I think I understand, coming out of the matters recently discussed, that G. Bush is in fact alienating the scientific community, gutting their projects to favor the manned missions. It's a shame that the two types of missions are pitted against each other; it's regrettable that we're forced to think of manned vs. unmanned as an "either / or" budget priority. By dividing the space community this way, the Bush space initiative likely loses support and fails to gain traction. Turning to a different issue --space weapons -- Reuters has just published an article for mass audiences on space weapons. I'll welcome your review and comment, I've pasted in the article below. As a national security hawk, I in fact see very serious military implications of space technology; space is the ultimate "high ground," that part of a battle field that anyone wants to control in a conflict. I am not among the doves who would entirely de-militarize space. And, I have the other articles elsewhere that detail China's plans to make space a battle ground. My one key observation is this, submitted to the list for peer review. Any system of National Missile Defense would be better built in a way that hits rockets in the "boost phase," or at least prior to apogee. If NMD worked like the Patriot missile interceptors, that would be post-apogee to the incoming "bogey," and therefore NMD post-apogee would leave our satellites defenseless. If we instead build a pre-apogee defense, then NMD could perform double duty to protect and defend our satellites. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a pre-apogee NMD system is the one that is more serious, and a post-apogee NMD system is the one that is more lightweight, a technical band-aid, less serious, and may spin our wheels and divert resources, if our ultimate objective includes protecting the satellites. Agree / disagree? Submitted to the list, _________________
John Kusumi
Email: john@... U.S. Eyes Space as Possible Battleground
Updated 11:20 AM ET January 18, 2004
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's plan to expand the exploration of space parallels U.S. efforts to control the heavens for military, economic and strategic gain.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld long has pushed for technology that could be used to attack or defend orbiting satellites as well as a costly program, heavily reliant on space-based sensors, to thwart incoming warheads.
Under a 1996 space policy adopted by then-President Bill Clinton that remains in effect, the United States is committed to the exploration and use of outer space "by all nations for peaceful purposes for the benefit of all humanity."
"Peaceful purposes allow defense and intelligence-related activities in pursuit of national security and other goals," according to this policy. "Consistent with treaty obligations, the United States will develop, operate and maintain space control capabilities to ensure freedom of action in space, and if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries."
No country depends on space and satellites as its eyes and ears more than the United States, which accounted for as much as 95 percent of global military space spending in 1999, according to the French space agency CNES.
"Yet the threat to the U.S. and its allies in and from space does not command the attention it merits from the departments and agencies of the U.S. government charged with national security responsibilities," a congressionally chartered task force headed by Rumsfeld reported 10 days before Bush and he took office in 2001.
Theresa Hitchens of the private Center for Defense Information said the capabilities to conduct space warfare would move out of the realm of science fiction and into reality over the next 20 years or so.
"At the end of the day it will be political choices by governments, not technology, that determines if the nearly 50- year taboo against arming the heavens remains in place," she concluded in a recent study.
Outlining his election-year vision for space exploration last week, Bush called for a permanent base on the moon by 2020 as a launch pad for piloted missions to Mars and beyond.
One unspoken motivation may have been China's milestone launch in October of its first piloted spaceflight in earth orbit and its announced plan to go to the moon.
"I think the new initiative is driven by a desire to beat the Chinese to the moon," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense and space policy research group.
Among companies that could cash in on Bush's space plans are Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp., which do big business with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as well as with the Pentagon.
The moon, scientists have said, is a source of potentially unlimited energy in the form of the helium 3 isotope -- a near perfect fuel source: potent, nonpolluting and causing virtually no radioactive byproduct in a fusion reactor.
"And if we could get a monopoly on that, we wouldn't have to worry about the Saudis and we could basically tell everybody what the price of energy was going to be," said Pike.
Gerald Kulcinski of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison estimated the moon's helium 3 would have a cash value of perhaps $4 billion a ton in terms of its energy equivalent in oil.
Scientists reckon there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the earth for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 30 tons could meet all U.S. electric power needs for a year, Kulcinski said by e-mail.
Bush's schedule for a U.S. return to the moon matches what experts say may be a dramatic militarization of space over the next two decades, even if the current ban on weapons holds.
Among other things, the Pentagon expects to spend at least $50 billion over the next five years to develop and field a multi-layered shield against incoming missiles that could deliver nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
Ultimately, this shield -- first proposed by President Ronald Reagan and dubbed "Star Wars" by critics -- may include space-based interceptors, the first weapons in space, as opposed to sensors that guide weapons.
Last year, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency obtained $14 million for research on basing three or more missile interceptors in space by the end of the decade for tests.
The plan would field satellites armed with multiple "hit-to-kill" interceptors capable of destroying a ballistic missile through a high-speed collision shortly after its launch, according to Wade Boese, research director of the private Arms Control Association. Such a system could also function as an anti-satellite weapon.
No decision has been made yet to deploy space-based interceptors as part of the U.S. missile defense program "although we are conducting research and development activities in that area," a Defense Department official said Friday.
> Any system of National Missile Defense would be [snip]
is present, a hypothetical attacker (e.g. North Korea) with an attack
small enough to be theoretically taken out can just attack softer
targets using bioweapons or nukes in shipping containers or pickup
trucks coming over a land border or using stolen aircraft etc. Besides,
almost all the tests for this stuff have failed under ideal conditions,
and in real attacks there will be decoys, misleading information ("it's
a satellite launch") etc.
Big waste of money IMHO -- just more defense contractor welfare.
> And, I have the other articles elsewhere that detail China's
> plans to make space a battle ground.
What's the point? This sounds like what I was hearing before 9/11 as US
media reports seemed trying to stir up fear about China. Is China really
going to attack the US? Why? What can the accomplish by nuking the US (a
big trading partner)? Higher radioactive levels throughout the world? A
poisoned land? And if they want to do in the US, why not simply a
racially targeted virus, deliverable via infected tourists? That would
be a very cheap approach, and easily deniable. In any case, isn't it
time to move beyond these sorts of justifications for wasting money?
It's far cheaper for China to build "Aquarius" projects in the ocean or
to build other forms of habitats than risk war with any major countries
for more land for expanding populations. Or they can just use the
current account deficit the US is running with them to buy cheap land in
the US. Playing the "their weapons system is gonna be bigger than our
weapons system" is just so ... 20th century. :-) We need to move beyond
that if we are going to survive and prosper as a planet (and beyond).
--Paul Fernhout
--- In ssi_list@... "Paul D. Fernhout"
> ocean or to build other forms of habitats than risk war with any
> major countries for more land for expanding populations.
Why fight a war when this process is working wonders.
http://www.chinese-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t6
TangoMan
You may be right about the uselessness of defending against ballistic
missiles, when we are also vulnerable to "low-tech" delivery like a pick up
truck.
kittens. Being smart and not blind, the Chinese military focuses on two new
capacities, one to sink our aircraft carriers and two, to take out U.S.
satellites. If they were successful, then surviving U.S. forces might have
to swim to shore, and then fight while "instrument blind," without
navigation.
The carriers and the satellites are indeed central to our force projection
abilities; our military would be very different fighting without them.
You can suggest that missile defenses reduce no threat, but how do you feel
about defending our satellites? (And, with China's evident interest in
Taiwan, I cannot nod in assent where you suggest that China is without
motive to attack our forces.)
Satellite defense includes ballistic interception; in this realm, a pick up
truck is irrelevant.
??
--John K.