Space-Based Weaponry
What kind of weapons? Lasers? Rail guns? Missile pods? Tell me tell me tell me!
Anyway, before I have a geekasm, the Air Force is asking the President for permission to put weaponry in space. It’s like that movie Meteor, only in the 21st century!
Of course, some people are mad and don’t want us to do this. From the NYT story–
Senior military and space officials of the European Union, Canada, China and Russia have objected publicly to the notion of American space superiority.They think that “the United States doesn’t own space – nobody owns space,” said Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information, a policy analysis group in Washington that tends to be critical of the Pentagon. “Space is a global commons under international treaty and international law.”
No nation will “accept the U.S. developing something they see as the death star,” Ms. Hitchens told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting last month. “I don’t think the United States would find it very comforting if China were to develop a death star, a 24/7 on-orbit weapon that could strike at targets on the ground anywhere in 90 minutes.”
The big thing here is to not follow the lesson of the US/USSR space race back in the 1960’s. We need to be first, or else we’re all going to be looking up at the sky looking for that Chinese Space Peace Death Platform hovering over Kansas.