It is almost certain that sometime early in the 21st Century, the fielding of space-based weapons will occur under the auspices of defense, in much the same manner as the nuclear weapon buildup that occurred within the latter half of the 20th. And, like nuclear weapons, once fielded, there will be no reversing course. This too is an historical lesson of warfare. As the world now grapples with the proliferation of nuclear weapons that were once the province of superpowers, so too will it see the initial weaponization of space be followed by increasingly sophisticated armaments as proliferation occurs there as well. A sobering thought is the prospect that as launch costs go down per unit of mass, the opportunity for other actors to put weapons into orbit about the Earth will go up.

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Oberg, James. Space Power Theory. Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Air University, 2001. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 150 ]