Hehe, if you say so. You wear the uniform, you get to play damage sponge for the people you salute. Can't take the heat, don't wear the uniform. They don't make policy, but they do have the privelige of being said policy's first victims.

As for tragedies striking adversaries with whom you're competing, anything that puts them behind puts you ahead. No one would have said it openly that they would have like to see a Cosmonaut fail, you can bet there were some honest sighs of relief when N-1 when kaboom. The pressure on NASA to "beat the Russians" died that day, and I sincerely doubt anyone missed it. I also don't recall too many tears shed over the Cosmonauts lost when an undocking mishap vented their capsule's atmosphere into space, leaving them the first victims of the void. You didn't celebrate, maybe, at least when the cameras were looking, but I have no doubts every Soviet failure made someone's day a little brighter in the US government.

The world might be kinder and gentler these days (or in Doodlervision, toothless and spineless), but the competition is still there. This test was a warning shot across the bow, if you don't see its full implications, look again, without the rose colored glasses. The gauntlet is on the ground, and I'm seriously concerned whether the US has enough backbone to pick it up. I'll really shiver if I hear anything remotely close to "peace in our time" when the inevitable power shift in DC results in a treaty to ban, at all costs, space weapon development.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

FYI, just to clarify. I said "hit it", not destroy it. A nice Apollo 13 analogue in LEO would serve as a sufficient lesson in orbital etiquette.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

(emphasis mine).

Jeez, Doodler, sometimes I wonder if you're just a 2-dimensional copy of an action hero gone wrong. You fit almost all the stereotypes of a gun-totin', tobacco-chewin', redneck sonuvagun that'll kill you as much as look at ya for bein' a commie, an illegal, Chinese, Japanese, Californianese, liberal son of a cow.

I'm not meaning for this to be Ad Hominem, but you really do play up to the image, don't you?

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There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Actually, despite relations, I speak very proper English. Never touched tobacco in any form, wouldn't shed a tear over the repeal of the 2nd Amendment, and have absolutely no problem dealing with people from a dozen different cultures. Heck, I get into arguements with some of my more 'redneck' friends (they define themselves as such) because their attitudes on foreign relations make me look like Kofi Annan in comparison.

That said, when it comes to international relations, I tend to call a spade a spade and deal in realities. I also prefer direct action and real consequences. The etiquette games that are played too often mask the simple truth that different cultures do not get along when their interests collide and compete.

I really hate the soundbite culture of media that mixed with political correctness in the last 17 years or so. I could go on, but then this response would get far too politic for this place.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

I can agree on that. That said, the international feedback would be less than a chenzou 13 scenario, but it would be more poetic justice if one of their military spy satellites was wiped out by the debris.

The action was bad in that it was both a military space action and a cause of an awful lot of space debris. I don't care who did it, but an action involving those 2 elements always is a bad action IMO. Getting the recoil on a toy of their own military space program would be nicer than on an astronaut having the time of his life out there.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Hum,
Only Nixon could go to China - (it's an old Vulcan proverb).

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...