Technology and cost concerns are entirely reasonable and should factor prominently into any US decision on how to proceed with our space program. Having said that, the arguments space weapons opponents make regarding technology and costs bear a strong resemblance to those that were made in opposition to the early space and missile programs. In his Pulitzer Prize winning history of the space age, Walter McDougal writes that The decision to shelve the ICBM reflected at least four mentalities current at the time: the need for rigorous economy, which dictated that scarce funds be put into bigger bombers and eventually jet aircraft; the assumption of American superiority in aviation; the preference of 'blue sky' air officers for manned bombers; and scientific pessimism about the technical problems. Vannevar Bush reflected the last trait in December 1945: "I say technically I don't think anybody in the would know how to do such a thing [build an accurate ICBM] and I feel confident it will not be done for a long period of time to come." Vannevar Bush's prediction proved inaccurate. The development of the thermonuclear warhead increased the ICBM's lethality, decreased the accuracy requirements, and compelled the Air Force in 1951 to give highest priority to a program that had been effectively abandoned just four years earlier. It is not hard to imagine changes in either the technical or political landscape that could create similar shifts in the US commitment to space weapons.

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Ruhm, Brian C. Finding the Middle Ground: The U.S. Air Force, Space Weaponization, and Arms Control. Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Air University, April 2003. [ 2 quotes ] [ page 28 ]