Militarization of the High Frontier?

President Bush recently signed a new National Space Policy. The purpose of the Policy is to ensure freedom of action in near earth space as it relates to US economic and security issues. Although administration sources stressed that the policy is not intended in any way to open space to offensive military action, outside experts contend that at the very least, this will heighten the suspicions of other countries regarding US goals and intentions. This new policy constitutes the first revision to US space policy in 10 years. The last major revision, made by the Clinton Administration stressed enhancing human understanding of the solar system and strengthening national security.



The thrust of this story seems to leave little doubt the US intends to be the leader in the race to control space. It's interesting this comes just a week after numerous unconfirmed reports of the Chinese using a laser system to allegedly "blind" one or more US satellites.

It's also is timely considering the likely proliferation of nuclear weapons and ICBM technology that will occur in the next 5-10 years.

Many of the recent legal and military developments in the US have caused a great deal of concern among US citizens, but this policy may be widely looked upon in a favorable light.

Related News Links:
www.whitehouse.gov
www.space.com
www.spaceref.com
msnbc.msn.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
The United States Air Force Space Command
NEWS: US Claims Control Of OUTERSPACE!
US can deny "space exploration"

[edit on 18-10-2006 by UM_Gazz]

President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests."

This, to me, is the most troubling section of the new policy. How and to what lengths will we go to deny another nation's or group's access to space? Since when does space belong to the US? Are we now going to declare a 15 mile limit in space the way we do with our coastline? This seems to me to be one of the most potentially scary things that Bush has done in his presidency; now, not only does he deem himself wise enough to decide the legal and political future of his constituents and the rest of the world, he believes he has the right to decide who is worthy enough to trespass his solar system!

This is just plain nuts.

Not really, other countries could potentially use satellites (among other things) to target and fight the US in a military conflict by destroying our space systems and by using space as a medium for attacks. So we have to make sure we can destroy those space assets that threaten us and deny our enemy the use of space altogether. If you think other modern nations don't have the same policy in place you are kidding yourself. In a war you wouldn't allow an enemy to bomb or spy on your country from the air so why would you then allow them to do that form space?


[edit on 18-10-2006 by WestPoint23]

The militarization of space has been one of the Air Force's goals for many, many years. The use of space (or the high frontier, or whatever other name one chooses to call it) as an observation and weapons delivery medium is indeed a very tempting siren call. It is a call; however, that we should resist in the interest of world peace and cooperation. Better uses can be made of our dollars and our human resources than thinking up, researching and then developing and fielding space based weapons systems. Until, and unless, some other country abrogates the current agreements concerning the militarization of space, then we should do likewise.

And when private aerospace concerns begin to operate independent of government association, what is to prevent such private concerns from arming themselves against percieved (or real, perhaps governmental) threats?

Shall we descend into a repeat of history, once again, to deal with the scourge of various "privateers" prowling the the space-lanes?

Wherever weapons have led, commerce has followed. Sadly, where commerce has trod, wars have followed.

We are a silly species, it would seem; incapable of learning even the simplest lessons from our experience.

Bhadhidar, I hope something comes along that accelerates the privatization of space by many orders of magnitude. I can hardly wait for power production platforms to be emplaced and put into use--and that's just for starters. Should it become necessary to place armaments in space to preserve peace between private enterprise concerns I believe that would be acceptable.

I've got to agree with you though, we do seem to be a silly species.

I'm all for this, I've always seent he 'non-proliferation of wepons in space'
thing as incredibly stupid, I mean apart from the fact that weapons in
space can have peaceful purposes, such as blowing-up asteroids, it will
force the development of new kinds of weapons, and accelerate railgun
and energy beam weponery research.


Plus I see the whole UN treaty, which this suffiently ignores, to be a sign
of weakness, and idiotic hoefullness.

Originally posted by iori_komei
I'm all for this, I've always seent he 'non-proliferation of wepons in space'
thing as incredibly stupid, I mean apart from the fact that weapons in
space can have peaceful purposes, such as blowing-up asteroids, it will
force the development of new kinds of weapons, and accelerate railgun
and energy beam weponery research.


Plus I see the whole UN treaty, which this suffiently ignores, to be a sign
of weakness, and idiotic hoefullness.

Iori, you may not have realized it, but you have proven my point.

May the Stars look upon us and weep for what we might have been.

Anyone remember the motto for the USAF Space Command?
It used to be on their website, it pretty much said it all,
I think it was:

"To defend the USA through the control and exploitation of space."

There's no doubt that we are doing unimagineable stuff up there.

Iori, you may not have realized it, but you have proven my point.

That humanity is a race of warmongering psychos with an
obsession weith weaponising everywhee they go?


I just don't like the restriction is all, I believe in universal rights,
and having weapons in space is one of them.

That and I realise we only advance as fast as we do in alot of
fields because of military/war R&D of technology.

Originally posted by Astronomer70
The militarization of space has been one of the Air Force's goals for many, many years. The use of space (or the high frontier, or whatever other name one chooses to call it) as an observation and weapons delivery medium is indeed a very tempting siren call. It is a call; however, that we should resist in the interest of world peace and cooperation. Better uses can be made of our dollars and our human resources than thinking up, researching and then developing and fielding space based weapons systems. Until, and unless, some other country abrogates the current agreements concerning the militarization of space, then we should do likewise.

The problem is that it has already been done by China. Pretty much everything in China is controlled by the military, and their space agency is a military agency nomatter how much they try to claim is for "peaceful purposes".

There is a lot more to this than meets the eye. On Monday we opened our third, out of 5 air wing facilities that will protect the U.S.-Canadian border.

There is so much happening right now that it appears to be too much of a coincidence. NK is saying they will test 2 more nukes, and the Iranian president has claimed that Allah has told him they will win against the United States, and he has the backup of the Russians and the Chinese throught the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) which was created by Russia and China to "fight terrorism".

I could be wrong and all of this could be a coincidence.

[edit on 18-10-2006 by Muaddib]

All this protecting the border is a political move. Why? Because the elections are approching and there are ``protecting the borders and space from enemies``. Yeah right. North American Union opens the borders, even delete them from Mexico to Canada. So yes they'll protect the borders, but not the US borders, the North American borders, Canada/Mexico borders.

Welcome to the new North American Dictatorship.

I think it will be more of a partnership, but anyways, you could move to the South American Union "true dictatorship" if you wish.... Or to any of the countries that will be part of the Shangai Cooperation Organization to unite countries to fight against terrorism, countries which include Russia, China and Iran among others...

Good luck, hope to never see you again and don't let the door slam you in the back...

[edit on 18-10-2006 by Muaddib]

Come on now, play nice children.


I don't think this is politically motivated, I think it's something Bush
has been wanting to do, and sae a good oppurtunity to do it now.



As for the NAU, well apart from the fact that this thread is'nt about
that, I consider the NAU a good thing, which I hope happens, with a
democratic and free government.

I consider the NAU a good thing, which I hope happens, with a
democratic and free government.

Sir, you're a naive. Democratic and free government? yeah right. Look at what the US is becoming and expand it to the entire north america.

Originally posted by Vitchilo

I consider the NAU a good thing, which I hope happens, with a
democratic and free government.

Sir, you're a naive. Democratic and free government? yeah right. Look at what the US is becoming and expand it to the entire north america.

First of all, that's an insult and against the T&C.

Do you honestly think Canadians, or alot of Americans will
allow for a government worse than the current American one?