Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucsfcgl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!arnold
From: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: target of September's ASAT test
Message-ID: <662@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Oct-85 22:13:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucsfcgl.662
Posted: Fri Oct  4 22:13:35 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 04:30:28 EDT
References: <121@bambi.UUCP>
Reply-To: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold)
Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
Lines: 29

In article <121@bambi.UUCP> mike@bambi.UUCP (Michael Caplinger) writes:
>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.

Well, I've worked for DARPA-funded projects myself, and I think that,
had some military people walked in one day and blown up my VAX, I think
I would have complained.  I also think I would have gotten a good deal
of sympathy.  After all, they funded the thing, but I was using it, it
was being useful to me in my research, and they could surely have used
something else for target practice.

What they own and what they have an ethical right to destroy are two
different things.  I believe they have no ethical right to use an
operating, useful scientific experiment as a test target.  That they
own it is probable, but that that means they can destroy it on a whim
is not at all obvious.  Ownership of property does not give you the
right to use it as a detriment to society.

Is it in the public interest to destroy a working scientific experiment
providing data about solar activity, or is it not?  Do I really have to
answer something that obvious?  Of course it isn't.  Was it necessary?
No it wasn't.  Leaving aside arguments about whether ASAT is in the
public interest in the first place, if it was worth the money to put it
up, it certainly was worth the nearly nothing it cost to keep it up.