PENTAGON PREPS FOR WAR IN SPACE

An Air Force report is giv­ing what ana­lysts call the most detailed pic­ture since the end of the Cold War of the Pentagon’s efforts to turn outer space into a bat­tle­field.
For years, the American mil­i­tary has spo­ken in hints and whis­pers, if at all, about its plans to develop weapons in space. But the U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan changes all that. Released in November, the report makes U.S. dom­i­nance of the heav­ens a top Pentagon pri­or­ity in the new cen­tury. And it runs through dozens of research pro­grams designed to ensure that America can never be chal­lenged in orbit — from anti-​​satellite lasers to weapons that “would pro­vide the capa­bil­ity to strike ground tar­gets any­where in the world from space.“
Space has become an increas­ingly impor­tant part of U.S. mil­i­tary efforts. Satellites are used more and more to talk to troops, keep tabs on foes and guide smart bombs. There’s also long been recog­ni­tion that satel­lites may need some sort of pro­tec­tion against attack.
But the Air Force report goes far beyond these defen­sive capa­bil­i­ties, call­ing for weapons that can crip­ple other coun­tries’ orbiters.
That prospect wor­ries some ana­lysts, who fear the U.S. may spark a world­wide arms race in orbit.
“I don’t think other coun­tries will be tak­ing this lying down,” said Theresa Hitchens, the vice pres­i­dent of the Center for Defense Information. The space weapons pro­grams listed in the Air Force report went largely unno­ticed until Hitchens cir­cu­lated them in an e-​​mail Thursday. “This will cer­tainly prompt China into actu­ally mov­ing for­ward” on space weapon plans of its own, she added. “The Russians are likely to respond with some­thing as well.“
My Wired News arti­cle has details on the Air Force’s space war plans.
THERE’S MORE: Quicker, cheaper ways to get into orbit — that’s also a key com­po­nent of the Air Force report. Right now, space launches have to be planned months in advance. But the Air Force wants to orbiters to be able to take off “on demand” — just like planes do today.
Another goal is a hyper­sonic mis­sile, launched from the United States, that can strike almost any­where in the world. That’s some­thing Defense Tech dis­cussed in detail here.
AND MORE: Gen. Lance Lord, who heads Air Force Space Command, told Inside the Air Force that he’s focus­ing on “reversible effects” in space — weapons that can “tem­porar­ily degrade enemy capa­bil­ity, but do not per­ma­nently dam­age their space sys­tems,” accord­ing to the jour­nal. “However, he did not rule out pur­su­ing more dam­ag­ing coun­ter­space capa­bil­i­ties for use when it is in the inter­est of national secu­rity.“
AND MORE: Space​.com has a killer round-​​up of what’s in the Air Force plan.

February 20th, 2004 | Space | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.