Person of the Day: China Missile

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In January China launched a missile that destroyed a target satellite. This is really bad because they can now do that a lot (even to U.S. communications systems). They have also now created about 1600 pieces of dangerous flying space garbage.

It turns out we knew about this in advance and said nothing, did nothing, needing to give ourselves future cover for a mythological Star Wars system. Said Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress, “This was absolutely preventable. The Chinese have been proposing a treaty to ban weapons in space for years. We have refused in order to pursue this fantasy of space-based anti-missile weapons.”

Weak in the head = weak on defense. Free slogan.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate