our relative economic positions means that we can put more up than they can effectively take down, in an "effort for effort" approach.