Yesterday, news broke around the world that China had incinerated one of its commercial satellites with a medium range missile at an altitude no higher than 600 miles off the surface of the earth. While one would think this is something the US government should be concerned with, in actuality it was Aviation Week and Space Technology Magazine that broke the story. Apparently, someone’s been beta-testing Google Space.

Formal complaints were quickly lobbed forth from the most popular political bureaucracies around the globe. All the big ones checked in – the US, Britain, Japan, South Korea… No word from Iran yet but their press secretary has me on hold. The US complaint was particularly devastating for its argument that such a test could be construed as “inconsistent” with the spirit of cooperation inherent to the space arena. Despite that fiery rhetoric, it’s at least better than “we couldn’t, so you shouldn’t.”

When asked for comment on the test, the Chinese government declined.

Both the US and the USSR had previously experimented with such space defense systems in the 1980s. Their respective tests failed because too much debris was left behind in the atmosphere from the destroyed satellite. Of course, did they ever try attaching a nuclear warhead to one of these test missiles? Here in the US, we prefer not to fail at things, especially blowing up things. That’s something we’ve got down. It’s actually a little embarrassing how good we are. Someone get President Bush on the phone.

The Bush administration recently announced that it wants to bring the same freedom to the stars that it brought to the skies. The worry, however, is that this recent test indicates a move by the Chinese military to suppress such freedom. The world has noticed a concerted effort on the part of the Chinese to expand its military capabilities since 1999. What Bush may not have realized, and this could be because he doesn’t have Karl Rove at his side these days, is that the militarization of space means funding bills that cannot be defeated in congress and cannot be vetoed. Plus, we slip in a few riders about additional tanks, armor for the soldiers, and reinstituting the draft.

When asked for comment on the military buildup, the Chinese government declined.

Anonymous sources in US intelligence were happy to talk, indicating that the Chinese space technology is still a decade behind the most advanced in the world, which is of course a decade behind the people who put a spacecraft on the moon. Tellingly, the Chinese used a “terminally guided maneuverable missile,” which at this point is old hat, since most of our missiles no longer have that messy terminal quality about them. We call it “stockpiling.”

The major concern of US citizens is the prospect of interrupted service in a variety of sectors that rely on satellites, such as ATMs, cellular phones, and satellite television. These problems, while worrying at first glance, are minor upon reflection: most of us are so in debt we avoid the ATM as a rule, and I figure the majority of us would hardly notice the difference in our cellphone’s reception. Still, we do have to be careful; a national crisis could ensue if we were unable to watch and vote for the next American Idol.

When asked for comment on this danger, satellite providers declined but referred questions to their PR department, the Pentagon.