Evidence: Recently Added
Attacks on satellites could severely damage prospects for escalation control and, in the worst case, could trigger the use of weapons of mass destruction against U.S. expeditionary forces, allies, or the U.S. homeland. Since space warfare would not be perceived as a trivial pursuit, those nations that could be gravely disadvantaged by the flight-testing and deployment of space weaponry are likely to consider equally grave countermeasures. At a minimum, an attempt by the United States to seek space dominance through deployed war-fighting capabilities is likely to generate the launch of relatively cheap, low-tech, but lethal ASATs by weaker adversaries. An unequal competition to weaponize space could still place at risk satellites that are essential for U.S. military communications and early warning in deep crisis. The weaponization of space could thus result in increased U.S. casualties on the conventional battlefield.
China has not been exceptionally successful in garnering commercial funding of its space program. China did not announce how much they charged per launch of Iridium, Chinastar-1 and Sinosat-1 satellites launched recently. Strictly speaking, only Iridium was a foreign customer, since the others were for Chinese domestic use. A reasonable estimate for a CZ-3B launch is about US$50 million- US$60 million. Since China conducted four commercial launches in 1998, two CZ-3Bs and two 2C/SDs, China could have earned US$150 millionUS$240 million to reimburse a portion of their space program. This constitutes a relatively large percentage but a relatively small total funding source. A strong Chinese economy remains elusive. Well-publicized rocket failures make marketing of its commercial launch capability difficult. The Chinese have the ability to overcome their technical difficulties, but economics will limit China as a space power until the domestic economy can provide greater levels of government and commercial funding.
Thus, although U.S. satellitesboth military and commercialmight be vulnerable to ASATs, the threat posed by ASATs is more hypothetical than real. Space Commission staff member Tom Wilson states: The proliferation of ballistic missile and space technology has made it easier to develop direct ascent anti-satellite weapons and to obtain the capability to deliver nuclear warheads into space. Studies have shown that the detonation of a low-yield nuclear weapon in LEO [low earth orbit] will not only fatally damage nearby satellites but will also increase the naturally occurring radiation around the earth, reducing most LEO satellites lifetimes from years to months. Many countries such as China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia have this capability. It is important to point out that this capability to which Wilson refers does not mean that those countries have operational ASATs. It means, rather, that those countries have a nuclear weapons capability or they have a capability to launch a payload into a low earth orbit. It does not mean that they have mated those two capabilities to develop and deploy an ASAT weapon.
ON the morning of September 13, 1985, Air Force Major Doug Pearson smashed through the sound barrier in his F-15. Pointed almost directly upward more than seven miles above the Pacific Ocean, he tapped a little red button on the side of his control stick, and released a missile strapped to the belly of his plane. The missile blazed out of sight, leaving the earth's atmosphere quickly and reaching a speed of 13,000 miles per second[Corrected, ed.] hour. Pearson wondered if it would hit anything. The mission was classified, so Pearson had developed a code with the folks back at Edwards Air Force Base: The radioman would tell him to level off at a certain altitude if his missile struck its target, an obsolete scientific probe orbiting 345 miles over Hawaii. As it happened, the code wasn't necessary. When Pearson checked in a few minutes after firing, he could hear cheering in the background from the control room. It was the one time an American pilot had ever destroyed an object in outer space. People still talk about Pearson as the country's first "space ace." He remains its only space ace. A few weeks after the satellite was destroyed, Congress banned further tests. "We had hoped to conduct more," recalls Pearson, now a general. "But politics were what they were, and the nation decided to go another way."
As the above analysis shows, many nations have access to technology and systems that are much improved over what the United States used in the late 1950s and early 1960s. If these nations configured their ASAT weapons properly, they could pose a threat to US satellites. Nations that possessed such ASAT systems may not be able to strike US satellites in all of the possible orbital arrays, but they could at least use their ASAT system as a show of strength or to deny the United States local or regional space superiority. This ability to blind US or allied forces by knocking satellites out of commission may allow an unfriendly state to achieve a political or military objective without international monitoring, opposition, or interference, that is, to seize an opportunity and present the West with a fait accompli.
Given the extraordinary and growing differential in power that the United States enjoys in ground warfare, sea power, and air power, it is hard to propound compelling arguments for seeking to supplement these advantages by weaponizing space. The current U.S. lead in the military utilization of space has never been greater and is unchallenged. If the United States pushes to extend its pronounced military dominance into space, others will view this through the prism of the Bush administration's national security strategy, which places emphasis on preventive war and preemption. Foreign leaders will not passively accept U.S. initiatives to implement a doctrine of space dominance. They will have ample, inexpensive means to take blocking action, as it is considerably easier to negate U.S. dominance in space than on the ground, at sea, and in the air. The introduction of space weaponry and ASAT testing are therefore likely introduce grave complications for the terrestrial military advantages that the United States has worked so hard, and at such expense, to secure.
The lopsided exchange ratios are magnified by another disadvantage to defense. Since the attacker selects the mod of attack, satellites must be defended against all choices available to the attacker. Many satellite defenses, however, compete with one another. For example, defeating a co-orbital interceptor requires hardening a satellite and adding fuel. This will add size, making the satellite a larger target for direct ascent weapons that are too fast and destructive to be defeated by hardening or maneuverability. Miniaturizing satellites and distributing functions across a network requires that the constrellation fly in formation, compromising maneuverability.
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.
Indian scientists believe today that, by 2025, global power will be defined by a nation's access to information, and that it will be in the national interest to develop new technologies for launching satellites (such as hypersonic missile technology). Indian air chief marshall Satish Kumar Sareen knows that "success in future wars will depend on the ability to deploy space-based resources for surveillance, battlefield management and communications." Indeed, the integrity military satellites can provide to national C3I architecture makes space indispensable to a strategy for deterrence. Some Indians believe that it is also in their best interests to stay at the forefront of technological development, where new-era warfare integrates space and electronic warfare. Yet, wrote Lt. Comdr. V.W. Karve, "history teaches us that better technology alone does not necessarily lead to victory. Rather, victory goes to the side that uses technology better or who can deny the enemy the use of his own technology."
Still other states favor intermediate steps in the form of confidence-building measures believing that such measures would constitute a constructive move towards the prevention of an arms race in outer space. The process of building confidence between states involves step-by-step reductions in perceptions of threat or conditions of uncertainty. In connection with military operations in space, the purpose of confidence-building measures is to obtain greater transparency and predictability through activities such as notification, verification, and monitoring, in order to reduce suspicion and tension between nations while enhancing international peace and stability. Specific examples of confidence-building proposals in the CD have included: establishment of an international monitoring agency using space assets for verification of arms control agreements and to monitor crisis situations; creation of a small international satellite constellation to identify the function and purpose of other satellites using non-intrusive means; broadening the Registration Convention to include sharing of additional information on orbit changes, satellite maneuvers and drifting; identification of keep-out zones assigned to each satellite to order to prevent accidental collisions, co-orbital tracking and close range passes by other satellites; establishment of an international ballistic missile and space launch notification center; on-site inspection of satellites prior to launch; annual exchanges of data, meetings of experts, briefings, visits to laboratories, and observations of tests; and sharing of imagery and space technology.