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From: mike@bambi.UUCP (Michael Caplinger)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: target of September's ASAT test
Message-ID: <121@bambi.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Oct-85 11:51:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: bambi.121
Posted: Wed Oct  2 11:51:44 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Oct-85 07:01:32 EDT
Organization: Bell Communications Research
Lines: 14

In all fairness, the target of the September ASAT test, P78-1, was
an Air Force-launched, DARPA-funded satellite with a number of
armed forces experiments on board, and I would have to say that
the government had a perfect right to shoot it down, if you
believe that the government owns the things it funds.  Any argument
against the choice of target would have to hinge on whether it
was in the public interest to destroy this particular satellite.

I am certainly not for continued ASAT testing, and any discussion
of that should probably occur elsewhere, but I was under the false
impression conveyed by earlier messages that the ASAT target was
a private scientific satellite.

	- Mike