When evaluating a threat to U.S. spacebased military and commercial assets, it is important to note that possession of a technology by a potentially hostile power does not mean that the country will be able to translate the technology into an effective military system. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had scientists and engineers doing cutting-edge work, but it often found it extremely costly and difficult to produce in quantity—or sometimes prototype—the most cutting-edge systems, equipment, or devices. The race to the moon was a case in point. The Soviet Union produced many space firsts but ultimately could not produce refined, quality systems that could be launched successfully, time after time. America had its major mistakes as well, such as the fire on the launch pad of Apollo 1 in 1967. But America learned from its mistakes and constantly improved its systems, even ones run by the American government. In the late-1960s, the Soviet Union built what for some years was the world’s largest telescope, the Bolschoi Teleskop Azimultalnyi. The problem was that it rarely worked properly. At a more basic and humble level, the Soviet Union was not able to produce quality consumer products in quantity. China, the country often feared as threatening U.S. space-based assets, has quality problems similar to those of the old Soviet Union. For example, it has never been able to produce in quantity a quality fighter plane, which would be far more important to its military needs than exotic space weapons. Thus, the fact that a country possesses a technology that could be developed to threaten U.S. space assets is a reason for attention and concern, but it is not a reason for new, costly programs to counter phantom threats.

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Pena, Charles V. and Edward Hudgins. Should the United States 'Weaponize' Space? Military and Commercial Implications. Washington, D.C.: CATO Institute, March 18, 2002. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 9-10 ]