Officially, the US military says an anti-satellite program does not exist. And while Gagnon’s theory of the US someday controlling the heavens may be a little fringe for some, experts agree: The US is secretly testing anti-satellite capabilities under the mask of missile defense.
“There’s an Air Force Counterspace Operations doctrine [published in 2004] that states they have already deployed ground-based satellite jammers. What there isn't currently, is an active, unclassified program to interfere with satellites by physically destroying them,” said Laura Grego, a space-weapons expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Note that Grego did not say “classified” or secret. “Instead of declaring a destructive anti-satellite program, there's a built-in capability for anti-satellite warfare in missile defense.” Consider the fact that if the US were to create a fleet of Battlesats, strictly for missile defense, they would have to be strung across Earth’s lower orbits so to cover large areas of the globe and space. The Union of Concerned Scientists states, “To keep at least one satellite over a missile launch site at all times, many Space Based Interceptors [Battlesats] would have to be in orbit. In a 2003 study, the American Physical Society showed that many hundreds or thousands of Space Based Interceptors would be required in orbit to provide global coverage against ballistic missiles. The study also showed that given the technology expected to be available for the next decade, each SBI would weigh a ton or more. As a result of these factors, deploying such a system would be hugely expensive.”
Many believe the first space weapon was the Nazi's V-2 rocket which terrorized the Allies. The V-2 would spend part of its journey in space and then descend on its target, just like today’s ICBMs. The V-2, by the way, was designed by the infamous
Wernher von Braun
, who would escape to America and become known as the “Father of the American Space Program.” Interestingly, on his death bed, von Braun allegedly told a confidant that US space weapons would be “based on a lie,” and be up and running before the rest of the world knew what hit them. Even more intriguing: He said the US military would use extraterrestrial aliens or rogue asteroids as their lie to justify putting weapons in space. Interestingly, it is not documented whether he said “missile defense” would be the “lie” behind US space weapons.
Not long after von Braun passed away, President Reagan – the saber-rattling, terrorist-hunting Republican who wanted to bury the Soviet Union’s communist bear – would bring Star Wars to the world’s center stage in the early 1980s. Star Wars was actually a moniker given to the program which was called the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI. But what truly inspired – or forced – Reagan to call for his anti-missile shield? Was it his dream, did Lockheed Martin put a gun to his head, or was he simply following a plan that had been set in motion long before he had won the White House?
Johann Hari, a British journalist with stealth-like talent, claimed Reagan came to the idea of creating a space shield from a B-movie he starred in from the 1940s. In the movie, titled
Murder in the Air,
Reagan plays a secret agent who has to protect a weapon called the “Inertia Projector.” Hari wrote the weapon, “fired an electrical current at any plane or missile approaching the US, rendering it worthless”. A scientist tells Reagan this weapon “makes the US invincible in war, and promises to become the greatest force for world peace ever discovered.” Years later Reagan called for a shield over America using ground-based lasers and missiles, and space-based Battlesats. One program that his scientists envisioned and worked on (spending millions) was Brilliant Pebbles. Battlesats would release dozens of watermelon-sized interceptors that would act like a wall of bullets and fly into a group of targets so they take out everything, even a decoy ICBM. President Bill Clinton cut the Brilliant Pebbles program and it has never been revived. Clinton downgraded missile defense in general, slashing millions in funds. But a small number of senior office holders were determined to keep missile defense alive during the 1990s, one of those being Sen. Inouye of Hawaii, who is a Democrat and also a WWII war hero. Inouye claimed he needed to protect the Islands from the North Koreans, who have a hard time feeding their own people, let alone building ICBMs.
