May 10, 2005 :: The Space Review :: Analysis
Taylor Dinerman, writing for The Space Review, notes that while the Bush administration has been making headway on a number of salutary missile defense programs, it has not restarted the space-based defenses, such as the Brilliant Pebbles which had been killed by the Clinton administration. Despite this fact, critics of the administration from the left continue to insinuate that space programs are being pursued. In fact, notes Dinerman, the administration is in a very difficult place:
Curiously, Bush has had to take all the political pain involved in withdrawing from the ABM Treaty and building an operational missile defense system without being willing to go all the way and make that system fully effective, or at least as effective as possible given the limits of today’s technology. On this issue it is striking how much more conservative and bold his father’s administration was.
The potential for Brilliant Pebbles was its ability to intercept missiles while they were still in their boost phase, when they are most vulnerable. The technology was available in the early 1990s, in fact in the 1980s, and it has only improved since:
Since Brilliant Pebbles (BP) was canceled in 1993, the Department of Defense has made some limited progress on technology that is directly applicable to space-based boost phase systems. More important has been the ongoing improvements in computer processing power and in the ability of uncooked thermal imagers to detect targets. A 2005 model of a Brilliant Pebble would be smaller and have a better electronic brain than the 1993 one. Not only that, but there are now cheaper and more reliable in-space propulsion systems, such as pulsed plasma thrusters, which would keep the BPs in orbit and operation for far longer than the older version.
Dinerman continues:
Missile defense is just one aspect of a wider issue—that of “space control”, also referred to as “space dominance” or “space supremacy.” This can roughly be defined as “the unhampered ability to use one’s orbiting assets, such as communications, navigation and spy satellites of different types and to prevent the enemy from using his spacecraft, or any ones, he may gain access to, either covertly or commercially.” … If Americans do not believe that US military supremacy is a good thing in and of itself then they will not believe that space supremacy is important either. However, if they do think that US national security has something to do with military strength, space supremacy becomes automatically a primary goal. In the end, the ability to use the ultimate high ground and to deny it to our enemies is the key to winning future conflicts. Nothing the liberals say, nor any objections from the French, should be allowed to get in the way.
(Article)
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