NEWS

Solomonov: Russia Developing Laser and Kinetic Space-Based Weapons

May 04, 2006

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE TAKES A WHACK AT MISSILE DEFENSE

Washington, D.C. . . Public interest advocacy organizations critical of missile defense programs today hailed the work of Republicans and Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee who cut the Bush Administration’s request for national missile defense and space weapons research in the absence of proof that the system works.

Yesterday, the House Armed Services Committee completed its markup of the Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization bill. In it were cuts to missile defense programs, both with near- and long-term technologies, including a cut of $184 million from the Administration request and fencing of an additional $200 million. It also killed funds for a third interceptor site in Europe (see full list below).

Philip E. Coyle, former assistant secretary of defense and director of Operational Test & Evaluation at the Pentagon, argued: “Republicans and Democrats agree that it makes no sense to waste money on a missile defense without being sure it works as advertised.”

"The Committee showed that supporting and protecting our troops is their priority, not an ineffective, scarecrow missile defense," Coyle added. "Missile defense doesn't work against rocket propelled grenades, car bombs and improvised explosive devices - the threats that are killing and maiming thousands of U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq."

By blocking funding for programs that could have anti-satellite capabilities and requesting a complete report on the need and consequences of space-based weapons, the committee reinforced its skepticism about weaponizing space.

Dr. Laura Grego, staff scientist with the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, commended the Committee: "The Committee has wisely restricted space-based interceptors and advanced laser technology that could lead to war in space and called for understanding the implications of going forward."

“The United States will be the big loser if we go forward with space weapons,” concluded Grego.

Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard, Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), a consultant with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, suggested: "It simply makes sense to cut back on spending for the Ground Based Mid-course Missile Defense system when programs to counter more urgent and more likely threats are under-funded."

"Republicans and Democrats are finally exercising their oversight responsibilities by forcing MDA to slow down and shift its efforts away from the more pie-in-the-sky technologies,” Gard added.

House Armed Services Committee actions on missile defense and space issues:

• The Missile Defense Agency’s budget request was shrunk by $183.5 million.
• The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program, whose interceptors are currently being fielded in Alaska and California, has $200 million fenced until the Department of Defense (DOD) certifies that the program has successfully hit a target on two separate occasions. Such tests are planned in 2006.
• The Committee also cut all funding - $55.8 million - for a third interceptor site in Europe.
• The Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) program was cut by $65 million. The Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program was cut by $100 million. Both programs have long-lead technologies that at best will not be ready for fielding for over a decade.
• The High Altitude Airship (HAA) program was reduced by $40.7 million.
• Some missile defense programs received increased funding: ground based mid course system received an extra $20 million for testing and operation resources; the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system received an extra $40 million ($20 million of which is for new interceptors); the Army received an additional $140 million for transitioning its Patriot Advanced Capabilities (PAC)-2 systems to the PAC-3 configuration.
• The committee directed that technologies for the Advanced Optics and Laser Technologies project development cannot be used for the development of laser space technologies that could be used to target satellites.
• Money cannot be used for a space-based missile defense interceptor until a report has been submitted to Congress detailing the purposes of such a program, its estimated costs, potential vulnerabilities and international consequences.

Posted by Jeff Lindemyer at May 4, 2006 10:08 AM

FROM: http://www.clw.org/2006/05/house_armed_ser.html

Space.com

Air Force plans for future war in space

Report details need for armada of space weaponryBy Leonard David

Updated: 10:13 p.m. ET Feb. 23, 2004The U.S. Air Force has filed a futuristic flight plan, one that spells out need for an armada of space weaponry and technology for the near-term and in years to come.

Called the Transformation Flight Plan, the 176-page document offers a sweeping look at how best to expand America’s military space tool kit.

The use of space is highlighted throughout the report, with the document stating that space superiority combines the following three capabilities: protect space assets, deny adversaries’ access to space, and quickly launch vehicles and operate payloads into space to quickly replace space assets that fail or are damaged/destroyed.

From space global laser engagement, air launched anti-satellite missiles, to space-based radio frequency energy weapons and hypervelocity rod bundles heaved down to Earth from space – the U.S. Air Force flight plan portrays how valued space operations has become for the warfighter and in protecting the nation from chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive attack.

Now to far-term needs

A number of space-related transformational capabilities are described in the document. While some of these are seen as needed in the near-term (until 2010), others are described as mid-term efforts in 2010-2015, while some efforts are viewed as far-term, beyond 2015.

