October 9, 2007 :: The Space Review :: Analysis
James Oberg writes on the weaponization of space in the October 9 edition of The Space Review. Oberg reacts to the clear media bias against U.S. space programs, and charges that the media further encourages inflammatory Russian remarks about having to match the U.S. military presence in space. Oberg argues:
Like children drawing glee in poking a stick into an anthill to see the turmoil they can cause, or teenagers throwing rocks at a chained junkyard dog just to hear him snarl, some elements of the Western news media seem to evince diabolical delight in seeing just how they can inflame good old fashioned Russian paranoia about "enemy threats", especially from the United States. Regardless of the rationale, such exercises leave measurable scars on the international diplomatic scene. ...
To fabricate and encourage Russian fears of the imminent American "weaponization of space", then, isn't merely a matter of politically useful alarmism and ideologically satisfying posturing. To the degree that it reinforces Russian fears and encourages Russian militaristic responses, it is downright dangerous and irresponsible. Shame on the space-war fear mongers: they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, which is accuracy.
Most recently, articles in the New York Times recognizing the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik cited that the Soviet satellite motivated Eisenhower to enter a "scary new world of space arms" by "publicly encouraged peaceful uses of space even while spending billions to explore futuristic weaponry like death rays fired from rocket ships." Oberg argues that the article ignores the most important details of Eisenhower's space policy, such as "deliberately assign[ing] America's satellite project to a research rocket rather than a weapons rocket... and establish[ing] a civilian-controlled space exploration administration (something the Soviets never did)." Also, the New York Times's article omits critical information about the Soviet's history in space.
Not discussed here are the orbital thermonuclear weapons designed, tested, and deployed by the USSR in the 1960s, whose operation was expressly forbidden by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967-a scrap of paper that provided no protection to their use in a sneak attack on the United States. Not mentioned... are the handguns that the Russians are allowed to pack at the International Space Station (NASA's website doesn't mention them either), or the much more serious space-to-space attack vehicles (on standby in earth-based launch tubes) whose very existence Moscow denied for decades.
The revisionist perspective of history has a profound effect today, as the U.S. deploys the first components of a missile defense system, and considers future space-based components. The Russian government, supported by the U.S. media, has hitherto condemned these efforts as sparking a new weaponization of space. Russian Colonel General Vladimir Popovkin recently claimed Russia would "not allow any other country to play the master in outer space. The consequences of positioning strike forces in orbit will be too serious." Once again, the facts of the planned space system are ignored, Oberg suggests: "Proposed space-based anti-missile systems will be designed with guidance sensors that depend on hot rocket exhausts and large missile skins, the sort of thing you'd see during an actual launch. Satellites orbiting passively high above Earth are not nearly as big as missiles, and are nowhere near as hot. They usually aren't firing rocket engines at all. Anti-missile systems of the type under consideration probably could not even detect such targets, much less hit them." (Article)
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