Wednesday, October 11, 2006
SPACE WAR
The reliably anti-Bush Defense Tech blog blurbs the recently released update to the U.S. National Space Policy, pointing out that the Bush administration has been steadily injecting more military concepts into U.S. space policy. That's true and, just thinking about the strategic importance of the contemporary high ground of earth orbital domination for C4I, I can't imagine a rational national space policy that wouldn't have been doing this over the last few years.
But lurking behind all of this is an issue with potentially heartbreaking consequences. A true "space war' with near-term technology would be a tragedy. This is the so-called "Kessler Syndrome:"
The Kessler Syndrome is a scenario, proposed by NASA consultant Donald J. Kessler, in which the volume of space debris in Low Earth Orbit is so high that objects in orbit are frequently struck by debris, creating even more debris and a greater risk of further impacts. The implication of this scenario is that the escalating amount of debris in orbit could eventually render space exploration, and even the use of satellites, too prone to loss to be feasible for many generations. If, say, the U.S. and China or Russia (the only two conceivable space adversaries for the next couple of decades) were to get into a real shooting war in near-Earth space, the combat would consist primarily of anti-satellite operations that would create a cloud of debris in Low Earth Orbit ("LEO") that would render that sphere inaccessible to humanity for a very long time. Thus, our only avenue of escape from this rock would be cut off. That would be a Bad Thing.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:19 AM
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