Space Weapons

Describes the reality of today's military space technology, growing military role of Soviet and U.S. space shuttles, spy satellites and anti-satellite weapons and manned space stations.

Weapons in Space examines how the United States is forcing forward—in violation of international treaties—to militarize space. Based on excerpts from U.S. government documents, award-winning investigative journalist Karl Grossman outlines the U.S. military's space doctrine, its similarity with the original Stars Wars scheme of Ronald Reagan and Edward Teller, and the space-based lasers, hypervelocity guns, and particle beams it plans to deploy in its mission to "dominate" earth. Grossman shows the intimate link between the militarization and the nuclearization of space, and follows the flow of billions of U.S. tax dollars to the corporations that research and develop weapons for space. His book explains the Outer Space Treaty and gives a history of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear power in Space: what it is doing, what it plans to do—and what the reader can do to challenge U.S. plans to turn the heavens into a war zone.

This overview aims to inform the public discussion of space-based weapons by examining their characteristics, potential attributes, limitations, legality, and utility. The authors do not argue for or against space weapons, nor do they estimate the potential costs and performance of specific programs, but instead sort through the realities and myths surrounding space weapons in order to ensure that debates and discussions are based on fact.

A clear and lively account of the space-weapons issue. The authors examine all aspects of the Strategic Defense Initiative proposal its historical background, current and forthcoming technologies, and international political implications. The book is divided into three main sections. The first part describes the historical development of space-weapons technology from the 1920s to the present day. The second part provides a detailed technical assessment of the anti-missile systems being pursued as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative. It also considers the countermeasures to SDI that are currently in existence or are being developed by the United States and the Soviet Union. The third part examines the international political and strategic implications of SDI and their probable consequences for arms-control policies.

This book, first published in 1985, analyses the factors that have shaped the militarization of space. By examining in great detail the determinants of U.S. policy, it explains why for over 25 years space did not become the scene of an arms race, and why this began to change in the late 1970s. Both superpowers did, however, develop a limited anti-satellite capability in the 1960s, and these programmes are also discussed.