China Planning Lunar Missions In Search For Energy Source

Newsweek Melinda Liu and Mary Carmichael February 4, 2007 02:20 PM

Western analysts still can't say what Beijing was thinking when it shot down one of its aging weather satellites. True, the recent test was a fine show of marksmanship, destroying a refrigerator-size target sailing at orbital speed 500 miles up (as high as U.S. spy satellites). But was it worth risking a new arms race? Was it even worth the mess it caused? The Union of Concerned Scientists says the test left some 2 million pieces of shrapnel in orbit, each one a threat to any country's passing spacecraft. That's why Washington and Moscow gave up such tests decades ago: the space lanes are already littered with too much potentially lethal debris.

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