US space weapons no threat, but 'treaties' may be

I discuss claims of imminent deployment of US 'space weapons',
and of the desirability of space weapons treaties under conditions
that are rarely revealed accurately, in this focused essay.

"Space weapons: hardware, paperware, beware?"
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/744/1

Monday, November 13, 2006

Much of the media attention that the new space policy did receive focused on
assertions that it opens the door for the US to deploy space weapons. James
Oberg pierces some of the hype surrounding this issue, from claims that the
US is actively developing space weapons to efforts to negotiate treaties to
ban them.



This is a companion piece to my essay Friday on the msnbc.com website,

An outer-space war of words escalates
Russians overreacting on the basis of overwrought reports on U.S. policy
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15656337/

"Jim Oberg" wrote:

I discuss claims of imminent deployment of US 'space weapons',
and of the desirability of space weapons treaties under conditions
that are rarely revealed accurately, in this focused essay.

Nice job. I wish you'd gone one step deeper and noted that any and all
treaties on orbital weapons -- like treaties on claiming territories
in space or claims on space resources -- are 99% mind games, because
nobody's even close to the launch capability/cost that would make them
real and pressing issues. So much will have changed -- unpredictably
-- by the time anyone *has* that capability/cost that it's a safe bet
today's positions will be irrelevant.

Most of this tempest in a teacup, like previous versions, strikes me
as something like a debate over Internet gambling, firewall security
or digital identity theft... in 1955.

Monte Davis
http://montedavis.livejournal.com