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There are significant long-term-opportunity costs within the military, particularly in these times of diminishing DOD budgets. One can meet the same requirements with cheaper alternatives, such as combat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Weaponizing space will necessarily come at the expense of satisfying documented military deficiencies (strategic-lift deficiencies and the C-17, air-superiority deficiencies and the F-22 or joint strike fighter, forward-basing deficiencies and carriers, ISR deficiencies and the next generation of ISR satellites, etc.)
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.
For attacking hardened or deeply buried targets, the long rods would not outperform existing missiles equipped with conventional penetrating warheads. That's because the physics of high-velocity impacts limits the penetration depth; basically, too much energy at impact causes the projectile to distribute its energy laterally rather than vertically. Tests done since the 1960s by Sandia National Laboratories, in Albuquerque, N.M., confirm that for even the hardest rod materials, maximum penetration is achieved at a velocity of about 1 to 1.5 km/s. Above that speed, the rod tip liquefies, and penetration depth becomes essentially independent of impact speed. Therefore, for maximum penetration, the long rods would need to be slowed to about 1 km/s, thereby delivering only one-ninth the destructive energy per gram of a conventional explosive--or about 1.5 percent of the potential energy the rod had in LEO. The wasted energy would be immense, and the effort, cost, and complexity of such an orbital system would be entirely out of proportion to the results. For soft targets on the surface, such as aircraft, ships, or even tanks, the United States already has many quicker, simpler alternatives to space-based kinetic energy systems such as long rods. Explosives delivered by long-range cruise missile, ICBM, or submarine-launched ballistic missile are all more attractive options.
Physically destroying a ground-based laser site before damage could be done to a U.S. satellite would be nearly impossible, even with space weapons. At the speed of light 300,000 kilometers per second (km/s)a laser's propagation from Earth to space is essentially instantaneous, although it would takeminutes or seconds to aim the laser in addition to whatever "burn time" was necessary for destructive effect once the laser had focused on its target.27 As a defense, airplanes or cruise missiles would take hours or days to act, and intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs (assuming the needed accuracy could be achieved) up to forty-ve minutes. But even a kinetic-energy weapon (such as a long-rod projectile) stationed in orbit would require some tens of minutes to arrive at a suitable orbital position, and ve minutes to fall from a typical altitude of 450 kilometers.
Space-based weapons, like all space systems, are predictable and fragile, but they represent significant combat power if used before they are destroyed --leading to a strong incentive to use these weapons preemptively, to "use them or lose them." The problem is further complicated by the difficulty in knowing what is occurring in space. As the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization pointed out: "Hostile actions against space systems can reasonably be confused with natural phenomena. Space debris or solar activity can ?explain? the loss of a space system and mask unfriendly actions or the potential thereof. Such ambiguity and uncertainty could be fatal to the successful management of a crisis or resolution of a conflict. They could lead to forbearance when action is needed or to hasty action when more or better information would have given rise to a broader and more effective set of responsive options." This lag in situational awareness can increase the effectiveness of attacks. That is, striking first is likely to mean inflicting disproportionate losses on the enemy; waiting increases the chances of suffering disproportionate losses oneself.
The arguments in favor of weaponizing space center around the fact that the United States relies heavily on space-based assets for both military and commercial needs. Protecting these assets will become increasingly important as access to space becomes cheaper and the technology needed for this access becomes more available. As General Estes said before Congress: "Increased reliance on space systems means improved capabilities, but also new vulner - abilities. . . . The U.S. must be able to control the medium of space to assure our access and deny the same to any adver - sary." Gen John Michael "Mike" Loh, USAF, Retired, former commander of Air Combat Command, echoed this concern at a Center for Security Policy roundtable discussion titled "The Need for American Space Dominance." In outlining US dependence on space-based assets, General Loh noted that "it is almost frightening when you . . . look at how little we have allowed for the protection . . . of those assets." While these statements do not explicitly call for space-based weap - ons to effect this control, a key underlying assumption of this argument is that space-based weapons are needed to do the job. As a consequence no restrictions should be placed on their development, testing, and eventual deployment.
A more subtle possibility is to spoof the telemetry, tracking, and control (TT&C) signals from a ground station. These signals tell satellites when to turn on and off, when to conduct maintenance routines, and how to position themselves. A commercial satellite system could be rendered inoperative by simply manipulating the TT&C signal so as to instruct all satellites in a system to disable themselves. Spoofing a satellite signal, however, can also be a low-payoff proposition, as shown once again by GPS, which is a special case in this respect. Commercial GPS is already, in effect, spoofed -- that is, by Selective Availability, which deliberately produces a less accurate signal -- but countermeasures are already available. A commercial system known as Differential GPS determines the induced error by reference to a known position on the Earth and transmits a correction to subscribers. It is not likely that even a technologically unsophisticated adversary, already dependent on satellite positioning, would long be susceptible to the spoofing of a GPS signal.
To argue that states must follow Washington and deploy space weapons out of self-interest is to ignore the fact that self-interest has many faces. In the end, foreign officials must weigh personal, national, and party priorities and strategic requirements, understand political tradeoffs, and assess whether the national treasury and domestic resources could support plans to "match" U.S. weapons. Haiti's security needs will not match those of Serbia, Iran's will not match Canada's, and India's will not match those of the United States. Space control weapons, one must conclude, would not fit very well in the defense strategies of many nations. Foreign leaders, in other words, are not automatons. Between action and reaction always lies choice.