[FPSPACE] The weaponization of space?

[Dwayne Allen Day]

This is interesting.


DDAY

*******************************************************

From:

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64231-2000Dec29.html


Excerpts:

>From Missile Defense to a Space Arms Race? 

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 30, 2000; Page A02 

Donald Rumsfeld, President-elect Bush's nominee for secretary of defense,
is a leading proponent not only of national missile defenses, but also of
U.S. efforts to take control of outer space by developing technology to
attack and defend satellites in orbit.

Together, these initiatives could bring a dramatic militarization of space
over the next two decades, a prospect that some defense experts have long
urged and others have passionately condemned.

The Pentagon is using national missile defense "as a wedge to accelerate
our activities in space," charged Bruce Blair, head of the nonprofit
Center for Defense Information.

[snip]

The system that the Clinton administration was developing to protect the
50 states from ballistic missile attack would have been strictly
land-based, with interceptor missiles launched from Alaska. It was to
include some satellites for tracking enemy missiles, but no weapons based
in space.

President-elect Bush, on the other hand, has said his administration will
strive for a far more ambitious shield, possibly using space-based
weaponry. Such weapons do not yet exist, but the United States has been
working for years on powerful lasers that might someday be mounted on
aircraft or satellites.

[snip]

Now, another congressionally mandated commission headed by Rumsfeld is
finishing a report on threats to U.S. satellites, which are increasingly
vital to military and civilian communications. The report, expected in
mid-January, will endorse "U.S. control of space, including defending our
own satellites and engaging those of any enemy," according to a colleague
of Rumsfeld. In a press conference announcing his nomination Thursday,
Rumsfeld himself listed "defense of our space assets" as one of his top
priorities.

Other countries -- particularly Russia and China, but also many
U.S. allies -- oppose the U.S. missile defense effort and warn that it
could set off an international arms race in space.

If the United States builds a missile shield, "space will become a new
weapons base and battlefield," Sha Zukang, head of the Chinese Foreign
Ministry's disarmament department, said in June. "Since other big powers
will not sit and look on unconcerned, this will inevitably mean the
extension of the arms race into space."

The Outer Space Treaty, signed in 1967 by the United States and other
major powers, prohibits placing nuclear weapons in orbit.

But no treaty bans anti-satellite weapons, which both the United States
and Russia have been researching and testing for more than 20 years. The
original impetus for developing these so-called ASATs was the prospect of
space-based missile defense systems. When President Reagan's Strategic
Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars," plan was dropped by the first Bush
administration, the race to develop ASATs receded back to research.
Last August, the Army used a ground-based chemical laser to hit an aging
U.S. military satellite in an apparent ASAT test that officials claimed
had not been cleared in advance by the White House or State Department.
When the test was publicized, the Pentagon said its purpose was to develop
defenses for U.S. satellites. Russian diplomats, however, complained that
the United States was preparing for war in space.

The fiscal 2001 Defense Department budget contains funds for numerous Army
and Air Force ASAT programs, including $20 million for the Army's
ground-based kinetic energy anti-satellite technology program, which began
more than 20 years ago. An additional $5 million is marked "for the
development of space control technologies that emphasize reversible or
temporary effects."

Some experts contend that if there is an arms race in space, it will be
far cheaper to develop offensive weapons than defensive ones.
"Chinese strategists consider U.S. reliance on communications,
reconnaissance and navigation satellites as a potential Achilles'
heel," Maj. Mark A. Stokes, a Pentagon expert on China who was assistant
air attache in Beijing from 1992 to 1995, wrote last year.
Stokes said Chinese aerospace officials have argued that an anti-satellite
capability is "easier to develop than ballistic missile defense
systems." The cost to China, he estimated, would be about $30 million for
ground facilities and roughly $4 million per interceptor that could
destroy a $1 billion U.S. missile defense satellite.

The Soviet Union, which first tested an ASAT in 1968, developed a workable
version by the mid-1980s, although it was limited to attacking low-orbit
satellites. A comparable American ASAT, launched from an F-15 fighter,
consisted of a miniature homing device on a two-stage rocket that used
ground-based radar directions to hit the target satellite.

As recently as in the 1980s, scientists were also considering so-called
space mines -- satellites containing explosives that could be placed in
orbit, maneuvered and detonated from Earth.

Air Force Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, head of the U.S. Space Command, told the
Senate Armed Services Committee last spring that "the dependence of our
national security on orbiting satellites" makes them "a tempting target
for terrorism and adversarial military operations."