SPACE RACE: Rocket launched; carries satellite to guide weapons…

Posted on December 22, 2007

That headline is Drudge’s. It leads to a story about a satellite that was launched to replace an existing GPS satellite.

I know, Drudge gets more traffic if the headlines attract attention but this one is deceptive and misleading. Space Race? Hardly. It is part of an ongoing program to replace all the old and failing GPS birds with new higher tech birds that will do a better job and last for another 10 years.

The headline implies that the weapons that will be guided would be space weapons, but of course they are earthbound weapons like GPS guided missiles and things like the Predator. Now the Chinese are purported to be actually building and testing space weapons (possibly capable of disabling the GPS birds) but this GPS bird is no space race weapon, it will let me tell my in car GPS to take me “over the river and through the woods, to Grandma’s house” which is the most common use made of this “weapon” technology today.

Hope your GPS unit gets you to Grandma’s or the new one Santa will leave in your stocking gets you home safely.

Merry Christmas!

» Filed Under Media Bias, Christmas, War on Terror, World politics, Travelling, National Politics