American Space Program
May 28, 2005
The American Space Weapons Program
The U.S. Air Force is currently submitting to President Bush a directive concerning national security and aimed at developing new offensive and defensive weapons. A detailed article on this topic appeared in the New York Times on May 18, 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/.......VfbtZ8wdA). According to some observers, this project risks being perceived by U.S. allies (and potential adversaries) as reigniting a new arms race in space. This would represent a significant shift in defense policy, given the approach taken since President Clinton's decisions in 1996. Up to now, space had been reserved, militarily, for monitoring compliance with arms control and non-proliferation treaties, as well as for intelligence gathering.
Implementing the directive to deploy space weapons would generate substantial financial, technological, political, and diplomatic challenges, although official White House spokespeople state that no international treaty explicitly prohibits such weapons. A decision is expected in the coming weeks.
In fact, according to Air Force representatives, the goal is not to place weapons in orbit, but to ensure unrestricted access to space for defensive or offensive operations.
From this perspective, the Pentagon has already spent billions of dollars preparing weapon systems and the deployment mechanisms. This was recommended in January 2001 by a commission chaired by newly appointed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Following these proposals, President Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which prohibited the deployment of weapons in space.
Today, there is no doubt that for the Air Force, the concept of absolute space superiority implies both the freedom to attack and the freedom from attack from space.
This will require new weapons, new types of satellites, and new means of cooperation with military forces. Technological obstacles will be enormous, and funding is estimated to reach hundreds of billions of dollars. There will also be a need to convince allies that the U.S. frontier now extends into space—but to what extent?
The Air Force has developed a new strategy, called Global Strike,
which involves creating a so-called “common aero vehicle”,
a spaceplane capable of carrying guided weapons with a payload of half a ton. According to General Lord, testifying before Congress, this would represent “an incredible capacity to destroy command centers and missile launch sites wherever they may be located around the world.”
It could reach its target in 45 minutes after circling half the globe. Development of this vehicle is considered the top priority.
The Air Force has already developed various prototypes of such weapons, which we have presented in our review.
Among them is the XSS-11, a microsatellite capable of jamming other nations’ communication and reconnaissance satellites. The Pentagon has not concealed its willingness to use such weapons to destroy satellites belonging to “allies” that might threaten U.S. interests—for example, satellites from the future European Galileo program, particularly if they were developed with participation from countries considered adversaries, such as China.
Another program, significantly named “Rods From God,” aims to drop tungsten, titanium, or depleted uranium cylinders from space to deeply penetrate terrestrial targets. Traveling at speeds of 10,000 km/h, they would have the effect of small atomic shells.
A third program will use laser beams or radio-electric waves capable of immobilizing or destroying ground troops and equipment.
General James E. Cartwright, head of the U.S. Strategic Command, recently explained to the Senate subcommittee responsible for nuclear weapons
that the goal was to enable the nation to “deliver a very rapid strike, without lengthy preparatory planning, anywhere on Earth’s surface.”
However, many senators have expressed concern. How will Russia, the European Union, China, and India respond? And what would the U.S. do if one of these countries decided to develop similar weapons?
Would preemptive strikes become necessary?
This reasonable stance was echoed by Teresa Hitchens, Vice President of the Center for Defense Information, a think tank analyzing and criticizing Pentagon policy. “Space must remain an international domain, non-militarized and non-militarizable.”
Moreover, the budgets cited by the Air Force itself (between $220 billion and $1 trillion) appear unattainable. The cost per strike would rise from $600,000 with a Tomahawk missile to $100 million with the proposed systems. Already, even “simple” reconnaissance and observation satellites have seen their costs at least triple. This is true of the new satellite-espionage program called Future Imagery Architecture, with a cost of $25 billion (and results that would, in any case, be disappointing). These costs would only be sustainable if all current weapon systems were to be repurposed, which seems both utopian and dangerous.
But General Lord maintains that all these objections are unfounded. “Space superiority is our destiny. It is a mission that must be pursued daily. But it is also a vision for the Grand Future.”
One can assume that the industrialists hoping to profit from these flows of billions—not only to develop weapons but also to reinvest expertise into civilian applications—fully share this view. 05/22/05