The spectre of weapons in space
It seems that no matter what we promise, we find ways to rationalize the breaking of those promises. We are nothing if not creative is the ways we look for loopholes. Take the promises of keeping space a non military place. Back in the good old days when there were only a couple of superpowers, it was us and them, the good guys and the bad guys and the programme was simple. Both The US and the USSR promised that space was a civilian pursuit and a new frontier of science and technology. Though, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, we really new it was all a military exercise, trying to get an edge over the other guy.
But we accepted that because it was like nuclear weapons. By and large you knew who the players were and what the risks were and even though the risks could be onerous and even down right dangerous, the permutations and possibilities were limited to a few scenarios. But like everything technological, that stable equilibrium point was a chimera. It rapidly morphed into a hydra of possibilities, nightmares and a host of players.
Now we have the Chinese, the Europeans, the Pakistanis, the Indians, the Americans and the Israelis in the space game. Need I go on? They all have the capability of throwing up rockets that can orbit the Earth, carry devastating payloads and weapons and strike any place in the Earth in under an hour. And if you think that our much vaunted spy satellites will keep us safe, think again. Anything that can be built, can be much more easily and simply destroyed. And explosive missile can render the most sophisticated systems to nothing more than space debris.
So why are we doing this in the first place? I mean, if its all so incredibly vulnerable, why bother. Its like everything else in our lives. We are looking, quite literally, looking for the proverbial “Killer App”, something that is out there that we haven’t yet discovered that is going to give us an insurmountable and devastating edge. We are looking for that sharp pointy stick that is going blind the other guy before he can retaliate and blind us as well.
But until we find it, if we ever do, all we are doing is finding new and better ways to destabilize an already, incredibly precarious balance of power. By throwing space wide open to weapons and hoping that we can use space to dominate the world, and folks, don’t kid yourselves, that is what this space race is all about, we are raising the stakes, providing another platform for ill intentioned people to visit incredible harm to any place on the planet.
Inherently, it appears, we can’t escape the fact that we are all rock throwers. And now we will up the ante from rocks to rockets.