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Gold9472
05-18-2005, 08:44 AM
Military eyes space, opponents urge caution

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050517/us_nm/arms_space_dc_1

(Gold9472: Donald Rumsfeld's Dream...)

By Andrea Shalal-Esa
Tue May 17, 6:39 PM ET

WARRENTON, Va. (Reuters) - U.S. efforts to deploy weapons in space face major technical, budgetary and physical barriers, opponents warned this week, but military planners still have high hopes for the "high ground" of future wars.

Everett Dolman, a professor at the Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, said he expected the White House to issue a new space policy next month that would underscore the military's determination to protect its existing space assets and maintain dominance of outer space.

Space was essential to how the U.S. military fights wars, Dolman said, noting that satellites already helped relay communications among troops, provided intelligence and targeting data, and guided bombs to their destinations.

"We've crossed the threshold and we simply cannot step back," Dolman, a proponent of space weapons, told Reuters at a two-day Nuclear Policy Research Institute conference.

Dolman said the critical question was not whether the United States should weaponize space, but whether it could afford to allow other states to get a jump-start in this area.

He said work on several technologies -- including work on microsatellites that could be launched to target enemy satellites and satellite-jamming systems -- was far enough along that it could be declared operational within 18 months.

Anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott organized the conference about 50 miles outside Washington to discuss what she described as dangerous moves that could spark a new arms race in space, as well as jeopardizing weather forecasting, communications satellites and other peaceful uses of space.

She raised concerns about $130 billion that had already been spent on missile defense, backed by strong corporate lobbying efforts, and said the outlays for space weapons could be astronomically higher, while health conditions and social programs on earth continued to suffer.

Theresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, warned that further moves by the Pentagon to weaponize space would spur reactions from China and other countries which viewed such efforts as inherently belligerent.

Space weapons would be very risky, expensive and could potentially trigger an accidental nuclear war, she added.

Hui Zhang, a Chinese scholar at Harvard University, said China was already very concerned about U.S. plans in space, and was likely to respond by building more warheads.

Dolman said weapons in space would be the natural progression of efforts to transform the U.S. military, an initiative spearheaded by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

But scientists, including Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts of Technology, said the science behind even ground-based missile defense was uncertain.

He said enemy missiles could be hidden in balloons and accompanied by decoys, making it nearly impossible for the kill vehicle to pick out which 'point of light' to target.

Retired Air Force Gen. Chuck Horner, a former head of U.S. Space Command, agreed that the proposed layered missile defense program would "not be as effective as we want it to be."

Two tests of the ground-based missile defense system's interceptors failed recently due to hardware and software glitches, although the agency reported a fifth successful test of the sea-based missile defense system in February.

Dolman said most scientists agreed that ground-based missile defense would not work as currently conceived, but said a future space-based missile defense networked to other sensors could make it easier to find enemy missiles among decoys.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency in February said it shelved work on lightweight space-based missile interceptors, but Jeffrey Lewis, a University of Maryland researcher, said the 2006 budget still earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars for other weapons programs that could be used in space.

There is a UN treaty banning orbiting weapons of mass destruction, but opponents said they believed the United States would not shy from withdrawing from that treaty, if necessary, just as it withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, so that it could begin deploying its initial layered missile defense shield.

somebigguy
05-18-2005, 08:57 AM
Could you imagine if the gov't managed to get weapons into space. They'd hold the whole world hostage.

dz
05-18-2005, 10:06 AM
man.. this is yet another peice of the puzzle as was laid out by PNAC's rebuilding americas defenses report:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

lets see..
they wanted major military spending increases, check!
they wanted to restructure the intelligence agencies, check!
they wanted to invade iraq and setup regional bases, check!
they wanted to make military forces more agile and quicker to respond, check!
they wanted to dominate space, check!

and to think, none of this would have been possible 'absent some catalyzing event like a new pearl harbor'.. man, i bet they were celebrating 9/11, its just what they wanted!

Gold9472
05-18-2005, 12:19 PM
Bush reportedly to OK space weapons order
Air Force says focus is 'access in space' not militarizing it

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7896613/

Updated: 10:22 a.m. ET May 18, 2005 NEW YORK - The U.S. Air Force is seeking President Bush’s approval of a national security directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defensive space weapons, the New York Times reported Tuesday, citing White House and Air Force officials.

A senior administration official said a new presidential directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a less aggressive use of space, involving spy satellites’ support for military operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts, the report said.

Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological, political and diplomatic hurdles, as well as almost surely opposition from U.S. allies and potential enemies alike, fearing an arms race in space.

With little public debate, the Pentagon has already spent billions of dollars developing space weapons and preparing plans to deploy them, the newspaper said.

A presidential directive is expected within weeks, the senior administration official told the Times, adding that the directive is still under final review and the White House has not disclosed its details.

Air Force officials said the directive did not call for militarizing space. “The focus of the process is not putting weapons in space,” said Maj. Karen Finn, an Air Force spokeswoman. “The focus is having free access in space.”

'Cannot step back'
Everett Dolman, a professor at the Air Force’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, said he expected the White House to issue a new space policy next month that would underscore the military’s determination to protect its existing space assets and maintain dominance of outer space.

“We’ve crossed the threshold and we simply cannot step back,” Dolman, a proponent of space weapons, told Reuters at a two-day Nuclear Policy Research Institute conference.

Dolman said the critical question was not whether the United States should weapons space, but whether it could afford to allow other states to get a jump-start in this area.

He said work on several technologies — including work on microsatellites that could be launched to target enemy satellites and satellite-jamming systems — was far enough along that it could be declared operational within 18 months.

Threat to weather forecasting?
Anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott organized the conference about 50 miles outside Washington to discuss what she described as dangerous moves that could spark a new arms race in space, as well as jeopardizing weather forecasting, communications satellites and other peaceful uses of space.

She raised concerns about $130 billion that had already been spent on missile defense, backed by strong corporate lobbying efforts, and said the outlays for space weapons could be astronomically higher, while health conditions and social programs on earth continued to suffer.

Theresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, warned that further moves by the Pentagon to weaponize space would spur reactions from China and other countries which viewed such efforts as inherently belligerent.

Space weapons would be very risky, expensive and could potentially trigger an accidental nuclear war, she added.

Hui Zhang, a Chinese scholar at Harvard University, said China was already very concerned about U.S. plans in space, and was likely to respond by building more warheads.

Dolman said weapons in space would be the natural progression of efforts to transform the U.S. military, an initiative spearheaded by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Problem of decoys
But some scientists, including Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the science behind even ground-based missile defense was uncertain.

He said enemy missiles could be hidden in balloons and accompanied by decoys, making it nearly impossible for the kill vehicle to pick out which ’point of light’ to target.

Ret. Air Force Gen. Chuck Horner, a former head of U.S. Space Command, agreed that the proposed layered missile defense program would “not be as effective as we want it to be.”

Two tests of the ground-based missile defense system’s interceptors failed recently due to hardware and software glitches, although the agency reported a fifth successful test of the sea-based missile defense system in February.

Help from sensors?
Dolman said most scientists agreed that ground-based missile defense would not work as currently conceived, but said a future space-based missile defense networked to other sensors could make it easier to find enemy missiles among decoys.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency in February said it shelved work on lightweight space-based missile interceptors, but Jeffrey Lewis, a University of Maryland researcher, said the 2006 budget still earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars for other weapons programs that could be used in space.

A United Nations treaty bans orbiting weapons of mass destruction, but opponents said they believed the United States would not shy from withdrawing from that treaty, if necessary, just as it withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, so that it could begin deploying its initial layered missile defense shield.

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