On November 17, "Space News International's" page one story announced that NASA has laid plans to revive the X-37 space plane, which it will now send into orbit for 270 days. This trial period, says SNI, was "originally set by the US Air Force as a way to begin proving the feasibility of orbiting Earth with camera- and bomb-laden space planes for months at a time....The Air Foprce's 270-day requirement stemmed from a proposed space warfare stretegy of global strike that Air Force space planners have pushed hard inside the Pentagon in recent years [read "since the Bush junta took over]."

This scheme represents nothing less than a colossally arrogant, power-drunk bid for total global domindance. The scheme calls for the creation of a fleet of unpiloted space panes that would be able to stay in orbit, circling the planet with bombs and spy cameras for months at a time. These monsters would carry smaller "reenetry vehicles" called Common Aerospace Vehicles (CAVs). CAVs in turn would carry up to 10 500-pound bombs each. Nice, eh?"Targets would be struck quickly nearly anywhere around the globe without having to position aircraft to forward positions," reports SNI.

While the Pentagon and Sean "NASA's-worst-nightmare-come-true" O'Keefe are trying to say that the revival of the program is purely for "scientific instrument deployment" purposes, Therea Hitchens, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington says this argument simply does not hold water. "You could do that [test remote sensing instruments] on a microsatellite. I don't get the justification for testing that kind of instrument on that kind of platform." ]

But most folks now familiar with the Bush administration "get it." The administration is simply using its usual modus operandi: lying to achieve its ends.

It also appears that much of NASA's funding is getting diverted into the space bomber program under cover of the inocuous sounding "Orbital Space Program." Boeing quietly announced on 11/4 to industry papers that it had set up a whole new office dedicated to this program. Less than two weeks later, the official revival of the space bomber (under the title of the "space plane" ) was announced. The same article observed that NASA was negotiating with Boeing to alter its current contracts to include the 270-day trial. I have the feeling the altered contracts were a "done deal" before Boeing opened its new office on 11/4.

But the Bush cartel appears to realize that news of what thespace bomber program is really all about would not help his popularity any. So, the White House propaganda machine is taking no chances and is using its favorite coverup strategy: Hide what the left hand is doing by drawing attention to the right hand. To do this, the corporate media/White House propaganda specialists routinely create diversionary stories in the media. The stories may be either completely fake (ties between Saddam and Bin Laden), sorta fake (Jessica Lynch) or real, but with manipulated timing.or example, doesn anyone really think that it was a coincidence that the California judicial system decided to arrest Michael Jackson the same week the Terminator took control of the state and the same week Bush was under heaviest fire for his UK trip and the escalated bloodshed in Iraq? Hardly.

Now, barely one week after Space News ran the story about the space bomber revival, Boeing and the Pentagon have pushed a story into the media about the firing of two Boeing execs over alleged unethical behavior. A classic CIA propaganda tactic that can be described as "distract and redirect." The investigation of the two execs has been ongoing for months. But they decide to fire them this week just by chance? Yeah, right.

It's also no coincidcence that Bush did not sign the defense bill until Nov. 24 - AFTER all of these "taking the Bush war into space" ducks were in a row: the new Boeing office, the NASA agreement to collude in the space bomber development, the firing of the two execs, which, insiders say, will insure that Boeing is at least temporarily exempt from the same scrutiny as before. The only thing that continues to astound me is the absolute stupidity and/or monstrous indifference to any allegiance to moral standards, let alone the American citizens, that nearly 2/3 of the people in Congress exhibit. Bush was handed every penny he requested, thus insuring that planet Earth, as of November 24, became a considerably less safe place.

RESOURCES

The Space News story is inaccessible to the general public. But information being released to the general public is very, very different. Check out this supposed "fact sheet" about the X-37. Do you see anything in it about bombs. Once again, the Bush administration is planning to plunge the nation and world into danger and possible war once more without bothering to inform anyone of the truth until it is too late.

Bogus "fact sheet" :  http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/background/facts/x37facts2.html

To read the Space News International story, try your nearest college library and look for this issue: November 17, 2003 Vol. 14, No 45

Firing of Boeing Execs
 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001800318_boeing25.html

Bush Is handed $87.5 billion to "fight terror"
 http://www.themilitant.com/2003/6741/674101.html