Shooting off in space

ALBANY, N.Y. - So I see China has a "space weapon."

One strike on an obsolete weather satellite with a Cold War-era ballistic missile, and pundits declare an arms race.

"The Chinese have reawakened the notion of a space war by telling the world that, although it cannot compete with American technological advances, it can undermine the best in the business by adopting asymmetric tactics," Michael Evans wrote in The Times.

I'm not worried.

Although they got lucky this time, I place little faith in the navigational skills of the Chinese military. Records of Chinese explorer Zhang He's Ming Dynasty voyages are so confused that historians aren't sure if went to Greenland, the Cape of Good Hope or Rhode Island. That might have been six centuries ago, but hitting a moving satellite out of a space with a missile is like striking a piece of pollen from 200 yards away with a dart: pretty impossible.

The last half dozen navigators I've met in China (taxi drivers) can't even stay on the road, let alone hit a target.

Also, I doubt that China's influential pirate-DVD lobby will allow the country to attack United States communication systems. Without these, these businessmen can't receive the latest in Hollywood entertainment, add Chinese subtitles that ignore the movie's plot, and export them around the world for 50 cents a piece.

Finally, there's the sensible argument from "some analysts," (thanks, Joseph Khan) that China's real reason for testing the weapon was to encourage the United States to seriously negotiate space weapon limits.

That'd be fine, because although I'm not too worried about Chinese space missiles, I don't like the idea of hunk of weather satellite taking out a piece of my backyard.