I’m going to be closing the “syndicate” functionality earlier than expected so this is a heads-up to anyone out there still using this feature on their sites. You can currently syndicate any argument in the database by including some javascript/RSS available on each argument page.

Example:

http://www.spacedebate.org/argument/syndicate/2697/

I was very excited about the possibilities for this feature but found it difficult to implement on a lot of sites so I’m working on a new version that doesn’t require RSS or javascript. If you’re using these links on your site, the links will still work but the method to call them will change. I’ll post here when I have the new version in place.

Every few months or so, I’ve been generating a complete dump of all the arguments and their quotes as a favor to the debate community. If you’re interested in reading through the entire database (currently around 343 pages), this is what you need. This update is long-overdue, I’ve been working to incorporate all of the submitted edits and new material following the Chinese ASAT test and lost track of how long it has been since the last update. The file adds another 100+ pages to the previous version with a total of 148 arguments and 681 cards. You can download it in PDF and MS-Word here:

http://www.spacedebate.org/backfile

Does anyone actually read this stuff? Apparently Congress does ;) The Congressionally sanctioned “U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission” released a report a mere two days after the Chinese ASAT test was announced. Its an excellent collection of quotes describing the Chinese ASAT program from Chinese and American sources and it was referred to several times in Congress. I just noticed a couple of days ago that they borrowed three pages of cards — tags and all — from the old “China is a Space Power Threat” argument and organized them into a 12-point frontline for their report.

Pillsbury, Michael P. “An Assessment of China’s Anti-Satellite and Space Warfare Programs, Policies and Doctrines.” . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, January 19, 2007. [ See pages 15-19 ]

Sweet! I hope they read them really, really fast.

Two new articles in favor of space-based missile defense were released today. Both articles make the point that space-based missile defense has to be disentangled from discussions over space weapons because there is a clearer security case for space based missile defense than for space weapons in general. The first article comes from a traditional supporter of space weapons:

Lambakis, Steven. “Missile Defense From Space.” Policy Review. No. 141 (February and March 2007).

but the second one comes from the United Nations’ disarmament publication, Disarmament Forum:

Gruselle, Bruno. “The final frontier: missile defence in space?.” Disarmament Forum. No. 1 (2007): 53-57.

This quote from the Gruselle article sums up the attempt to reframe the debate around space weapons and missile defense nicely:

Considering the current global security situation and trends, any debate on the deployment of weapons in space should be focused on finding a balance between all states’ security needs rather than on trying to find a way to ban the larger spectre of military application platforms in space. Future US administrations may be willing to engage in a debate-even negotiation-on the weaponization of space if US security concerns could really be addressed by it. To make this possible, a tentative first step would be to recognize that not all space-based weapons constitute a threat to international security. Some may even enhance it-such as a future global capability to intercept in-flight missiles fired from a rogue state. Failure to make any concession on the reality of the proliferation concern and the potential of space systems to address this concern will probably lead to the continuation of the present US policy and ultimately to the absence of any progress in the prevention of an arms race in space.

Catching up to the last several years of web innovation, I’ve enabled ‘media’ clips as evidence in the citation and quote database. I’ve added two examples already to test this out (click on the ‘1 Reference’ link in either one):

Gore, Al. “Remarks at Wirefly X Prize Executive Summit.” Popular Science October 20, 2006. [ 1 reference ]

Tkacik, John J. and John Pike. “Situation Room: January 19, 2007.” CNN
January 19, 2007 - 19:00 ET. [ 1 reference ]

I like the idea of using a video clip to further one’s argument, it opens up the possibility of using other forms of media including images and podcasts. I’m still working on how this will integrate with the rest of the resources (not sure if this should be cluttering up the bibliography page) and will probably setup a special ‘media room’ for media enabled resources.

I also did not start working on this with the space weapons topic in mind, this was one of the ideas I’ve been working on to prepare the system for new and bigger topics (ex. my target topics, Global Warming and Iran). I was pleasantly surprised while searching for test material at the number of videos currently up on youtube related to space weapons and will work on integrating the best of these. Anyone that would like to help sift through these for key interviews or quotes, let me know.