How Shit Happens....

On the 22nd, I posted a satirical piece about the Chinese anti-satellite missel test.
Since then, the Chinese have affirmed that they did indeed successfully complete an anti satellite test. Of course the US squawked about it, after all it was a direct violation of the new Bush In Space Doctrine. You remember, Bush boldly declared that the military use of space was the perogative of America. That was pretty lame and easy for him because at the time, as far as we could see, no one was in position to challenge it.
Hell, the way American corporate space research was siphoning off grants on simulating false test results on space weapons and anti missile shields that were still not operational, how could anyone else be in the position to do better?
Before we were able to put a piece of operational space hardware into orbit, the Chinese have proved that they already have the capability to take it out.
In the mid 90's, the right wing gasbags were going on about how the Clinton administration sold out our space program and gave it to the Chinese. Rush Limbaugh got some Clinton bashing mileage out of the tale, but let me allow one of the posters on this blog, wjohnson to tell you the story of how the Chinese acquired this
technology in his own words!

"In the mid-nineties, the rightwing nut job, Rush Limbaugh, use to rant and rave on how Clinton gave China our rocket technology. “Clinton had betrayed this country!!” The truth of this matter is as follows. This story was passed onto me by the neighbor to my parent’s home. He is an engineer working for one of the defense sub-contractors at NASA’s Goddard facility, just outside of the beltway of D.C. I have his business card that I can scan and pass onto you as proof. My mother’s neighbor passed on that it was one of the Sales Engineers with this defense sub-contractor, trying to make a sale of their products to China. When everyone was pushing for “Most Favored Trading Status” for China, (this included the then dominated Republican Congress and Senate) he felt it was fine to pass on the technology that the Chinese did not have in order to make a sale. When he was making his sales call, the Chinese made the comment that they would be interested in doing business with his company but they could not justify it because their rockets were still blowing up on the launching pad. This Sales Engineer took out a scrap piece of paper and proceeded to draw the problem with their design and then passed on the correct design to get their rockets into space. With this information in hand, the Chinese tested out the design and found that it worked. The Sales Engineer associated with the defense sub-contractor working with NASA got a large sales contract from China. Back at home in the U.S.; it was how he got the contract that had mixed feelings with the other employees within his defense company. Everyone realized the ramifications on what he had done to get a sales contract. But on the other hand they were being accepted as a “Most Favored Trading Status” partner. Now everyone wants to act surprised when China takes a giant leap in their technology?"
Thank you, Mr. Johnson for another exciting episode of "How Shit Happens"!
Stay tuned as we bring another episode each week of
"How Shit Happens"