Found this amusing graphic, detailing the “Ten Most Important Satellites Orbiting Earth Now” or, the ten best targets for a good ol’ fashioned space shoot-em-up. The list itself is debatable with the exception of the “GoldenEye” satellite which clearly warrants far more congressional posturing than it has received.

I came across this gem while sifting through new SSRN Law Review releases :

“Debate: Collaborative Environmental Law: Pro and Con.” Eric W. Orts, University of Pennsylvania - Legal Studies Department and Cary Coglianese, University of Pennsylvania Law School. University of Pennsylvania Law Review PENNumbra, Vol. 156, p. 289, 2007

Granted, this isn’t exactly analogous to this or other related ‘open-source’ policymaking and large-scale argumentation projects. The authors are debating the merits of environmental mediation where the regulatory authority attempts to bring together “not only government officials (and their designated scientific and economic experts), but also the representatives of a range of interests in civil society who will be affected by legal rules and decisions concerning a specific environmental problem, including businesses, citizens’ groups, and nongovernmental organizations” in the hopes that better policy will result.

However, several points struck me as relevant, especially this (abridged) list of criticisms from Prof. Coglianese:

On the contrary, what we know from past attempts at collaborative environmental law is that making agreement the goal often introduces one or more of at least five types of policy problems.

1. Tractability over Importance
   When agreement is the goal, collaborative groups tend to give more attention to those issues that are most tractable—not necessarily those that are most important…
2. Imprecision
   People can often more easily reach agreement over imprecise terms. Each side can interpret vague words or broad principles in a light favorable to its own interests, each thinking it has won more (or lost less) than its counterparts think…
3. Lowest Common Denominator
   When securing agreement becomes the primary aim, each party effectively gains a veto over the outcome. If an agreement does result, it is likely to reflect little more than the lowest common denominator of the various parties…
4. Increased Time and Resources
   As Professor Orts notes, collaborative environmental law has been criticized for taking longer to generate decisions. If each party effectively holds a veto, then much time will be needed for all negotiating parties to present their concerns and hear how others respond…
5. Additional Conflict
   Although collaborative environmental law seeks to resolve conflict, it actually can add new and unproductive sources of controversy. For example, conflicts arise over who gets to participate in collaborative groups; in some cases, lawsuits have been threatened or even filed when organizations are not invited to sit at the negotiation table.

A new Air Force recruitment video emphasizes their role in protecting the nation’s critical space assets from attack:

The scenario is a little ridiculous as they argue a single missile could take out our entire space infrastructure (maybe a reference to the Chinese direct-ascent ASAT?). Noah Shachtman does a thorough job refuting this argument in the DangerRoom blog but here’s another good on-point response from the database:

A scan of a Modern Mechanix article from December, 1951 shows how orbiting satellites will be able to police the world. Kinda. The article itself focuses solely on military advances in rocketry — there is no discussion of how these Space Cops would be able to keep the peace beyond the assumption that being able to launch a satellite would give a nation the capacity for global tyranny. Still a great find.

(Via boing boing).

Ad astra has a new special report covering the renewed attention being paid to Space Based Solar Power as a solution for a range of strategic and environmental issues:

One quick highlight was this amusing anecdote on the reasons behind the subtle shift in nomenclature for this concept from “Space Solar Power (SSP)” to “Space Based Solar Power (SBSP)” (which I missed earlier on the Space Solar Power (SSP!) blog):

Many people familiar with the concept of space solar power (SSP), or solar power satellites (SPS) wondered where and why after 40 years of consistency, the Pentagon would decide to rechristen it “space-based solar power,” or SBSP.

If one is trading many e-mails, typing space solar power gets tedious. So like any good military organization, abbreviations become the language of choice. But in the early stages, one of the core study members had a firewall that would kick-back or “disappear” any e-mail with “SSP” in it. Apparently some monetary, provocative, or medical scam had used the acronym, and it was thus blocked by a spam filter. Despite pleadings to allow these official e-mails, the IT powers-that-be would not relent. Therefore the recipient begged for a re-title of “SSP” to “SBSP” so the e-mails could get through. So, a four-decade history of common nomenclature was replaced because of IT inflexibility, or alternately, because of some illicit spammer that had an alternate definition of SSP.

Little off topic, but these two essays / presentations on using Web 2.0 technologies for activism and organizing have really inspired me recently:

Here Comes Everybody: Clay Shirky
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2008/02/shirky

and Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism, Ethan Zuckerman
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007877.html

Both presentations are optimistic about the potential of Web 2.0 technologies (or the internet in general) to enable activist groups to coordinate and build movements for social change. I’m partly interested in this for my day job but also to help figure out how a tool like this could be useful for more than research.

As a counterbalance, I tried sifting through last month’s First Monday which devoted an entire issue to “Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0.” Most of the essays were more Kritikal (read: academic) than I expected, approaching Web 2.0 from Foucauldian or Marixst perspectives (ex. “wikis as a tool of our corporate overlords to get proletariats to work for free” etc.) that tweak my wonkish pragmatism.

As for the project itself, I’m almost finished with the base code for the next generation of the project but decided to take a detour to rework the interface (thus the theoretical research) but I am still planning on releasing it on opendebateengine.com this Spring as an open source project. I’ll move all of my theoretical / engine-related blog postings over there, leaving this space for news about space lasers and picking on China hawks.

For anyone active in academic two-person debate, I’ve generated a new version of the popular backfile dump of all arguments and evidence on the site. With over 160 arguments in this update, the backfile checks in at a ridiculous 510 pages so printing it out isn’t an option. I’m working on a new print option for individual argument pages but will keep updating this file more regularly.

Just discovered this new volume, published January this year, that brings together fifty-five scholars and researchers from the “emerging discipline of collective intelligence”. The book’s contributors, including digerati like Yochai Benkler, Howard Bloom, Jaron Lanier, and Howard Rheingold, explore models for “digital deliberative democracy, self-governance, legislative transparency, true-cost accounting, and the ethical use of open sources and methods”. Of special interest to this project, Mark Klein’s chapter on “Achieving Collective Intelligence via Large-Scale Argumentation” (on which I will be blogging more about shortly).

You can find the whole book online at the Open Source Intelligence Institute or available in dead-tree format at Amazon.com.

A few months back, the Space Review did a helpful survey of the platforms of the leading presidential contenders to see what they had to say about the U.S. role in space. Not surprisingly, their space platforms were underdeveloped compared to the more salient issues in the race and none of them had anything specific to say about space weaponization.

However, in a new press release, Barack Obama laid out his space policy plan which includes the plank:

To my knowledge, Senator Obama is the first 2008 candidate to specifically address the U.S. military role in space in their space policy though the other candidates would likely break down along party lines if pressed. However, this is unlikely to become a significant election issue unless China resumes testing during the campaign, forcing the candidates to address how they would handle the threat from China.

Updated, February 25, 2008: Just saw this on Global Security Newswire: the Council for a Livable World sent a questionnaire to all of the candidates at the time and received these responses from the Democratic candidates: