The Fairchild Papers are monograph-length essays of value to the

Air Force. The series is named in honor of Muir S. Fairchild, the

first commander of Air University and the university’s conceptual

father. General Fairchild was part visionary, part keen taskmaster,

and “Air Force to the core.” His legacy is one of confidence about

the future of the Air Force and the central role of Air University in

that future.
AIR UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Whither Space Power?

Forging a Strategy for the New Century

SIMON P. WORDEN

Brigadier General, USAF

JOHN E. SHAW

Major, USAF

Fairchild Paper

Air University Press

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6615

September 2002
ii

This Fairchild Paper and others in the series are available electronically at the AU Press Web site http://aupress.maxwell.af.mil

and the Air University Research Web site http://research.maxwell.

af.mil.

Air University Library Cataloging Data

Worden, Simon P.

Whither space power? Forging a strategy for the new century / Simon P. Worden, John

E. Shaw.

p. cm. (Fairchild paper, ISSN 1528-2325)

Includes bibliographical references.

Contents: What has gone before -- Scenarios for the twenty-first century --

Mathematical and physical realities -- Options for the new century -- Threats, limitations, constraints -- The boundless future.

ISBN 1-58566-111-2

1. Astronautics and civilization. 2. Astronautics, Military. 3. Military doctrine --

Unites States. 4. United States. Air Force. 5. Space warfare. 6. Space sciences. I.

Shaw, John E. II. Title. III. Series.

358.8/0973--dc21

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of

the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the United States Air

Force, the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.
Contents

Chapter Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

ABOUT THE AUTHORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii

1 WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Four Space Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Great 50-Year Space War . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Space Power at a Crossroads . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2 SCENARIOS FOR THE

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

The Rogue State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

The Battle for Global Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

The Pan-Asian Federation Strikes Back . . . . . 54

Seizing the Solar System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

3 MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL

REALITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Space Environment/Orbits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

The Economics of Space Travel . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Weapon Effectiveness and Space . . . . . . . . . . 81

Range of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

iii
Chapter Page

4 OPTIONS FOR THE NEW CENTURY . . . . . . . . . 89

Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Global Positioning System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

More Utilities on the Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Other Space-Based Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Protection and Denial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Seizing the Solar System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

5 THREATS, LIMITATIONS, CONSTRAINTS . . . . . 117

Natural Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

“Icebergs” in Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

International Treaties and Policies . . . . . . . . 130

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

6 THE BOUNDLESS FUTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Illustrations

Figure

1 Ready for a Trip to the Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2 Notional Diagram of Proposed

SDI System Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3 Military Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

4 Sinking of the Titanic, April 1912 . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Photo

Aerial Recovery of Film from

Discoverer Spacecraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

iv
Photo Page

Space Shuttle Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Artist’s Concept of X-33 and

Reusable Launch Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Space Shuttle Main Engine Being

Prepared for Test Firing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Barringer Crater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Advanced Communication Technology Satellite . . . . . . 90

American Satellite Company (ASC)

Communication Satellite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) . . . . . . . 95

South Pole Region of Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Farside View of Earth’s Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Artist’s Impression of Wind and

the Sun-Earth Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Earth Station Antenna at Johnson Space Center . . . . . 110

X-15 with B-52 Mothership Flyover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

The Moon, Solar Corona, and Venus,

as Seen by Clementine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Sun – Solar Flare – Corona and

Large Solar Eruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Solar Flare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Nucleus of Comet Halley, taken by the 

Giotto Spacecraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

v
Photo Page

Asteroid: An “Iceberg” in Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Computer-Generated View of Earth

as Seen from an Asteroid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Table

1 Weapon Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

vi
Foreword

From the dawn of military history, military strategists have

wrestled with an enduring challenge—the challenge to define

and prepare effectively for the next war. History is littered with

the tragic tales of those armies and nations that failed to meet

this challenge and paid the price—on the battlefield, on the seas,

or in the skies. One war-fighting medium remains to be exploited, and the challenge facing our nation’s military strategists

today is the same one that has come down through the ages—to

define and prepare for the next inevitable battle—this time, a

battle in and for space.

In this book, General Worden and Major Shaw present the

building blocks for an all-encompassing strategy and doctrine for

space power in the twenty-first century. Their compelling interpretation of the influence of space power over the past 60 years

(chap. 1) is mirrored by a captivating vision of the role space

power will play in the next 60 (chap. 2). The pictures they paint

of potential asymmetric warfare no longer seem as distant as

they did prior to 11 September 2001. As we have already tragically witnessed, the adversaries of tomorrow will not necessarily

confront us directly, but will certainly challenge our centers of

power—and more and more of those centers lie in space.

The succeeding chapters complete the prescription for space

power strategy, defining space as the place where the future infrastructure of civilization will reside, and making the case for an

aggressive national security policy in space.

The authors’ final admonition should not go unheeded: We

procrastinate on a strategy for space power at our own risk. If we

do not seize the opportunity to control the ultimate high ground,

someone else will, and we will then forfeit our role of global

leadership in space.

vii

JOHN L. PIOTROWSKI

General, US Air Force (retired)

About the Authors

Brigadier General Simon P. Worden

Brig Gen Simon P. Worden, born 21 October 1949, holds a BS

in physics and astronomy from the University of Michigan and

a PhD in astronomy from the University of Arizona. He is currently the deputy director for operations, J-3, Headquarters US

Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, he served in every phase of development, international negotiations, and implementation of

the Strategic Defense Initiative—a primary component in ending the Cold War. General Worden twice served in the executive office of the president. As the staff officer for initiatives in

the National Space Council of the first Bush administration,

he spearheaded efforts to revitalize our civil space exploration

and earth monitoring programs, and was the architect of the

“faster, cheaper, better” approach now adopted throughout the

US space program.

General Worden commanded the 50th Space Wing, which encompasses more than 60 Department of Defense satellites and

more than 6,000 people at 23 worldwide locations. He then

served as deputy director for requirements at Headquarters Air

Force Space Command. Prior to assuming his current position,

he served as deputy director for operational requirements, then

as deputy director for command and control, at Headquarters

Air Force.

General Worden has authored or co-authored over 150 scientific technical papers in astrophysics, space sciences, and

strategic studies. He was also scientific co-investigator for two

NASA space science missions.

Major John E. Shaw

Maj John E. Shaw, born 17 March 1968, holds a BS in astronautical engineering from the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), an MS in aeronautics and astronautics from the

University of Washington, and an MA in organizational management from George Washington University. He is a distinguished graduate of USAFA. 

ix
Major Shaw is currently assigned to Headquarters USAF at

the Pentagon. His previous assignments have included tours in

Air Force Space Command, the National Reconnaissance Office,

and United States Air Forces in Europe, as well as internships in

the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Space

and in SAF/AQ, Space and Nuclear Deterrence Directorate.

Major Shaw has authored several papers on aerospace issues,

including “The Influence of Space Power upon History,” which

won the 1998 USAF/Royal Air Force “Two Air Forces” award

for writing in history.

x
Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of many

military space colleagues, each of whom greatly shaped this

work. These are the officers who will forge the United States’

twenty-first century space-oriented national security strategy. 

We also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and

honor Lieutenant Commander David L. Williams and our other

comrades in arms who perished in the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. They were among the first casualties in the wars

of the twenty-first century—and it is the objective of this work

to ensure the United States is prepared to fight and win those

wars decisively. We will not forget their service and sacrifice.

Finally, we’d like to particularly thank our ultimate mentor,

Gen Bernard A. Schriever, who has done so much to move our

country forward in using space to guarantee our freedom and

security. To you, Sir, we dedicate this work and commit our

very best effort to move your vision forward. 

xi

JOHN E. SHAW

Major, USAF

SIMON P. WORDEN

Brigadier General, USAF

Abstract

The influence of space power pervades almost every sphere

and level of human existence, from politics to military affairs

to commercial activities to cultural mindsets. Yet there is little

to be found today in the way of coherent space power doctrine

and strategy, particularly in national security circles. To what

extent do our national interests rely on space? How shall we

defend our interests in space and, in times of conflict, how

shall we deny our adversaries the benefits of space power?

How can we control and exploit the space environment? How

can we effectively wield space power against the full spectrum

of threats—from the lone terrorist to global peer competitors?

What should be our long-range strategy and objectives if our

goal is to achieve and maintain long-term space superiority?

The purpose of this Fairchild Paper is twofold: first, to illuminate the historical and ever-increasing importance of space in

modern society; and second, to prescribe, in view of this importance, the foundations of a strategy for achieving lasting

space superiority and ensuring national and world security.

xiii

Introduction

Space power is intricately woven into the tapestry of modern

civilization. Its influence is everywhere. In the few short decades

since humankind first began to wield it, space power has played

a fundamental role in the spheres of politics, military affairs,

commercial activities, and cultural mindsets. It has often dominated political agendas, been used to champion ideological superiority, been the focus of multinational cooperation, and

more. It is central, if not dominant, among the national security

issues of our time—from providing strategic deterrence to countering weapons of mass destruction to maintaining constant

global surveillance to ensuring the security of global networks

and utilities. One can hardly venture anywhere in modern society without stumbling into its grasp. Its omnipresence in everyday life—through television, Internet, personal communication,

navigation, weather, power distribution—demonstrates a significance that is, strangely, neither widely recognized nor greatly

appreciated.

Equally strange, despite this pervading influence and compelling importance, there is little to be found today in the way

of coherent space power doctrine and strategy, particularly in

national security circles. To what extent do our national interests rely on space? How shall we defend our interests in space,

and, in times of conflict, how shall we deny our adversaries the

benefits of space power? How can we control and exploit the

space environment? How can we effectively wield space power

against the full spectrum of threats—from the lone terrorist to

global peer competitors? If our goal is to achieve and maintain

space superiority in the long term, what long-range strategy

should we employ? How should we establish the objectives necessary to achieve our goal? What should those objectives be? 

The ever-growing field of literature on space power is full of

excellent works that either present a thorough history of space

power or provide a comprehensive review of the current space

policy debate. Less common are more prescriptive, visionary

approaches to space power and strategy—those that provide

answers to the questions above. The purpose of this paper is

twofold: 1) to illuminate the historical and ever-increasing

xv
importance of space in modern society, and 2) to prescribe the

foundations of a strategy for achieving lasting space superiority and ensuring homeland and world security. 

In chapter 1, we briefly review the history of space power and

examine its influence on the unfolding history of humankind.

We do this through the four-faceted lens of space sectors: space

exploration, national security, space reconnaissance, and commercial ventures. Our historical review culminates with our conclusion that the Cold War, which consumed the second half of

the twentieth century, could be recast as “The Great 50-Year

Space War.” This was a war where US dominance across the

four space sectors—from the ideology-driven space race to the

Moon, to nuclear deterrence, to effective space-based reconnaissance, to the threatened development of space-based

strategic defense—significantly contributed to the demise of the

Soviet Union. The post-“Great Space War” period, which began

with the Gulf War and ended abruptly on 11 September 2001,

was marked by significant expansion of the commercial ventures sector. We now stand on the verge of a new, uncharted

era—one where the stage is set for the United States to assert

space power leadership in the face of a full spectrum of possible adversaries and threats, all springing from different societies and civilizations, and with a wide range of motivations

and objectives.

In chapter 2, we continue the “history” of space power with

futuristic scenarios to create a vivid picture of the kinds of

challenges future wielders of space power will face—and the

possible consequences if we fail to develop and implement the

kinds of strategies we suggest here. For the skeptic who might

find this approach fanciful, we recall the initial reactions to

the “fanciful” scenarios presented by Brig Gen Billy Mitchell in

the 1920s—of mighty battleships at the mercy of Lilliputian

aircraft, and of devastating sneak air attacks on unsuspecting

Hawaiian isles. The ultimate purpose of our scenarios (as was

Billy Mitchell’s purpose regarding air power) is to demonstrate

that the need for space power and strategy is not merely doctrinally rhetorical, but militarily real. Space will be an arena of

military confrontation, adversaries will seek to challenge our

interests and exploit our vulnerabilities in space, and we delay

xvi
addressing these certainties at our great peril. To the extent

the scenarios leave the reader with this conviction, chapter 2

may very well be the most important part of this book.

In chapter 3, we examine the realities and constraints of operating in space as dictated by the laws of physics. Today, “easy”

movement to and through space is limited by two overarching

constraints: 1) a technological limitation on low-cost access to

space and, more troublesome, 2) a lack of foreseeable energy

resources to make “routine” space travel economically feasible.

The logical approach to the first constraint, in the near term, is

to encourage reusable spacecraft technologies and other methods that operate within more acceptable engineering (and thus

cost-effective) margins. The second approach—more long-term

in nature—is to embrace an “open” energy system, realizing

that beyond the atmosphere lie energy sources as well as

means to transport energy. Viewing space as an open resource

system carries with it obvious implications for space power.

In chapter 4, we introduce the important concept of global

utilities and explain how such utilities will increasingly depend on space and how space power strategy must evolve to

protect them. Despite the constraints described in the previous chapter, space is swiftly becoming the center of gravity for

the most important commodity in modern civilization: Information! Video and audio broadcast, personal communications, Internet—all have pathways through space. The Global

Positioning System has already emerged as an indispensable

global utility, valuable not only for its positioning service, but

also for global timing, upon which so many industries depend.

We foresee even more such utilities in the near future, including energy storage and transmission. Thus, the infrastructure

of modern civilization is moving inexorably into space. With

this migration comes the parallel need to protect and defend

this infrastructure.

In chapter 5, we discuss the threats, limitations, and constraints to space superiority, and propose what must be done

to effectively counter them. Some of these limitations/threats

are natural in origin: space “weather,” comets, asteroids, and

so forth. All of these are phenomena of the space environment

and represent hazards to the spacefarer (much as storms and

xvii
rocky shoals were hazards for the ancient mariner). We explore

ways to counter these threats, limitations, and constraints,

and even propose ways to exploit them to advantage. Other

constraints are man-made: treaties and agreements, many of

which may have outlived their usefulness. One of these, the

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, is even now on the verge of withdrawal. Others may need to follow suit (or at least be interpreted or amended) to allow the United States freedom to pursue those actions necessary to effectively wield space power. 

Speaking of the vast oceans surrounding America, historian

Bruce Catton has said, “Far from being isolated by the great

seas, we are exposed by them . . . our only real defense lies in

our ability to make our presence felt far beyond the horizon.”1

These words ring even truer for the vast ocean of space. As

more of our national interests and infrastructure move into

space, the more we are exposed by it. The United States has a

proud history of successfully wielding land, sea, and air power

in the protection of our nation and its principles. It is our goal

that the United States carry this legacy of success into the

medium of space, and the ultimate message of this book is a

prescription for doing so. To the extent we have been successful, the following pages will leave the reader convinced that

space power will become increasingly important in human affairs and that the need for an effective long-range strategy and

vision is greater now than ever before.

Notes

1. Bruce Catton, Foreword in Nathan Miller, The U.S. Navy: An Illustrated

History (Annapolis, Md.: United States Naval Institute Press, 1977), 7.

xviii
Chapter 1

What Has Gone Before

As a domain for human endeavors, space is very new. It was

not until the late nineteenth century that we found the first

“serious” suggestions of space travel, and those came from fantasy writers such as Jules Verne in his novel From the Earth to

the Moon, and A Trip Around It, or H. G. Wells in his First Men

in the Moon. Well into the twentieth century, “experts” continued to insist upon the “practical impossibility” of man-made

objects traveling through space. Even the New York Times supported the “practical impossibility” notion, calling Robert Goddard’s groundbreaking rocket experiments in the 1920s “futile.”

In 1921, an article in the editorial section of that newspaper

stated, “That Professor Goddard with his ‘chair’ at Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution

does not know the relation of action and reaction, and the

need to have something better than a vacuum against which

to react. . . . Of course, he only seems to lack the knowledge

ladled out daily in high schools.”

The military was even slower to recognize the potential of

space as a medium of warfare. Indeed, even on the eve of Pearl

Harbor, both the Army and the Navy were still struggling to

understand and accept the value of airpower despite more

than two decades of experience flying airplanes in actual battles. The thought of spacepower simply failed to take early root

within the US military, even though German engineers such

as Wernher von Braun and Eugen Sänger had suggested in

the 1930s the possibilities of intercontinental space bombers

and missiles. The German engineers then demonstrated some

of their ideas with the V-2 rocket during World War II. 

The first US proposition for military satellites came only

after World War II, in a significant RANN (Research Applied to

National Needs, predecessor to today’s RAND) Corporation

study dated 2 May 1946, entitled “Preliminary Design of an

Experimental World-Circling Spaceship.” The next decade witnessed modest progress in US space technology, perhaps the

1
most significant being the development of Intermediate-Range

Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

(ICBM) under the leadership of Maj Gen Bernard Schriever.

The pace and importance of space power within US national security circles changed radically, however, with the launching of

the first artificial Earth satellite—Sputnik—on Friday, 4 October

1957. Stung by the Soviet Union’s technological coup, the United

States responded with a series of across-the-spectrum major

space initiatives. The first successful US satellite—Explorer I,

launched on 31 January 1958—was actually built upon an

ICBM, with a heavy dose of rocket science from Professor Wernher von Braun. Indeed, virtually all of the space launch

progress to date, and most of our current launch vehicle inventory, traces its heritage to those ICBM programs.1

2

FAIRCHILD PAPER

Source: AU Press Design Division

Figure 1. Ready for a Trip to the Moon
The Four Space Sectors

Following Sputnik, the late 1950s and early 1960s witnessed

an explosion in space mission thinking. This explosion expanded

the American vision for space well beyond the military mission

of intercontinental strike. It is from these fledgling mission conceptualizations that the four major sectors of our current space

infrastructure derive: space exploration; national security; space

reconnaissance; and commercial ventures. An understanding of

the historical developments and continuing interdependencies

between these sectors is vital to successfully applying an allencompassing space strategy.

Space Exploration

Dozens of volumes have been written on the early development

of the civil space program.2 Far fewer pages have been devoted

to explaining how the initial successes in the civil space effort

were based on the ICBM programs of the military laboratory

system (led by General Schriever) rather than on existing civil

technology programs encompassed under the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA). This situation, however, was not lost on leaders of that era. Faced with a “crisis” in

responding to the Soviet space challenge, the Eisenhower administration considered a variety of alternatives. Recognizing

the preeminence of military (particularly Air Force) space technology efforts, President Dwight D. Eisenhower initially believed the nation should build upon these. However, his administration believed that a “civilian” US response to what was

evidently a Soviet military effort would be most effective in garnering international sentiment in the ideology-driven Cold War.

Thus, on 29 July 1958, President Eisenhower signed H.R.

12575, the National Aeronautics and Space Act (Public Law

85-568). In his statement regarding the Act, the president said,

“The present National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

(NACA) with its large and competent staff and well-equipped

laboratories will provide the nucleus for NASA. The NACA has an

established record of research performance and of cooperation

with the armed services. The coordination of space exploration

responsibilities with NACA’s traditional aeronautical research

3

WORDEN
functions is a natural evolution . . . [one which] should have an

even greater impact on our future.” This Act mandated a civilian-led space exploration program under a new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Thus, NASA was

formulated from pieces of the old NACA and selected military

labs (most notably von Braun’s Alabama operation), and was

soon given the Army’s Marshall Center in Alabama and Jet

Propulsion Lab in California. NASA began its work over the objection of Air Force space development leaders, including General Schriever.3

NASA’s efforts proceeded apace, but two years later they were

given a new sense of urgency. The new Kennedy administration

decided that further Soviet breakthroughs (such as the first man

in space in 1961) coupled with political disasters (such as the

Bay of Pigs invasion and the shoot-down of Francis Gary Powers’

U-2 on a reconnaissance overflight of the Soviet Union on 1

May 1960) demanded a vigorous and focused US response.

Relying on rapid analyses by Kennedy’s technical advisors, the

administration decided to pursue a manned Moon mission

within that decade and, over considerable Air Force objections, gave the job to NASA.4

NASA, at the time, was hardly ready for a major space program. Still a very small agency, it lacked the necessary technical and managerial expertise. Thus, out of necessity, it turned

to the military for assistance. Gen Sam Phillips, USAF, overall

Apollo deputy director, led a contingent of about a hundred Air

Force technical managers in providing the necessary expertise

to NASA. With General Phillips, as well as Department of Defense

(DOD) astronauts, launch vehicles, funding, and range support,

NASA was then supported sufficiently well to meet the president’s challenge.

There is little doubt that the Apollo program was a national

security effort, as indeed most space exploration for the past 40

years has been.5 It was designed to respond to technical, political, and even ideological challenges from the Soviet Union,

which was seeking to detach Europe from the United States

and win over the rest of the world by demonstrating the superiority of its space capability (and therefore its ideology). As a

4

FAIRCHILD PAPER
response to this Soviet effort, the Apollo program was ultimately a huge success.

Unfortunately, Apollo left in its wake two legacies that, to this

day, continue to inhibit the development of effective space power.

First, Apollo fostered a radically new perception—that the military had little or no role in exploring and opening up the new

frontier of space. The concept of military support for exploration had been otherwise enshrined in US history, from the

Lewis and Clark expedition through nineteenth century western expansion and into the twentieth century with the development of aircraft technology in the 1920s and 1930s. The exclusively nonmilitary exploration of space, a politically

oriented concept intended to appeal to national and world

opinion in the midst of the Cold War, must eventually give way

to historical precedent and modern reality; military capabilities and resources should, and will, play a role in future space

exploration.

The second unfortunate legacy of Apollo was that the singleminded goal of getting to the Moon, regardless of cost, set US

technical development, particularly in the launch vehicle area,

on the “one-time spectacular” path rather than in a reliable, sustainable, reusable direction. The echoes of this still reverberate

in today’s expendable but expensive launch vehicle systems.

National Security

Once Sputnik was in orbit, the US military shed its reluctance

to embrace space as both superpowers quickly explored the military utility of this new medium. So great was the perceived potential that President John F. Kennedy (then Senator Kennedy)

said in his 1960 presidential campaign, “If the Soviets control

space they can control the Earth, as in past centuries the nation that controlled the seas dominated the continents. We cannot run second in this vital race. To ensure peace and freedom,

we must be first.”6 Interestingly, the Soviets translated this

challenge into a doctrinally prescriptive quote cited in the seminal 1962 Soviet strategy book by Marshall Sokolovsky: “Space

supremacy is the aim of the next decade. The country that controls space can control the Earth.” Spurred on by the traditional

military goal of seizing the high ground to achieve battlefield

5

WORDEN
success, the military now readily saw the potential for space to

provide secure global communications. This new perspective led

to the launch in 1966 of the first Defense Satellite Communications Systems (DSCS) satellites.

The US Air Force had also developed and launched the

Weapons System 117L program in the late 1950s. Growing out

of this effort was the Discoverer program, a cover for a covert

program, CORONA, which launched dozens of satellites from

1959 onward. Thus began the era of space-based imaging over

areas the United States was otherwise denied access to on

Earth. When Gary Powers’ U-2 was shot down in May 1960,

the potential of space imagers to replace no longer invulnerable airborne reconnaissance systems was moved to the very

top of the national security agenda, and the intelligence community quickly embraced this mission area. The Air Force deferred control of this vital area when the newly formed National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) began operations in 1961.

Spacecraft provided surveillance film used by intelligence analysts to obtain otherwise unavailable information. The spythriller nature of the entire NRO program, while rapidly pushing technology frontiers, stifled most other space initiatives by

the Air Force or any other national security player. For the remainder of the 1960s, the Air Force was left to focus its less

classified efforts on developing support technologies such as

launch vehicles.

By the late 1960s, the tide had begun to turn as the Air Force

and, to a lesser extent, the Army and Navy, began to focus their

space efforts in four basic mission areas, now known singularly as “space force enhancement,” using space assets to support traditional military missions. The first of these has been

the growing reliance of deployed military forces on spacebased systems for communications or, more correctly, command and control (C2) connectivity. C2 was quickly followed by

global weather observation and data distribution from space,

now consolidated in the long-lived Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and merged with civilian weather programs

under the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanographic

and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The third military mission area has been surveillance, primarily global early warning

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of missile launches (this mission is distinguished from reconnaissance, an intelligence function discussed below). The Air

Force developed and launched a series of missile warning

satellite programs, beginning with the Missile Launch Detection Alarm System (MIDAS) in the 1960s, and progressing to

the immensely successful workhorse, the Defense Support

Program (DSP), which is still operating today. The next generation of missile warning satellites, the Space-Based Infrared

System (SBIRS), is scheduled for fielding in the next few years.

The final military mission area, and arguably the most important, represents the first true global utility: precision navigation, as embodied in the Navstar Global Positioning System

(GPS). We will return to this area in much greater depth later

in this volume, as it foreshadows the space-based global future within which we must operate.

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Aerial Recovery of Film from Discoverer Spacecraft

Courtesy of NASA
The other major area of military space focus since the 1960s

has been in the mission area of space operations, particularly

space launch. Other than the Apollo program boosters, essentially all expendable launch vehicles of the United States have

been and continue to be components or modifications of longrange military missiles, generally ICBMs. These have the advantage of being relatively mature technologies, but they also

have the disadvantage of being both expensive and of limited

operational reliability. To remedy this, NASA embarked on its

Space Shuttle program in the 1970s. The resulting “space

truck,” built within a combination of technical and fiscal limitations, became more of a “space limousine.” To make the shuttle cost-competitive against admittedly very expensive expendable boosters required very high launch rates—so much so that

the “marginal” cost of the “n plus 1” shuttle flight appeared

competitive. NASA succeeded in the early 1980s in persuading

the Reagan administration to require US military use of the

shuttle to bring the launch rate up to “affordable” levels. However, it rapidly became clear during actual shuttle operations

in the early 1980s that the vehicle was simply not capable of

meeting the grandiose objectives set for it. Throughout this period, Air Force spokesmen such as then Secretary of the Air

Force Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge continued to be vocal advocates of a continued expendable launch option. This foresight

was tragically proven correct in the months following the 28

January 1986 Challenger accident. The Air Force subsequently

sought to restart an expendable program to produce a more

affordable launch vehicle. In sequence, an Advanced Launch

System, a National Launch System, and now an Evolved Expendable Launch System, were begun to replace the older

legacy systems. These new “systems,” designed to lower military and US government launch requirements, are struggling

to demonstrate the “savings” to justify the investment to produce a new family of expendable launch vehicles. However,

growing commercial uses of space may dramatically change

this picture. As we will discuss in chapter 3, an affordable and

responsive space launch capability must ultimately incorporate some form of reusable launch vehicle technology.

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On an organizational front, the Air Force has long believed

that space and space operations were important and even crucial for future US national security. The entire Department of

Defense has now embraced that belief. Indeed, Joint Vision

2020 outlines a strategy to use dramatically fewer forces while

retaining a superpower-like punch. It views space operations

as the key enablers of warfare in the next century.

Two new mission areas are still evolving: space control (the

ability to protect our use of space while denying its use to an

enemy) and force application (the ability to apply force from

space to an enemy in space or on Earth). Both will play central roles in the future of space power, but today must deal

with long technological lead times and political sensitivities. 

Space Reconnaissance

As noted above, the denial of air access over the Soviet Union

in the early 1960s demanded that the essential Cold War function of strategic reconnaissance move into space. The story of

this effort is the history of the National Reconnaissance Office.

Throughout the Cold War, this remarkable organization executed many of the nation’s most secret and most successful

operations. Until 1992, the very title of the organization was

highly classified.

Founded in 1961, the NRO was created to clarify responsibilities between the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency

(CIA) with regard to space-based reconnaissance. In many ways,

establishment of the NRO was a setback for the Air Force. As

discussed above, manned space initiatives had already slipped

away from the military. Now the NRO had absorbed another

prestigious mission: space reconnaissance. The history of the

NRO ever since has been characterized by a tug-of-war between

the CIA and the Air Force, the former focused on the need for

strategic intelligence for national security, the latter focused

on more tactical intelligence for war-fighting application.

The NRO has now declassified its earliest reconnaissance

platform, the aforementioned CORONA project. CORONA actually began in 1956 as an Air Force project code-named Sentry/Samos. Its importance was magnified first by the launch

of Sputnik, then by the shoot-down of Powers’ U-2. Though its

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method was crude (returning film to Earth via reentry canisters), CORONA fulfilled its mission of photographing areas denied by the Soviet Union and set a completely new standard for

intelligence collection. Later platforms would prove more capable

and more diverse, collecting not only visual pictures (imagery

intelligence, or IMINT), but also signal intelligence (SIGINT) and

communications intelligence (COMINT).

Throughout the 1960s, the détente of the 1970s, and the renewed arms race of the 1980s, the NRO remained a top-secret

organization. It continued to develop, build, and operate the

most advanced space-based intelligence systems.7 The future

of an independent NRO is uncertain, however, given the end of

the Cold War and the development of increasingly sophisticated commercial surveillance programs. In accordance with

recommendations made by the Rumsfeld-led Space Commission in January 2001, it is likely that the NRO will come into

greater alignment with joint war-fighting requirements and

operations, while continuing to provide important national security space capabilities.

Commercial Ventures

The use of space for commercial endeavors, particularly communications, was an early entry in the space arena. Indeed,

science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke first proposed the positioning of a series of communications satellites in the “geostationary” or GEO orbital positions in 1947. Such satellites

are positioned so they orbit Earth’s equator once in 24 hours,

thus appearing to hang “stationary” over the equator. Accordingly, geodesy satellites (GEOSATS) are visible from most inhabited locations at the same position in the sky and can be

used to relay communications signals around the world.

On 12 August 1960, NASA’s Echo 1, the first passive communications satellite, was successfully launched into orbit by

a Thor-Delta. It reflected a radio message from the president

across the nation, thus demonstrating the feasibility of global

radio communications via satellites. The largest and most visible satellite launched to date was the aluminized Mylar-plastic

sphere, 100 feet in diameter. A large metallic balloon, it could

bounce radio signals across the Atlantic Ocean when in the

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right orbital position. Based on this success, considerable interest arose in constructing transatlantic communications systems. Two competing concepts were considered. The first, using

systems in low earth orbit (LEO) such as the Echo satellite, had

the advantage of almost instantaneous communications—but

it required many satellites in LEO. The second was to be based

on Arthur C. Clarke’s concept of GEO relay systems, which suffered from a time delay of several tenths of a second caused by

transmitting, at the speed of light, from Earth to the satellite

some 40,000 kilometers away, and back to Earth. Another argument ensued over whether the demonstration and subsequent system should be developed by a commercial enterprise

(the key company at that time being the AT&T Corporation) or by

the government. The resulting compromise was a governmentchartered monopoly: the Communications Satellite (COMSAT)

Corporation, enabled by Congress in August 1962.

After COMSAT came the international equivalents, International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium (INTELSAT)

in August of 1964 and, later, the International Maritime Satellite Organization (INMARSAT) for ocean communications systems. INTELSAT was initially controlled and majority owned

by the COMSAT corporation—a cause for later international

consternation.

COMSAT was a very successful initiative. By the late 1970s,

however, it had become, like most other monopolies, somewhat inefficient. COMSAT thus became a private corporation

and soon faced a rapidly proliferating set of communications

satellite competitors. Many other nations began to purchase

and emplace their own domestic communications systems, all

using varying degrees of government control. Some of these

systems became commercial competitors of US commercial

concerns and international groups such as INTELSAT.

There are two key limitations of GEO communications systems. First, they require relatively high-power uplinks and

large “receive” antennas. Second, and more significant, there

is limited frequency “bandwidth” (ability of the available electromagnetic spectrum to carry information) as well as limited

locations within the GEO belt to avoid interference between

different satellites. These two constraints have led to the design

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and initial development of distributed LEO constellations. The

first of these, the IRIDIUM system, has struggled financially,

but is still in service. Relying on many small satellites (the

technology for which grew out of the Strategic Defense Initiative [SDI] program) linked via radio cross-links, IRIDIUM provides global “cellular-style” service nearly anywhere on the

planet. Follow-on systems will increase the data rates so that

the distributed LEO systems can offer a viable alternative to

the increasingly crowded GEO belt. The key fact to glean from

this expansion in commercial satellite systems is that telecommunications, a key global utility that is worth over $500 billion in annual revenues today, has begun a migration into

space. We note here the space communications industry faces

stiff competition from advanced terrestrial communications

networks (e.g., fiber-optic pathways). However, especially from

a national security standpoint, there will always be a requirement for spaceborne communications, as only they provide

truly global coverage. The increasing need for bandwidth for

the US Navy worldwide, for Air Force unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and for communications in remote terrestrial areas

(such as Afghanistan) are prime examples of requirements

that cannot be met by fiber-optic networks.

Another commercial space development, “global awareness,”

grew out of NASA’s LANDSAT Earth resources system efforts

in the 1960s. In the mid-1980s, the LANDSAT program was

prematurely transferred to commercial operation as part of the

Reagan administration’s enthusiasm for divesting the government of (hopefully) commercially viable industries. Although

that struggling industry (largely providing low-resolution multispectral images to scientific and Earth resources users) has

experienced little development, the subsidized European competitor, SPOT IMAGE, has shown some commercial success.

The development of small, affordable satellites is changing the

situation once again, however. There are now at least a halfdozen commercial multispectral and hyperspectral imaging

systems scheduled for launch in the near future for numerous

commercial and government uses.

Perhaps the most important, albeit unrecognized, “space

based” businesses are those that rely on new space systems to

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do their traditional terrestrial jobs more effectively. To date,

most of these have centered on the GPS. This system has been

a great boon to such diverse endeavors as precision farming,

fleet management, surveying, and myriads more. These applications follow from the existence of a “global space utility”—a

concept we’ll return to in chapter 4. Such businesses are

growing at a 20 percent annual rate. With the expectation that

1,500–1,800 new satellites will be launched in the next 10

years, and with worldwide commercial spending on space outspending military expenditures for the first time in 1996 (53

percent versus 47 percent—a gap that will only continue to

widen), the explosion of commercial space bodes both well and

ill for military space. Commercial space is beneficial in that it

provides greater capability for less DOD investment. It is detrimental to the extent that a potential adversary has greater access to militarily useful information.

The Great 50-Year Space War

As new as space is, it has already played a vital role in the

unfolding history of humankind. It is our postulate that

“space” capabilities—aggregated across the four sectors discussed above—were the defining national security features of

the second half of the twentieth century, and will remain the

enabling force for military and economic effectiveness for the

first part of the twenty-first century. We could regard the

struggle beginning with World War II and US entry into that

war in 1941 as the ideological struggle between democracy

and various totalitarian “isms.” The struggle ended, at least

temporarily, in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.*

This period, most of which is known as the Cold War, was so

dominated by space activities that it could be better known as

The Great 50-Year Space War.

8

The 1940s were a time when space first emerged as a field

of conflict. It was also a time when the rapid attack of enemy

strategic centers and populations—at that time through air13

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*Note that we have already witnessed the rise of new “isms” as serious threats to

our national security, most notably terrorism and religious totalitarianism.
power—became the dominant theme of conflict. In the 1950s,

space weapons were developed and began to replace air vehicles as the dominant strategic element. Further, this was a

time of significant development and perfection of the basic

strategic doctrine the United States was to use for the next 30

years. The 1960s was an era during which space capabilities

had stalemated either superpower’s ability to move forward on

strategic or other fronts. However, the 1960s was also a period

when the first major space “campaign” was undertaken—the

race to put a man on the Moon.

As discussed, this first campaign of the Great Space War

began within the sector of space exploration. The “Moon Race”

began in a period when numerous strategic thinkers had become convinced that space was the next regime for military

competition. President Kennedy’s quote earlier in this chapter

demonstrates this belief from the American point of view.

Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union, to an even greater

extent than the United States, tended to attribute interest in

space domination and competition to its peer competitor. Direct military competition in (and for possession of) space appeared dangerous and confrontational. Thus, Cold War leadership chose “space exploration” as a competition surrogate. It

is significant to note that external “exploration,” as in sixteenth and seventeenth century British-French competition

and nineteenth century Russian-British competition in Central Asia, has often been a surrogate for direct politico-military

confrontation. With the landing on the Moon on 20 July 1969,

the United States decisively won this first campaign. Although

it did little to exploit the advantage, this outcome was very significant—it was the initial blow that set up the eventual victory, for it convinced the Soviets that direct space competition

would likely result in their defeat.

Lassitude was dominant in the United States during the

1970s, largely due to its struggles in and eventual withdrawal

from Southeast Asia. The Soviets used this period to perfect

their strategic theory, to build a dominant “space” offensive

capability in ballistic missiles, and to quietly develop the space

infrastructure (symbolized by their multiple space stations)

necessary for the next major leap. This might be regarded as

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the second space campaign of the Cold War—and one initiated

by the Soviet Union (in essence, a “counteroffensive”). The Soviets also focused on beefing up ICBM systems: SS-18s, mobile missiles, and multiple independently targeted warhead

systems (MIRV). The United States responded initially on Soviet terms with ground-launched cruise missiles, the Pershing

2, Peacekeeper ICBM options, and super-quiet submarines. In

addition, the United States continued with plans on the drawing board for new space systems such as GPS and the survivable MILSTAR strategic communications system. The United

States also met the Soviets on their own terms when it came

to scientific uses of space: space station development and

Mars exploration. Though the Soviets seemed to be gaining an

upper hand, they soon found themselves mired in a reprise of

Vietnam: Afghanistan. This unexpectedly difficult campaign

bled their confidence and resources, and also galvanized the

US response, which initially took the form of across-the-board

US defense expenditure increases under the Reagan administration.

Space assets played a crucial role during this same period—

indeed, throughout most of the Cold War—in preserving the

existing nuclear deterrence stability. US space-based reconnaissance and surveillance platforms monitored Soviet nuclear missile deployment and numbers, thus facilitating US

strategic policy and preventing the Soviets from attaining any

“surprise” superiority. Maintaining this stability during a period of US lassitude proved critical, enabling the United States

to take the offensive in the third, and last, space campaign of

the Cold War.

The 1980s witnessed the third space campaign of the war.

Motivated by enthusiasm for defense-dominant strategic theory, the Reagan administration launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1983. The Soviets, shocked by this US

strategic move in space and mindful of the defeat they had suffered in the first space campaign, responded on several fronts.

They first sought to exploit their superior space infrastructure,

which they had painstakingly built up through the 1970s, by

augmenting it with counterspace capabilities. The Soviets,

however, lacked the corresponding superiority in electronics

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and control, which led to failure for most of the various Soviet

space weapons tests in the latter 1980s, including their spacebased “death rays” in the form of lasers. Coupled with apparent US successes in the same period, the Soviets concluded

they were losing—and would eventually lose decisively—in this

campaign. 

Their response was twofold. First, they sought to limit US

ability to go into space through arms control agreements and

other diplomatic initiatives. These tactics met with some success, but were thwarted by nothing other than President Reagan’s personal commitment to SDI. Second, Soviet leader Gorbachev sought to strengthen the Soviet economy to better

compete with the West, particularly in areas such as SDI. He

did this through loosening central control and reducing socialist state planning. This effort backfired, however, as it unleashed the internal dissension that eventually brought down

the Soviet Union. Seldom in history has such a modest effort—

about one percent of total US defense expenditures during

that period—had such a devastating effect on an adversary.

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Space Shuttle Columbia

Courtesy of NASA
The Strategic Defense Initiative was, arguably, the final significant act of the Cold War. SDI was launched in 1983, in an

era when a general view prevailed in the US defense community that the United States, if not losing, was certainly not winning the Cold War. Soviet political agitation, coupled with

growing domestic opposition to continued reliance on offensive

nuclear weapons, placed the future very much in doubt. Although not specifically formulated as a “space” initiative, but

rather as a nonnuclear missile defense initiative, SDI did indeed contribute significantly to ending the Cold War. The key

was not the actuality, but the threat of space-based defenses.

Offering a new and significant strategic counter to ballistic

missiles, SDI had a particularly strong effect on the Soviet

Union. Confronted with having to begin anew in understanding and developing a new mathematical correlation of forces

model, and faced with an economic situation that could not

support another round in the arms race, the Soviets found

themselves at a significant disadvantage. Despite a coupled effort both to develop capable space weaponry and to use diplomacy and arms control to their advantage, the Soviets failed to

stop SDI. Though SDI was, in the end, only one of many factors that ultimately led to the breakup of the Soviet Union and

an end to the Cold War, its impact should not be lost on the

student of military history. 

The fundamental lesson of the “Great Space War” is that the

key successful campaigns of the war—Apollo, space-based reconnaissance, and SDI—involved no armed clashes and no actual weapons, relying instead on “political” space competition,

effective military space programs, and, in the case of SDI, the

psychological deterrence threat of a new decisive space system. It is our contention that future competition, particularly

in space, will follow these pathfinders.

Space Power at a Crossroads

We are now at a crossroads in the history of space power.

The opening salvo of this continuing history—the Great 50-

Year Space War—ended with a victory for the United States.

The decade since has witnessed an extraordinary exodus into

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space of commercial programs of every conceivable kind: communications, imagery, Internet, and more. It has also witnessed a revolution in geopolitical affairs, where former adversaries are now allies (even NATO members), and new

adversaries and threats, completely unforeseeable a decade

ago, have emerged. As we attempt to deal with the realities of

this new world order, two more recent events may serve as catalysts for the development of an effective US national security

space strategy and policy. The first event was the publication,

in January 2001, of the report of the Commission to Assess

United States National Security Space Management and Organization (chaired by Donald Rumsfeld before he assumed responsibilities as secretary of defense). This report pointed out

many of the shortcomings we attempt to elucidate in this

book; for example, the lack of an overarching national security

space strategy and the dangerous possibilities of a space “Pearl

Harbor”—an attack upon our space systems by a determined

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Figure 2. Notional Diagram of Proposed SDI System Architecture

Source: Simon P. Worden, SDI and the Alternatives (National Defense University Press, 1991),

187.
foe, likely using asymmetric means and methods. The Air

Force and Department of Defense have made considerable

progress in implementing the Commission’s recommendations, including enhancing the authority and responsibilities

of the under secretary of the Air Force (who also serves as director of the NRO), assigning command of Air Force Space

Command to a 4-star space professional, and realigning space

acquisition functions. These changes will, hopefully, focus our

national security space efforts more effectively, and facilitate

the development of a comprehensive space power strategy.

The second event was the act of war inflicted upon the

United States on 11 September 2001. The use of such unconventional, asymmetric means to kill thousands of Americans

serves as a warning to national security strategists—the wars

of the twenty-first century will not be like the wars of the past.

The attack also possibly marked the beginning of a new period

of global competition—one between multiple societies/civilizations, all with potential for radically different motivations and

objectives.9 To meet the national security demands in this new

global environment, we must think anew, especially from a

space perspective, not only recognizing our vulnerabilities in

the medium of space, but also realizing the strengths to be

gained through effective employment of space power.

As before, space power will again play a key role as the history of the twenty-first century unfolds. The question of the

moment: How will we respond? Will we allow our space capabilities to languish, or develop passively in response to events

and threats? Or will we embrace a visionary space power strategy that anticipates these events and threats, and effectively

intertwines space power with national security? 

In this chapter, we have reviewed the history of space power

and its influence on national security events in the past century.

In the next chapter, we will look forward, anticipating some

national security challenges that may lie ahead and the role of

space power in meeting them. As these scenarios will demonstrate, future adversaries (like the terrorists of 11 September

2001) will employ new and unconventional means to exploit

our weaknesses and deprive us of our instruments of power.

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Many of those instruments—military, economic, and even the

will of the American people—are inextricably linked to space.

Notes

1. David N. Spires, Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership (Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.: Air Force Space Command, 1997).

2. John M. Logsdon and Linda J. Lear, eds., Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the US Civil Space Program (Washington,

D.C.: NASA, 1995); and Walter A. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth: A

Political History of the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, 1985).

3. Spires, chap. 2.

4. Ibid., chap. 3.

5. William E. Burrows, Exploring Space: Voyages in the Solar System and

Beyond (New York: Random House, 1990).

6. Carl Berger, “The Air Force in Space, Fiscal Year 1961,” vol. SHO-S66/142 (Washington, D.C.: USAF Historical Division Liaison Office, April

1966), 2.

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Artist’s Concept of X-33 and Reusable Launch Vehicle

Courtesy of NASA
7. Gerald K. Haines, The National Reconnaissance Office: Its Origins, Creation, and Early Years (Washington, D.C.: National Reconnaissance Office,

1997).

8. John Shaw, “The Influence of Space Power Upon History,” Air Power

History, Winter 1999.

9. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of

World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

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Chapter 2

Scenarios for the Twenty-First Century

In his book, The Age of Heretics,

1 Art Kleiner describes how a

team of planners for the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company successfully predicted the oil crisis of the 1970s two years before

it happened. Accordingly, Shell took measures that other oil

companies did not and was able to weather the storm more

successfully. So successfully, in fact, that Shell, which had

been ranked last by Fortune among the seven major oil companies prior to the crisis, emerged the strongest afterward. The

Shell team of planners was unique, for rather than computing

a bottom line or “best number,” they developed the “heretical”

practice of creating scenarios describing different possible futures. These scenarios not only gave Shell’s top management

vivid pictures of what they might face in the future, but also

provided the opportunity to plan for a variety of contingencies

rather than a single “bottom line.”

This chapter contains four scenarios—four possible conflicts

in which the United States could find itself in the next halfcentury. As with the scenarios of the Royal Dutch Shell planning team, these scenarios are not designed to predict one future conflict, but to create a picture of the sorts of issues and

challenges the United States might face in that period.

The Rogue State

18 May 2003. Diplomatic Demarche from United Nations Security Council to Foreign Minister, Islamic Republic of Iran:

THE UNITED NATIONS VIEWS WITH EXTREME CONCERN IRANIAN BUILDUP

OF ANTISHIP MISSILES THREATENING SEA TRAFFIC IN THE PERSIAN GULF.

THE CURRENT LEVELS OF MISSILES ARE SERIOUS DESTABILIZING FACTORS

IN THIS REGION. THE UNITED NATIONS STANDS READY TO ENSURE FREE

AND OPEN USAGE OF THIS REGION TO ALL NATIONS. IF THESE MISSILES

CONTINUE TO CONSTITUTE A THREAT AFTER 1 JUNE 2003, THE UNITED

NATIONS HAS AUTHORIZED THE UNITED STATES TO TAKE WHATEVER

23
MEASURES NECESSARY, INCLUDING “EXTREME MEANS,” TO MITIGATE THE

THREAT. THE UNITED NATIONS DOES RECOGNIZE THE LEGITIMATE DEFENSE REQUIREMENTS OF IRAN BUT BELIEVES MISSILES IN EXCESS OF 10

UNITS WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE OF PERSIAN GULF SHIPPING CONSTITUTES AN UNACCEPTABLE OFFENSIVE THREAT.

20 May 2003. From the Revolutionary Council, Islamic Republic

of Iran, to The Great Satan:

The Islamic peoples of the world will no longer tolerate imperialist threats. All deployments of Islamic forces are strictly

defensive. Attempts to interfere with our legitimate sovereignty

will be successfully resisted.

1 June 2003. CNN News Report:

Following the president’s repeated insistence that Iran remove its SUNBURN antiship missiles from the missile sites

covering the Persian Gulf Straits of Hormuz, and Iran’s repeated refusal to comply, the US Sixth Fleet launched 18

cruise missiles one hour ago against four of the six identified

sites. These sites were completely destroyed, as seen in these

CNN ‘sky-eye’ photos. In this final video sequence you can see

the remarkable precision as the three cruise missiles strike

each of the missile subcomplexes two seconds apart. The Pentagon has not yet confirmed destruction of the target sites.

15 June 2003. Minutes of Iranian Revolutionary Council Emergency Session:

Our revered religious leader, the Grand Ayatollah, opened

the session to consider responses to the Great Satan’s aggression against the people of Iran. He stressed his outrage at the

unexpected American response. Much discussion of options

ensued.

Immediate martyr actions against America and her Zionist

lackeys were the preferred response of many. But the revered

leader pointed out that such responses, while earning great

merit and satisfying the peoples’ immediate outrage, had done

little in the past to remove American interference. While assisting the oppressed people of the world to resist their hated

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overlords, little long-term benefit has been reached. The oppressor states usually redouble their efforts to deny the legitimate rights of the world’s people. Longer-term lessons must

be sought.

The progress of our long-strike missile development programs was indeed impressive. However, American missile defense efforts show every promise of responding before we can

build sufficient power to overtake the American military advantage.

The revered leader tasked the special revenge group to give

much thought and prayer to devising a method for eliminating

the American and Zionist threat. Proposed options will be provided to the Revolutionary Council at its October 15 meeting.

The foreign minister was tasked to reiterate with all possible

urgency the Iranian peoples’ outrage at the corrupt Saudi

stewardship of Islam’s holy sites. Particularly heinous has been

the repeated reports of Zionist women’s presence and defilement

of the prophet’s most revered sites. ALLAH BE PRAISED.

15 October 2003. Report of the Iranian Revenge Group to the

Revolutionary Council:

We have been asked to provide our people with effective and

lasting neutralization of American interference in our affairs.

We have studied deeply in both traditional Islamic learning

and the writings of our hated adversary. As we expected, Allah

used the mouths of our enemy to show us the path. We found

many American musings about the “threat” of “asymmetrical”

warfare. One article stood out which we particularly commend

to your reading. We have translated and distributed this predictive article by Charles Dunlap, “How We Lost the High-Tech

War of 2007.”2 It makes excellent reading. We have also read

the Americans’ own summaries of their Persian Gulf War against

the Iraqi heretics. It is significant that some senior American

military leaders called it “the first space war.” We believe a fiveyear program will allow us to eject the Americans from the Persian Gulf. We have attached a detailed plan for your consideration. As you see, it has the added benefit of weakening the

heretical and corrupt Saudi hold over our sacred sites and artifacts. The key points for your consideration are, however, few.

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The Americans are increasingly enamored with information

warfare and information dominance. They will try to use their

undoubted superiority in information gathering and distribution to fix and target all enemy forces and plans. Simultaneously, they will try to identify enemy elements of what they call

command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I)

nodes and deny them.

Counter: The Americans do not realize the degree to which

their C3I nodes are located in space and almost wholly commercial. Over 95 percent of their domestic communications

are commercial purchases. We, too, can purchase these powers. Conversely, we can use ancient means to defeat modern

technology. In addition to using the same commercial means

the Americans use—which they will have difficulty in shutting

down—we can plan to communicate as our ancestors did.

Many of the Americans’ intelligence systems, such as the great

cameras they use to spy upon us, were designed long ago in

an American arrogance that no one could threaten them.

These, too, we have found simple means to stop. The Americans have spent little time and effort to protect them from us.

The Americans will have long-term success only if they can

rally the easily misled American people. These people can be

easily swayed one way or another by images. If startled with

initial images of “aggression” on our part, it will be difficult to

stop America. Conversely, images of American aggression will

result in American vacillation. If a conflict drags on and Americans come to see their soldiers threatened or, more directly,

see themselves threatened, the Americans will demand a fast

compromise solution.

Counter: We must make sure that Americans are treated to

scenes of American atrocities at the initial phases of any conflict.

We should exercise care to ensure that our martyr actions are

not seen as coming from us. If we can then directly threaten

many American lives, we can negotiate a solution to our benefit.

The American military, while touting its readiness for quick

action, is in fact very slow to respond. We can count on several

weeks before any coordinated military response to our actions

can be brought to bear. When they do respond, it is important

that many American losses occur so as to discourage the

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American people. The more we can disrupt their C3I systems,

the more we can delay their response. ALLAH BE PRAISED.

24 February 2005. Paragraph 6, line item 4. Contract Between

Telecosmos International Corporation and the Iranian Communications Company:

6.4: The Iranian Communications Company (ICC) agrees to

purchase at least 10 percent of Middle Eastern sector bandwidth from 1 January 2006 through 1 January 2008 at prevailing market rates. The ICC in turn reserves the right to purchase up to 40 percent of this capacity at the same rates for

periods not to exceed 30 days with 10 days’ advance notice

given to Telecosmos International. 

19 May 2007. CNN News Report, Mecca:

Large-scale riots erupted in Mecca today, following the commission of one of the most insensitive pranks in recent history.

At several points in this most holy city of Islam, groups of

pigs—unclean animals to all Moslems—were released. As can

be seen in these sky-eye clips, tens of thousands of Moslems

rioted in this city and hundreds are dead. Saudi authorities

have reacted with outrage, pledging the most severe penalties

once the perpetrators are caught. The only group claiming any

responsibility has been a hitherto unknown group calling itself

the “Christian Defenders.”

20 May 2007. CNN News Report, Cairo:

Thousands here are blaming the United States for yesterday’s prank in Mecca. Massive anti-American demonstrations

are ongoing at the US embassy here, and the scene is being repeated at US embassies throughout the Islamic world. Official

US denials that the perpetrators are American or even associated with America are little believed, here or elsewhere.

25 May 2007. CNN News Report, Montgomery, Alabama:

Police here reported today that anti-Islamic literature and

numerous other documents found in an office building near

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Alabama’s capitol have been confiscated. Local officials believe

this office building may be the headquarters of the Christian

Defenders group, which claimed responsibility for last week’s

Middle Eastern provocations. No arrests have been made as

yet. However, police here say they have several good leads.

6 June 2007. CNN News Report, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:

In an incident sure to exacerbate tensions in this Middle

Eastern kingdom, four local women claim they were raped by

“a large number” of US military personnel stationed here. All

of those identified by the women are under custody. US military officials here promise swift investigation and action.

7 June 2007. CNN News Report, Riyadh:

Saudi officials here, in an unprecedented request, are demanding that the US servicemen accused of mass rape be

turned over to local Islamic courts for justice. Lawyers for the

accused have issued statements claiming that the local

women were long-standing prostitutes operating within the

American military community.

9 June 2007. CNN News Report, The Pentagon:

Citing existing Status of Forces Agreements, the Department of Defense has refused to turn over to local officials the

servicemen accused of rape in Saudi Arabia. Among the reasons given in today’s press conference was that Islamic punishment for convicted rapists includes clearly unacceptable

consequences such as genital removal. Reaction from around

the Arab world has been a repeat of several weeks ago, with increasingly violent protests against American embassies and

facilities. These protests have not been limited to Islamic capitals. Several thousand people gathered outside the Pentagon

this afternoon to protest what they say is recent American insensitivity to Islamic sensibilities. The following statement,

given in response to a CNN reporter’s question, typifies the

protesters’ thinking:

I am an American of Middle Eastern extraction. I was born in the United

States and consider myself to be 100 percent American. But now I’m not

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so sure. My fellow citizens have committed sacrilege in sacred religious

shrines and shamelessly deflowered women they were sent to protect. I

am disgusted.

Not all of these protesters were here to protest affronts

against Islam, however. Numerous women’s groups were present, protesting the debasement of women, whether Moslem,

Jew, Christian, or other. Esther Ford, spokeswoman of the

World Institute for Women, issued the following statement outside the Pentagon:

It’s time we bring our ill-trained American troops home. The past 15

years have repeatedly shown that our so-called men cannot keep their

hands to themselves. I remind you that this is not an isolated incident,

but that we have documented 14 rape and abuse cases promulgated

by our Middle Eastern “peacekeeping” forces.

12 June 2007. Associated Press (AP) Report Summary, Riyadh:

After a marathon eight-hour negotiating session here in

Riyadh, US Defense Secretary Bryan issued a joint communiqué with the Saudi government. It appears to do little to

solve the ongoing crisis, however. The United States has

agreed to phase out its presence in return for increased

pledges of self-defense on the part of the Saudis. In the emotional issue of the accused rapists, the United States and Saudi

Arabia have agreed to disagree. For now, the eight men will remain under US custody here in the US military compound.

16 June 2007. News Item, Space News:

In its largest overseas sale to date, World Image has sold exclusive rights to daily images covering over one million square

kilometers of Middle Eastern territory. The Middle Eastern

shipping consortium, Gulf Trade, plans to use this imagery,

which will begin delivery on 1 July, for unspecified resource

planning purposes. The proposal was approved in a routine

action by the US Department of Commerce—which has sped

up action on such requests, finalizing eight such requests in

the last 90 days.

22 June 2007. Associated Press Report Headline:

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LARGE-SCALE ANTI-AMERICAN PROTESTS SPREAD TO

WORLD CAPITALS. US INACTION SEEN AS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN INSENSITIVITY

25 June 2007. Washington Post Headline:

CONGRESS BEGINS HEARINGS ON “ADMINISTRATION MISMANAGEMENT OF MIDDLE EASTERN CRISIS.” WHITE HOUSE

DECLINES OPPORTUNITY TO TESTIFY

1 July 2007. Viewgraph 4, Morning Intelligence Briefing to the

President:

• Imagery intelligence (IMINT) of Iranian army sites shows

enhanced activity. 

• Iranian region signal intelligence (SIGINT) shows no unusual command and control traffic.

• CONCLUSION: Routine redeployment activities are likely

cause of Iranian activity.

3 July 2007 (2300Z). Air Force Space Command Space Operations Center OPREP:

DSP FLIGHT Z-5, SENSOR ANOMALY REPORT, MISSION

SENSOR OPSCAP* RED, SATELLITE OPSCAP GREEN, OVERALL WARNING MISSION OPSCAP YELLOW. ANOMALY TEAM

ACTIVATED.

3 July 2007 (2318Z). National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

Operations Center Report:

IMINT FLT BLUE-37 SENSOR ANOMALY REPORT. OPTICAL

SUBSYSTEM OVERHEATING, SATELLITE IN SAFE MODE.

3 July 2007 (2322Z). Air Force Space and Missile Center Test

Detachment Message:

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* OPSCAP: “Operations Capability.” “Green” meaning operationally effective, “Yellow”

denoting degraded performance, “Red” denoting a failure. In this report, the satellite, or

support spacecraft, is “Green”; but the sensor (payload) is “Red” and malfunctioning.
SBIRS FLT A-1. MAJOR ANOMALY, EARTH LOCK LOST,

SATELLITE PLACED IN SAFE MODE, TEST TEAM RECALLED

FROM LEAVE.

3 July 2007 (2337Z). Air Force Space Command Space Operations Center OPREP:

DSP FLT Z-4, SENSOR ANOMALY REPORT, MISSION SENSOR OPSCAP RED, SATELLITE OPSCAP GREEN, OVERALL

WARNING MISSION OPSCAP YELLOW. ANOMALY TEAM ACTIVATED.

3 July 2007 (2348Z). Air Force Space Command Space Operations Center OPREP:

DSP FLT Z-3, SENSOR ANOMALY REPORT, MISSION SENSOR OPSCAP RED, SATELLITE OPSCAP GREEN, OVERALL

WARNING MISSION OPSCAP RED FOR EASTERN HEMISPHERE. ANOMALY TEAM ACTIVATED.

3 July 2007 (2356Z). CINCSPACE Message to CJCS and

SECDEF:

POSSIBLE SPACE SYSTEM ATTACK MESSAGE, IMINT FLT

BLUE-37, POSSIBLE LASER ATTACK. FOLLOW-UP ACTIONS

INITIATED.

4 July 2007 (0012Z). CINCSPACE Message to CJCS and

SECDEF:

PROBABLE SPACE SYSTEM ATTACK MESSAGE, IMINT FLT

BLUE-37, LASER ATTACK SENSORS CONFIRM LASER ILLUMINATION. LIKELY SOURCE WITHIN NATIONAL TERRITORY

OF IRAN. EASTERN HEMISPHERE IMINT OPSCAP YELLOW.

CINCSPACE DECLARES DEFCON 3 FOR ALL CINCSPACE

COMPONENTS.

4 July 2007 (0126Z). CINCCENT Message to CJCS and

SECDEF:

APPARENT WIDESPREAD NAVAL ACTIVITY IN NORTHERN

PERSIAN GULF. SCATTERED REPORTS OF AMPHIBIOUS

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LANDINGS ON SAUDI TERRITORY. CINCCENT DECLARES

DEFCON 3 FOR PERSIAN GULF REGION.

4 July 2007 (0330Z). CINCCENT Message to CJCS and

SECDEF:

WIDELY SCATTERED REPORTS OF FAST-MOVING LIGHT

TROOP TRANSPORTS MOVING SOUTHWEST FROM SAUDI

PERSIAN GULF COAST IN DIRECTION OF SAUDI CAPITAL OF

RIYADH. UNABLE TO VERIFY STATUS OF SAUDI RESISTANCE.

USS PHILLIPS, MINESWEEPER, STRUCK WITH UNKNOWN

WEAPON. SHIP SINKING WITH MODERATE REPORTED CASUALTIES.

4 July 2007 (1100Z). Minutes of Emergency National Security

Council Meeting:

Defense Secretary Bryan briefed the status of the current

Southwest Asia military actions. 

An apparent large-scale Iranian invasion of Saudi Arabia is

underway. Riyadh is the likely objective. Saudi leaders are

aware of the situation and have vowed to engage the Iranians.

They have requested all available US assistance in cutting off

Iranian support and forces prior to their reaching Saudi territory but that US forces remain disengaged within Saudi territory. 

It appears that the Iranians have engaged our overhead imagery and early warning satellites with some sort of laser

weapon. We have temporarily lost all missile early warning assets capable of covering this region. Other assets are being

moved into position, but early warning capability will not be

restored for another 36 hours. Overall IMINT systems have

been degraded by 50 percent. Synthetic aperture radar imaging capabilities are at 100 percent.

It appears that one US ship, the USS Phillips, has sunk, losing 36 sailors. The weapon used in this action is unknown and

we cannot confirm at this time that it was part of the overall

Iranian attack.

US Naval forces are at full readiness and are capable of

mounting air and cruise missile strikes within four hours. US

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and European land-based aircraft have been alerted and will be

able to mount additional strikes commencing within 12 hours.

Secretary of State Smyth briefed the current diplomatic situation.

Opportunities for United Nations (UN) action to stem the

Iranian attack appear low due to recent Chinese support for

Iranian views. Chinese UN Security Council veto would stymie

any US-proposed action. Most likely outcome would be a UN

resolution calling for “return to normalcy.”

Prospects for concerted Middle Eastern response are also

unlikely due to recent Arab outrage over perceived US insensitivity to Islamic interests. European assistance might be

forthcoming, but is unlikely to materialize for several weeks. If

the situation can be stabilized, prospects will increase.

The president reviewed Department of Defense options for

unilateral action. After considerable discussion, consensus

was reached to conduct an immediate US strike on Iranian

command and control centers, followed by intensive naval actions in the Persian Gulf to cut off logistics flow to Iranian invasion forces. US forces sufficient to eject Iranian forces from

Saudi Arabia would begin mobilization, and would transport

to forward NATO marshaling points. The president expressed

his intent to immediately take this aggression to Congress and

the American people.

4 July 2007 (0900 EST). CNN News Special Report:

Once again it appears that the United States is engaged in

armed hostilities—for the fourth time in as many years, this

time disrupting our Independence Day celebrations. In the

president’s very short remarks a few minutes ago, he outlined

the current situation. Units of Iranian Revolutionary Guards

staged an amphibious assault last night across the Persian

Gulf and into Saudi territory. The president vowed to assist

the Saudis in both repulsing this aggression and restoring a

stable situation. The Iranian government issued a communiqué

about an hour ago, stating their intent to “redress repeated

American outrages against Islam” and warning against American interference in an internal Islamic issue. The Department of

Defense has issued very little concrete information on this

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engagement so far. CNN has learned, however, that one or

more US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf have been hit and

there are American military casualties.

In this sky-eye sequence taken earlier today, units of the

Iranian Revolutionary Guard are seen converging on the vital

crossroads of Al Huluf. We now take you live to our reporter in

this town. “Al, what is the situation there?”

“Well, Mary, it’s hard to know what is going on. Saudi radio

has alternated between Islamic cultural programming and exhortations to the people to block the invaders—with their bodies if necessary. Few Saudi forces are seen in this town. A few

minutes ago, a large Saudi armored column headed toward

the capital city of Riyadh. This is somewhat surprising as the

Iranian invasion is converging from the opposite direction. The

people here seem remarkably unconcerned and little inclined

to throw their bodies in front of any force. Of course, we must

remember that the populace in this part of Saudi Arabia is

overwhelmingly pro-Iranian Shiite.”

4 July 2007 (1312Z). CINCNORAD Message to US and Canadian National Leadership:

POSSIBLE NORTH AMERICAN ATTACK DETECTED AT 1307Z.

OTIS EARLY WARNING RADAR HAS DETECTED FOUR PROBABLE THREATENING OBJECTS INCOMING FROM THE PERSIAN GULF REGION ON AN INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC

MISSILE (ICBM) TRAJECTORY. SPACE EARLY WARNING SYSTEM OUTAGES PREVENT CONFIRMATION OF LAUNCH

SOURCE AT THIS TIME—LOSS OF SPACE SYSTEMS PREVENTS DUAL PHENOMENOLOGY VERIFICATION. PROBABLE IMPACT: EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA.

4 July 2007 (1100 EST). CNN News Report:

This will certainly go down as one of America’s more eventful Independence Days. We have received little news from the

Persian Gulf, but are receiving a large number of reports of

strange occurrences in eastern Pennsylvania. Shortly after 9

A.M. this morning, residents in several towns near Lancaster,

Pennsylvania, reported several bright streaks in the sky followed

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by sonic booms. We have also received several reports of

“brightly colored parachutes” floating down from the sky. We

do not know if these occurrences have anything to do with the

current Persian Gulf hostilities. The Pentagon has issued a brief

statement, which only admits, “incidents in eastern Pennsylvania are under study.”

4 July 2007 (1620 EST). CNN News Report:

A press conference is under way here at the Pentagon. We will

repeat the opening statement by the secretary of defense in a

moment. He has confirmed that long-range missiles have been

fired at the United States from the Persian Gulf. At least one of

those missiles seems to have delivered a series of small, parachute-borne packages. The Pentagon has cautioned that anyone sighting one of those packages should immediately evacuate the area and contact local civil defense officials. We now take

you live to the press conference with the secretary of defense.

5 July 2007 (0630 EST). White House Situation Room, Summary of Secretary of Defense Presentation:

The secretary of defense briefed the current Persian Gulf situation. We have executed 24 manned sorties against coastal

Iranian command and control (C2) sites with no aircraft losses.

Eighty-six cruise missile sorties have been flown against internal C2 targets. Due to limited overhead assets and insufficient numbers of unmanned aerial vehicles available for tasking, we are having very great difficulty in getting bomb-damage

assessment (BDA) of strike effectiveness.

• The Iranian naval forces, consisting primarily of small,

fast “motorboats,” have been very difficult to interdict. Visual and optical surveillance of the Gulf has been of poor

quality due to the very dusty atmospheric conditions typical at this time of year in the Persian Gulf region. The Iranians have scattered numerous small radar “corner reflectors” on rafts throughout the engagement region,

making radar surveillance extremely difficult.

• Our communications connectivity has been extremely

poor. It appears that many of our forces have been unable

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to use commercial communications connectivity. We are

working with the civilian contractors to establish

workarounds.

• It appears that the Iranians have mined the northern Persian Gulf. We have had two destroyers damaged by mine

strikes. It will be at least a week before we can begin

mine-clearing operations due to the loss of our on-station

minesweeper.

• The Saudi defense forces appear to have largely abandoned attempts to slow the Iranian advance in order to

concentrate forces in defense of Riyadh. Consequently,

lead elements of the Iranian forces now appear to have

penetrated over 50 miles into Saudi territory in the first

day of their assault.

The director for Central Intelligence added the following points:

Surveillance of Iranian C2 traffic has been extremely confusing. Neither before nor even during the assault has

there been any significant change in type and nodes for

military C2. Radar imagery has been singularly ineffective.

The Iranians have scattered simple but effective “corner

cubes,” which produce very “bright” radar noise. As defense

has pointed out, this noise has made it very difficult to

track naval activities as well as land movements by radar.

6 July 2007 (1800Z). CINCCENT Message to NCA:

PRELIMINARY BDA OF THE C2 TARGETS IN IRAN REVEAL

ONLY SEVEN PERCENT FULLY SUCCESSFUL STRIKES. THE

RECENT LOSS OF FOUR F-18 AND TWO F-22 AIRCRAFT HAS

CAUSED US TO RETHINK FURTHER STRIKES AND ADDRESS NEED TO SUPPRESS ENEMY AIR DEFENSES. REQUEST GUIDANCE ON FURTHER STRIKES OF C2 SITES AND

OTHER POTENTIAL TARGETS.

7 July 2007 (0630 EST). White House Situation Room, Summary of Report to the President by the Secretary of Defense:

The Iranians have apparently succeeded in jamming Global

Positioning System (GPS) signals during almost all of our

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strikes. The precision munitions we have been using have

backup inertial guidance. However, without GPS updates, they

suffer lower accuracy to approximately a factor of three. This

translates into only 10 percent of the effectiveness of a GPSassisted guidance system.

Iranian forces have surrounded Riyadh. Saudi defense

forces have put up stiff resistance but appear to be outnumbered and crumbling. Their most effective action to date was

last night’s evacuation of the royal family southeast to the

town of Halaban on the road to Mecca. No direct attacks have

been made on US compounds in Riyadh, but Iranian forces

now surround over four thousand American troops and citizens. We have recommended an immediate evacuation and

have begun this activity. However, it will take more than 48

hours to extract the bulk of our forces.

7 July 2007 (1800 EST). CNN News Report, Teheran, Iran:

The Iranian government today revealed that recent American strikes on Iran in retaliation for the Iranian incursion into

Saudi Arabia were targeted against civilian population centers.

We are standing here outside a hospital on the outskirts of

Teheran. The building has obviously been largely destroyed.

Those stretchers you see behind me, which seem to number in

the hundreds, are all casualties. Iranian leader Ayatolloh

Mhamadhi stated that these terrorist acts against the Iranian

people will be swiftly avenged and will have no impact on the

resolve of the people to see the American terrorists ejected

from further interference in Islamic affairs. Government

spokesmen also revealed two other targets with massive civilian casualties. This sky-eye view of a destroyed school near

Shiraz lends considerable legitimacy to the Iranian claims. The

several dozen white dots that are plainly visible outside the destroyed wing of the building on the left are apparent casualties. Back to you in Washington, Bill.

The Department of Defense had little response to our questions about these attacks on civilian targets, issuing only a

terse statement that the United States does not deliberately

target civilian populations.

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8 July 2007 (0900 EST). Emergency National Security Council Meeting, White House Situation Room, Summary Notes:

The secretary of defense reported that two C-17s have been

lost to heavy ground fire, with at least four hundred casualties, in attempts to evacuate American personnel from the

three US compounds in Riyadh. Further evacuation attempts

have been halted. Although US forces have engaged the Iranian attackers, it appears that the perimeters at all three compounds have collapsed. We lost all contact with our command

posts there about 20 minutes ago, due to heavy radio interference. At least twenty-five hundred US personnel remain in

these compounds.

The director of Central Intelligence reports that apparent

Iranian laser blinders have neutralized all remaining overhead

imagery systems. We have been unable to locate these systems

by either electronic or radar imagery means. Other than the

commercial news imagery, we have no way to confirm the reality of the Iranian claims of strikes against civilians. However,

we can confirm that the buildings shown are in the general

vicinity of C2 nodes targeted by our strikes earlier this week.

The secretary of state reported that the UN has been singularly unhelpful. We were able to get only a weak call on all parties to cease hostilities. The general assembly passed a rather

pointed request for all external influences to leave the Persian

Gulf, but we were able to stop action on this statement. All of

our allies in Europe and the Middle East have sent requests

for additional information on the alleged targeting of Iranian

civilians. All except the Brits have told us that, if there is any

truth to this charge, it will be impossible to marshal support

for any assistance to us.

8 July 2007 (1800 EST) CBS Evening News:

“This mob scene outside Philadelphia General Hospital is

being repeated throughout the Northeast today. Thousands of

people are besieging local medical treatment facilities demanding

a counter to the AIDS virus they believe they have been exposed to. We bring you this word from our medical correspondent, Dr. Melvin LaForge, of the University of Michigan Medical

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Center. “Dr. LaForge, do these people have anything to worry

about, and is there anything that can be prescribed for them?”

“Well, Joe, I know the surgeon general has issued a statement

that you can’t catch AIDS from airborne contact with the

virus. But I have to tell you Joe, I’m not so sure. I think most

of us have significant skepticism about US government claims

after last decade’s fiasco over the Persian Gulf syndrome, and

the more recent bumbling in reaction to the anthrax attacks

six years ago. We now know that those Gulf War illnesses were

directly related to the twin exposure of chemical agents and a

normally benign virus. Yet it wasn’t until four years ago—almost

12 years after the first symptoms—that the US government acknowledged the problem and devoted enough resources to devise effective treatments. And we all remember the confusion

over the anthrax attacks in 2001, and the mixed messages the

government delivered on the dangers at the time. Remember

how everyone was clamoring for antibiotics? Until we can complete a thorough genetic deconstruction of the material in the

canisters, no one can say whether this is the standard AIDS

virus or some form modified for airborne transmission. I know

that I would recommend that anyone in that region of the

country begin an immediate treatment of our most effective

AIDS regimen. You have to ask yourself why the Iranians

would have gone to all the trouble to deliver a biological agent

that was ineffective. Further, I would suspect that, if effective,

they probably know something about countering it as well.”

10 July 2007 (1800Z). CINCCENT Status Report to CJCS and

SECDEF:

1. ALL AMERICAN FORCES IN THE VICINITY OF RIYADH

HAVE APPARENTLY BEEN CAPTURED. WE ESTIMATE APPROXIMATELY TWO THOUSAND US PERSONNEL ARE IN

IRANIAN CUSTODY. WITHOUT OVERHEAD CAPABILITIES,

OUR AIRBORNE RECONNAISSANCE HAS BEEN UNABLE TO

LOCATE THEIR WHEREABOUTS. WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO

SUCCESSFULLY INTERDICT AN ESTIMATED 90 PERCENT

OF IRANIAN LOGISTICAL SUPPORT TRAFFIC ACROSS THE

PERSIAN GULF. WE HAVE STOOD DOWN FURTHER ATTACKS

WITHIN IRAN PROPER, FOLLOWING SECDEF DIRECTION.

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WE BELIEVE WE COULD CONSIDERABLY ATTRIT IRANIAN

FORCES IN SAUDI ARABIA, WHICH WE ESTIMATE AT APPROXIMATELY THREE LIGHT MOBILE DIVISIONS, WITH FOCUSED AIR STRIKES FROM CARRIER AND AIR EXPEDITIONARY FORCES. REQUEST NCA APPROVAL FOR SUCH

STRIKES.

2. PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS BY CINCCENT STAFF IN CONCERT WITH JOINT STAFF HAS BEEN CONCLUDED WITH A

GENERAL PLAN TO RECAPTURE OCCUPIED PARTS OF

SAUDI ARABIA FROM THE IRANIANS. IT WILL REQUIRE SIX

CARRIER BATTLE GROUPS AND APPROXIMATELY EIGHTY

THOUSAND AMPHIBIOUS TROOPS. ESTIMATED D DAY, 25

OCTOBER 2007. REQUEST GUIDANCE.

12 July 2007 (1400 EST). CNN News Report, Washington, D.C.:

Senator Strockbridge has just completed a speech on the

Senate floor, which we will broadcast in its entirety momentarily. In it he makes it clear that Congress wants an immediate end to US involvement in what the senator called the

biggest fiasco in American military history. He has also called

for an immediate focus on treatment for the millions who may

have been infected by what’s being called Teheran AIDS. The

senator has made it clear that he has overwhelming bipartisan

support for activating the War Powers Act for the first time and

has scheduled a vote for two days from now.

14 July 2007 (1000 EST). CNN News Report, Halaban, Saudi

Arabia:

Saudi high command one-half hour ago announced a ceasefire with the invading Iranian forces. They have agreed to begin

negotiations with the Iranians on the “protection of Islamic

holy sites and a new security arrangement for the Persian Gulf

region.”

15 July 2007 (0800Z). Iranian Government Official Statement:

IRAN WELCOMES THE PARTICIPATION OF THE SAUDI GOVERNMENT IN

DEFINING A NEW ERA OF ISLAMIC LIFE IN OUR REGION. WE SEEK NO

LAND, ONLY A SECURE AND SACRED ENVIRONMENT FOR ISLAMIC PEOPLE

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EVERYWHERE TO PURSUE OUR OWN CULTURE FREE FROM WESTERN INTERFERENCE. AS FOR THE AMERICANS, WE HOLD NO ANIMOSITY FOR THE

AMERICAN PEOPLE BUT MUST LET BOTH THOSE PEOPLE AND THEIR CORRUPT GOVERNMENT KNOW THAT THE IRANIAN PEOPLE HAVE SUFFERED

ENOUGH AT THEIR HANDS. WE WILL MATCH YOUR ATROCITIES WITH FEARLESS RESOLVE AND EXTRACT HOLY VENGEANCE AS WE HAVE BEGUN TO

DO ALREADY FOR EACH OUTRAGE. WE WILL HOLD YOUR DECADENT SOLDIERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS. WE WILL PROVIDE A BEACON TO

A NEW WORLD ORDER FREE FROM YOUR INTERFERENCE.

21 July 2007 (1400 EST). Summary of National Security

Council Meeting, White House:

The secretary of defense reported that three carrier battle

groups are now in place with two more to arrive by 25 July.

Two wings of forward-based strike aircraft have been moved to

Diego Garcia. At the request of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) governments, no strikes or overflights will be

used from European or Mediterranean locations. Full buildup

with necessary amphibious forces remains on-schedule for 25

Oct D day. Lack of land-based access in the Middle East will

seriously hamper operations.

The secretary of state reported that Saudi officials have

agreed to allow US representatives into the cease-fire talks

with the Iranians. They report that Iranian officials have

agreed to this presence. The Saudis continue to request no US

actions within their territory and believe they may be able to

negotiate a peaceful settlement to the conflict.

The attorney general reports that large-scale riots over the

unavailability of AIDS treatment have spread to the west

coast, with thousands rushing to hospitals in Seattle, San

Francisco, and Portland. The surgeon general, attending this

NSC meeting by special invitation, reports that there is absolutely no reason to believe the airborne AIDS virus is contagious. Samples of the Iranian-delivered virus are identical with

the known virus. However, the nationally televised messages

from the surgeon general’s office seem to have had a counter

effect, leading to numerous denunciations of the US government’s opinions by noted medical personnel—many who should

have known better. Efforts to increase supplies of anti-AIDS

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treatments are not expected to significantly increase supplies

until early autumn.

Four different congressional resolutions demanding an immediate cutoff of funds for continued Middle East operations

have been introduced. All are expected to pass within the next

three days with overwhelming majorities.

4 August 2007 (1800 EST). CBS Evening News:

The video recording you are about to see was released by the

Iranian government earlier today. We warn viewers that the

scenes shown are both graphic and disturbing. You will recall

that the Iranian forces occupying Riyadh announced last week

the “convictions” for rape of 47 US troops in their custody.

They further announced that “swift Islamic punishment”

would soon follow the convictions. The first of those punishments, surgical castration, was conducted earlier today and is

shown in its entirety on the following tape. The US military individual shown in these tapes has been identified as Air Force

1st Lt Timothy Wells, of Denver, Colorado. Although apparently conducted under sanitary surgical conditions, it also appears that no anesthetic was administered. The Iranian government also announced that the remainder of the punishments

would be carried out “soon.” 

14 September 2007 (1800Z). CNN News Report, Riyadh:

In a joint communiqué issued by the Saudi and Iranian governments, the two parties to the current Middle Eastern conflict announced a negotiated settlement. Iranian forces have

agreed to withdraw immediately from Riyadh. This withdrawal

appears to be largely on Saudi terms, with Iran getting only an

agreement that a joint Saudi-Iranian commission will henceforward administer the Islamic holy sites in Medina and

Mecca. No Iranian forces will remain on Saudi territory.

15 September 2007 (1400 EST). CNN News Report, The Pentagon:

The secretary of defense announced a few minutes ago that,

as part of the negotiated Saudi Arabia–Iran settlement, all US

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personnel under Iranian control will be returning home immediately. He also said that a joint Arab-Iranian task force

would henceforward patrol the Persian Gulf. On a note of great

personal interest to Americans, the Iranian government has

agreed to pay $2 million to Lt Timothy Wells, subject to US

agreement to try him and his fellow accused colleagues in US

military court for the alleged rape charges. 

14 May 2008. Executive Summary of Joint Congressional Report on the Iran–Saudi Arabia Conflict of 2005:

In the course of thousands of hours of hearings and millions

of pages of documents, the US Congress cannot help but conclude that the United States and its interests suffered a major

defeat in the Persian Gulf War of 2005. The coup, which toppled the Saudi royal family from power in January and replaced it with a pro-Iran Shiite Junta, underscores the complete victory achieved by Iran in this conflict.

From the start, US forces in the Persian Gulf, as well as our

entire intelligence apparatus, completely failed to recognize

the true state of events. Our problems stemmed from both a

complete reliance on space-based overhead intelligence gathering systems and our misunderstanding of the degree to

which Iran recognized this fact and knew how to use it to their

advantage.

Most telling was our reliance on signals and communications intelligence to provide strategic warning of the impending attack. It was significant that no increase in C2 traffic was

detected in the weeks leading up to the military action. The

Iranians both understood and made use of US dependence on

space systems. It is quite possible to use nonelectronic means

of communications to conduct complex military operations.

Armies have done so for thousands of years. Through constant

training, and by using couriers and even signaling with small

mirrors to reflect sunlight, the Iranian Army was able to prepare and strike, giving away little of their positions or intentions. 

The Iranians also successfully confused and frustrated US

capabilities that rely on sophisticated electronic and space

systems. By mounting simple industrial lasers on trucks, they

were able to dazzle and blind both our early warning and optical

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imaging systems. Similarly, Iranian use of simple “corner reflectors” scattered both at sea and on land, made it impossible

for our air- and space-borne radar imaging systems to get an

accurate picture of enemy formations. Perhaps most effective

was the Iranian approach to denying US Global Positioning

System (GPS) signals. By “detuning” their television broadcasts, they were able to jam effectively our use of the system.

Since we relied almost exclusively on precision-guided munitions that use GPS, the large-scale denial of GPS ruined those

weapons’ effectiveness. While the US military correctly pointed

out that our weapons have other means of guidance, such as

inertial reference systems, these are invariably less accurate.

Thus, our strikes with precision-guided weapons were not only

ineffective, but inadvertently gave the Iranians one of their

most effective propaganda weapons—the unforeseen destruction of civilian sites with large, highly visible loss of life. Moreover, as noted above, even an effective interdiction of Iranian

C2 nodes would have little effect on the enemy’s military

progress as they had worked hard to largely eliminate their reliance on “high-tech” communications.

We should not conclude, however, that the Iranians did not

make very effective use of high technology and space systems

for themselves. Recognizing that commercial space systems

are widely available, they used them and, in many cases, actually denied our own use of commercial space systems. Their

commercial imaging purchases enabled them to locate and destroy our one and only minesweeper in the Gulf. This was the

one most crucial loss that led to most of our military casualties in this conflict. Similarly, their purchase of commercial

cellular telephone service not only gave them an effective

back-up and supplement to their nonelectronic C2—it denied

that same usage to our forces. Quite simply, we did not realize the degree to which US military forces had purchased and

relied upon wholly commercial communications systems, usually without any central coordination. This too, contributed

greatly to the confusion and prevented virtually any effective

counterstrike in the early days of the conflict.

The Iranians’ most effective use of high-technology commercial systems was in their exceedingly effective psychological

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warfare campaign. From rapid broadcast of “US atrocities” to

the chillingly effective spectacle of a US soldier’s castration,

the Iranians manipulated US and world public opinion to their

advantage. Once again, the Iranians knew that a large number of US hostages—especially when those hostages are

threatened with serious physical harm—would have an amazing impact on US public opinion. Similarly, the by now universally agreed-upon sham charge of blasphemy against Islam

was clearly the result of well-thought-out Iranian psychological warfare actions. Without the negative world opinion these

prewar actions generated, the United States might have been

able to generate an effective international counter to the initial

Iranian attack.

Perhaps the most effective Iranian action of all was the completely nonthreatening ICBM attack on the United States. In

retrospect, it would appear that we adhered too long to the former ABM Treaty, for our developing missile defense capabilities were not yet mature or responsive enough to intercept

even the two attacking missiles. This problem was compounded by the Iranians’ effective blinding of our space-based

early warning system. The fact that we were not able to provide the public with any credible information for 48 hours was

the prime reason the people would not believe anything we

claimed later. Had we not postponed an updated and distributed early warning system, “SBIRS Low,” we might have at

least been able to warn of the attack. The addition of a completely harmless, but universally feared, “AIDS” payload was a

stroke of pure genius. The US government was put into the

awkward position of trying to retaliate against something we

claimed was harmless. Not only did our people not believe

their government, but the world would also have regarded it as

hypocrisy to administer a deadly counterstrike to a harmless

first move.

The Congress concludes that we have lost a major battle for

the vital Middle Eastern region. We are now effectively expelled

from the entire Persian Gulf region, which seems to have been

the Iranians’ primary purpose in the first place. While Congress must bear some of the blame for responding precipitously to public opinion, the administration and particularly

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the Department of Defense must bear the bulk of the blame for

once again preparing for the next war based on our experiences

in the past. Confident that our high-technology systems and

our space-based systems would operate as effectively as they

had in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 1999 Kosovo campaign, we did not anticipate that others would learn from those

wars and devise effective counters, as the Iranians indeed have

done. We were also deceived by our more recent experiences in

Afghanistan and Iraq, where we fought an enemy not bold

enough to directly challenge our spaceborne assets. The Iranians were far bolder.

Congress believes we must learn several lessons and take

several actions. We do not believe the United States should

abandon its efforts to gain and maintain a high-technology advantage. We quite simply cannot afford the manpower, and our

people will not tolerate the ruthlessness necessary, to match

the approach taken by the Iranians. However, we must constantly strive to understand how a determined enemy will try

to deceive and counter our technology. We can and must continue to use space and other high-technology capabilities, but

we should also have both alternate space-based means and

Earth-based means for gathering and distributing critical military information.

We cannot ignore the fact that commercially supplied space

services are available to everyone. We cannot afford to avoid

use of those services for ourselves. However, we must understand how to protect those commercial services for ourselves

and deny them to a potential adversary.

The Battle for Global Utilities

Sun Tzu Rebutted

Remarks

by

Lt Gen Maria Barbicane

Deputy Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations

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United States Air and Space Force

at the

Graduation Ceremony

Class of 2018

Air and Space War College

1 June 2018

It is indeed a great honor for me to address you today—you

who are soon to enter senior leadership positions in the most

effective force the world has ever known. It’s been only a few

short months since our Service virtually single-handedly

wielded the keys to victory. In just 10 years from the disastrous Persian Gulf fiasco—one in which everyone declared the

era of high technology warfare was over, we reconstituted ourselves into the instrument of victory in Southeast Asia. Let me

recount the few short weeks of the recent Vietnam conflict.

The momentous victory of our Vietnamese allies over the Chinese aggressor shows all of those naysayers of the past decade

that we are not only the last superpower, but destined to remain so for not only our own lives, but those of our children

as well. And, as you can plainly see by my condition, my mind,

as well as some other parts of me, is very much concerned

with those children. (audience laughter)

A decade ago, the naysayers claimed our investment in

space had been proven futile. They said we could not rely on

space for any critical military function. They said it was impossible to count on space for navigation, intelligence, or C2.

They were wrong, as we so vividly saw a few months ago. Perhaps most important, they did not foresee that we were on the

verge of wielding true “fire from heaven” to confound and defeat

our enemies. In this war, we returned at last to our true calling of “killing people and breaking their stuff” (pause for applause). Now we can do it almost instantly from space—HUA!

(pause for more applause).

We now know that the large-scale Chinese attack on Vietnam was intended to drive south in a lightning strike. They

had hoped to capture not only the Vietnamese capital of

Hanoi, but also our own naval base at Cam Ranh Bay much

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further south. In short, the 35 attacking Chinese divisions, the

largest land-army action since last century’s World War II,

hoped to capture 20,000 American troops and repeat on a very

large scale the Iranian accomplishment of a decade ago. They

were foiled, and you foiled them.

We knew what the Chinese were up to weeks in advance. Although still in the process of deployment, the new Space Star

radar system was the key. Any electronic eavesdropping system can be fooled. A point image surveillance system, such as

the old optical systems we’ve had for almost 50 years can be

spoofed by moving when they are not there or aren’t looking.

The only way to know what an enemy is up to is to have a

large-scale surveillance system that covers essentially his entire territory continuously. Although we only had 16 of the 24

satellite Space Star radar constellations in place this January,

it was enough for us to detect the large-scale movement of

ground forces two weeks before the 26 January attack on Vietnam. This allowed us to give our Vietnamese allies two weeks

of vital warning, and it gave us time to both move carrierbased aviation into place and begin activating US-based air

and space forces.

But it was the activities that followed Chinese entry into

Vietnam that allowed us to really “strut our stuff.” Both sides

tried to use air and space forces to find, fix, and track enemy

forces. Both sides soon found that airborne sensors simply

could not survive in a modern battlefield and quickly established an impenetrable dome over their forces. After we lost 18

carrier-based aircraft in attempts to penetrate behind the

enemy’s front lines, we—and we soon found out they—turned

to space. Perhaps our biggest surprise was that long-vaunted

stealth aircraft aren’t so invisible, particularly when each side

has space-based infrared detectors.

Another great surprise of the conflict was the ineffectiveness

of missile attacks. Neither the Vietnamese nor the Chinese

were able to get ballistic missiles to their targets. Our Airborne

Laser (ABL) Wing arrived just in time. Not a single Chinese

missile reached its target. However, we were surprised to find

that the less sophisticated but extremely effective Chinese

surface-to-air missile (SAM) system almost invariably found

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its target. The space-based infrared systems of both sides were

effective in picking up missiles soon after their launch. 

Within two weeks of conflict, it appeared that we might have

gone back a century in time—to World War I. After penetrating

some one hundred miles into Vietnam, Chinese forces simply

bogged down into static warfare. Dug in to a level and depth

that would have amazed World War I soldiers—sometimes at

depths up to one hundred feet below ground—it appeared that

we were in for a long fight. We estimate that the Chinese lost

450,000 troops in the first week of futile efforts to dislodge the

Vietnamese line. Although less wasteful of manpower, Vietnamese counterattacks were equally ineffective. Our air support to any troop advance simply could not get to the front.

But it was not to remain World War I redux.

It was clear that we had to help the Vietnamese crack the

Chinese “dome of impenetrability.” This is where the battle became ours to win, and this is where I came in. As commander

of the Fourteenth Space Force, my forces were chopped to

CINCPAC. I had to remove the space-generated dome over the

Chinese forces. At the same time, I had to stop them from

doing the same to us. And believe me, although this seems

easy from our current perspective, it looked real hard at that

time. The campaign for space took six weeks. Our task was to

figure out what systems the Chinese were using and how to

deny them those uses. What I soon found out was that my

Chinese counterpart was trying to do the same thing to me—

and he came a lot closer to succeeding than you heard about

from the public media.

Our task was to dismantle the interlocked air and space

net upon which his defenses rested. We quickly discovered

the incredible degree to which the Chinese military was relying on space systems. Indeed, they depended on these systems almost as much as we did. It took us approximately two

weeks to piece together their space order of battle and devise

strategies to dismantle their use of space. First and foremost,

we discovered that every Chinese system was operating on

time coordination provided by the Russian NOVI-GLONASS

and United States GPS. With time accuracies of four

nanoseconds, Chinese forces were using small interlocked

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computers to give them a truly distributed C2 system. In

short, there were no nodes for us to attack. They used these

signals for geolocation of both their own forces and enemy

targets, as did the allied forces. So our first objective was to

deny or degrade their use of these signals.

Fortunately, we had the fully upgraded GPS Block IIIB Constellation 85 percent deployed. The new system gives us the ability to pinpoint-deny hostile use of both GPS and NOVI-GLONASS

signals. This we did at once. Much to our surprise, the Chinese

unveiled their own formidable capability. Their 32-satellite

low-earth constellation of optical sensor satellites proved to

have a “special” payload onboard. It not only provided a

“pseudo” navigation and timing signal to the Chinese, it successfully denied our use as well. But we had a few surprises

too, and were able to boost power and go to alternate frequencies over the theater of conflict. The first round of the space

campaign was a draw.

We were at a loss to understand how the Chinese picked up

our incoming aircraft— even stealthy ones—so far out that

they were able to pinpoint-attack these assets before they got

anywhere near the front lines. What we discovered was that

they were using the raw signal of our radar satellites as a bistatic source for passive tracking of incoming aircraft and

missiles. It took us about 10 days to figure that out and rephase the radar satellite transmitters to confuse the Chinese

systems. This is when we found that some of those “optical

sensor satellites” also had a small but powerful and effective

radar transmitter. We had wondered why the Chinese satellites were so large. The intelligence community had assured us

that it was only “poor and outdated Chinese technology.” No

wonder they say “military intelligence is a contradiction in

terms.” (wait for laughter) Round two of the space war was

also a draw.

The prime objective of our initial space engagements was to

degrade Chinese C2. I’ve already noted that the Chinese used

such a simple but sophisticated distributed computing and

communications network that there were few, if any, C2 nodes

we could have attacked—even if we could penetrate the Chinese air defenses. What we could affect, however, was the

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space-based communications satellite nodes. We used largescale electronic and information warfare attacks against the

Chinese space communications systems. To no one’s surprise,

they did the same thing to us. However, we had learned not to

rely so heavily on commercial systems and to protect our

space communications systems from such attacks; the Chinese had taken an opposite tack. They had purchased multiple accesses to a number of low-altitude Internet carriers. As

I’ll describe below, we eventually were able to handle the

dilemma of how to deny them access to these systems, but

that took considerably more time. Round three of the space

war was a draw five weeks into the war.

It was becoming increasingly clear that we had a space war

on our hands. We had been unable to deny the Chinese access

to their space-produced services through ground-based

means. Conversely, they had failed in their attempt to do the

same to us. The next round of our space war was to get interesting. Although it took a lot of persuading, we finally got the

president to authorize going after the Chinese space infrastructure. Initially, the rules of engagement (ROE) were to use

only ground-based means. Thus, we activated our White

Sands laser facility and retargeted the Aegis missile defense

system for space intercept. We quickly found that the Chinese

satellites were very hard to kill with either weapon by itself. It

seems those multipurpose satellites had both a laser shield

and a decoy-maneuver system so that they could take a direct

laser hit and evade the interceptor missiles. After three days

and the expenditure of 40 percent of our interceptor ammunition—with no confirmed satellite kill—we developed an effective, albeit slow and expensive tactic. By bringing the Aegis

ships literally into our ports in Texas and California, we could

just target an enemy satellite while it was in view of the White

Sands laser. Thus, as the laser forced the satellite to “blink,”

we fired an interceptor at the same satellite. We found that the

satellites could not simultaneously remain buttoned up and

evade the interceptors. WHAM! One by one we were able to

take out their satellites—but ever so slowly, only about one per

day. But we were beginning to kill Chinese space forces.

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Alas, our joy was short-lived. We soon saw that the Chinese

were able to put new satellites up just about as fast as we could

deplete them. Worse yet, we were running out of interceptors

with little likelihood of new rounds coming off the assembly line

in time. We needed to kill the enemy forces faster! Worse, the

Chinese were beginning to score a few hits on our birds. While

they had nothing as effective as our laser-interceptor one-two

punch, they did manage an occasional lucky shot with their

own interceptors. While they were killing our assets much

slower than we were getting theirs, we were also much slower in

launching new birds. We simply had to accelerate our offensive

activities.

We turned to the 330th Spaceplane Squadron (interim), our

newest war-fighting tool, just declaring IOC with four SF-1

spaceplanes. Although its full strength was not scheduled for

two more years at 12 SF-1s, we pressed it into service as soon

as we could. We had 48 Schriever II space rendezvous vehicles

on hand and were producing more at five per week. Each

spaceplane could do one sortie per day and carry four Clem

IVs. I’ll tell you, it was one hell of an argument to get the White

House to give me release authority. I suspect it was the mounting losses of US pilots that finally persuaded the president to

grant authority to conduct the world’s first space-to-space

battle. And it was glorious!

We launched at dawn, 18 March. Fifteen minutes apart, four

spaceplanes leapt into space from southern California. Each

deployed four Schriever IIs into four of the eight sensor planes

occupied by the Chinese sensor system. Within six hours, the

bad guys were 12 satellites lighter; in one day, we had taken

out a third of their eyes. The next day, we launched again but

weren’t so lucky. One SF-1 blew up on launch and another

had to abort before we got the Schriever IIs deployed. But the

Chinese were seven satellites poorer—only one Schriever II

missed, which was better than the four misses the day before.

The Chinese launched three more birds, but we had them on

the run!

The Chinese then did what we thought they would. They

turned almost wholly to commercial sources for their data.

Most of the global commercial communications and imagery

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suppliers were persuaded through a combination of patriotism

and money to deny access to the Chinese. But it took a

demonstration of Schriever IIs flying in formation around two

of Mr. Kates’ commercial birds to persuade the world’s richest man to assist us in return for our assisting him to get

even richer.

With the loss of much of the Chinese forces’ external eyes

and brains, we hoped for a swift and effective counterattack by

our allies to expel the Chinese. We were now free to assist

them with air support essentially unhampered by ground defenses. However, after two weeks of heavy fighting and even

heavier losses, allied forces had advanced only a few miles at

most, and in some cases only a few hundred feet. It looked like

we were in for a long war of attrition, and I don’t need to remind you that the Chinese had lots more forces than our allies. We simply had to interdict the interlocked and mostly underground C2 and supply channels that were supporting the

Chinese front lines.

Our air-delivered munitions simply couldn’t go deep enough

to hit the underground Chinese nodes. So the commander in

chief (CINC) turned to my sister space force, the Twentieth

NSF. My good friend, and soon to be my daughter’s godmother,

Gen Pam Acuna, had an answer. Ironically, she didn’t have as

much trouble persuading the White House as I did—guess it’s

better to be second. They issued the coup de grâce to the Chinese. Four days of bombardment by the Minuteman IV’s deeptarget munitions threw the Chinese front line into disarray.

Chinese forces had been all but expelled from Vietnam by 15

April, and lead allied elements had actually entered Chinese

territory.

The rest is history, as they say. Although I personally would

have liked to have a victory parade in Beijing, I doubt if the

American people or our allies could have spent the manpower

necessary to deliver such a victory. Besides, our civilian leadership has a negotiated settlement that will keep the Chinese

dragon licking its wounds for an awfully long time.

There are a few lessons I need to foot-stomp before I get off

this stage. First and foremost is that he who controls space and

has the will to exploit it will win. It’s that simple. Second—and

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this is really important—you can’t control space from the

ground, you just gotta be in space. You know, this is an old argument for those of you who can remember the last century—

which I unfortunately do. From the First World War on, lots of

people argued that heavy firepower from the ground could

control the air. Others, with names like Mitchell, Arnold,

Eaker, and so on, knew you had to be up there to own the air.

Well, this little space war just proved that adage in spades. We

will not be able to control space unless we are in it! Finally,

and this is the shape of things to come, weapons delivered

through space, and soon from space as we deploy defensible

lasers, are the final element of victory.

The reason I’m emphasizing these points is that I fear our

civilian masters are ignoring them. Just two days after last

week’s victory parade the president asked, and Congress

agreed, to limit our SF-1 buy to two squadrons. I know that

this was perceived as a small price to get Chinese agreement

on an admittedly very bad peace treaty from their perspective.

But I can’t help but believe that we will live to regret putting

so much trust in paper when hard steel is to be had—or at

least hard titanium and depleted uranium!

I just want to leave you with my best wishes for the world’s

very best and undoubted champion space warriors. HUA!!

The Pan-Asian Federation Strikes Back

Inaugural Issue

Journal of the Chinese Space Forces

Table of Contents

1 October 2020

(UNOFFICIAL TRANSLATION, TREAT AS “DEFINITELY SECRET” MATERIAL—NOT TO BE RELEASED OUTSIDE

US/VIETNAM AUTHORIZED CHANNELS)

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Invincibility Lies in the Defense; the Possibility of Victory Lies in

the Attack—Applying Sun Tzu to Problems of Space Conflict,

CSF Gen Wu Lao, 1–43.

The Importance of Medium-Earth Orbit—A Strategy for the Middle Kingdom, CSF Col Wang Ling, 44–58.

Striking Swift and Sure in Space, Avoiding Protracted Space

War, CSF Chief Marshall Tu Yu, 59–65.

Imperialist Space Strategy—70 Years of American Aggression

from Above and Thoughts on How to Defeat It, CSF Gen Li

Chaun, 66–74.

Allies and Enemies in Space—Natural Alliances With Islamic

States, CSF Lt Col Wang Hsi, 74–80.

Japanese Dependence on Space Commerce, CSF Maj Tu Mu,

81–89.

When You Make a Mistake, Do Not Be Afraid of Mending Your

Ways, Confucian Lessons for Confounding Imperialist Designs,

CSF Col Tzu Kung, 90–105.

Learning From The Enemy, “Always Have a Plan ‘B’ ”, CSF Col

Chang Yu, 106–16.

Strategies and Tactics for Engaging Spaceplanes, CSF Capt Ho

Lu, 107–25.

Vulnerabilities of Naval Vessels, CN RADM Liu Yuan, 126–33.

15 May 2023, London Times Flash Note Holographic Service,

Voice Narration of Holographic Clip:

Wow! What a show! The Chinese government released this

test holoclip a few minutes ago and I know all of you can feel

this baby fly. The Chinese are offering their new space cruiser

as an alternative to what they claim is an unfair monopoly of

American space launch services. But I have to tell you that

this baby looks like she can fly rings around anything the

Americans have. On a sour note, the US news service has

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raised American concerns that this capability may violate the

2015 Vietnam accords limiting spaceplanes.

24 September 2024, Wall Street Journal News Item:

New York. Recently retired Air and Space Force Chief of

Staff, Gen Maria Barbicane, and 12 of her former military

colleagues announced the formation of their new company,

CISLUNE Corporation yesterday. General Barbicane said during her brief press conference that the firm would focus on developing space resources. Unlike most start-up corporations

in the space business, the Journal has learned that CISLUNE

is very well capitalized, with over $1 billion in initial cash onhand. Initial stock offerings in CISLUNE opened today at 85

dollars per share. Interestingly, General Barbicane made no

mention of her dispute with the president over the administration’s decision to cap SF-1 spaceplane deployments at 24

vehicles per the 2017 Vietnam accords. It has been widely

speculated that it was this decision that led to the general’s

earlier than expected retirement.

6 February 2027, London Times Flash Note Holographic Service, Voice Narration of Holographic Clip:

We’re here at the reception in Teheran following the signing

a few minutes ago of the Islamic Federation–Asian Hegemony

Treaty of Peaceful Principles and Eternal Friendship. Although

specific details have not been released, it appears that longstanding border disputes between the Islamic world and the

Chinese, who now call themselves the “Asian Hegemony,” have

been resolved. That noise you hear outside is the start of

what’s been promised as the “mother of all military parades.”

If the flyby of the four Asian spaceplane squadrons was any indication, it’ll live up to its billing.

Sun Tzu Vindicated

Remarks 

by

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Chief Space Marshall Tu Yu

Space Forces of the Asian Hegemony

Festival of Glorious Victory

Great Hall of the People

Beijing, Asian Hegemony

7 December 2032

Over 25 centuries ago, our ancestors invented rockets. For

centuries, these honored forefathers developed these magnificent devices for peace and security. Six centuries ago, we had

developed the most wonderful fleets of ships for exploring the

unknown. We set out not to enslave peoples or capture trading markets, but to spread awareness of the beautiful culture

our ancestors had developed. Sharing the benefits of progress

has been our longest and greatest heritage.

But there were those who took these gifts and perverted

them. They took the magical powder we used in our rockets

and forged terrible weapons from it. They used the technology

we exhibited in our ships to build fearsome warships. With

these weapons, the foreign devils set out on a many-century

quest to dominate all before them. They made each century

bloodier than the past. Cultures that had stood for millennia

fell before their onslaughts. Peaceful peoples felt the yoke of

imperialism and slavery. Even our own ancestors were forced

to bow to the seemingly unstoppable war machines the enemy

wielded. The culture of death and power reached its awful

peak in the last century—untold millions perished in war after

war, fueled by an insatiable imperialist appetite. As this century dawned, these imperialists had already turned their

greedy eyes to the heavens. This could not be allowed to come

to fruition.

In the wars of the last century, great men emerged from our

Asian cultural tradition. Men like Mao Tse Tung taught us

how to first cast the forces of imperialism out from our own

country—but those great ones could only dream of days when

the world would be safe from imperialistic grasping. In the

past few decades, we’ve begun to make those dreams real. One

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year ago today, we achieved the greatest victory yet in this

noble struggle.

The details of this glorious victory are well known to our

long-standing citizens. But as we welcome today our new partners in the Asian Hegemony—Japan, Vietnam, and Korea—it

is suitable to recount the careful planning and flawless execution that led us to this great day of celebration.

In 2017 we began efforts to liberate our Vietnamese friends

from imperialist domination—an effort they had themselves

largely achieved in the middle of the last century—only to later

fall victim to insidious economic imperialism. We learned that,

although our troops were brave and our weapons keen, the

imperialists had shrewdly militarized space. In the attempted

2017 liberation, the forces of imperialism callously attacked

systems designed to better our peoples’ lives from space. They

used their control of the international financial community to

deny our access to services that were allegedly for sale to all.

Then they used space to attack our liberation forces directly.

These war-mongering moves were effective on the short term,

but Asian minds and Asian creativity learned these lessons

well; in our next encounter, we were the teachers!

We studied the adversary’s forces for over a decade. We read

their writings. We learned their systems. We built our capabilities. We planned our revenge. For as Sun Tzu said, “a victorious army wins its victories before seeking battle; an army destined for defeat fights in the hope of winning.”3 It was obvious

from the 2017 conflict that the enemy had come to rely totally

on space—but to a degree that even he did not know. Wall

Street controlled their space capabilities more than their War

Room. This meant we could impact them as much by attacking in the financial “bottom line” as by attacking in the battlefield. If we could threaten commercial investments, they would

lose much of their stomach for fighting. We understood, too,

that space had long been militarized. Applying force from

space-to-space and space-to-ground was and will continue to

be the highest priority in military conflict.

Perhaps most important of all, we understood that warfare

was the battle of perceptions and nuances. We had to force the

enemy to fight on our terms and on our ground. The war never

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stopped in 2017. Our first objective was to encourage the

uniquely Western idea that the absence of war is peace. What

we lost in battle, we won in negotiations. We have followed our

ancient master, General Sun Tzu, who wrote, “When the

enemy’s envoys speak in humble terms, but he continues his

preparations, he will advance.”4 The Americans have paid Sun

Tzu scant attention, and we succeeded in stopping them from

building the very systems that so threatened our forces in the

past through a smiling demeanor and peaceful exterior. We

built our own forces under the guise of peaceful intent. We

thus entered this decade with an overwhelming advantage in

forces-in-being.

From studying past conflicts, we also understood that the

masses toiling to support the imperialists want their masters’

adventures to be bloodless. We knew these misled people

would rise up to demand an end to further expansion if we

could convince them that they would eventually pay in blood

for their masters’ adventures. 

Finally, we knew we had to find and engage allies who would

bring different and complementary capabilities to our cause.

This was easy, as the imperialists had left a centuries-long

bloody trail of trampled peoples in their wake. Our Islamic

brethren were well prepared to assist us. Their contribution

was the key to our glorious victory—a victory in fact for all the

peoples of Earth.

A year ago today, exactly 90 years after some of our Japanese

ancestors showed the way to begin a conflict with imperialists,

we struck a fatal wound to the enemy’s black heart. We had

four objectives when we opened that glorious day. First, we

needed to strike fast and hard to destroy his eyes, ears, and

central nervous system. This we hoped to do by swiftly striking and removing all his space-based sensors, communications, and C2 systems. Since we recognized that the so-called

commercial systems were part of his means to accomplish

these tasks, we did not plan to spare these systems. Second,

we needed to remove his means to project power, primarily

by removing his long-range space strike forces. Third, we

needed to inflict devastating human losses on his forwardbased forces. Finally, we took a cue from our Islamic allies

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and endeavored to capture imperialist territory along with imperialist forces, which could be used to negotiate a favorable

capitulation. We heeded Master Sun Tzu’s admonition well:

“Do not thwart an enemy returning homewards—to a surrounded enemy you must leave a way of escape.”5 It was not

Armageddon we sought, but a world free of the enslavement

and coercion of corrupt Western values.

To accomplish our first task, we needed to strike the

enemy’s vulnerable nodes for his eyes, ears, and brains. This

was a significant task: There were almost 3,000 satellites carrying the world’s imperialist traffic and war orders. In addition, this information was gathered and disseminated in thousands of critical interstices on the ground. Most of these lay

deep within the territory of our enemy. Here, we planned a coordinated attack with our Islamic allies. While we prepared a

comprehensive strike with the goal of destroying 50 percent of

the enemy’s space systems within 24 hours, we also planned

a massive strike against his key surface nodes. The latter mission would employ martyr attacks, sabotage, and a variety of

sophisticated cyber attacks perfected by our allies. Again, we

aimed for a 50 percent reduction in enemy information flow.

At the same time, we had worked hard to free much of our

government and industrial infrastructure from reliance on

imperialist-controlled systems.

Our D day strike was phenomenally successful. We used both

ground- and space-based weapons to destroy over 1,900 satellites, nearly 70 percent of the adversary’s space infrastructure,

in that first day. Everything worked! Particularly easy were the

so-called commercial systems, which our enemy used for spying and for carrying financial and war plans. The imperialists

had little thought that anyone would attack these “commercial” systems because they believed we all relied on them. Yet

we had a capability in each case—often using alternate means

not in space—for carrying out critical sensor, communications, surveillance, and timing functions. We found that even

very weak directed-energy attacks could quickly silence the

enemy’s space systems. Further, our allies’ attacks proved

swift and sure. The imperialist war machine and the economy

that fed it were brought down in a few short hours.

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Particularly important for us to neutralize in those first few

hours was the enemy’s formidable space strike force—residing

primarily in his constellation of 12 laser battle stations and

two squadrons of intercontinental-attack spaceplanes. If these

weapons had been left active, the ultimate outcome of our

campaign would have been very much in doubt. Thus, we devoted the first few hours of our preemptive strike to locating

and destroying the enemy’s ability to use these assets. As good

fortune would have it, both spaceplane squadrons had been

drawn up for display in the enemy’s celebration of “Pearl Harbor” day. Our spaceplane strike on these two squadrons destroyed 80 percent of the enemy’s war machines. Moreover,

our allies’ martyr attacks got most of the remaining assets—in

addition to the spaceplane production facilities in California.

Not only had we virtually eliminated his forces-in-being, we

had removed his ability to reconstitute these forces for a very

long time. The laser platforms proved even easier to destroy.

While our heroic spaceplane pilots would have no doubt gloried in a personal attack on the laser battle stations, we noted

that the imperialists had anticipated just such a strike. As we

learned in 2017, a laser weapon was the last place one wished

to hit with a direct air or space attack; the closer one gets, the

more formidable the laser becomes. However, 12 loads of simple

ball bearings delivered into the laser platforms’ paths proved

successful in quickly removing that threat to our operations.

After a mere 24 hours, Western economies and armed

forces were in disarray. It was now our task to use our space

superiority to wipe the Western devils from the seas, which

they had dominated for five centuries. With unhindered space

reconnaissance, we had quickly fixed all of their surface ships

and most of their underwater assets. In the second 24 hours

of the conflict, we had sunk 89 of the enemy’s vessels, including four aircraft carriers and 15 submarines. Although we

were saddened by the great loss of life this entailed, it was a

small repayment for centuries of Asian blood extracted to satisfy western greed.

The second week in December saw our victory become complete. As our forces flowed south to complete the task of 2017,

we swept the futile efforts of the imperialist lackeys in Vietnam

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aside. With no support from above, they knew not where we

were or what we were about. The confusion sown in the adversary’s inner working prevented him from even attempting

to withdraw his forces from Vietnam until we had surrounded

them. A swift surrender and 40,000 captives resulted. The

story was the same in Korea. There, too, we were able to sweep

all opposition away with no more effort than was needed to remove an annoying fly. As our victory grew near, those forces

the enemy had counted on came over to our side—the Asian

side—swiftly. We welcome their addition into the Greater Asian

Hegemony today.

Some of you may wonder why we did not continue our success and wipe the imperialist adversary from the face of the

Earth. I must remind you again that a cornered rat fights to

its last extreme ability. We know that the imperialists retain

horrid weapons of mass destruction and would have been only

too happy to unleash them upon the innocent peoples of the

world. This we could not allow. It is our task to return the

world to a time where a thousand blossoms of beauty can

bloom forth. To allow the adversary to unleash mass death—

even had we punished him in the end—would have been to

succumb to the very methods used against us for hundreds of

years. We opted instead to make a new beginning.

We chose to complete the international efforts started so

long ago. In the new United Nations charter that we are now

finalizing, all people will have their voice—not as in the past

with the richest dictating to all, but with each voice heard in

proportion to the numbers shouting the same message. We

have placed the United Nations under Asian protection. And it

will be a peaceful Asian dream that the new United Nations

will work toward from UN headquarters in Beijing.

Our work is just beginning. The Space Peace Treaty just

completed by our negotiating teams in Sydney is a major step

forward. It will forever ban imperialist monopoly of space. It

will ensure the great resources to be had there will be shared

equally by all people. It will deny future imperialists the ability to militarize space in order to threaten the people of Earth.

We have won a great victory—a victory our people have

waited five centuries to enjoy. We are on our way to making

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this millennium the Asian millennium. It will be a time of collective prosperity and collective wisdom—a time for respect for

the cultures of the past and continuity into a culturally rich

future. The wisdom of our leaders, past and present, has made

this great future possible. It is up to you to build it!

Text of the United Nations International Peace Treaty

and

Agreement on Outer Space

2032

Preamble

The states signatory, recognizing that the imperialist aspirations of certain states have, for centuries, driven the world

to war and its associated death, destruction, and suffering, do

hereby complete this treaty, thereby ending the imperialist

era. Recognizing that these same imperialist aspirants have

attempted to expand their grasp into the cosmos, the parties

complete this agreement to ensure that the fruits of human

expansion into space are gathered for the benefit of all

mankind. The attempts of imperialist forces to further dominate human life and expand their sway into the cosmos having resulted in armed conflict in the recent past, the states

signatory hereby declare that the provisions contained herein

do constitute a permanent end to these hostilities.

Article 1

All signatories hereby forever ban any and all claims on territory outside of their currently constituted and United Nations-recognized borders. Changes to future borders or mergers between states will henceforth be accomplished by mutual

agreements overseen by the UN High Commission on Borders.

The Asian Hegemony will chair this commission, which will

consist of representatives from no fewer than five nonimperialist states.

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Article 2

The United States of America assumes full responsibility for

the war of 2031 and admits to having served as the primary

instrument of imperialist expansion in the twenty-first century. The United States of America agrees to pay the United

Nations five trillion dollars in reparations to be spread equally

over the next 10 years and to be used in reconstructing damaged states and redressing past imperialist damages to oppressed peoples. The Asian Hegemony will ensure that all

combatants are expeditiously returned to their respective

homelands.

Article 3

The United States of America agrees to withdraw all forces

to within 200 miles of its current borders and declares that it

will maintain only those forces necessary for internal security.

The United States of America will forever refrain from placing

any military weapon, supporting device, or forces in space. All

signatories agree that outer space will be forever demilitarized.

Peaceful uses of outer space will be enforced by the UN High

Commission on Outer Space, which will be chaired by the

Asian Hegemony and will consist of representatives from no

fewer than five nonimperialist member states. To ensure compliance with these provisions, the High Commission may authorize and finance multinational space peacekeeping forces.

Article 4

All states agree that the fruits of space development will be distributed equitably to all the world’s people. Development and exploitation of space by private parties will be allowed only under

supervision by the UN High Commission on Outer Space and

only under the condition that 90 percent of any products or returns be distributed equitably to the world’s people through the

United Nations High Commission on Outer Space.

Ratified:

24 January 2033, Beijing, Asian Hegemony

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8 February 2033, Washington, D.C., United States of America

15 February 2033, Teheran, Islamic Alliance

15 February 2033, Brussels, European Community

22 February 2033, Moscow, Russian Republic

15 May 2033, Delhi, Republic of India

5 June 2033, Brasilia, Republic of Brazil

Seizing the Solar System

22 August 2038, Wall Street Journal NetNews Item:

The CISLUNE Corporation has been granted a license from

the UN High Commission on Outer Space to utilize location 54

at the lunar South Pole for automated bio products development. Together with their successful application last year for

a solar-power satellite grid slot allocation, this marks CISLUNE

as the only American-chartered company to be granted space

development rights. Financial analysts are not optimistic, however, that CISLUNE will be able to successfully compete with

the government-subsidized Asian groups currently in the

space development business.

2075, Peoria, Illinois, United States of North America:

CISLUNE Home Suite on the World Wide HoloWeb (hololink)

Welcome New Employee,

Congratulations on joining CISLUNE! You are now a member

of the number one team on Earth or above it. We have a proud

tradition of service to our customer, service to our nation, and

service to the world. And above all that, we have always been

profitable. You may have heard about our outstanding employee

ownership and profit-sharing plan. The attached holochip

should answer all of your questions.

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As a new employee, we also hope you will find great pride in

our rather unique history, as we all do. My mother was one of

the original corporation founders, and was the visionary behind

our success in exploiting space. We all also take pride in the role

our corporation has played in assisting our great nation to recover from the terrible setbacks earlier in this century. I think

you will find the brief history we’ve prepared to be inspirational.

Always remember—when you join the CISLUNE space development corporation, opportunities are as endless as the environment in which we work!

Harvey Barbicane

CEO, CISLUNE Corporation

Do you want to know more?.......

About Cislune (hololink)

CISLUNE is the global leader in space development. We are

proud to cite our position as number one global energy supplier.

Over 14 percent of planetary energy usage is supplied via CISLUNE-built and CISLUNE-operated systems. Thirty-two percent

of products manufactured off-world carry a CISLUNE label. We

are the world leader in pharmaceuticals, electromechanical

components, electro-optical components, and nuclear technology. We have subsidiaries in every nation on Earth. But perhaps our most exciting endeavor is our pioneering efforts on

Mars. The corporation now has over five thousand people living

in our Mars facility. We believe the coming decades will see an

explosion in Mars products. We hope you will be a part of this

great endeavor. 

How Did We Get Where We Are? (hololink)

CISLUNE was formed in 2023 by a group of former senior US

Air and Space Force officers. Headed by former Aerospace

Force Chief of Staff General Maria Barbicane, the group established the firm out of both a shared vision and a shared frustration with US government inaction on the space front. Maria

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and her colleagues, however, were assisted by a group of visionary businessmen and, as can now be told, by special US

government funding. Throughout the early part of this century,

it became increasingly clear that governments had their hands

tied when it came to space development.

Although the government intended well, and the space contribution to the economy had reached the $500 billion per

annum level by 2020, efforts to expand this base were undercapitalized. Moreover, most of the business was in supporting

government-sponsored and government-regulated utilities such

as global timing, navigational positions, moving target tracking,

and communications. Governments were increasingly indifferent to space development and were further hamstrung by international treaties, which declared space a “common” preserve—

much like the Antarctic continent. Thus, nations could not “own”

space resources such as lunar or asteroid territory. No one was

going to invest in or make money off things they could not own.

Furthermore, our founder, Dr. Barbicane, knew that true space

development would not occur until there was money to be made

from space products—not just services back on Earth. To put

this in a different perspective, people early in the century were

using space only for things they were already getting via other

means. For example, one could communicate without space systems, navigate without them, and take Earth resources pictures—

all without using space. Space made it possible to do the job better, and sometimes cheaper—but nothing was produced in space.

Maria Barbicane and her colleagues wanted to change that.

Our founders were not unique in desiring to use space for producing products. Since the mid-twentieth century, hundreds of

visionaries had proposed using space for producing energy,

electronics, and pharmaceuticals. Where our founders differed

was in their ability to marshal capital to make the dreams real.

As virtually the entire senior leadership of the recently victorious US Aerospace Force, the executives of CISLUNE had the

credibility to attract big investors. What could not be told until

recently was that some—indeed a very large initial percentage—of the investment was US government funds covertly

channeled to the new CISLUNE Corporation.

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CISLUNE’s first product was, alas, a service. It was one that

could only be done in space, however: repairing and servicing onorbit commercial satellite systems. We purchased three “surplus”

SF-1 spaceplanes—conveniently excess since the Aerospace

Force had canceled their full buy. We had these modified and

went into the space servicing business. Since there were about

3,000 commercial satellites, most of them in low earth orbit with

no affordable way to service them one at a time, we had a big

customer base. Ironically, the second Asian Space War became

quite a windfall for us despite being a disaster for the United

States. Since we were an international company that had remained scrupulously neutral during the conflict, we were not

banned from space, as were most of the wholly American companies. Moreover, the damage done to thousands of commercial

satellites by the Asian Hegemony gave us a vastly increased

market. With a few judiciously applied “investments” in Asian

concerns, we were able to win approval from the Asian-controlled

UN High Commissions to acquire the few undamaged US spaceplane assets that survived the war—and at quite a cut rate. By

the mid-2030s, we had built an enormous investment account

and were ready to begin true space commercial development.

Our first task was to win exclusive access and license to develop space resources. Once again we had to persuade the

Asian “guardians” of space that we were, despite our American

heritage, true internationalists interested only in the welfare of

our entire planet. Fortunately for the company, very few Asian

leaders actually believed the propaganda that all Western-origin

firms were tools of imperialism. Fortunately too, those leaders

were also receptive to profitable partnerships with successful

commercial endeavors. We were thus granted slots for future

solar-power satellites and a portion of the very promising lunar

South Pole territory for commercial development.

The first half of this century, as we all recall, was a time of

environmental paranoia. Any process or procedure, particularly

bioengineering research—even if it was directed at producing

life-saving pharmaceuticals—was impossible to conduct on

Earth. The UN Environmental Control Organization, backed up

by Asian military might, was a very effective enforcer on Earth.

Not so on the Moon. Unfortunately, most of the Moon lacked crit68

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ical resources to support research or manufacturing. But with

the 1994 discovery of ice at the lunar South Pole, we had the

“volatile” resources such as water and hydrocarbons to make a

go of it. By placing an automated bioengineering research and

production facility on the permanently sunlit rim of the lunar

South Pole crater for solar energy and using the volatiles from

the crater floor, we had an effective opportunity to produce profitable products. The UN license gave us the charter, and we

were off. Our 2041 release of lunar-produced NEVERAGE,

which extended the average life span for the elderly user by 10

years, made us an enormous profit—even after we paid the 90

percent UN “human development tax” mandated in the 2032

Space Treaty.

Our next product took a bit longer to develop. When the Islamic Federation began the space-based energy transfer net in

2029 to better market their energy resources and distribute

them to far-flung spots on the globe, they had little idea of the

system’s ultimate use or potential. However, as the contracted

service organization for this net, CISLUNE did. Most experts

laughed at us when we purchased the solar-power slots in

2036, because there were no such satellites at the time. But

once the Islamic power grid was complete, we had the means to

market space-produced solar power. Although our first solarpower satellite was a net loss, largely due to the UN tax and Islamic Federation fees, the situation was soon to change. When

the Kazakhstan oil fields depleted considerably ahead of predictions, the Islamic Federation found itself in the position of going

to CISLUNE to purchase power to meet their market obligations.

By 2052, we owned 14 solar-power satellites—all highly profitable despite the various “taxes and fees” we had to pay.

Our biggest crisis and most glorious moment came in 2056.

With the global recession, the Asian Hegemony met the first real

crisis in its short history. Initially they sought to increase the

“people’s tax” on space activities of firms such as CISLUNE.

This was particularly appealing to them because essentially all

space development had become the province of Western companies. State-controlled monopolies simply aren’t efficient at developing new resources. Given the overwhelming power of the

Asian Space Forces, we complied. But as the recession wors69

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ened, Asian demands grew. The next move of the Asian HegeMony and their allies was to begin making demands of the

western democracies, particularly the United States. Initially,

the US government and its partners complied. But by 2059, the

demands had gotten out of hand. 

Rapidly escalating taxes drove the people to open revolt in

many places. The firebomb attack on the White House on 2 August 2059 was the defining moment. Although not officially invited, Asian forces stepped in to “restore order” in a number of

European, American, and Russian cities. At the same time, the

Hegemony announced it was assuming control of all “Western”

space companies. As head of the largest space corporation, Dr.

Barbicane, then over 80 years old, took the lead in formulating

a response. Meeting surreptitiously with the Joint Chiefs of Staff

of the American Self-Defense Forces, Western space executives

decided to seize the high ground. Marshaling over 3,000 spaceplane resources, compared to less than 500 obsolete but heavily armed Hegemony war birds, our firms managed to destroy

all Hegemony forces in space and those trying to reach space.

Most effective was the technique of narrowing the beams of the

solar-power satellites to serve as a crude form of directed-energy weapon. The Hegemony responded by seizing all groundbased corporate assets and arresting any corporate or US military official they could lay hands on. Fortunately, we had

evacuated key leaders of both the United States and our corporate structure to our lunar base.

Autumn 2059 was an awful time for everyone. Although we

knew terrible suffering would result and we also knew the

Hegemony would respond in a vicious manner, which they did

by beginning public executions of the leaders they had arrested,

we cut off all space “utilities”: power, communications, timing

services, and space-manufactured pharmaceuticals. Although

these utilities have grown markedly from what they were 15

years ago, they were still formidable then, with 25 percent of

the global energy usage produced or transmitted through space

capabilities. The rest was, as they say, “history.” With the upheaval that led to the collapse of the Hegemony government in

December 2059, we had won.

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The company you have just joined is proud of its heritage and

its contributions to a free, prosperous, and progressive world.

Our future is limitless. Perhaps our most exciting program is our

Mars Development Corporation (MDC), operating under official

charter to explore this new world. With several hundred people

already living on Mars at New Jamestown Outpost, we are developing nuclear and antimatter technology, which will revolutionize life on both Earth and Mars! As CISLUNE owns 45 percent of the MDC, you will have an opportunity to share in the

profits earned by MDC. It will be an exciting time to own part of

a new planet!

Notes

1. Art Kleiner, The Age of Heretics (New York: Doubleday, 1996).

2. Charles J. Dunlap Jr., “How We Lost the High-Tech War Of 2007,” The

Weekly Standard, January 29, 1996, 22.

3. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Trans. and with an Introduction by Samuel

B. Griffith (London, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1963).

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

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Chapter 3

Mathematical and Physical Realities

We can easily observe how animals move over land, or how

a swan moves across the water, or how a fish moves beneath

it. We can even conceive of basic aerodynamics by observing a

bird in flight. Thus, until the dawn of the space age, humans

had natural examples of movement in all mediums from which

they could observe and derive man-made means to do the

same. The movement of objects in space, however, is neither

observable nor, from a biological standpoint, natural. Space is

a medium that lies completely outside Earth’s biosphere—and

outside the realm of direct human observation.

Astrodynamics is not an intuitive science. Even the firstyear astronautics student can have difficulty grasping the most

basic concepts (to overtake an object in orbit, you must actually

slow down—to decrease your orbit radius). An understanding

of the fundamental physics of the space environment is essential for anyone who would seek to also understand how to

properly use and control space.

Space Environment/Orbits

The basic concept of all space operations is the orbit. The realities of space travel and moving around in space differ from

all other operations as the branch of physics called orbital mechanics totally dominates. On the simplest level, space may be

thought of as an empty vacuum occupied by large spherical

masses—for the foreseeable future those we are concerned

with are the Sun, the Earth, and Earth’s Moon, other planets

and their natural moons, and small bodies called asteroids.

Every mass is attracted to other masses through the force of

gravity, which might be represented by an elastic band stretching between the two bodies. The band’s attractive power increases as the two bodies come closer together. Suppose the

two bodies are moving in a straight line (as all moving bodies

in a vacuum do unless acted on by an outside force—one of

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Newton’s laws) and are moving so as to pass close by one another. As they get closer, their mutual gravity attraction will

tend to curve their respective paths toward one another. If they

do not collide and if they are moving slowly enough, they will

go into an orbit around one another. The force of gravity counterbalances centrifugal force, which tends to swing them apart.

Orbits can be elliptical or circular (i.e., the path of one object

around the other is either an ellipse or a circle). Since space is

not a perfect vacuum, other forces are also operating on these

two bodies and other objects “out there.” These forces tend,

over time, to reduce elliptical orbits into circular ones. Thus,

objects that have been orbiting other objects for a long time—

such as Earth around the Sun—usually have almost circular

orbits. The first objective of space travel is to get into orbit

around Earth.

The easiest orbit to get into around Earth is known as low

earth orbit, or LEO. This orbit is located just above the atmosphere. One could, of course, orbit Earth within the atmosphere,

but one would then need to constantly counteract the effects

of air resistance to stay in orbit. For the purposes of our discussion, the differences between a vehicle that can “fly” into

LEO and one that can fly to the other side of the planet through

space, such as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), are

insignificant. For both, the objectives are: 1) raise the

vehicle/payload above Earth’s atmosphere; and 2) accelerate

the vehicle/payload to “orbital” velocities (to reiterate, where

gravitational attraction between Earth and the satellite is exactly balanced by centrifugal force)—about 17,500 miles per

hour (mph). To do this, an object at rest on Earth’s surface

must acquire both “potential energy” by rising in Earth’s gravity field several hundred miles and “kinetic energy” by obtaining a velocity of 17,500 mph. This total is a significant amount

of energy. A one-pound object in orbit has the equivalent potential and kinetic energy (relative to something at rest on

Earth) of about 10 pounds of TNT. This suggests that at least 10

pounds of TNT, or its equivalent, are needed for each pound we

want to put into LEO. Space differs from all other fields of human

endeavor since it operates in this enormous energy regime.

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The essence of space travel and how it differs from ground,

sea, and air travel is simple. Traveling via ground, sea, or air

does not entail using lots of energy to gain potential and kinetic energy (although air travel approaches this), but simply

to overcome friction and air resistance.

A comparison between jet-powered air travel and space travel

is useful. In both cases, the means to give kinetic/potential

energy to the payload (space) or overcome air resistance/friction

(air) is to apply another of Newton’s laws—that of equal and

opposite reactions. In both cases, the necessary energy comes

from chemical reactions. A reactant (fuel) is heated by chemical reactions (burning) to high temperature. The thermal energy of this “working fluid” (kinetic energy of motion in the

heated particles) is directed out an exhaust nozzle, transferring momentum and associated energy to the vehicle in the

opposite direction. Since aircraft must continually overcome

air resistance, the thrust is continuous. There is (almost) no

resistance in space, so the thrust need only apply until the

payload has gained the necessary potential and kinetic energy

to achieve orbit. Chemical energy, however, is not very efficient—it takes the energy from about 10 pounds of chemical

fuel (such as TNT, as noted earlier) to get a one-pound payload

into LEO. The energy needed to overcome air resistance

throughout an aircraft flight across the planet is several times

less, and the energy needed to overcome water resistance in

sea transport is many times less.

Even the most efficient system for getting a payload to space

must burn at least 10 times the weight in chemical fuel as the

payload weight we desire in orbit. If all this fuel is carried

along from launch onward, the system needed to get to space,

which includes the launch vehicle and fuel, is very much

larger and heavier than the payload. Conversely, an airplane

can have a much larger fraction of its liftoff weight in payload

and structure. The weight of the vehicle’s fuel compared to its

total weight, including payload, is known as “mass fraction.”

Since an airplane gets some of its chemical reactant (oxidizer)

from the air, it has an even lower mass fraction—typically 50

percent or less—whereas a space launch vehicle is more than

90 percent fuel. Since much of the remaining weight is the

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launch vehicle’s structure, only two to six percent of liftoff

weight actually reaches orbit.

Space launch vehicles are typically staged to reduce overhead costs. Following from the prior discussion, most of the

size of a space launch vehicle is set by fuel needs, which are

enormous for any launch vehicle. Once the fuel is exhausted,

there’s no need to drag along the big empty tanks to orbit, so

a space launch vehicle stacks several rockets on top of one another. Each rocket stage falls away when it burns out, reducing the structure that is carried into space.

Most launch vehicles today have a further inefficiency, in

that they are designed for one-time use; that is, they are “expendable.” The additional complexity and weight, which would

be required for designing reuse into the launch vehicle, has

been considered cost-ineffective. However, many analysts believe the reusable launch vehicle—eventually a “single stage to

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A space shuttle main engine being prepared for test firing.

Courtesy of NASA
LEO” launch vehicle—is a concept whose time has come. The

space shuttle is only a partially reusable and partially successful attempt at achieving this; a truly reusable spacecraft

would be significantly different from and significantly more

advanced than the shuttle. The military has designated such

reusable space vehicles as “spaceplanes.”

Getting into LEO is literally only half the task. The easiest

orbit to reach is a “LEO equatorial.” When a vehicle is launched

due east from the equator, Earth’s rotation velocity (about

1,000 mph if you are on the equator) is added before it even

leaves the surface. As we launch from locations further north

(or south) away from the equator, the less benefit we get from

Earth’s “push.” And there is a “coverage” problem in launching due east from a location near the equator: The satellite will

overfly only a limited band of territory near the equator.

To cover the entire globe, a polar orbit is required. Earth

turns beneath a polar-orbiting satellite, allowing for a different view of the surface with each succeeding orbit. And there

is a “special” orbit, called sun-synchronous, which puts the

satellite over the same locations at more or less the same

times each day throughout the year. However, launches in directions other than due east, even on the equator, get less

benefit than due east. And north/south launches get no help

at all from Earth’s rotation. 

One might think that once our vehicle is in orbit we could

simply do a “plane change” to put it into a more desirable

orbit—say from LEO equatorial to polar. We can do this, but it

takes nearly the same amount of energy to move a satellite

from an equatorial orbit to a polar one as it took to launch it

in the first place.

Some of the more useful orbits are higher than LEO. The

GPS, for example, orbits every 12 hours at about 10,000 miles

altitude in what’s called a mid-earth orbit (MEO). Most current

communications satellites orbit at 22,000 miles directly over

the equator in a geostationary orbit (GEO). At this altitude and

in this orbit, the satellite appears to hover over the same point

when viewed from the ground. It is thus ideal for communications relays or continuous national security surveillance of a

particular portion of Earth.

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To get to any of these higher orbits takes more energy than

merely getting to LEO. Typically we place a vehicle into LEO

that consists mostly of the additional rocket stage required to

boost the final payload into GEO. Based on current efficiencies, the same size rocket can place only about one-fourth the

useful payload into GEO as LEO. 

The Economics of Space Travel

The energy required to put payloads into orbit tells much

about the utility of space endeavors to the average business

concern or the individual citizen. It is reasonable to define a

society’s productive capability as the energy used by each citizen multiplied by the number of citizens. This quantity has

been slowly increasing for the past several thousand years, especially for people in the most developed societies. With the

unlocking of fossil fuels in the nineteenth century, this quantity increased dramatically. And again, the greatest gains have

been in the most technologically developed countries. Today,

for example, each citizen in the United States uses energy

equivalent to 100,000 pounds of TNT per year. This compares

to a mean global usage of 20,000 pounds of TNT per person

per year. One transcontinental flight uses the equivalent of

about 1,000 pounds of TNT in fuel—one percent of an average

American’s usage, about five percent of Earth’s average. It is

thus reasonable to transport people and many high-value

goods by air.

Space travel is far more expensive in energy usage. The

amount of fuel needed to place an object into orbit is 10 times

the cost of taking it between continents. If we wish to place an

object into more useful GEO or MEO orbits, the energy cost is

40 times the between-continents cost. To take something to

the Moon is 100 times the baseline energy usage. Thus, transportation of material to and from space will only be attempted

for the highest value products. Today, those products are almost exclusively “weightless” information services. To take a

human into even LEO—at 100 percent efficiency for energy

usage—requires at least 50 percent of the annual energy requirements of an average Earth inhabitant. Clearly, large-scale

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space transportation of people or goods is economically unfeasible at current energy costs.

The cost of the transportation vehicle itself must be added

to the costs discussed above. Hardware complexities and costs

are about the same for space vehicles and air vehicles. For example, an aircraft that can transport 100,000 pounds at

transcontinental distances costs about the same as a space

launch vehicle that can transport 10,000 pounds into LEO.

The cost for each is about $100 million in US currency. But we

cannot buy a ticket to LEO for a mere 10 times the cost of a

transcontinental ticket (about $10,000, or two times the cost

of fuel), although certain visionaries claim they can approach

this low cost with a reusable rocket. In fact, the cost to put a

person in orbit is much closer to $10 million, at least 1,000

times more expensive than mere fuel costs alone would indicate. The reason for this is that the rocket is used once,

whereas an intercontinental aircraft is used thousands of

times before it is discarded. To narrow this gap, the answer

would seem to be a “spaceplane” that could be used and repeatedly reused just as an airplane is.

The reusable spaceplane is the focus of much governmental

and private development. Development costs should approximate those of developing a new transcontinental aircraft—

somewhere between $5 billion and $10 billion. Viewed from a

purely energetic standpoint, the spaceplane payload should

constitute about 10 percent that of a similarly sized airplane.

The required technology appears to be well within hand. It

would seem, therefore, that we could be on the verge of developing a large-scale space transportation system. While it

would not be as easily developed as an air transportation system, it would appear to be at least within a factor of 10 in feasibility. 

There is, however, another challenge. An aircraft usually operates its propulsion systems somewhere near 60 to 80 percent of capacity, whereas a space launch system continuously

operates very close to 100 percent of its maximum engine performance. The reason for this is that rocket engines, operating

with current fuels, barely have enough output to get into

space, whereas jet turbine engines have considerable “excess

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thrust” or “margin.” Engineers will quickly point out that any

mechanical device that operates very close to its margin (the

“edge of its envelope”) has a limited life. For this reason, it appears that any near-term spaceplane would be “reusable” a

few hundred times at best, as compared to a few thousand

times for an equivalent aircraft. This additional inefficiency

means that any space transportation will “cost” about 100

times more for LEO operations and up to 1,000 times more for

operating within the Earth-Moon system than would equivalent air transport.

Most “space visionaries” predict space travel in the next century will be akin to air travel in this century or sea travel in the

sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. This is improbable,

however, unless at least two things happen. First, technology—

particularly propulsion technology—must advance to the state

that space launch systems become both fully reusable and operate much farther from their theoretical engineering margins

so that a space transportation system can be reused thousands of times while requiring minimal refurbishment and infrastructure maintenance between flights. Second, and far

more important, mean per capital usage of energy resources

must increase by at least a factor of 10. Such an increase is

very unlikely in the current environment; that is, where there

is both a very limited supply of fossil fuels and a rapidly increasing global demand for these resources.

The energy usage problem is a serious one for which space

itself may prove to be both the solution and the impetus for

further space usage. Per capita energy usage in the most advanced societies today has been essentially stagnant for the

past half century. Newer terrestrial sources of energy, such as

nuclear fission and fusion, do not appear to offer a clear solution to this dilemma, since they seem to produce as much in

the way of ancillary problems—nuclear waste—as they supply

in additional energy.

As we will return to below, space can solve these limitations

by making the terrestrial energy situation an “open” problem

vice a “closed” problem. If the current closed energy balance

continues, it becomes very difficult to find a “growth” solution

where Earth’s seven-odd billion people can achieve increasing

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energy usage. Even simple problems, such as disposal of

waste heat, and by-products, such as radioactive wastes, inhibit any significant growth. However, space can provide both

a means of opening the trade-space—by this we mean a way

to dispose of excess, and often dangerous, by-products such

as radioactive waste—and a source for unlimited energy input.

The key to both these problems would appear to be the freespace transmission of energy—in essence, energy in a form

that can be “beamed” from one point to another. This powerbeaming technology is slowly maturing and appears today to

involve coherent microwaves or lasers as the mechanisms for

carrying the energy. When this technology matures, it should

open an era in which the global power grid resides in space

and can receive its energy inputs from space-based sources

such as large solar-power satellites.

Thus, the development of a global energy utility, probably

decades into the future, is the key to space development. As

the price of accessing space falls, the energy resources available to the citizenry will increase. Correspondingly, individuals and groups will find it within their means to access space

for continued expansion and development.

Weapon Effectiveness and Space

Space capabilities are the key to effective military operations

in the future. As noted in chapter 1, simply the possibility of a

massive US investment in space weaponry was a significant

factor in ending the Cold War. To understand why, consider

traditional measures of military effectiveness. In 1945, noted

British strategist Gen J.F.C. Fuller listed the following qualitative parameters as measures of military effectiveness:

1. range of action

2. striking power

3. accuracy of aim

4. volume of fire 

5. portability

A 1989 analysis by one of the authors quantified these parameters.1 The first three can be combined into a parameter

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similar to one used today to measure a laser weapon’s effectiveness—“brightness.” Brightness combines distance, accuracy, and power into a single number. It specifies how much

energy the laser weapon puts into a cone; physicists measure

this in “joules” (a unit of energy about equivalent to that needed

to tap a finger on the table) per “steradian” (a unit of conic volume). One steradian is about the size of an old-fashioned

megaphone cone. Although brightness is designed to measure

beam weapons, a “pseudo-brightness” can be derived for any

weapon system. However, brightness alone is not a complete

measure of weapon effectiveness. Firing rate, which combines

General Fuller’s volume of fire and portability, is also important. Thus, a basic measure of weapon effectiveness could be

expressed as:

Effectiveness = Brightness times Firing Rate

Table 1 and Figure 3 consider weapons during the past millennia in terms of this parameter and compare results. For

space weapons, two different types, “kinetic energy” (“hit-tokill” interceptors) and directed-energy (laser) weapons, were

considered.

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Table 1

Weapon Effectiveness

Source: Simon P. Worden, SDI and the Alternatives (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1991), 14.

Era Brightness Firing Rate Effectiveness

(Year AD) Weapon Timea (J/Sr) (per sec) (J/Sr/sec)

1000 Arrows 6 Months 108 10-2 106

1500 Bullets 3 Months 109 10-1 108

1800 Artillery 1 Month 1012 10-1 1011

1900 Artilleryb 1 Week 1014 10 1014

1930 Aircraft 1 Day 1019 10-1 1018

1950 Aircraftc 1 Day 1023 10-2 1021

1970 ICBM 1 Hour 1023 10-1 1022

2000 SBKKVd 1 Hour 1023 10 1023

2020 Laser 5 Min 1022 102 1024
Effectiveness is defined as “brightness,” or directed (aimed) destructive energy, deliverable on the enemy per unit of time.

Interestingly enough, when these metrics are used, both

types of space weapons are more “effective” than the aggregate

of Cold War ICBM forces. The reason for this is that spacebased weapons can be positioned and brought to bear quickly

and accurately. In the case of directed-energy weapons, they

can also have very high firing rates. The conclusion is important: Nonnuclear precision weapons combined with space basing can be more militarily effective than ground-based nuclear

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Figure 3. Military Effectiveness

Source: Simon P. Worden, SDI and the Alternatives (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1991), 14.

ELEMENTS IN THE STRATEGIC DEBATE

MILITARY

EFFECTIVENESS

“BRIGHTNESS

PER UNIT

TIME”

[J/Sr/Sec]

1025

1050

1025

1000

105

1000 AD 1500 AD 2000 AD

DATE
weapons. This potential is even more important today, given

the ever-increasing need for precision weaponry with controllable effects.

One additional fact regarding space weapons is important.

This is the inherent power in “kinetic energy” weapons. Kinetic

energy, as noted above, is the energy carried by an object in

motion. An especially important feature of kinetic energy is

that the amount contained by a moving object, while increasing proportional to the mass of the object, increases as the

square of the velocity. Since objects in space move very fast in

comparison to anything that moves on or below Earth’s surface, kinetic energy is a dominating feature of objects in space.

A typical large satellite in Earth orbit with a mass of 10 tons

contains almost a kiloton of kinetic energy—much higher than

the amount of energy the satellite would carry if it were a

purely high-explosive weapon. Even more significant is that

the same satellite in orbit around the Sun, which could have

a velocity relative to Earth up to 10 times larger than an

Earth-orbiting satellite, would carry kinetic energy comparable to that in a large nuclear weapon—megatons! This is why

even a small natural object such as an asteroid about a hundred feet across can cause immense damage. Just such an asteroid created the Barringer Crater, also known as “Meteor

Crater,” just west of Winslow, Arizona. It appears that a much

larger object, probably a few miles across, released billions of

megatons 65 million years ago— enough to wipe out most

species on Earth, including the dinosaurs.

A testament to the power of kinetic energy, this immense

crater was created by a meteor a few hundred feet in diameter.

Range of Interest

Two related distances have defined human spheres of influence, particularly in the military arena. The first distance is that

which an individual weapon travels more or less instantaneously; that is, happening too fast for effective reaction. For

most of humankind’s history, this was the distance one could

throw a rock or a spear—about 20 to 30 feet. With the development of “assisted” weapons such as arrows, this range increased

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Barringer Crater

Courtesy of NASA
to a few hundred feet. Explosively assisted weapons, such as artillery, increased this range to a few miles, and rocket-propelled

weapons (e.g., ICBMs) have raised the range to thousands of

miles. This range might be considered to set the size of the “battlefield.” The second range of interest is set by the distance one

is able to transport an army in a campaign, typically a few

weeks’ time. On foot, as mankind was for most of his history,

this range was a mere few tens of miles. The development of animal-powered transport and sea transport raised this to over

100 miles. Sophisticated wind-driven sea transport raised this

to about 1,000 miles, and mechanical-driven ships, including

aircraft, made this range essentially global. This range might be

thought of as the theater of operations.

The relationship between the battlefield and the theater of

operations seems to have remained constant, with about a factor of 1,000 between them. This relationship seems to hold

today. With instantaneous weapons operating over ranges of a

thousand miles or so, our theater of operations has expanded

to encompass several hundred thousand miles into space or

into a good bit of the space between Earth and its Moon—

referred to as cislunar space.

The range of both weapons, battlefield and theater, will continue to expand. Laser weapons, such as space-based lasers

(SBL) with instantaneous ranges of many thousands of miles

are under development. Our commercial and military operations

already contemplate operations throughout cislunar space. It

is likely that beam weapons will continue to expand ranges

and our ability to travel in space will expand to a point in the

middle of the next century where our theater of operation

could encompass much of the inner solar system.

The previous discussion distills to three important points for

serious consideration in the development of a far-reaching

space power strategy:

1. Space is not yet a regime of human operations comparable to sea or air. It will not become so until mankind expands per-capita energy resources and usage at least an

order of magnitude. This will not happen until we begin to

use space as both a source of energy and a means of mitigating ever-increasing energy usage problems here on

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Earth. A nearer-term requirement to achieve this is the

development of reusable spacecraft that operate within

more conventional engineering margins (60–80%) rather

than at the extreme edges of engineering envelopes.

2. Despite this inability to move about as freely in space as

we would wish, space weaponry—in the form of longrange missiles—has already become a vital means of national attack and defense. While nuclear weapons and

other technologies remain important, very high-velocity

kinetic energy systems that are unique to space and inherent in space operations (i.e., systems that expand the

weapons-range/battle space envelope in the tradition of

spears, arrows, artillery, and ICBMs) may be the ultimate

weapons in the next half-century of warfare. Such

weapons will also be extremely precise, likely leveraging

other space capabilities (or “utilities,” as we will discuss in

the next chapter) to execute their missions.

3. We already regard space, out to at least GEO, as part of

our legitimate military theater of operations. Strategic vision compels us to continually expand our perspective:

We will soon need to consider all of cislunar space, and we

should begin to think about operations throughout the

inner solar system.

Notes

1. Simon P. Worden, SDI and the Alternatives (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1991).

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Chapter 4

Options for the New Century

The world is entering an era of shared global utilities. These

utilities are increasingly based upon space systems. To understand the importance of these utilities, consider an event in

California just a few years ago. On 23 October 1997, a power

substation in San Francisco shut down unexpectedly. Occurring during rush hour, this power loss plunged the entire city

into a four-hour gridlock. Several days later, it was determined

that this event had been the result of deliberate sabotage:

Someone had broken into the substation and turned off a

number of the generators. Whereas this event appeared to

have been the result of a single individual, it raised the specter

of organized attacks on utilities covering a major portion of the

nation. Such attacks would not and could not be adequately addressed by civilian law enforcement agencies. Organized and

widespread attacks on utilities systems could very well be part

of a concerted attack on the United States in the future.

As global nuclear or conventional strikes on the United

States become less likely (for a time, but certainly not forever),

attacks against an ever more integrated economic and commercially reliant infrastructure become more likely. To understand how the military itself relies on these commercial utilities,

consider that 95 percent of current military communications are

carried over commercial circuits. This reliance on commercial

circuits prompted the president to charter the National Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection and the Congress

to charter a National Defense Panel to review the Department

of Defense. These groups and many others decry the vulnerability of our military infrastructure as well as the lack of national security attention being focused on protecting these

services. The Space Commission chaired by Donald Rumsfeld

likened US vulnerability to a space “Pearl Harbor.” What all of

these reports do not explicitly state is the degree to which

these global utilities are increasingly space-based and are already under attack.

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Communications

Most people know that global communications are largely reliant on space systems. Many believe that threats to these communications systems will be “cyber attacks” or other forms of

“cyber piracy.” These are assumed to be computer virus-type

attacks inserted in the process flow of communications. For example, a group of teenagers hacked into a number of sensitive

DOD and National Aeronautics and Space Administration

(NASA) computers in early 1998 (and there have been a number

of similar incidents since).1 With recognition of the threat of

cyber attack, many groups, including the US military, are moving to protect themselves by planning and/or implementing various strategies, including having multiple redundant communication systems. Information warfare and its methods, to be sure,

will play an ever-increasing role in national security affairs.

However, the threat is not limited to just the cyber dimension.

The physical assets that comprise communications networks—

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Advanced Communication Technology Satellite 

Courtesy of NASA
whether terrestrial or spaceborne—will also continue to be targets. With increased ease of access to space and the relatively

low number of space “nodes” in the form of individual satellites, these assets become increasingly important and are, for

now, totally vulnerable.

It is also widely believed that only sophisticated states or

groups will be able to mount attacks on global communications, particularly against the space nodes. In fact, this is not

true. Consider an incident in 1996 between the states of

Tonga and Indonesia—neither highly developed technologically. Both states had claimed a GEO satellite communications slot. When Tonga moved its national communications

satellite into this disputed spot, Indonesia protested. However,

it appears that Indonesia did more than just protest, for Tongans soon began having difficulties in using their satellite; apparently, it was being jammed. Although it is now widely accepted that Indonesia was deliberately interfering with the

Tongan satellite, it took considerable time before any clear

idea of what was happening emerged. The lesson here is not

that a satellite can be jammed, but that relatively undeveloped

nations have both the will and the means to interfere with another state’s space-based infrastructure. Add to this the will

and determination of not only nation-states, but also nonstate

actors such as terrorist groups, and the spectrum of threats

becomes very wide indeed.

Global communications will increasingly rely on space for

both military and civil uses, especially in those areas not serviceable by terrestrial networks. Direct broadcast television is

now being adapted for military use in the “Global Broadcast

System” program. We noted in chapter 1 the role being played

by distributed low Earth orbit satellite communications systems in constructing the “information superhighway” as it has

come to be called. Since virtually all financial transactions—

trillions of dollars per day—travel over these networks, an attack can have devastating consequences on national and even

global economies.

Even only small decreases in communications capacity can

have far-reaching consequences for military or economic endeavors. Consider what some call the “Mother’s Day Syndrome.”

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Anyone attempting to call his or her mother on that holiday

knows the frustration of repeatedly getting the recorded phone

message, “Due to heavy Mother’s Day calling, all circuits are

busy; please try your call again later.” Imagine trying to conduct a critical business—or worse, a military operation—in the

presence of such problems.

Of interest to note here is the military origin for communications capabilities we now rely upon. The Internet was, after

all, an initiative of the Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency in the 1960s.

Global Positioning System

Another important global utility that arose out of military requirements is the Global Positioning System, or GPS. This system has become the key to an $8 billion-plus industry. It will

soon be the primary, and perhaps sole, means for air traffic

management. Its other applications range from entertainment

and recreation to agriculture, Earth resources, and exploration. However, its potentially most far-reaching application

is in timing. To understand its importance as a timing source,

consider an incident that occurred on 17 March 1997. A small

manual input error was made in a routine update to one of the

constellation’s 24 satellites that resulted in a small time error

being broadcast on a single satellite for only six seconds. While

this would have little impact on those who use GPS as a navigation tool (most GPS receivers will ignore a single out-ofrange error), those who use the system for timing purposes

will get a time “hack” from the nearest satellite. These time

readings have many uses, one of the most important being

time-shared circuits—circuits that interweave many different

users on the same wires. Cellular telephone systems are just

one such time-shared circuit. Thus, the cellular networks in

the eastern United States duly picked up the errant time-hack

satellite—and 110 of 800 cellular sites in that part of the country failed. Since some of its elements had an incorrect time

and other elements had the correct time, the circuits were no

longer correctly time-shared. The entire system responded by

“crashing” for several hours.

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Future GPS upgrades promise time hacks as accurate as

one nanosecond (one billionth of a second)—at least 20 times

better than today’s system. This means properly coordinated

systems will be able to time-share even more efficiently. But

also the nanosecond timing is very close to the operating

cycle-time speed of most modern integrated circuits. What this

means is that computers at positions separated by thousands

of miles can operate in a coordinated manner. This will, in

turn, lead to any given function becoming “distributed” over

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American Satellite Company (ASC) Communication Satellite

Courtesy of NASA
many computers operating in concert through the good offices

of the GPS timing signal. The efficiency so produced will mean

that GPS coordinated circuits will become imbedded in many,

if not most, electronic systems. Systems as specialized and diverse as climate control within buildings, water handling, and

sewage treatment will become dependent on that simple GPS

signal. It is not difficult to conclude that someone interfering

with the GPS timing signal can produce a devastating impact

on national or even international operations.

More Utilities on the Way

The US national security community continues to pursue

efforts to deploy a global space-based system known as SpaceBased Radar (SBR). The purpose of such a system would be to

supplement and eventually replace the moving target indicators (MTI) currently employed by the airborne Joint Surveillance, Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) and the Airborne

Warning and Control System (AWACS). While this would continue and expand the “revolution in military affairs” whereby

the military would be able to “find, fix, track, and target” objects anywhere on the planet, it has even more far-reaching

commercial implications. Just as the GPS timing signal acts

as an electronic traffic cop, the SBR will serve as a global traffic cop for all things moving on or above the surface (and might

eventually be extended even below the surface). It paints a

radar picture of the ground much as an AWACS aircraft maps

the air. Such a radar platform could migrate to space.

Knowing where everything is and where it’s moving to will

result in great increases in traffic flow for all types of goods,

services, and transportation. Since SBR uses synthetic aperture radar (SAR), we would have not only indications of moving objects but images of them as well.

Since the 1970s, experts have discussed the possibility of

supplying electrical power from space. Two concepts emerged:

solar-power satellites and fusion-power systems. Solar-power

satellites are probably the more near-term of the concepts.

The basic idea is to build immense—perhaps kilometers on a

side—solar voltaic cell satellites to produce large amounts of

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solar electrical power. These huge “solar panels” would “beam”

this power to Earth using microwave or perhaps laser beams.

Many technological problems must be solved before this concept becomes a reality, including efficient ways to convert electrical energy back and forth between sunlight, laser or microwave energy, and electrical power. Another issue at hand is

the need for low-cost ways to emplace massive solar-power

stations in space—or perhaps to construct them from resources mined on the Moon or on asteroids. These problems

are not insurmountable, but experts agree that it will take

decades before they are adequately addressed. 

Key to solving these problems is the efficient “free space”

transmission of energy. Laser or microwave beams appear

most likely, and both have been demonstrated—but not with

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Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) 

Courtesy of NASA
the necessary degree of efficiency. Related to this transmission

problem is the challenge of “downlinking” the power generated

in space to a terrestrial location without endangering lives or

property. As with laser and microwave beams, plausible approaches to solving this problem have been proposed and

progress is being made.

An alternative source of energy from space is nuclear fusion,

which proceeds from a “resource” that is present on the Moon

but not on Earth. Nuclear fusion is theoretically much

cleaner than nuclear fission—our current nuclear power

scheme—because it produces much less radioactive by-product.

This is particularly true for fusion reactions using a very rare

isotope of Helium—Helium Three, or He3. This isotope is produced in the outer regions of the Sun via nuclear reactions.

Because Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere shield it from

much of this radiation, little He3 reaches Earth’s surface. The

Moon has neither atmosphere nor magnetic field, however,

and He3 from billions of years of exposure has been collected

in rocks on the lunar surface. Visionaries have proposed mining the Moon for this ultimate fusion fuel, but we are years

away from any reasonable concept for efficient use of nuclear

fusion. Moreover, even He3 fusion is not completely free of radioactive by-product.

Space may, however, provide another answer for nuclear

power. Since locations in space, such as the Moon, are “lifeless,” far more efficient nuclear power production—as well as

other hazardous nuclear processes—could go on there with little or no danger to the terrestrial biosphere or its life. Again,

the key to success is the ability to transmit energy efficiently

from one place to another.

The effective and safe perfection of power beaming or a similar form of long-distance energy transport will revolutionize

this utility, regardless of the initial source of the energy. Much

of today’s energy costs is in transporting raw material—oil, for

example—from its production location to the energy production and use site. As long-distance energy transmission becomes feasible, this physical transport will undoubtedly migrate to space-based transmission systems much as

communications systems have done and are continuing to do.

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Once this happens, we will have a fundamental global utility

in space—and one that modern civilization cannot do without.

Once these space-based transmission systems are in place,

space-based energy production, through solar-power satellites, space-based fusion reactors, or some other method, will

begin to supply increasing quantities of energy to meet Earth’s

burgeoning demand.*

It is important here to note the synergy between increased

access to energy from space and increased access to space.

Note the discussion in chapter 3 concerning the mean per

capita energy usage of a terrestrial citizen and the energy cost

to get to space. Unless per capita energy consumption can increase dramatically, access to space for the average citizen will

be very limited. However, a terrestrially closed ecosphere can

neither supply nor contain a significant increase in energy

consumption. Unlimited expansion of per capita energy usage

may be possible, however, if we use space as both a source of

energy and, maybe more important, as a repository for energy

wastes—making the terrestrial ecosphere an “open” system. 

At the same time, this dual use of space could make it much

easier for all people to access space. It will be then, perhaps a

century or more into the future, when mankind’s true expansion into the solar system begins. 

Other Space-Based Resources

Although we are again bordering on the realm of science fiction, space does offer unlimited resources. The lunar surface

appears to have nothing of great material value other than

special resources such as He3. It even lacks such critical manufacturing material as water and hydrocarbons (with the possible exception of the lunar South Pole, where ice appears to

have been discovered a few years ago).

As new products, perhaps from bioengineering technology

or nuclear technology, become increasingly promising, concerns

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*The greater our ability to exchange “fossil fuels” for “photons” in our society, the

more effective will be energy sources from space.
about the processes required to manufacture them also increase. Consider a hypothetical example. Suppose a new bioengineering product that could extend life spans by some significant amount were proposed. Suppose, too, that the process

required to produce the product was itself potentially very

dangerous. It is unlikely that such a process would be allowed

to proceed very far on Earth. Far from Earth and its teeming

life, however, this process would be much more acceptable. It

thus appears plausible that immensely profitable manufacturing

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South Pole Region of the Moon as Seen by Clementine

Courtesy of NASA
could begin on the natural isolation ward the Moon represents. It is particularly likely that such manufacturing, most

probably automated, would occur in proximity with the very

limited lunar water resources at the lunar poles. 

Protection and Denial

This brief, highly speculative discussion only tells us that

space could very well come to represent a vital and increasingly large share of the global economy. Indeed, space already

is an economic engine in some cases. Resources and opportunities are limited at some locations (e.g., GEO communications satellite slots). Immense wealth opportunities, sources of

vital infrastructure, and limited resources invariably provide

the basis for conflict. As the world returns to its traditional

multinational competition, and as threats of global war recede,

such conflicts could well escalate. 

The potential for increasing conflict in the space arena has

not been lost on US national security planners. Numerous reports and recommendations, such as those of presidential

commissions (including the Rumsfeld-led Space Commission)

and Defense Science Board reports, among others, stress the

growing importance of infrastructure protection. However,

most do not seem to fully recognize the degree to which these

utilities are moving to space. Nor do they consider both the defensive and the offensive aspects of this move.

Imagine that one nation threatens another nation at some

future time. The threatening party will undoubtedly rely to

some extent on global utilities to conduct all their activities,

whether economic, military, or support. No group will be able

to conduct any significant international operation in the

twenty-first century without access to space-based global support. Thus, just as aggressors will threaten our access to these

support systems, we could mitigate the threat they pose by

denying such access to them.

How does one deny access to a space-based utility? How

does one protect it? There are two strategies that an aggressor

may employ to attack a utility. One is to attack the links—cut

the “wires.” The other is to attack the “nodes”—generating

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stations and switching substations. Furthermore, there are

two tactics that can be used: (1) a direct, physical frontal attack on the system; and (2) a cloak-and-dagger operation to

sabotage the capability. Both strategies and both tactics are

relevant to space-based utilities. Perhaps the best historical

analogy is the struggle to protect and control international

shipping during the sixteenth through twentieth centuries.

Naval forces grew out of a nation’s requirement to protect its

trade and, secondarily, to deny trade to an adversary. Only coincidentally were naval forces used to engage other nations’

navies—and even more coincidentally to conduct offensive operations against another nation’s territory. One had to worry

about attacks and defenses of “links” (operations on the high

seas) and “nodes” (operations relating to ports, primarily

blockades). One had to worry about attack by an enemy navy

or rogue pirates as well as sabotage against ports and ships.

Sabotage was prevented via good security. To protect against

attack at sea, merchant ships sailed in convoys and were accompanied by armed escorts. The same ships could enforce or

break blockades—and the same strategies and tactics are relevant for space-based trade.

The newly emerging area of information warfare is the

twenty-first century threat analogous to nineteenth century

sabotage. Here again, we must be aware of the potential for information warfare to be employed against our global utilities.

Putting good security mechanisms in place is the only reliable

defense, and devising strategies to circumvent an adversary’s

security measures is the means for offensive opportunities.

However, no major power can successfully rely solely on sabotage and security to effectively protect its own utilities or to

deny use of a commercial utility to an enemy. Ultimately, a

power must be able to (1) “kill people and break their stuff”

and (2) threaten the same.

Perhaps the most effective means to dominate commercial

and civil operations is through perception management. Consider the naval analogy. Only seldom does a naval force need

to actually strike at a commercial ship to enforce a blockade.

The mere threat of lost revenue and revenue-producing ships

is almost always sufficient to deter commercial concerns from

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trying to run blockades. When shipping has been threatened

in mid-ocean by naval forces in the past, the most effective defense has generally been to escort commercial ships with a formidable armed force while simultaneously seeking to engage

the threatening enemy before he can get into position. The key

in all cases is having armed ships that are fast and flexible. 

Let’s apply these concepts to space commerce, noting some

of the similarities and differences. First, consider the location

of nodes. Currently, the equivalent of a “port” is a satellite uplink/downlink site. Another key node is the satellite control

center—generally not collocated with the downlink site. However, future space systems are likely headed to a “distributed”

architecture in which any location equipped with a cellulartype phone could be used as the up-down link center. Correspondingly, any location, perhaps as far as thousands of miles

away, could act as a control center using Internet-type communications links. The satellites themselves could be linked

via space-to-space communications nodes. The impact of

these changes is that, unlike the naval analogy, “ports” or

nodes are proliferating. Another analogy was the Ho Chi Minh

Trail in the Vietnam War. It proved utterly impossible to interdict each vehicle moving down the road; it was better to concentrate on key nodes. Similarly, it will become increasingly

difficult to target nodes on the ground because there will be so

many of them. Moreover, these nodes will generally be deep

within the territory of a sovereign state, which may or may not

be a party to the hostilities. Unless we are in a large-scale war,

physically striking these targets will be problematic. Cyber attacks via computer may prove more promising. However, these

types of attacks are most effective when covert. Once revealed,

cyber attacks could lose their effectiveness as they could alert

the target that it is vulnerable, resulting in increased security

measures. Of course, there are also policy issues with launching

covert operations against what may very well be an Americanowned or partially American-owned (or allies-owned) commercial

entity. We must, therefore, look to the nodes and links in space.

The nodes in space are the satellites themselves. By early in

the next century, there could be several thousand of these.

The links are the radio and, eventually, laser communications

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channels between satellites and between the satellites and the

ground. Thus, our naval analogy breaks down slightly in

space. Satellites are not ships. They are more like mobile

transshipping ports. Thus, unlike ports on Earth, these

“ports” are constantly moving. The “ships” of space commerce

are the communications links; the information they carry is

the cargo. Of course, this could change in the future if actual

manufactured material is transported through space. But even

with energy transmittal systems proposed for the future, the

model of mobile ports and speed-of-light links will remain valid.

To control space commerce, then, we must be able to control the activities of the mobile ports—satellites—and/or interrupt and control their crosslinks and downlinks. One approach to interrupting the links is to electronically jam or

interfere with the transmission of signals, much like the

Tonga-Indonesia incident cited earlier. This is generally difficult to do since radio communications links are increasingly

narrow beams. Once satellites begin to communicate with

each other and the ground via laser links, they will become

even narrower. Thus, to interfere with links, one must be more

or less in the line of sight with the nodes between which the

communications channels are designed to connect—a very dynamic problem, since everything is moving relative to everything else (except for GEO communications satellites, which

move very little in relation to their ground nodes). 

The two sets of truly viable targets, then, are the satellites

themselves and/or the end user on the ground. It is, of course,

possible to focus on denying the receipt of final space products

to a user. However, with increasingly flexible and diverse

means to transmit information to the user—many not involving any space asset—we are being driven to move even closer

to the user we are trying to influence. This task is difficult, expensive, and, in many cases, politically and physically risky.

We turn back, therefore, to the nodes in the great “common”

of space—the satellites.

Regarding satellites, we might wish to accomplish one or

more of the following four objectives.

1. Deny its use to an enemy. 

2. Degrade its performance. 

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3. Disrupt its operation.

4. Destroy it.

The first two are more appealing because they are aimed at

temporary effects. Temporary, reversible effects on satellites

are much like intercepting a ship at sea during a blockade and

turning it. The ship, or satellite, is still available for use by

other groups or by a targeted group at a future time when the

issue at hand has been resolved.

A brief digression is in order here. US history reveals a significant distinction between offensive and defensive military

activities. In the eighteenth century, European monarchs conducted offensive military activities for their own benefit. These

activities were characterized by armed intervention in the affairs of another state and, in naval terms, physical attacks on

an enemy’s ships and ports. The founding fathers of the

United States, wishing to avoid an imperial executive, gave the

power to conduct offensive operations, or declare war, to the

people through their Congress. Defensive actions taken solely

to protect American sovereignty and defend fielded forces were

allowed to the executive at his own discretion. Thus, America

has a long tradition of considering defensive acts far more favorably—the very name, “Defense Department,” is a clear legacy

of this tradition.

What, then, is an acceptable defensive operation against a

satellite—particularly a commercial one? Clearly, destroying a

satellite in space, or permanently damaging it, is akin to open

naval warfare in the eighteenth century. It would appear to

come under the heading of offensive operations unless the targeted satellite had already taken some hostile initiative. However, blockading the satellite could be looked at much differently. Indeed, in a landmark 1863 Supreme Court decision,

blockades of Southern ports to neutral shipping were deemed

defensive and, thus, under presidential executive prerogative.

To underscore the acceptability of blockades, one must note

that blockades and embargoes of various states have been the

primary diplomatic tool used in recent years to further US national security interests.

How would one create a space blockade? Clearly, space circumstances are not like naval circumstances, which are

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fundamentally (or at least relatively) static. Spacecraft move

quickly. A space service will be delivered by a distributed constellation. The satellite that is providing a service now will not

provide the same service to the same customer 15 minutes

from now. If we develop the means to deal with one satellite,

we must either be able to redirect those means to another

quickly, or make the capability so cheap that it may be proliferated to handle many target systems simultaneously. These

requirements argue for a highly maneuverable space infrastructure at very low cost.

Today’s space systems are inflexible and barely maneuverable. Spacecraft are generally not launched without a lengthy

preparation and checkout process—from weeks to months.

Moreover, once in place, today’s satellites are unable to change

their orbit by very much. The reason for this is that it takes almost as much energy to move an orbit plane 90 degrees as it

did to initially place the satellite into space. Satellites today

are mostly hardware, with only a very small amount of fuel to

maintain a precise position and make minor orbit adjustments. If we were to get “up-close and personal” to any satellite, it would be difficult to do the same for satellites in any

other orbital plane. A word of clarification here—since all GEO

satellites are in more or less the same orbital plane, and it

takes relatively little fuel to “drift” along an orbital plane, GEO

birds can slowly (in weeks) move to other positions within that

plane. However, the new LEO communications systems, and

other systems currently being emplaced, reside in up to 10 or

more different orbital planes.

Researchers are developing means to remedy this inability

to either get to space quickly or move around rapidly from one

orbital plane or orbital altitude to another. The key to this revolution is in the ever-decreasing size of satellites and their increasing capability. It is possible to make large orbital changes

by making the payload and support structure of a satellite

small and increasing its fuel capacity. Satellites a decade ago

weighed between 5,000 and 20,000 pounds. Due largely to the

push in technology during the 1980s’ Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), satellite sizes decreased about one order of magnitude.

The satellites now being deployed in LEO, and soon to other

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orbits, weigh between 500 and 2,000 pounds. It is still expensive to frequently move these satellites around, however, and

some experts believe it is unlikely that satellites will get much

smaller due to the power required for transmitting a signal to

and from the ground or another satellite. To get enough power,

the solar panels need to have relatively large surface areas,

which would make the satellite large and heavy. The authors

believe this, too, may change as much less power-hungry laser

communications systems come to the fore. Moreover, compact

energy sources such as nuclear power were once on a trajectory to very small, very powerful units. Whereas political concern

initially stopped this development, it is less likely that the new

technology, with small, relatively nonradioactive systems, will

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Farside View of Earth’s Moon as Seen by Clementine

Courtesy of NASA
encounter the same resistance. NASA is, even now, considering resuming development of such technology to power its

deeper space probes. 

Creative techniques for conserving energy in satellites may

also prove valuable. NASA’s Wind satellite, which provides

plasma, energetic particle, and magnetic field input for magnetospheric and ionospheric studies, completed a previously

theoretical backflip maneuver in April 1999. Achieving the

same orbital changes with propulsive maneuvers alone would

require more fuel than the entire mission’s fuel budget at

launch. Several small maneuvers at strategic locations accomplished the objective at a tiny fraction of propulsive maneuver cost.

Very capable satellites weighing 50 pounds or less are now

under development. Some such spacecraft, known as “microsats,” have designs that weigh in this range and have a two

to five kilometers-per-second maneuvering capability (enough

to change orbit planes by 30 degrees or more). The cost per

satellite of this type is also correspondingly lower—already

being in the range of a few million dollars per bird.

The second revolution in space operations is the development of reusable launch vehicles. Although currently driven

by NASA’s efforts to affordably service the new international

space station, the emergence of hundreds—and soon thousands—of commercial satellites will drive the development of

small, low-cost, reusable launch vehicles. These vehicles will

have the capability to launch up to several thousand pounds

into LEO at a cost of a few million dollars or less.

Commercial concerns will not push for highly maneuverable

or very responsive launch vehicles for the foreseeable future.

Just as commercial ocean-shipping systems, or air systems

for that matter, are not very small or fast, those capabilities

are likely to remain uniquely military attributes. It is our contention that the military should adapt the new commercial

technologies to build an infrastructure of very small spaceplanes capable of launching within hours payloads of up to

1,000 pounds into any orbit and changing the insertion plane

of those payloads on short notice. The payload itself would

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consist of several small, highly maneuverable “microsats,”

each weighing less than 100 pounds.

How might we use these capabilities to control and leverage

space commerce? One possibility might involve placing mi107

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Artist’s Impression of Wind and the Sun-Earth Environment

Courtesy of NASA
crosats in the vicinity of targeted space systems. In some

sense these escorting microsats would be analogous to naval

destroyers. All satellites in a targeted constellation need not be

“escorted.” It is possible to narrow the target to a subset of a

constellation that is needed to provide service to a given area,

particularly if there is only a limited time period during which

we would intend to manage use of that asset. Once in place,

the escorting microsat could passively interfere with the satellites’ operation. It could physically or electronically block

crosslinks. It could obstruct optical or radar imaging apertures. It could even “shade” the solar panels to cause power

deficit shutdowns. Clearly, the possibilities are limited only by

engineering capabilities and the system designer’s imagination.

We can see how these tools might lead to effective denial of

an adversary’s access to commercial or other space-based

service. One might expect a global multinational corporation

providing space-based services to be reluctant to follow the US

government’s dictates on denying service. This might be particularly so if the protagonist was part owner of the corporation. This is analogous to declaring an embargo on seaborne

or airborne goods and services. Initially, the corporation may

try to ignore the embargo. That’s when the United States could

begin to deny service—perhaps by shading sequentially the

solar-power resources on critical satellites, forcing a timeconsuming and revenue-losing shutdown, recovery from

which might take weeks on each failed spacecraft. As the targeted corporation sees increasing percentages of its revenueproducing assets turned off, it becomes ever more likely that

the corporation would voluntarily deny service to the targeted

party. After an initial few demonstrations of US capability and

commitment, the mere presence of a few microsats escorting

commercial satellites could be sufficient to establish and

maintain embargoes in future crises.

Over time, it is likely that other powers would seek to match

or circumvent US ability to deny access to commercial capabilities. In such cases, these escort assets would serve in a

wholly defensive capacity. Should an adversary try to deny US

or US-supported parties access to space services, we could use

escort satellites to block or even destroy the attacker. These

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functions are exactly analogous to naval and air escort. In no

case does the escort have to be 100 percent effective in establishing embargoes or protecting friendly assets from enemy embargoes. The goal is simply to have more and better capabilities

to outperform both commercial targets and hostile powers.

It is unlikely that commercial concerns would add substantial and expensive maneuver and counterforce capability to

their satellites. Merchant ships did initially provide their own

protection, in the form of cannons, convoys, or mercenary

marines. Eventually, however, building a navy to provide for

their common defense proved more cost-effective than each

company trying to do it individually. This would particularly

be true to the degree that the United States continues the historical US and British policy of open and free trade on the seas

(space). In that case, the only embargoes enforced would be as

they had been—on aggressive states and combatants. It is

likely that aggressors would seek to counter us through symmetric or asymmetric means. This is due, quite simply, to the

very high leverage they would accrue by denying space service

to adversaries and preserving it for themselves. As much as we

might like to have space declared a “peaceful and demilitarized

zone,” its importance to any future crisis or conflict mandates

that it will be, as it already is, an arena for confrontation. It

may even be the initial theater of struggle. If we intend to preserve the free and open use of space, we must be prepared to

enforce it.

If we are to control space effectively, we must recognize that

continuous real-time surveillance and tracking of all targets is

essential. Superior situational awareness, the basis of America’s overwhelming air and sea superiority today, will be necessary if we are to achieve space dominance tomorrow. However, the United States has invested little in real-time

awareness in space, focusing only on tracking objects whose

locations we already know. The first step in establishing space

superiority is to develop the ability to search all of space in a

short time—probably through ground- and space-based widefield optical sensors supplemented with ground-based radar

“fences” that detect anything that passes through them. As we,

and our potential adversaries, develop the means outlined above

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to move things around in space, and to put them there equally

rapidly, we must increase our ”space vigilance” capabilities.

Seizing the Solar System

Currently, NASA is the agent for US space exploration. This

is counter to traditional American approaches to exploring and

exploiting new territory. It is also counter to common sense.

NASA is a research and technology organization. It has little

incentive to develop, open, and protect new areas for commercial exploitation.

Since the era of Lewis and Clark, the United States military

has played a unique and central role in US-sponsored exploration. Throughout the nineteenth century, the primary purpose of peacetime military forces was to explore, map, and

protect exploitation of the unknown portions of the North

American continent. Captains Meriweather Lewis and Rogers

Clark led the first of these expeditions and were the prototype

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Earth Station Antenna at Johnson Space Center

Courtesy of NASA
for many who followed. Officially designed to map newly acquired territory, the Lewis and Clark expedition had several

related objectives that were clearly expansionist, scientific,

commercial, and military. First and foremost, the military expedition was designed to show US presence in the newly acquired Louisiana Territory, particularly in areas where actual

ownership between Spain, Britain, and the new United States

was unclear. Its scientific character was high in official priority, due in part to public interest but due also to the scientific

curiosity of President Thomas Jefferson, whose brainchild it

was. But its real priority was to open a vast new area for commercial development—at the time thought mostly to be the lucrative fur trade. The expedition was military for a number of

reasons, including the military’s tradition of operating in unknown environments that were often hostile. The military also

had a long tradition of retaining focus on government rather

than personal objectives. Finally, it was likely that other expanding powers might confront such an expedition with military forces of their own—and so it was throughout the nineteenth century. Military expeditions charted the unknown,

mostly to map and provide access to commercial assets and to

protect those assets, as well as those using them, from hostile

intervention. Indeed, the primary peacetime occupation of the

US military was just this function, which also served to keep

the vital nucleus of a fighting force ready in time of national

emergency: “keeping the powder dry.”

Until the late 1950s, exploration of the unknown remained

primarily a military function. As the frontiers grew “up” into

the atmosphere and space rather than “out” across the

prairies and mountains, American exploration retained a military character. Throughout the first half of this century, the

US Army and Navy were heavily involved in and supportive of

manned balloon flights into the upper atmosphere. Into the

1950s, manned rocket-plane development in the X-series vehicles was largely a military effort. As noted in chapter 1, it

was precisely when the competition for space exploration

became “symbolic,” as a contest between competing ideologies in

the Apollo Program and the events that led up to it, that military

participation in space exploration was deliberately suppressed.

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Although the “space race” of the 1960s was part of the Cold

War competition with the Soviet Union, with undeniably military overtones, it was deliberately a civilian operation. So much

so that US President Richard M. Nixon shuffled the Apollo 11

lunar excursion so that a civilian, Neil A. Armstrong, would be

the first man to step on the Moon rather than the military officer, Air Force colonel Buzz Aldrin. Precisely because there was

nothing of direct value perceived in space —particularly deep

space such as the Moon—the “perception value” of the US program being “peaceful” and “civilian” took precedence. Military

involvement was not only submerged, it was deliberately

downplayed.

The Cold War is over, but its perceptions live on. Military personnel make up a large percentage of NASA’s astronaut corps,

but military uniforms and titles are seldom shown. NASA’s

leadership bears a striking legacy of military background in that

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X-15 with B-52 Mothership Flyover

Courtesy of NASA
a very high number of former and retired military personnel are

on the team. Nevertheless, the pretense remains that our space

exploration effort is overwhelmingly civilian.

In 1989, one of the authors was a staff officer at the White

House National Space Council responsible for staff work on

President George H. W. Bush’s Space Exploration Initiative

(SEI). Occurring as this initiative did in the closing years of the

Cold War, it offered an opportunity to rethink the role of the

military in space exploration. There were, at the time, compelling arguments to reintegrate the national space effort. Not

the least of these arguments was financial. The cost of duplicative research and space operations facilities alone was

prohibitive. Moreover, due to huge investments in SDI technology within the Departments of Defense and Energy at the

time, much of the most promising space technology and expertise resided in the national security sector and not in the

civil (NASA) programs. Finally, there was a realization that,

with the Cold War subsiding but the world remaining a dangerous place, it would be desirable to preserve and continue

the development of military space prowess—which won the

Cold War—in a combined civil-military space exploration effort. In the case of SEI, a revitalized manned exploration of the

Moon and Mars was to involve both NASA and its national security partners in the Department of Energy (DOE) and DOD.

A presidential directive so stating was signed in 1990 and a

combined NASA-DOE-DOD team was constituted under Apollo

10 astronaut and retired Air Force lieutenant general Tom

Stafford to chart the program.

The SEI failed to take root for a variety of reasons, the burgeoning federal deficit at that time being most serious. “Peace

dividends” from reduced military requirements went to deficit

reduction rather than ill-defined space adventures. Also, public support for something that neither made America rich nor

protected it from threats was confined to the relatively small

“Star Trek” segment of society. Further, many in Congress had

little interest in increasing expenditures on space. They and

others resisted nurturing an expanding military role in space

exploration.

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The Clementine Program—the successful Clementine I and

the canceled Clementine II—was an example of an important

new direction in US space development and exploitation.

Clementine I was conceived in late 1989 by one of the authors

and a colleague on the National Space Council staff as a

means to (1) transfer new DOD, low-cost technology into NASA

culture; (2) conduct meaningful space exploration of the Moon

and asteroids, focused on both the potential threat of asteroids and the appeal of financial gain in surveying potentially

useful resources on the Moon and asteroids; and (3) demonstrate space-based Brilliant Pebbles interceptor technology in

an ABM Treaty-compliant and politically acceptable scientific

mission. The program got underway in 1991. With only two

years and a development cost of $80 million, Clementine I was

launched in January 1994. The whole program had a very

“counterculture” approach and reveled in its “underground”

success. With the change of administration and policy toward

space-based missile defenses in 1993, the program’s advocates moved on to other duties—but not before Clementine I

was launched.

Clementine I produced the first full, multicolor map of the

Moon and proved that new low-cost technology, which might

be used in space-based missile defenses, was feasible. And, in

its most far-reaching potential implication, it detected what

may be modest deposits of ice at the lunar South Pole. This

ice, confirmed at both poles by the Lunar Prospector in 1998,

is probably the remnant of billions of years of bombardment of

the Moon by ice-bearing comets—the vaporized ice being

trapped in deep craters near the lunar South Pole where sunlight

never penetrates and cannot melt the deposits. Unfortunately,

software errors prevented Clementine I from completing its

mission with a flyby of an asteroid. It did, however, change the

NASA “culture,” which now enthusiastically embraces its

“faster, cheaper, better” philosophy in virtually every area of

NASA endeavor. Whether this cultural change is real, however,

remains to be seen.

Advocates of space-based missile defenses and space control missions with Congress demanded and provided funds for

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The Moon, Solar Corona, and Venus, as Seen by Clementine

Courtesy of NASA
cessor’s reconnaissance of an asteroid. This mission, to have

been launched about the year 2000, was more ambitious—it

was to fire an impact probe or interceptor to strike one or more

Earth-crossing asteroids. The successful completion of

Clementine II would have proved the technology necessary for

detailed space control and missile defense as well as “planetary defense” of Earth against asteroids—a topic to be discussed in more detail below. In addition, it would have provided the first “assay” of asteroid composition—necessary for

any commercial exploitation of asteroid resources. Truly,

Clementines I and II earned their names as the “Miner’s

Daughters.” However, the program was line-item-vetoed in October 1997. Nevertheless, the defense establishment’s foray

into space exploration is only beginning, not ending. Strictly

“scientific” exploration of space or any other new area is quite

acceptable as long as nothing of value is seen in it and no

threat can emerge from the new territory. This was the case for

the Antarctic continent and has certainly been the case for objects beyond GEO orbits. However, just as the global economy

is migrating to increased reliance on LEO-, MEO-, and GEObased global utilities, so there will be both potential threats to

them and economic resources to protect. The same will inevitably occur with the Moon, asteroids, and other objects in

the solar system. This could happen much sooner than has

been thought, given the promise of lunar and asteroid resource utilization and potential large-scale energy production

and distribution in space. The military services will inevitably

return to their traditional roles: protect commerce, deny access to adversaries, and discover new resources. It would be a

good thing if sufficient forethought and investment were made

in this new mission.

Notes

1. “‘Rites of Youth’: Hacking in the 1990s,” Washington Post, 21 March

1998, 15.

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Chapter 5

Threats, Limitations, Constraints

In chapter 3, we discussed the physical constraints involved

in getting to space, primarily focusing on energy requirements.

Once there, however, space provides a number of natural limitations, and even threats, that must be understood. Sun Tzu,

the strategist of ancient China, said, “know the ground, know

the weather; your victory will then be total.” We must understand that space is not empty. It holds many natural barriers.

In this chapter, we will briefly review those realities and how

they can be mitigated.

Natural Barriers

In addition to the energy, expense, and difficulty involved in

getting into space, there are natural barriers to be reckoned

with. The environment there is far from benign. To use once

again the seafaring analogy, there exist in space the equivalents of thunderstorms and typhoons. 

Space “weather” in our solar system has the Sun as its

source. The Sun has at its core a giant fusion energy generator. The fusion energy released in converting hydrogen to helium has powered the Sun for over four billion years and

should continue to do so for at least that much longer. However, the outer part of the Sun is a boiling sea of electrically

charged “plasma.” Imbedded in this plasma are magnetic

fields. As the solar energy boils its way to the surface, these

magnetic fields are twisted and enhanced. At some point, the

magnetic fields burst through to what we see as the Sun’s visible surface—the “photosphere.” Where the magnetic fields are

particularly strong, they cause a cooler, dark region to form.

We call this dark region a sunspot. The photosphere is nearly

the coolest part of the Sun—at only about 10,000 degrees

Fahrenheit. However, the magnetic fields arch above the photosphere into tenuous regions—the solar chromosphere and

corona—that we can only see with specialized instruments.

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The fields carry energy with them and actually heat the corona

to temperatures of millions of degrees. Sometimes the magnetic fields “snap,” much as a rubber band that has been

wound too tightly, and violently release energy over an area

many times the size of Earth. This violent energy release can

heat the corona to over 100 million degrees and is known as a

flare. It is the flare that causes storms in space near Earth.

A solar flare has the effect of a giant nuclear explosion in the

Sun’s corona. It sends out three kinds of radiation, each of

which can affect events in space near Earth. The very high

temperatures in the flare produce an intense pulse of gamma

and x-radiation—a “shock wave.” Traveling at the speed of

light, this shock reaches Earth about eight minutes after the

flare occurs. Although this radiation doesn’t greatly damage

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Sun – Solar Flare – Corona and Large Solar Eruption

Courtesy of NASA
satellites, it does heat the outer layers of Earth’s atmosphere—

the ionosphere. The changes produced in the ionosphere

cause it to rise higher into space, generating increased drag to

satellites in LEO. It also affects the ionosphere’s response to

radio waves, which can cause blackouts of satellite communications and errors in Global Positioning System satellite positions. The solar flare also produces high-energy particles—

protons and atomic nuclei—that travel at a sizable fraction of

the speed of light and reach Earth within an hour or two after

the flare. These high-energy particles can penetrate deep inside a satellite to disrupt sensitive electronics. Whereas military satellites are hardened against these effects, increasingly

sophisticated and electronically integrated civil and commercial satellites are more vulnerable. The final products of a flare

are large clouds of electrically charged particles—in essence,

they are pieces of the solar corona lifted away from the Sun and

flung into space. These particles are the most unpredictable

and potentially the most damaging of Sun flare’s products.

It is the charged particle cloud, which can take several days

to get to Earth, that constitutes the solar storm. Unlike the direct radiation, the particle clouds wend their way to Earth in

a most circuitous path, as do some of the higher-energy particles. The space between Earth and Sun is filled with a weak

but chaotic magnetic field that channels the particle storm

clouds in unpredictable directions. A given cloud may or may

not hit Earth. Earth’s magnetic field is another factor that affects the storm’s impact. It stretches deep into space, connecting the north and south magnetic poles. The region affected by these fields, referred to as the magnetosphere,

stretches out beyond GEO orbit. The electronic solar storm

compresses and distorts the magnetosphere when it strikes.

Huge sheets of electronic particles can sweep back and forth

across GEO satellites and deposit large electrical charges on

the satellites’ surfaces. These electrical charges can short out

vital satellite components. Deeper in toward Earth, some of

the storm particles get trapped into belts of intense radiation—the Van Allen belts. MEO satellites, such as the Global

Positioning System, orbit there and can feel the storm’s effects. Even some satellites in LEO can be damaged. Earth’s

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magnetic fields channel some particles down over the magnetic poles. When these particles strike the atmosphere, the

Aurora Borealis or “northern lights” phenomenon develops.

Satellites or manned space missions in polar orbits can also

be affected by these particles. 

These solar storms can even have a dramatic effect on terrestrial conditions. Solar storm particles striking Earth’s

upper atmosphere can produce immense electrical currents in

terrestrial power grids. Large surges caused by solar storms

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Solar Flare

Courtesy of NASA
have been known to burn out nodes in power grids. In fact,

such surges are responsible for some of the largest power outages in recent decades.

Solar flares and associated storms do not occur randomly.

The Sun has a well-known 11-year sunspot cycle. At solar

minimum, very few sunspots occur and there are few serious

storms as well. Conversely, we have periods of the largest and

most damaging storms just before and just after sunspot maximum. This can be considered the space version of El Niño, as

it has the same potential for unpredictable damage and impact. Thus, solar activity and its effects on space operations

are important for military operations. While many experts

argue that space systems can be designed to handle any space

environmental problem, the cost for such systems can become

prohibitive even if it were possible to build them. Moreover,

there is always the effect one hasn’t anticipated. While an adversary who is better able to cope with or predict periods of adverse weather will have an advantage in any area of conflict or

confrontation, this will be particularly true in space. Because

the space environment is very sensitive, the addition of relatively small amounts of material or energy could change the

way it responds to solar storms. For example, small amounts

of charged particles injected into the space environment from

a space-based particle accelerator could mimic the effects of a

large solar storm on another satellite thousands of miles away.

Since military forces must be ready to act, often at a time and

place not of their choosing, they must be prepared not only to

act in adverse conditions but to force an adversary to put up

with even worse conditions. It is in the interests of the United

States, therefore, to have the best knowledge of space environment conditions possible, based on both in situ measurements and an in-depth understanding from which we can accurately predict future conditions. Such knowledge could be a

decisive advantage.

“Icebergs” in Space

A dominant theme in the story of humankind has been its

struggle against the destructive forces of nature. The tragedy

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of White Star Line’s Titanic on that cold, still April night in

1912 still haunts us. What makes the story of Titanic so dramatic is the irony of its fate: the assumption by so many that

this great monument to man’s achievement was invincible,

that nothing so simple as an iceberg from Mother Nature could

seal its fate. The chance that Titanic would founder upon an

iceberg, deemed so remote, was tragically underestimated.

The lives lost in Titanic’s chance encounter with a natural

obstacle numbered more than 1,500. But how much greater

are the stakes for our entire planet as we risk a similar chance

encounter with nature’s cosmic threats? We need look no further than the example provided by the Shoemaker-Levy 9

comet in July 1994 when it plunged into the planet Jupiter. As

it struck the “Giant Planet,” the comet’s destructive force exceeded by more than six times the entire destructive force of

all the nuclear arsenals on the globe.

When our solar system was formed some 4.5 billion years

ago, the Sun, containing most of the mass, coalesced first. The

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Figure 4. Sinking of the Titanic, April 1912

Source: AU Press Design Division
rest of the material swirled around, comprising a flat “pancake”

about 10 billion miles wide. Soon, small bodies—planetesimals,

a few miles to a few hundred miles wide—coalesced within this

pancake. These planetesimals, composed of heavier elements

and compounds like rocks and metals, were closer to the Sun

and at correspondingly higher temperatures than were the

lighter elements. The lighter elements (hydrogen and hydrogen

compound ices) were further out. Over time, the planetesimals

collided and merged to form planets. In two regions, however,

there were not enough planetesimals to form a single planet.

The remnants of the inner rock and metal objects now orbit as

the asteroid belt, mostly between Jupiter and Mars. The remaining ice objects move in what’s known as the Oort cloud, out

beyond the orbit of planet Pluto. But these objects do not stay

in these locations. Complex interactions with the gravity fields

of the Sun, the planets, and even nearby stars, perturb some

objects and allow them to fall toward the Sun. Ice balls begin to

melt when they approach the Sun. As they melt, they throw off

gas and dust, which stream away from the Sun in the solar

wind. These streamers are comets. The nearer-in asteroids are

generally only seen when they get close to Earth, at which time

they are known as near earth objects (NEO).

After a few dozen passes by the Sun, the comets lose all of

the ice from their surface layers and look little different from

NEO asteroids. We have tracked a few hundred of the NEOs

but know there are probably several thousand that are larger

than a mile across and up to a million that are 100 feet or

more across. These objects, “icebergs” in space, represent a

serious hazard as well as a potential economic opportunity.