Among a roster of projected Air Force space projects:

Air-Launched Anti-Satellite Missile: Small air-launched missile capable of intercepting satellites in low Earth orbit and seen as a past 2015 development.

Counter Satellite Communications System: Provides the capability by 2010 to deny and disrupt an adversary's space-based communications and early warning.

Counter Surveillance and Reconnaissance System: A near-term program to deny, disrupt and degrade adversary space-based surveillance and reconnaissance systems.

Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement (EAGLE) Airship Relay Mirrors: Significantly extends the range of both the Airborne Laser and Ground-Based Laser by using airborne, terrestrial or space-based lasers in conjunction with space-based relay mirrors to project different laser powers and frequencies to achieve a broad range of effects from illumination to destruction.

Ground-Based Laser: Propagates laser beams through the atmosphere to Low-Earth Orbit satellites to provide robust, post-2015 defensive and offensive space control capability.

Hypervelocity Rod Bundles: Provides the capability to strike ground targets anywhere in the world from space.

Orbital Deep Space Imager: A mid-term predictive, near-real time common operating picture of space to enable space control operations.

Orbital Transfer Vehicle: Significantly adds flexibility and protection of U.S. space hardware in post-2015 while enabling on-orbit servicing of those assets.

Rapid Attack Identification Detection and Reporting System: A family of systems that will provide near-term capability to automatically identify when a space system is under attack.

Space-Based Radio Frequency Energy Weapon: A far-term constellation of satellites containing high-power radio-frequency transmitters that possess the capability to disrupt/destroy/disable a wide variety of electronics and national-level command and control systems. It would typically be used as a non-kinetic anti-satellite weapon.

Space-Based Space Surveillance System: A near-term constellation of optical sensing satellites to track and identify space forces in deep space to enable offensive and defensive counterspace operations.

The newly issued Air Force document makes the following point: "The U.S. space capability rests on the foundation of assured access." There is need to deploy, replenish, sustain, and redeploy space-based forces in minimum time to allow them to accomplish the missions assigned to them — through all phases of conflict.

In this regard, the Air Force is exploring various future system concepts to launch, operate, and maintain space assets responsively. These include the Air Launch System, a dedicated, weather avoiding, on-demand (within 48 hours) system that can rocket into the sky at a wide variety of trajectories and can loft a Space Maneuver Vehicle, Common Aero Vehicle, or a conventional payload.

As explained in the Air Force document, a Space Operations Vehicle (SOV) enables an on-demand spacelift capability with rapid turnaround. This SOV can be one of the vehicles that could deploy the Space Maneuver vehicle — a rapidly reusable orbital vehicle capable of executing a range of space control missions. In addition, the SOV can be utilized to deploy the Common Aero Vehicle, or CAV.

The CAV is an unpowered, maneuverable, hypersonic glide vehicle deployed in the 2010-2015 time period. The CAV could be delivered by a range of delivery vehicles such as an expendable or reusable small launch vehicle to a fully reusable Space Operations Vehicle. It can guide and dispense conventional weapons, sensors or other payloads world wide from and through space within one hour of tasking. It would be able to strike a spectrum of targets, including mobile targets, mobile time sensitive targets, strategic relocatable targets, or fixed hard and deeply buried targets. The CAV’s speed and maneuverability would combine to make defenses against it extremely difficult.

Given the growing number of nations that utilize space, Air Force strategists see that trend as worrisome.

"The ability to deny an adversary’s access to space services is essential so that future adversaries will be unable to exploit space in the same way the United States and its allies can. It will require full spectrum, sea, air, land, and space-based offensive counterspace systems capable of preventing unauthorized use of friendly space services and negating adversarial space capabilities from low Earth up to geosynchronous orbits.

The focus, when practical, will be on denying adversary access to space on a temporary and reversible basis," the document states.

Air Force scientists and technologists are busy in the labs exploring the possibility of putting a warning energy "spot" on any target worldwide that could be rapidly followed with varying levels of effects.

A possible breakthrough, the document adds, deals with a solid-state directed energy beam systems, operating at 100-kilowatt levels. "If the generation of large quantities of heat could be managed, the Air Force could develop highly effective, cheap, high power energy weapons."

For example, Air Force researchers are looking at ways to collect or generate large quantities of energy on orbit in order to rely on space-based platforms for more missions and provide a greater degree of true global presence. "This would change many equations about traditional ideas of rapid response," the document explains.

Sensor-to-shooter

The report emphasizes that space capabilities are integral to modern war fighting forces, providing critical surveillance and reconnaissance information, especially over areas of high risk or denied access for airborne craft.

