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.