About 65 million years ago, it appears, a particularly large

NEO—probably almost 10 miles wide—plummeted through

the Cretaceous sky and struck the ground near what is now

the Yucatan peninsula. Within seconds, a glowing hole 20

miles or more deep had been punched into Earth’s crust and

500 million megatons of kinetic energy had been released. Billions of tons of Earth’s crust were flung back in space. In the

next hour, a mile-high tidal wave likely inundated the exposed

coasts of what is now eastern North America. The very crust of

Earth heaved and fell for thousands of miles in every direction.

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Most of what is now the United States experienced a sudden

upward thrust almost a thousand feet into the atmosphere,

followed by an equivalent fall. Within the next half hour, the

material thrown into space began to reenter the atmosphere.

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Nucleus of Comet Halley, taken by the Giotto Spacecraft

Courtesy of NASA
Like most people, you probably have seen single meteor

trails—imagine 100 billion of them per second! The heat from

these burning meteorites raised the surface temperature to

about 800 degrees Fahrenheit everywhere on the planet. Every

forest and grassland burst into flames. The ashes of the global

fires are still visible today in 65-million-year-old rock strata

found throughout the planet. The smoke-filled atmosphere

blocked sunlight for months. Plants and animals that survived

the tidal waves, fires, and shock waves soon perished from

cold and starvation. The catastrophic effects on the planetary

environment took centuries, if not millennia, to fade away.

When all was stable once more, over 95 percent of all plant

and animal species had perished. 

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Asteroid: An “Iceberg” in Space

Courtesy of NASA
But an event such as this is not limited solely to prehistoric

times. On 8 June 1908, a pale blue globe appeared in the

Siberian sky, moving rapidly northward. It exploded about

four miles above the forest, with a force of at least 10 megatons, at a place known as Tunguska. Over 1,000 square miles

of forest and tundra were devastated. Astronomers now believe the Tunguska explosion was caused by the strike of a

small comet several hundred feet in diameter. Tunguska was

not a singular event. Our early warning satellites see about 30

explosions in Earth’s upper atmosphere every year, each releasing at least one kiloton of energy from a small asteroid or

comet strike. A large strike, probably releasing more than 100

kilotons, occurred over southern Greenland in November

1997. More recently, on 18 January 2000, a small meteor of

several kilograms entered Earth’s atmosphere and exploded at

an altitude of about 25 kilometers over Canada’s Yukon Territory. This last event appeared to have produced some kind of

electromagnetic pulse or interference, for the Yukon power

grid noted some fluctuations at the time of the event.1

Many of these strikes yield over a megaton of force, and several cause significant damage on the ground every century. All

told, one’s chances of dying from an asteroid or comet strike

are about the same as one’s chances of dying in an aircraft accident or a flood. Whereas asteroids and comets represent a

real, if not immediate, threat to life and property on Earth,

they may be a more serious hazard to space commerce. A

strike the size of the Tunguska explosion is large enough to

throw considerable amounts of asteroid or comet debris, as

well as gases from Earth’s atmosphere, back into space. This

debris remains in LEO for hours—even days—and can easily

represent a serious hazard for LEO satellites. But perhaps the

most serious threat is from “dead” comets.

As comets repeatedly pass close to the Sun, their surface layers melt and are driven off into space. This would not be a significant problem if comets were made of ice only. But they are

more like a “dirty” snowball, with particles of sand and rock

imbedded in the ice. This “dust” is also driven off into space as

the comet melts. After many passes, a “crust” of this dust forms,

shielding the comet and insulating its core from further solar

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melting. At this point, it looks much like an asteroid NEO. The

dust clouds it had previously thrown off remain, however, tailing

the dead comet in its orbit. These dust clouds are hazardous.

When Earth travels through the dust clouds that follow a

dead comet, the tiny dust grains strike the atmosphere in

great numbers. They are visible as a spectacular meteor

shower—all the meteor trails radiating from the same point in

the sky. Typical meteor showers will have up to three or four

meteor trails per minute. The showers are named for the constellation they appear to radiate from. Occasionally, these

showers intensify so that thousands of meteors are seen per

minute. These meteor storms are unpredictable, but seem to

be most likely when Earth passes just behind a dead comet,

presumably where the thickest dust clouds are to be found.

The largest meteor storms in recent years have been the

Leonid storms, which have produced up to 10,000 meteor

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Computer-Generated View of Earth as Seen from an Asteroid

Courtesy of NASA
trails per minute for several hours. The Leonids follow in the

wake of the extinct comet Tempel-Tuttle, which has a 33-year

orbital period around the Sun. 

What kind of threat does cosmic dust represent? Since the

dust is traveling at about 50 miles per second relative to

Earth, it has considerable impact on any Earth target. At this

speed, even a dust grain carries the wallop of a rifle bullet! An

unpredicted meteor storm in 1992 appears to have put a

Canadian satellite, Olympus, out of commission. During a

large storm, such as the Leonids shower, many or even most

satellites could be hit. Even if not hit by large sand grains, the

tiniest dust can strike the satellite so hard that a huge electrical charge will result. Such an electrical charge could short

out critical satellite components. Space is, indeed, filled with

hazards.

What is the reality of these threats, and what should the

military’s role be? There are three related aspects—awareness

and surveillance, mitigation, and exploitation.

A fundamental requirement for controlling any field of confrontation or endeavor is “battle space awareness.” Today, we

track several thousand objects in space through a network of

US military tracking telescopes and radars. However, we have

little ability to find objects; that is, to search the sky for things

we don’t already know are there. The small number of asteroids and comets we do know are there have mostly been found

by a few astronomers and amateur sky watchers.

What if we did have the ability to search and track all objects in space? Would it be prohibitively expensive? In fact, a

rather modest upgrade of modern wide-field electronic (CCD)

cameras installed on existing Air Force satellite-tracking telescopes would enable us to search the entire sky in a few days

to locate essentially all satellites in Earth’s orbit. In addition,

any NEO approaching Earth would be detected. Experts suggest that this method would detect, in about a decade, most

NEO asteroids and plot the orbits of those objects that could

approach and threaten Earth in the centuries ahead. In addition, comets, which have very long orbital periods—many

decades to many centuries—would be spotted months or even

years before they become threats. The initial ground-based

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space tracking system could be followed by simple upgrades to

an already planned missile tracking system, the Space-Based

Infrared System (SBIRS-Low), in LEO orbit.

A comprehensive space- and ground-based space search

and surveillance capability would enable us to detect any aggressive move by an adversary against friendly space systems.

But there is a direct military advantage for tracking incoming

NEOs as well. Imagine if an explosion such as the 100-pluskiloton Greenland strike in November 1997 occurred over the

crisis-poised Middle East. The bright flash and loud boom,

and perhaps even blast damage on the ground, would look

just like a nuclear detonation. This could be just the match to

set off a Middle Eastern tinderbox situation. It would thus be

very much to our advantage to have full awareness and warning of such incoming objects. This same awareness could also

enable us to predict future meteor storms by maintaining

tracks on extinct comet nuclei that spawn the storms.

An additional concern about tracking NEOs is that if the

United States does not use its current assets to perform this

function, others will—for scientific reasons if nothing else. Indeed, international scientific organizations have repeatedly

called for an international network to monitor NEOs. Just as

a military surveillance system can pick up NEOs, a civil system to monitor NEOs will pick up military and commercial

satellites. This “battle space awareness” is a decisive advantage. It could be in the United States’ interest to deter others

from constructing such an “open-to-all” database by modifying our own system and making the militarily insensitive but

scientifically invaluable data available to all.

The second major aspect of NEO relevance is mitigation.

Should an NEO be found on a collision course, whose job

should it be to divert the threat, and how? It is our view that

an organization the people have placed their lives in the hands

of for the past several centuries—the US military—is best

suited to provide protection from either natural or man-made

threats. Little capability against such a natural threat exists

today, but it is a mission that should attract increased attention as we expand our ability to control space.

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A third, and perhaps the most important, aspect of NEO

study is the potential eventual exploitation of these objects as

a natural resource. Asteroids and comets have a wide variety

of compositions. This is known from both remote study and

analysis of asteroid fragments (meteorites) that have reached

Earth’s surface. Most contain far more volatiles—water among

these—than the virtually dry Moon (except for the likely ice deposits at the lunar south pole discussed earlier). In addition,

some are made wholly of metal and may contain very high

quantities of platinum group metals. Although this explanation lies decades into the future, asteroids may prove to be extremely appealing sources of raw materials for true space

manufacturing. For example, asteroids may provide more and

better raw materials for space-based equipment, such as solar

power satellites, than any other source. Indeed, some small

asteroids may be nudged, through the simple kinetic means

outlined above, into stable orbits around Earth. From such

positions, the asteroid substance could be the raw material of

large-scale space industrialization in coming centuries.

International Treaties and Policies

The barriers are not only physical, but also political. International treaties and other agreements can influence the development and execution of space power strategy. When these

agreements are mutually beneficial to all parties, they are appropriate instruments for governing international conduct in

space. However, it is necessary for signatories to constantly

review these agreements to ensure they have not outlived their

usefulness and unnecessarily (or unfairly) restrict policy and

capability development.

Perhaps the most encompassing treaty, and potentially

most troublesome, is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. It

banned national ownership and expropriation of any heavenly

body, specifically including the Moon. In addition, it banned

the stationing thereon of weapons of mass destruction, to include nuclear weapons and “any other kind of weapon of mass

destruction.” It also prohibited the construction of military

bases on any heavenly body. It would seem, on the surface,

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that the Outer Space Treaty effectively banned national competition and military activities from space. It did not in fact do

so, however. 

The Outer Space Treaty does not ban military activities or

weapons in space: “The use of military personnel for scientific

research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited.” It goes on to add that use of any facility or equipment

for “peaceful purposes” is allowed. The only weapons banned

are those of mass destruction and those stationed on the

Moon or other heavenly bodies. The key to all these activities

is the meaning of the phrase, “peaceful purposes.” In fact, this

phrase encompasses defensive military activities as discussed

under the UN Charter. Thus, all of our military space programs today are fully compliant with the Outer Space Treaty,

including future ones that could involve weapons. We have already noted that the US Supreme Court defined the blockade

of goods and services as a permissible defensive activity in

1863. We have also noted that the development of space

weapons will most likely follow the highly kinetic high-precision

route, rather than mass destruction path.

Neither does the Outer Space Treaty ban commercial, or

even national, exploitation of space resources. There have

been attempts to address commercial exploitation of “common” resources such as the seabed and the Moon. In the case

of the Moon, however, where a negotiated “Moon Treaty” would

ban all exploitation that does not return the resources for the

common good, the United States has neither signed nor ratified

the proposed treaty. Moreover, a case may be made that the

Outer Space Treaty allows what it doesn’t prohibit; for example, private ownership of space resources. Should such private

ownership occur, it would follow that military protection of privately owned assets would be defensive and, as such, allowed

under the treaty’s provisions.

Finally, a major criticism of the Outer Space Treaty is that it,

unlike any other “arms control” treaty, lacks any discussion of,

or mechanism for, enforcement of compliance with the treaty’s

provisions. We have no way to detect violations, no way to adjudicate alleged violations, and no way to enforce sanctions.

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The other treaty of interest to military leaders on space

power employment is the Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of

1972. At the time of this writing, it is undergoing intense

scrutiny by both the United States and Russia, and the United

States has already given the required six-month notice of its

intention to withdraw. This treaty attempted to ensure the stability of mutual assured destruction (MAD), a bipolar strategy

peculiar to the Cold War. MAD required each side to remain

absolutely vulnerable to the other’s nuclear weapons—thus,

the treaty attempted to ban most defensive measures against

the premier nuclear weapon of the time—ballistic missiles.

The treaty took into account neither changing strategic realities and world situations nor technological advances (even its

architect, Henry Kissinger, acknowledges the agreement was

more ad hoc than carefully planned to stand the test of time).

Today’s world is a multipolar one, with many nations possessing long-range missiles—and today’s technology has given

us effective defenses against these weapons. The ABM Treaty

(as voiced in the current debate) is thus a questionably relevant document that hinders opportunities to further define

space power. It appears that the stage is now set for US and

Russian withdrawal from the ABM treaty—a move that will

better position the United States to exploit space in the interests of national security. 

What we have reviewed, then, is the “physical” as well as political terrain the space power strategist will encounter. The

principles to draw from this discussion include:

1. Space, like any other medium, has its unique “weather,”

natural obstacles and threats, and “terrain.” These should

be understood and accounted for as any terrestrial strategist would do for similar phenomena in the environment of

regard.

2. As in any human endeavor, there are, regarding space,

agreements for the conduct within and use of that medium.

Such agreements are meaningful only to the extent they are

mutually beneficial, and do not inhibit necessary development of national security capabilities.

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Notes

1. Martin E. B. France, “Planetary Defense: Eliminating the Giggle Factor,”

Aerospace Power Chronicles, 2000 (http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/air

chronicles/cc/france2.html).

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Chapter 6

The Boundless Future

Our initial precept has been the acknowledgment that space

is a far more pervasive aspect of our recent national security

history than is generally recognized. Space systems, in the

form of nuclear-armed missiles, were the defining elements of

most of the Cold War. A space competition (the race to the

Moon) became the premier conflict surrogate during the height

of the Cold War. Just as the missile “space weapon” was the

key offensive weapon of that conflict, space-based sensors in

the form of “national technical means” of strategic reconnaissance and treaty verification became the key defensive element. And it was the beginnings of a true military race for the

control and weaponization of space that marked the end of the

Cold War and the emergence of a decisive victor. If space was

the unrecognized national security actor in past decades, it is

about to become, as our scenarios were meant to portray, the

central focus of all security—and economic—competition in

the near future. 

Most immediate and visible is the necessity for space power

in fighting modern war effectively. The expanding power of

space capabilities in military engagements points to an increasingly visible reality: Space capabilities are an integral

part of a modern war-fighting force. With this reality comes an

admonition: We cannot, and must not, take our space capabilities for granted; nor can we ignore the increasing role space

capabilities will take in the war-making efforts of our adversaries. With our amazing space war-fighting capabilities—all

kinds of intelligence collection, force navigation and weapons

delivery precision, worldwide communication and transmission of information—we have been paving the road of 21st

century warfare. Others will soon follow as potential adversaries seek to develop and leverage these same capabilities. In

fact, they are doing it right now. 

It has been noted before that we have not lost an American

to enemy air attack in 50 years. It has been our ability to

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maintain air supremacy in every hostile environment we have

entered that has produced this amazing and proud legacy. We

have kept air supremacy because we have a very rigorous and

aggressive doctrine: Control of the air! The first thing we do in

any military campaign or combat operation is to gain mastery

of the skies and deny the skies to our adversary. 

We need to do the same in space. When American lives are

put at risk because an adversary uses spaceborne imagery

collectors to identify and target American forces, or leverages

the global positioning system (or the Galileo constellation) to

attack American forces with precision, we will need to aggressively counter that threat. Space capabilities will only become

more and more a part of an adversary’s war-making capacity.

Thus, it will not lie outside our war-fighting responsibilities to

deprive adversaries of their benefit. In addition to space denial, an equally important facet of space supremacy is space

protection. If adversaries recognize the value of space capabilities in modern warfare, they will not only seek to use them

themselves, but they will also seek to deprive us of ours. 

But beyond the necessity for space power in fighting twentyfirst century wars is the realization that the centers of gravity,

the very infrastructure of our society, are migrating towards

space. Right now, the factors limiting future use of space,

whether military or economic, are the cost and the ease of access. There does not appear to be a “magic bullet” for cheap

and easy space access. It simply requires a lot of energy—the

equivalent annual usage of hundreds to thousands of people—

to get even a modest payload into a useful space location. This

does not mean that we will not experience increased commerce in space, merely that “explosive” development of space,

analogous to development of the New World five centuries ago,

must await (but will also be spurred by) greatly increased access to (and demand for) sources of energy. Ironically, the

most likely source of that energy is to be found in space, along

with the means to efficiently transmit energy over very large

distances. Once this self-reinforcing trend begins, humankind’s true expansion into space can and will begin. From

this perspective, the current enthusiasm for lowering national

and individual use of energy would appear counterproductive,

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particularly in light of the fact that energy input and adjustment from space may be precisely the means to provide ecologically benign growth in global energy usage.

In the meantime, we should expect an increasing use of

space for “global utilities.” These utilities warrant the term in

its fullest sense. Access to high-data-rate, space-based, global

access communications (complemented by effective but not

ubiquitous terrestrial networks) is increasing and will likely

see continued deployment of the so-called big LEO constellations of small communications satellites. The Internet is also

going to space. The next utility, the global positioning system

(GPS), has been less recognized but is more encompassing. It

already precisely locates goods, services, and people. However,

as the GPS becomes the mainspring of an increasingly accurate global clock, commerce will depend on it in invisible ways.

As the means to provide nanosecond global accuracy, power

and communications channels will come to depend on it implicitly in order to work. Other utilities, such as global traffic

management via space-based radar, are on the horizon. And,

as noted above, we can look for energy grids to migrate to

space in the next century.

Without access to these global utilities, it will not be possible for a modern state to operate in the twenty-first century.

Increasing portions of global wealth will be tied up in, and

most certainly dependent on, smooth functioning of these utilities. For these reasons, the utilities will eventually be the

focus of controversy, confrontation, and, no doubt, conflict. It

is our belief that future conflicts will revolve around the ability of one set of international actors, which may or may not be

traditional nation-states, to protect their own use of these

space-based utilities, and to deny similar access to those who

would challenge national and global security.

It appears that future security concerns will center on how to

protect, and/or deny access to, global utilities. No doubt many

of the approaches and methods taken by future protagonists

will focus on controlling access to these utilities through terrestrial-based means. However, with critical satellite nodes in the

great “common” of outer space, attention will shift to protecting

and denying those capabilities in space itself. It would appear,

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then, that many of the lessons learned in past centuries concerning protection and/or denial of seaborne commerce might

profitably be applied to spaceborne commerce.

We advocate developing the means to operate in space in a

manner analogous to establishing and maintaining blockades at

sea. If our nation has the ability to physically confront—or prevent adversaries from confronting—a space system in space, it

will intrinsically have the ability to regulate use of that asset.

These means are straightforward—being able to get to a location

in space when necessary, and moving to another location as

rapidly as possible, all within reasonable cost. Currently, this

would seem to mandate development of small, reusable launch

vehicles equipped with even smaller space-maneuvering elements. These capabilities would enable us to protect our space

assets and deny their use to adversaries through either nondestructive or destructive means, as necessary.

In addition to developing affordable means and tactics to

control space commerce, we should also develop a national

understanding of the space environment and the resources

and threats we may find there. A mission to chart and warn of

natural and man-made hazards as well as to locate and explore regions of possible future resource utilization, in addition to controlling and protecting space commerce, would be

logical. Thus, missions to explore the Moon and asteroids for

potential resources, and to develop the means to divert potentially dangerous asteroid hazards, should be part of our overall national security mission. As we mentioned at the start,

two recent events: the report of the Space Commission and 11

September 2001—will serve as important catalysts for the development of space power.

The Space Commission implementation—currently in

progress—will hopefully produce stronger leadership and organization for national security space efforts, especially in the

acquisition arena. Such leadership will be critical to forming

the long-range strategy for obtaining and sustaining the capabilities of space power we have described. 

The ongoing war against terrorism has already proven the

critical need for space capabilities in the mountains of

Afghanistan, where B-52s using GPS have served as close air

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support aircraft, and Special Operations forces on horseback

have downloaded imagery and other intelligence onto laptop

computers via communications satellites while navigating by

GPS. We can only begin to imagine, as our scenarios suggest,

the endless ways space capabilities will be critical to war fighting in the years to come.

The future will undoubtedly differ considerably from any

conjectures we can make. However, groups and nations that

have seized opportunities in the unknown have invariably

prospered far more than those who leave such exploitation

and development to others. The United States has a good start

in space. We need to maintain and expand our capabilities to

ensure global security and prosperity for the benefit of countless future generations.

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Bibliography

Books

Burrows, William E. Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security. New York: Random House, 1986.

Burrows, William E. Exploring Space: Voyages in the Solar System and Beyond. New York: Random House, 1990.

Friedman, George, and Meredith Friedman. The Future of War.

New York: Crown Publishers, 1996.

Fuller, J. F. C. Armament and History. New York: Scribners,

1945.

Graham, Daniel O. Confessions of a Cold Warrior. New York:

Preview Press, 1995.

Haines, Gerald K. The National Reconnaissance Office: Its Origins, Creation, and Early Years. Washington D.C.: Official

NRO publication, 1997.

Kahn, Herman. On Thermonuclear War. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1960.

Kleiner, Art. The Age of Heretics. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

Logsdon, John M., ed. Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program. Volume I: Organizing for Exploration. Washington, D.C.:

NASA History Office, 1995.

Logsdon, John M., ed. Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program. Volume II: External Relationships. Washington D.C.: NASA

History Office, 1996.

McDougall, Walter A. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political

History of the Space Age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.

Peebles, Curtis. “High Frontier: The United States Air Force

and the Military Space Program.” Washington, D.C.: Air

Force History and Museums Program, 1996.

Project RAND. Preliminary Design of an Experimental WorldCircling Spaceship. Santa Monica, Calif.: Douglas Aircraft

Co., 1946.

141
Schriever, Bernard A. Reflections on Research and Development in the United States Air Force. Edited by Jacob

Neufeld. Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History,

1993.

Spires, David N. Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force

Space Leadership. Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.: Government Printing Office, 1997.

Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Translated and with an Introduction

by Samuel B. Griffith. London, Oxford, New York: Oxford

University Press, 1963.

Toffler, Alvin, and Heidi Toffler. War and Anti-War. New York:

Warner Books, 1993.

Worden, Simon P. SDI and the Alternatives. Washington, D.C.:

National Defense University Press, 1991.

Periodicals

Dunlap, Charles J. Jr. “How We Lost the High-Tech War Of

2007.” The Weekly Standard, January 29, 1996, 22.

Shaw, John E. “The Influence of Space Power Upon History

1944–1998.” Air Power History Magazine, Winter 1999.

142

FAIRCHILD PAPER
ABM, 45, 114, 132

Airborne 

Synthetic Aperture Radar, 95

Warning and Control System, 94

AIRSAR, 95

Aldridge, Edward C. “Pete”, 8

Aldrin, Buzz, 112

Antiballistic Missile, 132 

Apollo, 4–5, 8, 17, 111–113

Armstrong, Neil A., 112

Aurora Borealis, 120

AWACS, 94

B-52, 112

Braun, Wernher von, 1, 2, 4

Brilliant Pebbles, 114

Bush, George H. W., 113

CIA, 9

Clark, Rogers, 110

Clementine, 98, 105, 114–116

Cold War, 3, 5, 9–10, 13–15, 17, 81, 83,

112–113, 132, 135

COMSAT, 11

CORONA, 6, 9–10, 115, 117–119

Cyber attacks, 60, 90, 101

Defense Support Program, 7

Department of Energy, 113

Discoverer program, 6

DOE, 113

DSP, 7, 30–31

Earth, 1–2, 5–6, 9–12, 31, 59, 62,

65–68, 71, 73–74, 77–78, 80, 84,

86–87, 91–92, 95–98, 102, 105, 110,

116, 118–120, 123, 126–128, 130

Echo 1,10

Eisenhower, 3

El Niño, 121

Energy, 66–67, 69–70, 74–75, 77–84,

86–87, 95–97, 102, 104–106, 113,

116–118, 121, 123, 126, 136–137

Explorer I, 2

Fuel, 75–76, 78–79, 96, 104, 106

Fuller, Gen J.F.C., 81–82

GEO, 10–12, 77–78, 87, 91, 99, 102,

104, 116, 119

Geodesy, 10

GEOSATS, 10

Geostationary, 10, 77

Giotto, 124

Goddard, 1

GPS, 7, 13, 15, 36–37, 44, 49–50, 77,

92–94, 137–139

Greenland, 126, 129

He3, 96–97

Helium, 96, 117

Ho Chi Minh Trail, 101

INMARSAT, 11

INTELSAT, 11

IRIDIUM, 12

Jefferson, Thomas, 111

Joint Surveillance, Target Attack Radar

System, 94

Joint Vision 2020, 9

JSTARS, 94

Kennedy, 4–5, 14

LANDSAT, 12

LEO, 11–12, 74–75, 77–80, 104, 106,

116, 119, 126, 129, 137

Leonids, 128

Lewis and Clark, 5, 110–111

Lewis, Meriweather, 110

Lunar Prospector, 114

MAD, 132

Mechanics, 73

Meteor, 84, 125–129

Crater, 84

Microsat, 106–108

Mid-earth orbit (MEO), 77

MILSTAR, 15

MIRV, 15

Moon, 1–2, 4–5, 14, 68, 73, 78, 86, 95–96,

98–99, 105, 112–116, 130–131, 135,

138

Mutual assured destruction, 132

NACA, 3–4

143

Index
NASA, 3–4, 7–8, 10, 12, 16, 20, 76, 85,

90, 93, 95, 98, 105–107, 110,

112–115, 118, 120, 124–125, 127

NASA-DOE-DOD team, 113

National

Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, 3

Aeronautics and Space Act, 3

Aeronautics and Space

Administration, 4, 90

Oceanographic and Atmospheric

Administration, 6

Reconnaissance Office, 6, 9, 30

Navstar Global Positioning System, 7

Newton, 74–75

Nixon, Richard M., 112

NOAA, 6

NRO, 6, 9–10, 19, 30

Nuclear, 15, 17, 66, 71, 80, 83–84, 87, 89,

96–97, 105, 118, 122, 129–130, 132

Olympus, 128

Oort cloud, 123

Orbit, 5, 10–11, 55, 68, 73–79, 84, 91,

104, 106, 119, 123, 127–129

Outer Space Treaty of 1967, 130

Pearl Harbor, 1, 18, 61, 89

Phillips, Gen Sam, 4

Planetesimals, 123

Powers, Francis Gary, 4

Range, 4, 81, 84, 86, 92, 106

Reagan, 8, 12, 15–16

Rumsfeld, 18, 89

Sänger, 1

SAR, 94

SBIRS, 7, 31, 45

SBR, 94

Scenarios, 19, 23, 135, 139

Schriever, Maj Gen Bernard, 2–4, 52–53

SDI, 12, 15–18, 82–83, 104, 113

SEI, 113

Shoemaker-Levy 9, 122

Sokolovsky, Marshall, 5

Soviet, 2–5, 9–10, 13–17, 112

Space Exploration Initiative, 113

Space-Based Infrared System, 7, 129

Sputnik, 2–3, 5, 9

SS-18, 15

Stafford, Tom, 113

Steradian, 82

Strategic Defense Initiative, 12, 15, 17,

104

Sun Tzu, 46, 55–56, 58–60, 117

synthetic aperture radar, 32, 94–95

Tempel-Tuttle, 128

Titanic, 122

Tonga-Indonesia incident, 102

Tunguska, 126

U-2, 4, 6, 9

Utilities, 46, 67, 70, 87, 89, 94, 99–100,

116, 137

V-2, 1

Van Allen belts, 119

Vietnam, 15, 47–49, 53–54, 56, 58,

61–62, 101

World War II, 1, 13, 48

X-15, 112

Yucatan peninsula, 123

Yukon Territory, 126

144
Whither Space Power?

Forging a Strategy for the New Century

Air University Press Team

Chief Editor

Preston Bryant

Copy Editor

Sherry C. Terrell

Book Design and Cover Art

Daniel M. Armstrong

Illustrations

L. Susan Fair

Composition and

Prepress Production

Vivian D. O’Neal