Space capabilities also provide weather and other Earth observation data, global communications, precision position, navigation, and timing to troops on the ground, ships at sea, aircraft in flight, and weapons en route to targets.

Space assets are critical to achieving information superiority as they enable predictive and dominant battlespace awareness. As a result there can be a reduction in the "sensor-to-shooter" cycle to minutes or even seconds, the document explains.

Real-time picture of the battlespace would involve an initial space-based Ground Moving Target Indicator capability.

This capacity provides U.S. global strike forces with the ability to identify and track moving targets anywhere on the surface of the Earth. Also desirable is the ability to detect, locate, identify, and track a wide range of strategic and tactical targets that the United States currently has minimal capability to detect. These include weapons of mass destruction, hidden targets, and air moving targets.

A real-time picture of the battlespace enables a commander to know where all friendly forces are, not only to better coordinate operations and avoid fratricide -- accidentally injuring or killing your own troops.

In a February 17 press statement issued from the office of the Secretary of the Air Force, the public document on Air Force transformation is described as "a roadmap to the future".

The Air Force flight plan is a reporting document that enables the Secretary of Defense to evaluate and interpret the Air Force's progress toward transformation.

"Transformation is using new things and old things in new ways, and achieving truly transformational effects for the joint warfighter," said Lt. Gen. Duncan McNabb, Air Force director of plans and programs.

The newly issued, publicly releasable report is the one unclassified document that presents an overarching picture of Air Force transformation, added Lt. Col. James McCaw, from the plans and programs directorate's transformation branch.

"It will help the reader understand where the Air Force is going, and why we chose this path," McCaw concluded.

• Neutron star caught devouring its mate• Scientists simulate asteroid armageddon• Station spacewalk will be far from routine• Amateur sights an overlooked nebula• India space center fire kills at least 6• Air Force plans for future war in space• Opportunity rover drills into bedrock• Europe's comet probe ready to go• Cosmic Log: Turning waste into watts• Space News Section Front

© 2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Pentagon Preps for War in Space 
2-21-04

By Noah Shachtman 

An Air Force report is giving what analysts call the most detailed picture since the end of the Cold War of the Pentagon's efforts to turn outer space into a battlefield.

For years, the American military has spoken in hints and whispers, if at all, about its plans to develop weapons in space. But the U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan (PDF) changes all that. Released in November, the report makes U.S. dominance of the heavens a top Pentagon priority in the new century. And it runs through dozens of research programs designed to ensure that America can never be challenged in orbit -- from anti-satellite lasers to weapons that "would provide the capability to strike ground targets anywhere in the world from space."

Space has become an increasingly important part of U.S. military efforts. Satellites are used more and more to talk to troops, keep tabs on foes and guide smart bombs. There's also long been recognition that satellites may need some sort of protection against attack.

But the Air Force report goes far beyond these defensive capabilities, calling for weapons that can cripple other countries' orbiters.

That prospect worries some analysts that the U.S. may spark a worldwide arms race in orbit.

"I don't think other countries will be taking this lying down," said Theresa Hitchens, the vice president of the Center for Defense Information.

The space weapons programs listed in the Air Force report went largely unnoticed until Hitchens circulated them in an e-mail Thursday.

"This will certainly prompt China into actually moving forward" on space weapon plans of its own, she added. "The Russians are likely to respond with something as well."

This year, the Air Force will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to find ways to track enemy satellites -- and, if necessary, blind those eyes in the sky.

Michael Kucharek, a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force Space Command, said $66.4 million is being spent on a research project to "deny, disrupt and degrade adversary space-based surveillance and reconnaissance systems." He said another $79 million is funding efforts to build a "constellation of optical sensing satellites to track and identify space forces."

"As we look to the future, space is where our adversaries are looking to cut us off," Kucharek said. "We know from the attempted jamming of our GPS (global positioning system, which relies on satellites) during OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) that our enemies are going to try to deny us from using space."

But it's unclear whether putting weapons into space would provide much protection. The arms themselves could become sitting ducks in orbit -- giving the United States a new weakness, not a new strength. Satellites are already a weak "center of gravity" in American militarty planning, argues Bruce DeBlois, the editor of Beyond the Paths of Heaven: The Emergence of Space Power Thought. They're vulnerbale to electronic jamming, orbiting projectiles and nuclear detonations in near-Earth space. The space-based weapons would have all of the same vulnerabilities -- and would make that center of gravity a more inviting target.