Also waiting during the 1990s was an entire new generation of missile defense proponents. They waited in conservative think-tanks and in military academies, working quietly to keep missile defense in the minds of those who could make it happen – those who had an office on Capitol Hill. This new generation, as it grew stronger and took power, was then tagged with their appropriate nickname – the “Space Hawks.” Some of them took power in 1994, a year when the Republicans re-took the House with their “Contract With America.” This so-called Contract called for, among other things, to severely cut funding to PBS, but also pledged to renew America’s commitment to missile defense. Newt Gingrich, the architect of this Contract, was persuaded by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy to include a missile defense provision. This right-wing think-tank was a nest of missile defense and space weapons advocates. Including Donald Rumsfeld, Bill Bennett and many Lockheed Martin corporate officers.
To fully grasp how this arms race got so hot during the 2000s, you have to understand a very familiar three-way partnership. Defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, along with Congress and the Pentagon, all depend on each other in a big, big way. A relationship that has come to an “Eisenhower fruition.” Eisenhower, at the end of his presidency in 1961, made the timeless plea to beware of the “Military Industrial Complex.” And when it comes to missile defense, he was dead on. Lockheed Martin and Boeing remain the Pentagon’s first and second highest-paid defense contractors respectively and they want it to remain this way. To do so, they spend millions lobbying the US Congress trying to convince office holders there is a need for such weapons. And thus keep billions of dollars flowing on a yearly basis for decades to come.
The Pentagon, the US Space Command and the Air Force also lobby Congress, begging them for their new toys. It is this group that is the creative force behind space weapons. This is the group in need of a Space Bomber that can strike a target anywhere on the globe within one hour and fly in and out of the atmosphere at will. But it is the civilian missile defense contractors that need the billions to engineer and build such a craft. Allowing this money to flow in a deluge to missile defense contractors, are of course, those members of Congress who have the keys to the nation’s safes. It shouldn’t come a surprise than, that missile defense contractors are some of the biggest campaign financiers out there.
And at the start of the Bush administration, missile defense contractors broke out buckets of Crisco so to grease their large cash intake pipes. Because Bush was prepared to pump billions of extra dollars into missile defense research and development.
Jokes aside, the Bush years would be a “Golden Age” for Lockheed Martin, Boeing and many other missile-defense contractors, and also for those politicians in these defense contractor pockets. Consider the two current Senators of Alabama: Democrat Richard Shelby and Republican Jeff Sessions. Between 2001 and 2006, they ranked first and second when it came to receiving campaign contributions from the likes of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Both are high-ranking members of Senate defense-funding related committees. And in return for a several-hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions, they have approved billions in funding for missile defense research in northern Alabama, home to Huntsville, Alabama, known as “Rocket City”; or the city Wernher von Braun built. The city claims to have 50 civilian companies working on missile defense, including all the giants, i.e., Lockheed Martin. By 2010, over 6,000 missile defense scientists and researchers will be working in and around Huntsville, a region of 380,000 people.
Besides the Crisco, also coming out during the early days of the Bush administration were the Space Hawks.
Before Bush even was raced through Washington streets so to be sworn in as quickly as possible on inauguration day January, 20
th
, 2001, his Space Hawks were giving birth to the “Son of Star Wars.” That same month, the now disgraced Donald Rumsfeld released a report that warned a “Space Pearl Harbor” or a colossal space-combat sneak attack from an enemy could cripple the nation. This meant the US needed to build space weapons so to protect satellites. Rumsfeld’s report also stated the US needed “power projection in, from and through space.” What that means is, the US should someday be able to maneuver a satellite over a target on Earth’s surface and melt it with a future particle beam. At the time, Rumsfeld hadn't even been appointed Bush’s Secretary of Defense yet.
Apparently, Rumsfeld was certain the enemies of the free world could wipe-out the US’s 400-plus number of satellites. Nuclear detonations in Earth’s orbits are plausible. It is a space-combat related strategy both Russia and the Chinese have prepped for, but would they ruin the orbits surrounding Earth for centuries to come? Or was Rumsfeld in many a defense contractor’s pocket? The Rumsfeld report indeed had major corporate influence: 7 of the 13 commissioners of the report were either working for defense contractors, or used to work for the defense industry.
