Weaponisation of space

No time in the lecture to cover this vital topic, but it has to be mentioned, as it dwarfs everything else I've been talking about.  Another's day's work, perhaps.  Here are some links.


>> Book: War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space, 2007, by Helen Caldicott and Craig Eisendrath. According to Caldicott and Eisendrath, the United States accounted in 2007 for 95% of the world’s spending on militarization of space and owned more than half of all military satellites

>>"The Weaponisation of Space. An International Student/Young Pugwash Perspective", 2002. Deploying space weapons threatens humanity’s shared interest in a peaceful future in space. 

>>
Wikipedia on the militarisation of space 

>>“Real-Life Star Wars : The Militarization Of Space” article by Stan Cox. US space establishment rattled by China shooting down a satellite in 2007.  I think the
Caldicott and Eisendrath book must have been written just before this event.

 >> “Defining and Regulating the Weaponization of Space” By David C. DeFrieze | July 01, 2014.  Impossible to define what constitutes a space weapon, and controlling an arms race based on definitions is doomed to failure. Calls for a standing committee of the United Nations backed by economic deterrence through the World Trade Organization. Article published by National Defense University Press, which describes itself as the premier professional military and academic publishing house.
 
>> An article on space.com, January 2007, soon after the Chinese anti-satellite test. "China’s anti-satellite test widely criticized, US says no new treaty needed"

>> Article on space.com, January 29, 2014.  The U.S. Air Force has an unmanned X-37B space plane which has now circled Earth for more than 400 days. Whatever its military use, it's a secret.

>> "The Case for Weapons in Space: A Geopolitical Assessment" by Dr. Everett Carl Dolman, 2010. “The coming war with China will be fought for control of outer space” is the first sentence.

>> April 15, 2014: China's President Xi Wants More Military Use of Space. A report in China Daily, US edition. This paper is often used as a guide to official policies. Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly asked his nation's air force to hasten its integration of air and space capabilities, but details on how Xi wanted to strengthen the military use of space are sparse.

>> A 2009 report that the head of China’s air force said in an official interview that military operations in space are an “historical inevitability.” 


>> “Space Could Be the Next Battlefield for China and Japan” by Ben Makuch on Motherboard, a youth media website, August 6, 2014.  Space war is very likely the next frontier for human conflict, and the Japanese military's expansion into space is really an evolution of their conflict with China, dating back centuries, an old war on a new frontier.

 

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