"Simply put, we would posture ourselves as a target in a volatile context that we create, and weaken ourselves at the same time," Bruce DeBlois, the editor of Beyond the Paths of Heaven: The Emergence of Space Power Thought, told a George Washington University audience last year.

However, there's more to the Air Force plan than keeping satellites safe. The Evolutionary Air and Space Global Laser Engagement, or EAGLE, project aims to put mirrors underneath an airship 25 times the size of the Goodyear blimp. In theory, lasers -- fired from the ground, from space, or from the air -- would bounce off these blimp-borne mirrors, to track or even destroy enemy missiles.

Incredible as it sounds, the EAGLE effort is underway at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy division, sources there confirm. Also under research at the lab is the Ground-Based Laser, which, according to the Air Force report, would shoot "laser beams through the atmosphere" to knock out enemy spacecraft in low-earth orbit.

Even more outlandish is the Hypervelocity Rod Bundles research project. That effort calls for creating a system of metal poles, fired from space, that could strike anywhere on the planet. It's a long-held -- and long-ridiculed -- idea. Keeping the rods from liquefying as they enter the atmosphere is a daunting task, noted Columbia University physics professor Richard Garwin in a 2003 presentation (PDF). In order to be considered effective weapons, he said, the "rods would need to be orbited at very low altitudes, and could only deliver one-ninth the destructive energy per gram as a conventional bomb."

Despite such technical hurdles, space-based arms are legal. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 only bans nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction from orbit.

Over the years, American administrations have looked into developing such weapons -- most notably, as part of President Reagan's Star Wars anti-missile initiative.

However, Hitchens said, "no U.S. president has authorized the deployment of a space weapon, at least in the white (unclassified) world."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on the other hand, long has advocated sending arms into orbit. Just before taking office in 2001, he chaired a commission on space and national security that warned that the country could face a "space Pearl Harbor" (PDF) in the years to come. This calamity must be avoided, the commission declared, asserting that the best way to do that is to "vigorously pursue the capabilities ... to ensure that the President will have the option to deploy weapons in space."

But pursuing such a strategy may actually put the United States in greater jeopardy, argues David Wright, with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"You're opening a door you might rather not have opened," he said.

"America is the country with the most satellites, he explained. By developing anti-satellite weapons, "it legitimizes systems that the U.S. has the most to lose from." Other countries could start pursuing long-taboo space weapons efforts. And while countries like China don't have the technical sophistication of the United States, they already have the capabilities to hurt us in space -- medium range missiles, and nuclear warheads.

Wright added, "This could trigger a backlash that actually leaves the U.S. worse off."

written by Noah Shachtman

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,62358,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

Russia Tests Missile Defense-Proof Weapons

Thursday, February 19 2004 @ 12:42 PM MST Contributed by: flick

Just when you thought America was the only superpower... Whether or not the Russians are bluffing, you should all agree that this signals a new arms race in space. If the Americans create a brand-new defense system, other powers will create a new attack. If Martin and the Liberals (or, God forbid, the Conservatives) sign up for missile defense, it's just a big waste of money... a Maginot Line in Space. In case you don't know, the Maginot Line was France's solid, entrenched line of defense against Germany before World War II. It, um, didn't work, because it was too rigid and the guns only faced one way. So they were ruled by the Nazis for four years.

Russia foresees space weapon that defeats anti-missile shield

Friday, February 20, 2004

BY VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOSCOW -- Russia successfully tested a space vehicle that could lead to weapons capable of penetrating missile defenses, a senior general said yesterday.

He insisted the device was not meant to counter U.S. efforts to develop an anti-missile shield.

Analysts said the device may be part of a campaign to bolster Russia's global clout and burnish President Vladimir Putin's image ahead of March elections he is expected to win. It could also be an effort to restore prestige to the country's military, which has suffered near collapse since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, gave few details about the device tested Wednesday, but said it was a hypersonic vehicle -- one that moves at more than five times the speed of sound -- that could maneuver in orbit.

A weapon based on the craft could use that maneuverability to dodge missile defense systems, he said.

"The flying vehicle changed both altitude and direction of its flight," Baluyevsky said at a news conference. "During the experiment conducted yesterday, we have proven that it's possible to develop weapons that would make any missile defense useless."

The Russian news Web site www.gazeta.ru, citing unnamed General Staff officials, said the vehicle was a warhead with engines that would direct it as it approached a target, rather than going into free fall.

Phil Coyle, a senior adviser to the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said Russia had been working on such a system for years and "it would not be surprising if they finally succeeded."

