To justify spending large sums of money on a “Space Force”, Ted Cruz argues that we need it to defend ourselves from Space Pirates.
During a hearing Tuesday of the Subcommittee on Aviation and Space U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued that a Space Force is necessary to ward off space pirates.
“Pirates threaten the open seas, and the same is possible in space,” he said during his opening statements. Since “the ancient Greeks first put to sea,” Cruz argued, we’ve recognized the “necessity to protect waterborne traffic and commerce from bad actors.”
And now, he says, it’s time for the Space Force to do the same in space.
<throws up hands in despair>
<throws plans for the day to the floor>
<sweeps arms across desk, throws everything to the floor>
<tears at hair>
<stares exasperatedly at ceiling>
<seethes & weeps>
There is no point to anything. Our Republican overlords are fucking idiots whose sole purpose is to distract and delay with nonsense while the looting proceeds behind the scenes. We are all so fucking fucked by these fucking clowns.
When is the People’s March on Washington? I’m going to go sharpen my kitchen knives while I wait for the main event to begin.
That does it. No more luxury star cruises for me anymore. Not until the Galactic Patrol has sent Virgil Samms to Arisia.
Is this the guy who defeated Beto or was that DeSantis? Or was it Kemp? Sorry, I get my horrible excuses for human beings who should have lost in landslides to their opponents mixed up. Democracy is working so well in Murca.
Yep, it is pretty easy to acquire or build a space-faring vehicle and go around space-looting and space-pillaging.
Ted better hope there are no space pirates around. The kind of government Captain Harlock dealt with in the original 1978 series seems like it was pretty close to being like Donald Trump’s, a collection of corrupt idiots who wrote off the real threats to Earth as nothing but a story they didn’t like. And he often made a fool of them.
Yes we need Space force.
I’m tired of the crap Space Isis pulls.
We need to take the fight to Space Isis.
Hearts to @1 davidnagle
fusilier, SMOF, jg. (ret.)
James 2:24
I think he recently saw The Martian, heard the line “Mark Whatney — space pirate” in the middle of something else, and decided that context doesn’t matter.
Ya know, like he does with everything else.
Has someone bothered to inform the Republicans that no, the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network are not a good source for news? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avZBM26EDrg
*On the other hand — and not to defend Mr. Cruz or anything — Russia and China have developed or are developing “satellite killers”, which could potentially take out key satellites. Not sure if that’s what he really meant, but it sounds more like “Space Invaders” https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-polishes-his-satellite-killer
Someone needs to sell them a copy of Elite: Dangerous or Star CItizen for a billion dollars. Then they can declare victory and budget more money for next year.
Russia and China have developed or are developing “satellite killers”, which could potentially take out key satellites.
Everyone who’s anyone has got those. The thing is everyone knows that if they use one, they’ve just announced that they are planning a nuclear first strike, so it’s assumed that if someone shoots down a satellite, there’s a full-up nuclear exchange coming and humanity’s population problem is solved for a few hundred years.
When saying Russia “has” developed “satellite killers”, keep in mind you’re talking about the USSR, which should give some idea of the urgency of countering it with a brand new military division. More recently they’ve also been hacking US elections, but unfortunately nobody in power cares so much about that.
And to think of all the positive things — health care, clear water, better schools — that money could be spent on.
My theory is that the off prospect that they could loose big in 2020 has turned the unaccountable class into a bunch of slap-happy bobbleheads scrambling to pack as much crazy, stupid, and evil into their schedules as possible… You know, because they were elected to burn it all down…
Crank it up
Hold out Your Hand
Yeah, I once dreamt I was attacked by space vikings, but I don’t really think that would be applicable here.
“Shiver me timbers! More thrust, and control that blasted yaw!” shouted Captain Rackham as the quantum cannons fired upon the 5th Geosync Cavalry.
The mildly deranged penguin points out another thing which makes this excuse for more bribe-taking idiotic: The Massive Orbital Cheese Vault (the MOON†) has been warding off pirates since it was first installed. In the course of protecting the cheese, it also tends to protect the cheesemakers on Earth and near-vicinity (roughly, out to the Andromeda Galaxy (don’t mess with the cheese!)). In fact, the protocol for replacing a full vault with a new empty vault is carefully designed to maintain the protection of the cheese. It’s also largely TARDIS-proof.
† The acronym MOON for Massive Orbital Cheese Vault is basically an accident. The mildly deranged penguin’s clay tablet styluspenguinship leaves a lot to be desired…
As others have pointed out, both the States and the Soviets developed and tested such devices yonks ago (sometime in the 1980s, as I now recall from memory). Recently (in the last few years) both Big China and India have also tested such devices. The Indian test was particularly obnoxious, as it left a cloud of debris in roughly the ISS’s orbit.
I was going to say how sorry i am for you Americans and the dumbass wackaloons you find to elect .
Then i read that the maynot is going to resign next month ,and bloody stupid johnson has already
started planning to run for prime minister .
Perhaps. What is being reported is dear lino (dear leader in name only; “also hard to nail down”) will state her departure date after yet another vote on the brexit deal; the next such vote is currently planned for next month. That does not mean dear lino will resign next month — and I doubt it means she will say next month when she will resign — only that she’s running out of excuses, but not time, to say when she will resign. Under their current rules, the nasty party cannot kick her out until next December, which would seem to limit her authoritarian reign to the end(-ish) of the year, but that is also not assured and huge pot of fudge.
Perhaps a reference to China testing satellites with grappling arms:
grab-and-capture
But who knows what’s lodged in cobwebs of the Cruz mind. Could be this guy’s
Pirate Planet.
@Monad, # 12: We screw around with elections in other countries all the time-also arrange coups from time to time. Fair is fair.
Space pirates. Arrr. . . what space pirates???
jack16
Christoph, No. 22, I might be inclined to agree with you if this particular election meddling hadn’t produced such catastrophic consequences. Even if you think America deserves Donald Trump, the rest of the world doesn’t.
I think I saw the same movie as Tez Crud!
The Space pirates were quite awful.
@22 & 24
well how many fingers does it take to count when the meddling worked out for the better?
uncle frogy
blf@20 Does not the prospect of bojo being prime minister make you sick at heart ,don’t know if you are a Brit .
I was hoping for a GE so the voters of Uxbridge would boot him out over his behaviour over Heathrow .
This comment, combined with all the recent billionaire talk of space colonies, makes me think a lot of people have no clue how difficult it is to get something into Earth’s orbit, let alone out of Earth’s gravity well, and how difficult maintaining human life in space is.
People don’t seem to get that space travel is not analogous to age-of-sail ocean travel.
davidc1@27, Yes it does… why do you ask? If you are reading something into my @20 — where all I was doing was pointing out dear lino teh maybot has not actually said she’d resign in June, or even anytime this year — is making no comment about who should or should not be the next Putin Minion.
Where do we sign up to be space pirates?
blf ,wasn’t reading anything in to your @20 ,sorry if i gave you that impression .
The reason i dislike the idea of bojo becoming PM .apart from the fact he is a useless blob of crap ,is that he sees being PM as his birth right ,same goes for that fake toff moggie .