As mentioned earlier, the US military contends in no way, shape or form is it developing space weapons. But what was so blatant at the start of the Bush era, was the Pentagon’s call for commencing the era of space combat. In 2000, the Air Force’s “Transformation Plan” asserted more firmly than ever that the Air Force intends to weaponize space. Indeed, all sorts of high-profiled US military officers and their commission studies were pushing for space weapons during the early days of the Bush administration. “In my view it will not be long before space is a battleground,” said in 2003 Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson, who at the time was head of US Northern Command.
Others weren’t willing to wait another second. “The time to weaponize and administer space for the good of global commerce is now, when the United States could do so without fear of an arms race there,” said Everett Dolman, Associate Professor of Comparative Military Studies, at Maxwell AFB in Alabama, during a 2004 interview with Space.com. “Space weaponization can work. It will be very expensive. But the rewards for the state that weaponizes first and establishes itself at the top of the Earth's gravity well, garnering all the many advantages that the high ground has always provided in war – will find the benefits worth the costs.” Dolman also made this statement in his book: “Who controls Low-Earth Orbit controls Near-Earth space. Who controls Near-Earth space dominates Terra. Who dominates Terra determines the destiny of humankind.”
Even at the end of the Bush administration, considered by many to be one of America’s worst, the MDA was still pushing for weapons in space. A constellation of killer satellites would just “be another layer in the missile defense,” said MDA’s leader Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering in 2008. The Pentagon during the Bush administration once even planned for a constellation of 50 to 100 killer satellites to begin production in 2016. If such a plan were ever approved by Congress it would mean billions for Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
Full Spectrum Dominance in pace is still being championed by many factions in the Air Force and the Pentagon. But not everyone, said Hitchens of the Center for Defense Information. Yet because China has publicly admitted it’s developing anti- satellite capabilities and then shot down its own satellite in 2007, “these Space Hawks are emboldened now,” said Hitchens. But the outcome of their space desires is nowhere close to being decided, she said. Because there are some factions within the Air Force, the Pentagon, against space domination, she said.
“There is a debate ongoing about the wisdom, the affordability and the do-ability about implementing a full-up space-war fighting strategy,” she said. The cost to create, launch, and maintain a Full Spectrum Dominance program in space would run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, she said. First you would have to build hundreds of Battlesats or killer satellites; then you have to launch them, which is also an incredibly expensive endeavor.
At first, it appeared there was a president in the White House who doesn’t believe in space dominance. President Obama declared during his campaign he would cut “unproven missile” defense and to “never weaponize space.” Those keeping a close eye on the weaponization of space rejoiced like other peace activists did during those heady days. Again, the world’s newest savior was going to keep the peace in Earth’s lower orbits.
But there’s a twist. Obama was Congress’s top recipient from missile defense contractors during the 2008 election cycle, according to
Opensecrets.com
, which monitors money’s influence on US elections and public policy. Obama was given $377,000, while Sen. McCain was a distance second, receiving $221,000. And for the first time since 1994, Congressional Democrats in 2008 took more money from the missile defense industry than Republicans. The Democrats were handed $4.6 million, while the Republicans were given $4.5 million.
During Obama’s campaign in the summer of 2008, Poland agreed in principle, but did not commit, to allow within its borders a US missile defense battery loaded with kinetic interceptors that can shoot down satellites. The move infuriated Russia and raised the specter of the Cold War. This prompted President Vladimir Putin to say US missile defense outposts so close to Russia will “upset…the nuclear balance.” This is missile defense, so what did he exactly mean by upsetting the nuclear balance? Simple. The kinetic interceptors that are planned to be based in Poland weigh 21,000 kg. They are also nearly as long as the Minute Man III, which make up a significant portion of the US’s nuclear arsenal. They also roughly share the same diameter as the proposed interceptor. If the US were to secretly put a nuclear warhead within the interceptor – which technically it could do – it would have a range of 6,000 kilometers. The proposed interceptor base in Poland is just a few hundred kilometers away from the Russian border. By 2009, however, the possibility of US missile defense batteries in Poland was squashed by the Obama administration. The heat with Russia cooled, for the time being.