America and China set up emergency space hotline

[frigidmagi]

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America has set up a hotline with China to make sure an accidental satellite collision doesn't spark a full blown space war.

China is known to have developed weapons capable of destroying spacecraft as they orbit around the planet.

If an American satellite was suddenly wiped out, officials could easily mistake the mishap for an act of war.

The new hotline will allow the rival superpowers to get in touch following a space accident, to avoid the situation escalating.

Frank Rose, US assistant secretary of state, told the Financial Times that it was often difficult to cut quickly through Chinese bureaucracy and reach the right person.

"China is developing a full spectrum of anti-satellite capabilities,” he added.

"We’ve made it clear we don't believe it’s in anyone’s interest to engage in a space arms race."

Any satellite orbiting earth faces a massive risk of destruction, due to the huge amount of orbiting debris.

America is known to have communications satellites in space, but it is rumoured to be planning something much scarier.

The US recently sent its top-secret X-37B 'space plane' on another mystery mission which is feared to be part of an ominous Star Wars weapons programme.

So far, the space plane has spent a massive 1,367 days - almost four years - in space during three classified missions.

[General Havoc]

This is a terrible article written by a hack for a hack paper. America "is known" to have communications satellites? As opposed to the other countries that don't? And how in the hell is a space plane, however classified, some part of a Star Wars system? Does this guy even know what those are?

[Lys]

Jesus Christ, Havoc is right this is a terrible article. It's nice that the US and China have set-up a hotline so they can talk to each other when bad shit happens, but the way this paper's reporting it makes it sound like it's part of some goddamned nefarious conspiracy. The Chinese have A-Sat weapons, we have A-Sat weapons, satellite based telecommunications are an important part of the entire planet's infrastructure, of course the major powers have the means to attack them. Also Star Wars program was the nickname of the Strategic Defence Initiative which didn't go anywhere back in the fucking 80s, it's not current at all.