# Star Wars (the Ronald Reagan kind, not the George Lucas kind)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-ronald-reagan-kind-not-the-george-lucas-kind/774183>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 8, 2016, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-ronald-reagan-kind-not-the-george-lucas-kind/774183 "2016-12-08T05:09:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 18

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**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-ronald-reagan-kind-not-the-george-lucas-kind/774183/18 "2016-12-08T15:50:16Z")

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> [@Ravenman](#):
>
> Thanks for breaking this off into a new thread. I repeat again, your original claim that no space-based anti-satellite weapons exist probably cannot be proven true or false at this point, but if I had to guess, I’d say you’re wrong. (I note that you amended your claim later to say “that we know of,” which I think is both an important clarification that I agree with, and a big change to the original claim.)

I’m confused. My original claim, AFAIK, was in [post #48](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19836151&postcount=48) of the other thread. It was just:

> [@Dems challenging election - don't they care?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-challenging-election-dont-they-care/774109/48):
>
> I know this is pedantic, but China doesn’t have any offensive space-_based_ capabilities. They proved they can blow up a satellite, but that capability is _based_ here on earth. They don’t have any weapons _based_ in space.

Is your theory that China has secretly smuggled anti-satellite weapons on board some of their existing satellites, even though we have no evidence for this, and because you believe this theory without any evidence to support it, you’d guess that I’m wrong?

Or, conversely, is your theory that Chinese Beidou navigation satellites themselves constitute “space-based anti-satellite weapons” because they have some maneuvering capabilities and could, theoretically and with a great deal of luck, be used to crash into another satellite in a kamikaze-style attack?

Or is it something else entirely that I’m misunderstanding?

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