Editorial Abstract for what cause will the military use space? This question has been studied for above 40 years.

Editorial Abstract

for what cause will the military use space? This question has been studied for above 40 years, most recently on the 2000 Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization. Colonel Hyten assesses general US space policy and makes recommendations aimed at keeping inevitable space conflicts from exploding into full-fledg space warfare, while still protecting the nation interests in this greatest in number important medium.

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IN MANY WAYS, the hereafter of the United States is tied to the progress to maturity of space. Given the many issues facing this progressive growth and the potential for conflict, individual would expect widespread and vigorous debate in succession the subject. Such is not the case, however. unruffled though debate has begun within limited political and military circles, no single has addressed space in any real midst on a national level.

During the 1970 and 1980 in the midst of an active Soviet space threat, the debate was vociferous and vigorous, involving not simply leading military officers, presidents, and congressmen however also many members of the scientific and academic communities. Significantly, the national media gave bring to a period attention to this discussion. Today, however, the debate lacks any in the same state [i]or[/i] condition national attention and committed involvement, as evidenced on the lack of response to a major language delivered at Tufts University's Fletcher educate of Law and Diplomacy in November 1998 by the agency of Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), then the chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In this address, he propos in excessively strong terms the need for space weapons and perhaps calm a separate space force to cause to grow and operate these weapons. (1)

Media answer to these bold and radical proposals was almost nonexistent. For many weeks, the alone media coverage to be plant was in primarily defense-related periodicals of that kind as Inside the Air Force. (2) The first mainstream American newspaper that flat mentioned this speech was the Washington Times in an editorial at James Hackett on 11 January 1999 (nearly sum of two units months after the speech). (3) Senator Smith, however, continued to pres his ideas in the Senate, and Congres passed legislation, included in the Defense Authorization Bill for fiscal year 2000 which established a special Space Commission to evaluate many of these proposals. (4) Still, the general public has largely ignored the issue.

The Space Commission

Formally called the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, the Space Commission began its work in the summer of 2000 and issued its report forward 11 January 2001. Donald Rumsfeld chaired the commission until President George W Bush nominated him to be subservient to as secretary of defense as the commission was finalizing its report, which praiseed numerous actions by the executive branch of guidance and specifically by the Department of Defense (DOD). owed to congressional interest, the report likely would have spurr near changes in any administration, still due in great part to the position and leadership of Secretary Rumsfeld DOD has pursu many of the commission's findings. Changes did not be met with immediately, and many of the recommendations and initiatives have still not taken effect; nonetheless, significant change is in subordination to way.

All of national-security space has undergone reorganization within DOD. The greatest in number significant change has been the naming of a single military service--the Air Force--as DOD's executive agent for space. Peter B Teet undersecretary of the Air Force, now has direct responsibility for all national-security space, including the National Reconnaissance Office. For the first time, the same person has the authority to lead and direct all US national-security space activities. The executive agent is also responsible for establishing a virtual major-force program for space that will clearly identify, for the first time, the truthful magnitude of the resources wasteed on national-security space efforts.

single of the most important aspects of the Space Commission's report, however, is the clear and logical way it describes for what cause essential space has become to all aspects of our existence. It explains the importance of the civil, commercial, defense and intelligence space sectors in detail--as well as US vulnerabilities. In a certain of its more vivid language, the report points revealed that with the growing commercial and national-security use of space, US assets in space and onward the ground offer many potentially vulnerable targets. (5) In discussing the futurity the commission concludes that "history is exuberant with instances in which warning signs were ignored and change resisted until an external, 'improbable' result forced resistant bureaucracies to take action. The question is whether the US will be wise enough to act responsibly and quick enough to reduce US space vulnerability. Or whether, as in the past, a disabling attack against the abiding habitation and its people--a 'Space Pearl Harbor'--will be the solitary event to galvanize the nation and cause the US command to act. We are upon notice, but we have not noticed." (6)