Baluyevsky's statement followed Putin's claims a day earlier that Russia could build unrivaled new strategic weapons. Putin made the statements during military exercises that were described as the largest in more than 20 years.

Russia's announcement comes after Washington withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 to develop a missile shield. After fervently protesting the plans, Russia was quiet when the United States abandoned the treaty, though U.S.-Russian relations have soured again lately.

Putin said that the weapons development wasn't directed against the United States, and Baluyevsky reaffirmed the statement.

"The experiment conducted by us mustn't be interpreted as a warning to the Americans not to build their missile defense because we designed this thing," Baluyevsky told the Associated Press. "We have demonstrated our capability, but we have no intention to build this craft tomorrow."

The United States reacted calmly to the Russian plans.

"If you're in that business -- intercontinental ballistic missiles and warheads -- you want them to be survivable, and maneuverability is one way to increase their survivability against any potential defenses," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said when asked about the statements Putin made Wednesday.

"They've got to design a missile force that they think is sufficient for deterrence, just like we do."

The Russian military's widely reported troubles -- including severe funding shortages, low morale, poor conditions for servicemen and the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster of 2000 -- have undermined Putin's push for Russia to reassert itself as a military power. Underscoring that, the exercises were marred this week by two failed missile launches from nuclear submarines.

Alexei Arbatov, an expert on Russian military programs, said that boasting about future weapons was part of the Kremlin's efforts to bolster Russia's global clout and Putin's popularity at home.

"Putin has sought to make an impression on both domestic and global public and show that Russia has some major new projects in its fold," Arbatov said.

Alexander Pikayev, an independent military analyst, said Putin was catering to the military and nationalists ahead of the March 14 presidential election.

Baluyevsky also said that Russia was developing a new submarine-based ballistic missile and a new nuclear submarine equipped to carry it that would enter service this decade. And he said the military was developing a new ground-based missile.

Russia had informed the United States about its intention to conduct the experiment and U.S. officials didn't complain, he said.

Baluyevsky refused to comment on what kind of engine the vehicle had, how long its flight lasted, how exactly it maneuvered and what combat load it may carry in the future. He said that it had been designed by Russian companies, but he refused to name them.

As part of the current exercises, the military on Wednesday launched a Molniya-M booster rocket with a Kosmos military satellite and two ballistic missiles -- a Topol and an RS-18.

It wasn't clear which of the rockets carried the new vehicle into orbit.

PEACE IN SPACE

Read full article at:
http://peaceinspace.blogs.com/peaceinspaceorg/2005/05/message_from_us.html

Message from U.S. Congressperson Dennis Kucinich re US space  weapons

NOTE: The following statement was released for public distribution by  the office of U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Dem-Ohio) on May 18, 2005.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/abolition-caucus/message/18233

From: Dr. Carol Rosin <_rosin@west.net_ (mailto:rosin@west.net) >
Date: Wed May 18,  2005  11:39 am
Subject: IMPT Message from D. Kucinich re US space  weapons/world control/the
wrath of God/money...or peace    

"The Administration is considering putting weapons in outer space, to give  the United States the power to control the world.  This astronomical  arrogance pushes not simply aggression to new heights, but may well preclude our  nation from spending money for anything other than weapons, which will cost  hundreds of billions of dollars.

"The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 states that it is "the  policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to  peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind."  Space was envisioned as  a place of cooperation, of confirming human unity, a place where we could aspire  to build a new platform of peace, fulfilling the prophecy of the poet Browning  who
wrote:  "but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven  for?"

"What has happened to our country?  Why are we projecting fear and  paranoia to such heights?  Have we so lost our way and our faith that we  are prepared to transform the heavens into hell?   If the kingdom and  the will of God is to be done on earth as it is in heaven, what is to happen  when the United States takes nuclear fire up to the gates of heaven?

"Such an offense against humanity could bring the wrath of God upon this  nation."

Representative Dennis Kucinich
U.S. Congress 

Dr. Carol Rosin is President of the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS) and directs ICIS South America campus in Vilcabamba, Ecuador.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Dem-Ohio) introduced the Space Preservation Act and  its companion Space Preservation Treaty banning all speace-based weapons and  establishing an independent Outer Space Peace Keeping Agency to enforce the ban  on weapons and warfare in outer space.

The Space Preservation Treaty is at:
http://www.peaceinspace.com/sp_treaty.shtml

__________
SIGN OUR U.N. PETITION TO BAN WEAPONS AND WARFARE IN  SPACE
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/832338563

Campaign  for Cooperation in Space
http://www.peaceinspace.org