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Space Command Chief Says Dialogue With China Too Often a One-Way Street (arstechnica.com) 57

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
U.S. Space Command chief Gen. Stephen Whiting called for greater transparency from China regarding space debris this week, citing concerns over the recent breakup of a Long March 6A rocket's upper stage. The incident, which occurred after an August 6 satellite launch, scattered over 300 pieces of debris in low-Earth orbit.

While acknowledging some improvement in U.S.-China military dialogue, Whiting stressed on the need for proactive communication about space junk, ArsTechnica reports. "I hope the next time there's a rocket like that, that leaves a lot of debris, that it's not our sensors that are the first to detect that, but we're getting communications to help us understand that," he said.

Space Command Chief Says Dialogue With China Too Often a One-Way Street More | Reply

Space Command Chief Says Dialogue With China Too Often a One-Way Street

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  • What is a "Shief"? Is copy & paste really that difficult? "Space Command chief says dialogue with China is too often a one-way street"

    • I think it is related to covfefe

    • Maybe that's why China isn't sharing info. They keep sending it to the Space Command Chief, not the "Shief". The location of their space junk is probably just some poor intern's email box that's not being used any more.
    • Gen. Stephen N. Whiting is the Commander, U.S. Space Command. The article makes it sound like the US Space Command isn't a military branch. And it ought to be obvious to everyone this is anti-Chinese propaganda. If you want better communication from someone you talk to them, not to the news media.

  • They are communists General ... or did you forget that? Information must not, and will not, flow freely within the CCP.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This reminds me of Fukushima. We had the US nuclear regulator whining about not being able to get any information about the meltdowns... As if the Japanese a) gave a shit and b) didn't have better stuff to do.

      When you spend 99% of the time berating China for anything and everything you can think of, and set them up as the new Big Bad for the 2020s, it's not all that surprising that the first thing they think to do in this situation doesn't involve notifying the US.

      • I've noticed your posts show lots of love for the Chinese government. Any chance of you moving there to back up your love? Report back to us in a few years after you have moved, that is if you can get through the great firewall or haven't fallen victim to a death van. The other possibility is that you are in fact already in China and doing the dear leader's work of spreading good cheer on the socials like a good little comrade.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I'd never move to China, too many restrictions.

        • I know a few people that moved to China due to a job, and all of them say that they hardly see amy difference between people living in the west going about their business in the big city or rural town as in China, seldom do they run into the restrictions a lot if people here say China has. Even one of my friends said he had more security checks in cities here in three weeks time he was back for holiday, then he had in the three years he has been living in China. Yes, there certainly are some restrictions, b

  • They can't drive (Score:3)

    by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 ) on Friday August 30, 2024 @11:34AM (#64748812) Journal

    In space either, I guess

  • Chief or Shief? (Score:3)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Friday August 30, 2024 @11:36AM (#64748816)
    Learn to spell people? Would it really kill you to proofread?

  • shief

  • Almost all China's Debris is from (Score:3)

    by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Friday August 30, 2024 @11:44AM (#64748842)
    their 2007ASAT test and is in relatively low orbit, meaning it will eventually clear out. Neat graphic visualizes all the junk in space: https://www.visualcapitalist.c... [visualcapitalist.com]
    • terrible graphic - what does it say? what's the scale? i once calculated there is room around the earth, just up to ~23,000 miles, for 50 billion satellites - the scale of space, even just around earth, is unimaginably huge,

      • The premium/desirable orbit volume is a couple of toroids, it's not like a full sphere.

        • ok, so it's 10 billion - still way way more than the chicken littles say we have now...

          • ...and you have to allow for all the possible intersections of orbits with wide margins because small changes turn into large ones fairly quickly. Things drift from gravitational anomalies in the Earth, interactions with the Sun and Moon, solar pressure, atmospheric drag (in lower orbits), etc.

            Your theoretical calculations do not match practical experience - the people who manage satellite orbits worry about 'conjunction events' - when orbiting objects pass each other closely enough that there is a non-ze

      • i once calculated there is room around the earth, just up to ~23,000 miles,

        A large chunk of that volume is the radiation belts, a place where almost no one puts satellites.

        for 50 billion satellites

        Interesting. Hard calculation, since the satellites are traveling at a speed of 17,500 mph (in LEO, less higher up). And the orbital planes of the satellites don't stay constant, but are continuously perturbed by both the non-sphericity of the Earth, and the lunar and solar perturbations, so they even if they start out in non-intersecting orbits, that will change.

        - the scale of space, even just around earth, is unimaginably huge,

        That part is right. Quoting Douglas Adams, "Spac

        • || for 50 billion satellites | Interesting. Hard calculation, since the satellites are traveling at a speed of 17,500 mph (in LEO, less higher up). And the orbital planes of the satellites don't stay constant, but are continuously perturbed by both the non-sphericity of the Earth, and the lunar and solar perturbations, so they even if they start out in non-intersecting orbits, that will change. good point, but regardless the sky is not "full" right now or in the next few decades of launches...

  • I think the idea is we give in to their every demand and agree with them whenever possible. For world peace, mind you.....

  • In plain language, China doesn't care what we say. (Score:4)

    by mmell ( 832646 ) on Friday August 30, 2024 @11:48AM (#64748862)

    "China gonna launch what China gonna launch. Whaddya gonna do 'bout it? Yeah . . . thought so."

    "The People's Republic of China insists upon preserving its sovereign right to the peaceful exploration and use of space. The PRK will not permit efforts by outside forces to interdict its sovereign rights and will proceed in the fashion it deems best to benefit the people of the PRK. We are certain our free and just nation will not encounter any significant opposition in this regard."

    "Lacking any meaningful levers to apply, it is unlikely we can encourage or discourage the behaviors in question. Further, lacking the will to explore mechanisms to disincentivize them or enstrengthen our relationships with them in hopes of enacting an internal paradigm shift, it would seem unlikely that any reasonable expectation of situational improvement will be forthcoming."

    Pick one you like. I've got more.

    • And how is that any different from the US. Do you really think the US informs China if they gave a big piece of garbage drifting there. Do you really think all launches by the US (defense) are without (debris) problems or junk? Think again.. people here seem to blame China for some weaponstest with satellite destruction and its debris from that, but forget the US did tests like that back in the sixties and seventies already, which also left a lot if debris.

      • "Do you really think the US informs China if they gave a big piece of garbage drifting there" (I assume you mean in orbit) Yes. And not only the Chinese, we tell the Russians too, and anyone else who puts stuff in orbit.

        "Do you really think all launches by the US (defense) are without (debris) problems or junk?" No, but we're talking orders of magnitude difference here. Furthermore, we at least *try* to clean up after ourselves, e.g. by de-orbiting upper stages. China clearly doesn't.

  • Space Command chief says dialogue with China is too often a one-way street

    When it's one-way, isn't it a monologue?

    #Pedants "R" 'Us

  • Rocket Space bar, Rocket space bar...

  • I'm not sure, but I have a strong suspicion China would point out that the US pretty much stopped talking to them about aero-astro stuff 25 years ago after the Intelsat 708 [wikipedia.org] mess in 1999, because helping them make their satellite boosters more reliable and less "crash into village, explode and kill people" also meant potentially helping them make their ICBMs more reliable - a legitimate concern, sure, and we don't give that kind of IP to Russia either. SSL/Loral and Hughes got slapped for giving them that k

  • Everything with China is a one-way street. Their way, so far, it seems.

    We should expect nothing else.

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